Noel Jones [2019] EWCA Crim 1059
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R v Noel Jones [2019] EWCA Crim 1059 concerned an appeal against a conviction for manslaughter entered by guilty plea in 1976, which the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division), comprising Sir Brian Leveson, President of the Queen’s Bench Division, Mr Justice Nicol and Sir Brian Keith, allowed on 31 January 2019. The applicant, now aged 61, had pleaded guilty nearly 37 years earlier and served a sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment. The application for an extension of time and leave to appeal was referred to the Full Court by the Registrar.
The facts underlying the conviction were that on 7 January 1976 Janet Commins, aged 15, left her home in Flint to meet friends at the local swimming baths, leaving a note saying she would return at approximately 8.30 pm. She was seen near her home with two teenage boys at about 8.10 pm and called at a friend’s house a few doors away shortly afterwards. When she failed to return home her parents reported her missing at 11.00 pm. Her body was discovered the following morning by children playing on rough ground adjacent to Gwyneth Primary School. Her clothing suggested that she had been dragged by the legs to where she was concealed in bushes. Her jeans were unfastened and her knickers and both shoes were missing, though the shoes were later found separately in thickets close to the pathway. Dr Ruben Woodcock, a forensic pathologist, conducted the post-mortem examination and identified injuries including bruising consistent with pressure from a hand, abrasions consistent with tight clothing during asphyxia, a one-inch scalp wound consistent with a blow from a blunt object, a recent tear from the vulvar orifice consistent with forceful penile penetration, and a one-inch anal tear also consistent with forcible penetration. Other minor injuries were consistent with sexual assault. Dr Woodcock concluded that death had occurred suddenly from pressure on the neck due to vasovagal stimulation in the course of a sexual attack involving rape and buggery. The vaginal and anal injuries occurred when the victim’s circulatory system was already shutting down, and the scalp injury might have been occasioned as her body was dragged. Swabs were taken during the post-mortem, including from a semen stain on the back of the victim’s jeans.
A large-scale murder investigation was launched, and all men in the area aged between 17 and 22 were required to account for their movements. Among those interviewed was Stephen Hough, then aged 17, who admitted masturbating in a car on a bus yard and siphoning petrol. His account was accepted and he was charged with theft and fined. At the time he lived barely half a mile from the victim’s home, and his grandparents lived a few doors from the victim’s family. Both properties overlooked the pathway and playing fields near where the body was discovered.
Mr Jones, from a travelling family and illiterate, had no apparent connection with the victim. Following an admission he made to his girlfriend that he had killed Janet, he was arrested on 17 January 1976. There was evidence that he later laughed off the admission and continued to deny involvement when his girlfriend visited him after he was charged. He was interviewed pursuant to the Judges’ Rules without solicitor or appropriate adult present and without tape recording. He made two statements under caution dated 29 and 30 January 1976 admitting that he had raped Janet and that she had died during the struggle. In the first statement he claimed to have acted alone; in the second, after being challenged by an officer, he claimed a friend he named had been with him and had also raped the victim. He stated that he had carried away one of the victim’s shoes in his pocket before later disposing of it, though both shoes were in fact recovered near the body. He purported to point out where he had first seen Janet and followed her, but that route appeared implausible, taking her away from her own street onto an open playing field in a close-knit community where help could have been sought.
Contemporary forensic science was limited. Blood grouping tests showed Janet’s blood was group B and Mr Jones’ blood was group O. Tests on the semen stain on the back of the jeans indicated the semen had been deposited by a group O secretor. The applicant stood trial for murder. On the third day he changed his plea to guilty to manslaughter. On the trial judge’s direction the jury returned verdicts of guilty to manslaughter and not guilty to murder. He was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. He did not appeal and served his sentence. It appeared that the named friend was arrested, charged and appeared before the court, but the case was discontinued at an early stage.
