This Man Spent 6 Years In Prison For A Murder He Didn’t Commit
When a serious crime is committed and the police need all the help they can get, there’s one group of people they turn to time after time. >> Expert witnesses are the golden thread that runs through cases that every single conviction needs. >> An extraordinary army of men and women with the expertise [music] to reveal the hidden clues criminals have left behind.
There are so many important pieces of evidence. Paint evidence, glass, fiber evidence. >> They search harder and look deeper using the very latest techniques. >> If I can work out how old those insects are, that’s going to give me the minimum time since death. >> This is the inside story of how science helped solve some of the UK’s most complex cases.
It really was becoming the last throw of the dice. >> Nothing’s going to bring her back, but she’d had the justice that she [music] rightly deserved. >> This is the story of the expert witness. In this program, we reveal how the power of forensic science not only found a killer but also freed an innocent man >> when the conviction was quashed.
It was Yeah, it was huge life-changing. And we uncover how an expert in facial comparison helped identify the suspects in a shooting at a lead’s nightclub. All captured on CCTV. >> The material that I look at is a blind assessment. [music] But when you have impartiality in your mind, you’re not looking for face features or answers.
You’re looking to solve the mystery. Forensics can play a very important part in any case, but it can go disastrously wrong if it’s not done properly. [music] The year 2000, Milton Kees. 19-year-old Rachel Manning is enjoying a night out at a fancy dress party. Hours later, she was dead. >> Rachel’s body was found here in the undergrowth close [music] to Wurn Golf Course.
>> Rachel had been strangled and hit with a car steering [music] lock. Her boyfriend Barry White was charged with her murder and Barry’s friend Keith Hyatt with perverting the course of justice by helping to dispose of the body. Both men were convicted but [music] continued to maintain their innocence. I’ve never hurt or wanted to hurt anyone in my life and nor did Barry.
Their families began a campaign to clear their names and contacted investigative journalist and justice campaigner Louise Shter. We got a letter at at Rough Justice at the BBC where I worked as a producer. And the letter said, “These two guys have been convicted. We are writing as the family of them. Will you investigate? Will you help the case?” [music] >> Louise and the team began to look closely at the prosecution’s evidence.
They concluded some facts from the case just didn’t seem to add up. >> We were left with a really short window of opportunity for them to have got out to Milton Kees, dumped Rachel’s body, to have cleaned up all the rest of it. And then when we started looking at the scientific evidence and realizing the terribly shaky foundation that those claims were built on, you know, we just knew we had a case.
>> Louise began by asking expert witness Andrew Monreef to reassess the forensic evidence. Straight away, he spotted something that didn’t make sense. The prosecution claimed Barry and Keith used Keith’s van to dump Rachel’s body on this muddy bank. >> If you carry a body in the dark on muddy ground, you will almost certainly transfer mud back into your vehicle.
>> The investigation showed the van had never been cleaned, yet there was no mud from the bank found inside. A considerable amount of of soil and other material was examined from footwear from the outside of the van and the inside of the van, and no link was established at all between the van and the site. >> Instead, the prosecution based their case on a distinctive combination of trace particles found on the van seat and on Rachel’s skirt.
>> The thing being being relied upon here is is called Lockard’s principle. The idea that every contact leaves a trace. In this particular case, if you uh if you sit down on a surface, then some of the dust on that surface will come away with you on your trousers or your skirt, and some of the things that were originally on your trousers or your skirt will be left behind on the surface.
The original investigation found seven different particles on Rachel’s skirt that were also on the van seat. One of these was serium. The prosecution argued this chemical substance was so unique, it was highly improbable it could have come from anywhere else. >> So, it looked as if the prosecution had a something here.
But while serium is generally quite rare, there’s an important exception to that rule. The flint that you have in a cigarette lighter is not made of flint at all. It’s made of a mixture of serium and iron. And when you flick the the lighter wheel, you produce a a big cloud of uh molten metallic serium and iron alloy. Andrew needed to prove that the serium found on Rachel’s skirt could have come from anywhere that cigarette lighters were used.
So he designed a test to show how easily serium could be spread. During the trial, it was mentioned that yes, the these particles did come from cigarette lighters, but a small number, I think, was the phrase used. When we tested it, we did find that up to about 4,000 microscopic particles were produced from each lighter strike. I don’t think I’d have called that small.
Everybody in this case smoked and and Keith was a smoker and he would spend all of his working days in a van in which he would smoke. >> Barry White smoked. Their friends and family smoked. Rachel Manning smoked. Smoking was still allowed indoors, in [music] restaurants, and in nightclubs. So, were these serium particles unusual? Not really.
