Crimewatch Caught Never Forgotten (27th October 2025)

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Transcript

00:01Hello, police emergency.

00:08I'm pleased to be here!

00:21We'll work around the clock if it means putting criminals behind bars.

00:24It only takes that one mistake for us to catch you.

00:27Crime doesn't pay. You will be called.

00:39Murders can be the most challenging crimes detectives investigate.

00:43Some can remain unsolved for decades.

00:46But with determined police, resolute families and advanced forensics,

00:51the chance to catch the killers on even the coldest of cases

00:55has never been higher.

00:57In 2013, Cambridgeshire police launched a murder inquiry

01:01that would take them years to solve

01:03after an 86-year-old widow was found dead in her home.

01:07I can't imagine what she went through.

01:14It must have been horrendous.

01:19The fear of when she took her last breath.

01:23How much did she feel?

01:25How much did she feel?

01:34Una Crown and her husband Ron lived together in Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire

01:38for 40 years, until Ron sadly passed away in 2009.

01:43They married in 1948 and ran a village post office together.

01:49Yeah, they had a very happy life, I have to say.

01:52She really did enjoy life as she did well right up to the end.

01:58Friday 11th January 2013, Una was collected by John and Judith

02:09and taken out to Tesco's to do some shopping.

02:13She'd have her coat on ready and she used to say,

02:16do you know you're the first person I've seen this week?

02:19It was like an outing.

02:22She would see people, it was company to her.

02:2637.20 then, please.

02:29Could I have £40 cash back?

02:32Yep.

02:34Una returned to her home in Magazine Lane

02:37and she was never seen alive again.

02:47On Sunday 13th January, Una's nephew-in-law, John,

02:51arrived as usual to take her for lunch.

02:54When he got no reply,

02:56he went to the neighbour to get a spare key.

03:01I opened the front door and I pushed it open

03:04there was Una lying face down on the floor.

03:12The smell from the house was terrible, burning smell.

03:15Her clothing was burnt.

03:18The neighbour called 999.

03:20Please, don't touch anything at the moment.

03:23Hang on, hang on, she's had a fire, what's this?

03:26She's had a fire.

03:30There's a small amount of burning stuff near a radiator.

03:35I don't know, there's something weird.

03:38Got police officers on the way there now.

03:43Una was pronounced dead at the scene by the paramedics.

03:49The initial thought was that this was an accident.

03:51There wasn't any signs of forced entry,

03:55either via doors or windows.

03:58One of the hobs in the kitchen was still warm.

04:01She'd maybe been making a cup of tea or something like that

04:04on the hob and the tea towel that she had had caught light.

04:09There were three seats of fire.

04:11One was by Una's bedroom and bathroom.

04:13Another was on the tea towels in the corner of the kitchen by the back door.

04:18And another fire was around Una's body.

04:24The rest of the bungalow was absolutely immaculate,

04:26with nothing out of place.

04:29Three days later, the pathologist's examination of Una's body

04:34discovered she'd in fact been attacked with a knife.

04:38Una was stabbed a number of times in the neck and in the chest area.

04:42And then also some defensive marks on the right hand,

04:46so it looks like she'd fought her attacker.

04:50There wasn't a huge amount of blood at the scene.

04:53It may have been that Una was already on the floor

04:55when a lot of the stab wounds occurred,

04:57and also the fire may have destroyed some of the blood

05:00on the clothing and on the carpet.

05:03Now, this was a murder inquiry.

05:05The news that 86-year-old Una had been stabbed and killed

05:13devastated the family.

05:15It absolutely haunts me.

05:20I can't imagine why anyone would want to do it.

05:24She wouldn't have stood a chance.

05:27I just can't believe.

05:28I find it very, very hard to come to terms with it all.

05:33Well, I shall never, never come to terms with it.

05:38Heartbreaking.

05:39It's nothing.

05:54Una's well-kept home was now a crime scene,

05:57and officers set about plotting her last known movements.

06:00Saturday, the 12th of January, Una was in the bungalow at Magazine Lane.

06:10We know that she'd had a dinner early

06:13because she spoke to her next-door neighbour

06:15on the telephone around 5pm.

06:18Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.

06:20And that's the last time anybody heard from Una.

06:27The bed in the house was made,

06:28it was all immaculately made,

06:30and Una was still wearing daytime clothing.

06:35Putting all that together suggested to us

06:37that the murder took place between 5 o'clock and 10 o'clock.

06:42Una's normally quite security conscious,

06:44wouldn't open the door to a stranger.

06:48Una was stabbed a number of times,

06:51and then when she was lying face down on the floor,

06:54there was an attempt made to burn her body

06:56to try and hide evidence.

06:59It was a really brutal attack on a little old lady

07:04who'd done nothing to harm anybody.

07:09Police also discovered that the £40 she'd taken out was missing,

07:14but no other valuables had been taken.