The case remained to some extent open because of the possibility of a second perpetrator. Slides prepared from samples taken during the 1976 post-mortem were preserved and eventually submitted for DNA analysis. The DNA profile obtained from sperm heads recovered from seminal stains emanated from a single male source who was not Mr Jones. The profile was placed on the national DNA database. In February 2016 Stephen Hough was arrested on suspicion of raping a 15-year-old girl. A DNA sample taken from him matched the profile from the 1976 samples. A forensic scientist concluded that vulval samples taken from Janet Commins contained sperm cells matching Hough’s DNA profile and that sexual activity had taken place between them within 48 hours prior to her death. Y-STR profiling was conducted to determine whether DNA from another male was present alongside Hough’s. There was no other male DNA in the vulval swab. A trace of male DNA in a second vulval swab was unsuitable for analysis in isolation, but the small number of results available matched what would be expected from Hough or a relative. A single result in 23 areas in the anal swab could possibly have come from another male, but comparison was impossible and it might have been a fragment introduced during sampling or examination rather than evidence of sexual activity. The Y-STR analysis otherwise corroborated the earlier findings. Hough’s blood group was group A, as was Mr Jones’ blood group.
Mr Hough was tried before Lewis J and a jury between 26 June and 16 July 2017. The evidential significance of Mr Jones’ extant conviction was the subject of detailed submissions, and the trial judge ruled that the Crown had to overcome that conviction and make the jury sure that Mr Jones was not the killer. The jury was so directed. Another Home Office pathologist broadly agreed with Dr Woodcock’s findings and concluded that Janet Commins had died during a sexual assault which included both vaginal and anal rape, death having come on very quickly with postural asphyxia likely to be a significant element. Mr Jones was called by the Crown as a prosecution witness of truth and gave evidence that he was not guilty and had confessed due to pressure he had felt at the time. The Crown did not suggest any specific criticism of the police officers. In the defence case the senior investigating officer and the interviewing officers gave evidence that Mr Jones had been interviewed appropriately under the regime then in force. The interviewing officers stated that Mr Jones had indicated the location where he said he had burned and buried his clothes, but no evidence of that was visible at the time. Junior counsel for Mr Jones at the 1976 trial, Mr Gareth Edwards, gave evidence confirming that Mr Jones had not given instructions that his confessions were false and had willingly pleaded guilty to manslaughter, though Mr Edwards allowed that this was the lesser of two evils. Mr Hough’s defence did not challenge the DNA identification but challenged the identification of the slides and their continuity and integrity since 1976. The jury unanimously acquitted Mr Hough of murder and convicted him of manslaughter, rape and buggery. He later pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the victim for which he had been arrested in 2016.
The Crown accepted that the admissions made by Mr Jones during his interviews could no longer be treated as objectively reliable, which was why he had been called and treated as a witness of truth. Mr Heywood QC for the Crown stated that Mr Jones was a credible witness whose assertion of innocence was clearly believed by the jury. Following the judge’s direction the jury must have been satisfied at the very least that Mr Jones’ admissions could not be relied upon. The contemporary DNA evidence supported the case that there was only one attacker and that Mr Hough was that man. Following Mr Hough’s conviction an appeal was intimated, papers from the original trial were disclosed, and the appeal against conviction was launched.
The court acknowledged that it is very rare to admit an appeal against conviction where an unambiguous guilty plea has been entered or to admit fresh evidence under section 23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 in those circumstances, but noted there is a discretion to do so, citing R v Verney (1975) 2 Cr App R 107 and R v Foster [1985] 1 QB 115. The court unhesitatingly extended time for appealing, granted leave to appeal, admitted the fresh forensic evidence and the evidence of Mr Hough’s conviction, and quashed Mr Jones’ conviction for manslaughter. The appellant left court wholly exonerated of involvement in the crime.
The court added observations on the human nature of the criminal justice system and the reality of pressures during police interviews. It noted that the protections introduced by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 had done much to address such pressures. In this case a serious injustice had been done, as an innocent man felt constrained to admit a grave criminal offence without sharing the true position with his legal team. The court expressed the hope that the quashing of the conviction and the contents of the judgment would begin to address the injustice done to Mr Jones, who had spent many years in prison and many more since his release before his conviction was quashed. In short, DNA evidence that became available decades after a guilty plea to manslaughter established that Mr Jones was wholly innocent and another man was the true offender, leading to the quashing of Mr Jones’ conviction.
R v Foster [1985] 1 QB 115