They were as unusual as a cigarette lighter. Andrew’s new evidence undermined a key part of the prosecution’s case, but Serium was just one of a combination of seven particles found in the van and on Rachel’s skirt. >> We had got really strong new evidence that showed that the basis for all that scientific stuff at trial was completely wrong.
What we hadn’t done was find that seven the seven different particle types in combination somewhere else. You might be able to show that the skirt could have got the particles from the van seat, but to show that it must have got them from [music] that seat, you need to be able to show that it’s sufficiently unusual and rare in the general environment that the skirt just couldn’t really have got them from anywhere else.
Andrew now needed to show the opposite was true, that the combination of seven particles could have come from elsewhere. He began by testing seats from other vans. >> What was Keith Height’s van? Well, it was a delivery van. He he used to do general deliveries and in particular, he used to deliver for builders and plumbers.
I was able to get a a plumbing firm to allow me access to [music] basically all of their smokers vehicles. Well, these are graphical but false color images of the particles. The different particle types are listed down the side here. These columns are individual samples. These two columns here, they show the analyses from Rachel Manning’s skirt and this sort of reddish brown color.
Um, but you can see that all these other samples here also have have plenty of these particles and there are no glaring emissions. Andrew’s research revealed not only that the same combination of particles could be found in other vans, [music] but also that other random vans were in fact a closer match. Some of the samples that we took matched Rachel Manning’s [music] skirt better than Keith Hyatt’s seat.
And if the data showed anything, actually they showed that she hadn’t sat in the van. This new evidence contradicted the prosecution’s case entirely. Barry and Keith’s family immediately launched an appeal and in 2007 their convictions were quashed. Barry, still [music] in prison, was at last released. >> I lost a life. I lost a good life.
And I they know how much I did love their daughter. I remember how euphoric everybody was. But so much of Barry and Keith’s lives had been ruined by that stage, you know, and they they [music] still lived for a very long time under a cloud of suspicion. There was still there was the old, you know, no smoke without fire brigade that still thought they could be guilty.
>> Expert witnesses had proved Barry and Keith [music] were innocent. Now, could a new team finally find the real killer? Once again, forensic expertise would be vital. >> One thing I absolutely know is that you need good experts. Every single case needs good experts. And one of those experts was Tracy Alexander.
>> At the time, Tracy was head of a cold case team at a private laboratory. >> In this [music] particular instance, there were definitely plenty of clues that you could reinvestigate. Temp’s Valley Police had done all the right things. They’d [music] kept all the exhibits and they’d kept them appropriately.
So, they were really fit for reinvestigation. There was one piece of evidence in particular [music] that Tracy felt had not been fully investigated, a steering lock. >> Somebody hung on to it sufficiently strongly [music] so that they left a broken piece of it in the deceased’s head. Consequently, one knows instinctively [music] that the other end is the bit that you’re interested in.
So if we say that you transfer genetic material simply by touching an item, [music] that’s the end that we need to look at. >> After 8 years, could advances in DNA technology finally identify the killer? Roy Green was the expert witness brought [music] in to find out. So, it was known that this item was used as a weapon.
What we do then is then target the area where someone might have held it and swap that area to try and find their DNA. And that DNA could be transferred from them and as a touch DNA it’s called. >> If you touch an item, every contact leaves a trace. And if you can collect that appropriately and if you can then profile it with all the specifications that you need in order to interpret the result that you get, then you’ve got a DNA [clears throat] profile.
It took weeks of analysis, but eventually Roy identified a DNA profile and matched it to a name on the national police database. Shahed Alhmed, a 41-year-old restaurant from Bletchley. He had been convicted in 2010 for sexually assaulting another young woman, but he insisted he was not Rachel’s killer. >> He he gave an explanation that he had been in various cars and taxis and and then maybe he touched such an item and that’s maybe why his DNA was.
Roy and the team needed more evidence. >> Where you have a case where there has been [music] a previous conviction, the defense will go, “No, no, you said it was these two people or the police said it was these two people, and now you’re saying it’s this person that, you know, and they’ll play one off against the other.
” And that’s why it means that the burden of proof is that much higher. >> There was one exhibit that could help. A single hair found on Rachel’s clothing. hairs are not necessarily that discriminating in terms of DNA, but mitochondrial DNA can give you a huge amount of information [music] and it’s only maternally inherited. So the maternally inherited DNA that we got from that hair was definitely from Shahidal Ahmed’s family.
>> Ahmed had three brothers. The investigation eliminated two of them and his mother, meaning the hair on Rachel could only have come from Shahedel or his third brother. Detectives asked a statistician to assess the likelihood. He was able to calculate [music] that the results were 350,000 times more likely if they were from Shahidal rather than his brother.
Scientists had identified Shahid Ahmed’s DNA on the murder weapon and could now show one of his hairs was on Rachel’s clothes. They believed he had picked Rachel up when she left the club alone and they had enough evidence to begin a prosecution. A jury found Ahmed guilty of murder. Barry White and Keith Hyatt were in court to hear the conviction.
Knowing that your evidence has helped finally solve this case is satisfying. There’s an impact to [music] the the victim’s family, but also that these poor two that got put away for something they hadn’t done. And some might have thought, well, they were let off on a technicality, you know, just because these particles weren’t very weren’t unique.
Well, does that really mean they hadn’t done it? Well, actually, [music] yeah, it does. Um, and they can now say that I remember when the conviction was quashed [music] and I remember Barry bursting into tears, but it was Yeah, it was huge, life-changing. It’s it’s emotional and I’m upset because I you know because it’s it was just such a huge amount of work to get to [music] that stage but it’s also I think sort of tears of anger and frustration [music] that you know why should the system take as long as it does.
It took it was six years of Barry’s life and it was only when the truly guilty person was convicted that they really got their reputations back. I think >> for Rachel Manning’s family, after 11 years of trials, appeals, and retrials, they finally had justice for their daughter. >> This case has been about Rachel, who was killed at the young age of 19 with her whole adult life before her.
This has been denied not only to her and us, her family, but also her friends who still miss her deeply. Yes, you should re-examine evidence because science does move on. But the technology that I deal with had moved on. I’m very pleased that in the end we we got [music] to the truth. A lot of harm was done along the way to to many people and uh I just hope that getting to the truth has made it easier for all those [music] concerned.
There is an abundance of variation in the human face. Whilst we all have a set of eyes, nose and mouth, everyone has subtle [music] differences, every single case is specific. And that’s what I thrive of. The specificity of a case, but also the challenges that it presents. [music] August 2016 and Leeds is enjoying its carnival on Chapel Town Road.
That evening, Night Trek’s nightclub is heaving with revelers. But outside, a violent crime is about to unfold. Throughout her career, criminal psychologist Ruth Tully has seen a lot of cases like this. [music] Outside the nightclub was where a brutal attack took place which involved three perpetrators honing in on their victim, shooting him at very close range with a sonoff shotgun and even injuring him as well with a machete.
But what the attackers didn’t know was that this was all caught on CCTV. The victim is identified here by a blue tag. Three men approach him, one brandishing a machete as two of the men [music] punch and stab at the victim. A third pulls out a sornoff shotgun which he then fires from close range. Three men flee the scene.
The victim is left with a serious shotgun wound to his left shoulder and upper torso and stab wounds. >> These injuries were so serious that the victim needed urgent lifesaving surgery. The victims survived and police began an investigation into attempted murder. Their inquiries quickly led them to arrest three suspects, Shaquille, Lydi, Kimar Rickettts, and Seion Allen.
But all three refused to comment in police interviews. And when detectives appealed for eyewitnesses to provide on thereord statements about what had happened, they got nowhere. There might be many reasons why people who witnessed a crime may not want to come forward. That might be because they’re traumatized.
That might be actual fear of repercussions, that coming back on them and them being harmed if they’re involved in a police investigation. >> Detectives needed more evidence to charge the men they had arrested. So turned instead to the CCTV. >> Clearly CCTV evidence of an offense is a gift for the police because they’ve got something to go from and work out who committed the offense.
But there was a problem in this case. >> It was clear from the CCTV that a crime had taken place, but the images were too grainy to prove for certain who had carried out the attack. Detectives turned to facial recognition expert Shelina Gelani. the general public may or may not have an understanding about what fish image comparison is because it’s so kind of um over you know shadowed by disciplines like DNA analyses and uh you know [snorts] fingerprints and blood analysis but actually identification evidence is almost at the forefront of a lot of
criminal proceedings a lot of trials >> detectives asked Shelina to study all the CCTV footage available from inside and outside the club and to build a visual profile for each of the attackers captured on camera. Key to her analysis at this stage was basing her assessment on this footage alone. The material that I look at is a blind assessment.
And I observe a number of face features that are visible. But when you have impartiality in your mind, you’re not looking for face features or answers. You’re looking to solve the mystery. The image [music] quality of this piece of footage is actually quite low resolution. Um it is subject to a lot of kind [music] of um pixelation.
It’s quite poorly lit. The area that the camera is positioned [music] and because of that it’s very difficult to qualify um quite accurately face features. >> But by using visual clues from the suspect’s clothing, Shelina hopes to track each individual’s movements inside the club earlier in the night. She begins with suspect one, the man who punched and stabbed at the victim.
>> What we can see here is subject number one. He’s quite distinct in the fact that he’s wearing his hood up inside uh the premises of the nightclub and he has a very distinct upper garment and um wearing light toned bottoms with some form of beverage in his hand. >> As Shelina follows suspect one’s movement through the nightclub, she builds a profile of his appearance.
So, we see subject one uh move from the dance hall area of the footage uh through to another area within the nightclub. He’s quite distinct in the sense that he has his hood up indoors in the nightclub and face features such as his nasal anatomy, bridge of the nose, nasal bridge, the pronazile, the tip of the nose.
>> Shelina then applies the same analysis to suspect two, the man who fired the gun. >> We can see is quite distinct. Um, and again, the image quality of the uh CCTV doesn’t allow me to comment on specific fine feature detail, but I’m able to make out general features. And this subject again is very distinct in his clothing and his physical appearance.
He was actually wearing a very large kind of almost um furlined hood jacket. Over here we have um the dark tone facial hair extending from the zygomatic region which are the sides of the face onto the lower mandible i.e. jawline and and also present on the upper lip. >> Finally, suspect three, the man who drew the machete and also stabbed at the victim.
>> He has actually glasses or some form of eyewear on the top of his head. His facial hair actually is of a different style to that of his associates. He has facial hair almost in style of like a goatee beard. >> Shelina now has clear visual profiles for each of the subjects. But there’s more.
The footage showed the men walking together as if looking for someone. It was beginning to look like the attack was premeditated. >> This is um labeled fire door one. We can see now at this point is subject uh two has now walked in through the door before subject one, but he is accompanied by subject one. They both appear to be having some form of conversation.
They are waiting for their third associate. All three make their way past [music] the view of the camera. Subject one is followed by subject two who is then consecutively um followed up by subject three almost in a lining of pecking order. >> As they walk past the camera, it gives Shelina one more opportunity to assess their appearance.
>> With this camera viewpoint, I have the ability to look at the face with a lot more clarity. Especially for subject one, we can see that we can comment more clearly on features such as the facial hair and where the facial hair is on the face, but also anatomy relation to the nose. Subject [music] two.
Again, whilst he does cover um part of his face, we can identify that he’s wearing glasses with a dark temple and he does have facial hair. [music] With a third individual, we can determine that he still has the um glasses on his on his head. He has short dark toned hair. He has very pronounced and deep set eyebrows on the super silly ridge and also dark toned facial hair.
>> Only now when this analysis is complete does Shelina finally look at the images of the men in custody, Shaquille Ly, Kimar Ricketts and Seon Allen. For the first time, Shelina began a direct comparison between them and the features of the suspects identified on CCTV. She begins by comparing the images of Seion Allen.
So, this is an example of one of the other subjects. Subject number one, uh we have two types of images for comparison, but we can see similarities in the face which allows an expert to say that these in images are one of the same individual predominantly the fact that the shape of the head is the same. Um eyebrow positioning and placement.
>> Next, Kar Rickettts. Again the placement of the eyebrows, the nasal morphology, wide nasal [music] bridge, wide nasal allowas eye nostrils, very particular style of facial hair which is present on his [music] upper lip, the filtrum area, but also extending down to the chin. >> And finally, Shaquille Ly. >> Whilst [music] this hairstyle or facial hair design is ubiquitous, it’s quite universal, it’s still very [music] similar and very specific to this individual.
The conclusions of of my analysis were that all the three subjects seen [music] in the CCTV footage were the individuals that were arrested. >> At last, detectives had an independent expert opinion, confirming they had arrested the guilty men. Shelina confirmed that the man who brandished the machete was Kimar Rickettt, that the man who stabbed at the victim was Seon Allen, and the man who fired the shotgun was Shaquille Ly.
When Shelina’s expert evidence was presented at the trial, Ly pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years for attempted murder. Rakitz and Ellen admitted nothing, but were found guilty and each sentenced to 19 years. Criminal psychologist Rof Tully has come across many cases of this nature. Multiple perpetrator offenses are always very interesting to me as a psychologist [music] because each individual involved may have had a unique motivation for being there.
There may have been a leader within the group. There may have been a follower within the group. But ultimately, as is clear from these convictions, all played a role in this very serious [music] offense that put not only the victim at risk, but in such a public place the members of the general public at a high risk as well. With [music] video analyses and facial image comparison, every single case is specific and that’s what I thrive off.
Once that job is done, once that analysis is is conducted and [music] the case is closed, I know that I’ve played an active role in assisting uh the criminal justice system. Heat. Heat.