07:18DNA samples taken from the scene

07:20didn't help identify any suspects,

07:22and so police appealed to the public for help.

07:34Let's talk for a minute about the weapon.

07:36You know, we know she put up her hands,

07:38she was injured in the neck,

07:39she was at one point stabbed straight through the heart.

07:41From her injuries we're able to establish it's probably a long-bladed kitchen knife,

07:4625 centimetres long, and we haven't found that, so I need to find it.

07:54Detective Moore was a sergeant at the time, and led the house-to-house enquiries.

07:59The answer for these types of crimes usually lays in the community.

08:05People locally were really shocked.

08:09People know each other, they don't want to believe that this could have happened.

08:14A number of names came to light during the investigation.

08:24But one name kept coming up.

08:27David Newton.

08:33David Newton lived just round the corner from Una Crown's address in Magazine Lane.

08:39And as far as we were aware, lived an ordinary life.

08:43He didn't work.

08:45Was known in the community, just sort of in and around Magazine Lane.

08:48He walked his dog.

08:50He went to the local servicemen's club.

08:57Some witnesses talked about just some really disturbing behaviour that had been exhibited.

09:05David Newton would watch his neighbour through the window

09:07and go into the house uninvited while she was getting changed,

09:11which obviously really shocked her.

09:15In terms of Una Crown,

09:17we know that David Newton did do some repair on her back door,

09:22so we know that he'd been into the house.

09:26In fact, he had a key for her house,

09:29and as there was no sign of forced entry, this was notable.

09:33David Newton was questioned.

09:35He said it was a largely unremarkable weekend, didn't really do anything.

09:41He had maybe gone out for a walk with a dog.

09:45He said that he didn't go to the ex-servicemen's club

09:48on Saturday the 12th or Sunday the 13th of January,

09:51because he didn't have enough money.

09:52But when officers interrogated his statement, witnesses gave a different story.

09:59Around eight-ish on Saturday the 12th of January 2013,

10:04we know that David Newton was in and around Magazine Lane.

10:08And witness described him tripping over some shopping bags.

10:13And the person said that he appeared drunk at that time.

10:18Not only was he near the scene of the crime at the time Una was killed,

10:23he'd lied about going to his local club,

10:26where he'd been spending more money than usual.

10:29On the CCTV, he was drinking beer and playing the fruit machine as well,

10:35so he seemed to have access to money at that point.

10:38We know that Una would have had cash in her purse,

10:43and ultimately there was nothing there.

10:45His bank records were checked,

10:48and we know that he paid in £80 into his bank,

10:52and that was unusual because it was the first time in over a year

10:56he'd paid anything into his bank account,

10:58and certainly it was a bit of a red flag for the investigation team.

11:01The evidence against Newton was strong but circumstantial,

11:05and without any hard proof he was at the scene,

11:08the police were left with no choice but to release him without charge.

11:11The case remained unsolved.

11:15But then in 2023,

11:18Cambridgeshire police took a second look at the forensic evidence.

11:22Would they finally be able to prove who the killer was?

11:32100 miles down the M11 in London,

11:35another unsolved murder committed 40 years ago

11:38is also being reopened by the police.

11:47She was very generous, very sweet, fun-loving.

11:52She's just a normal 15-year-old.

11:55She just liked pop stars, fashion.

11:56She was intellectual, she liked to write poetry.

12:02She was much quieter than me,

12:05although, you know, I did drag her into the mischievous stuff in life.

12:11Jackie and Cathy Montgomery grew up together in London in the 1970s.

12:17Jackie and I were very close as sisters.

12:20There was only 13 months between us,

12:22but there wasn't anything we didn't tell each other.

12:27My mum and dad split up,

12:30and I went to live with my mum,

12:32and she stayed with my dad.

12:34We wasn't that far apart actually,

12:36about 600 yards away from each other,

12:37but, you know, and we used to meet up every day.

12:46I met up with Jackie on the Saturday,

12:49in the daytime,

12:51and we went to the park.

12:53We sat there for about an hour,

12:55hour and a half,

12:57chatting away and laughing.

12:59Then she went home.

13:04I never saw her again after that.

13:17On the evening of Saturday the 31st of May 1975,

13:22Jackie's dad went out.

13:24Jackie, I'm off, love.

13:26Leaving her at home alone.

13:41When he returned in the early hours,

13:44he made a horrifying discovery.

13:48She had been stabbed five times to the front,

13:52and she had been stabbed once to the back.

13:56There was evidence that a struggle had taken place.

14:00The phone was off the hook.

14:02There was a chair that was overturned.

14:04She looked as though she'd been sexually assaulted.

14:09She also had the cord flex of an electric iron,

14:13wrapped around her neck,

14:15and there were certainly signs that Jackie had fought for her life.

14:19It destroyed my life.

14:25It destroyed my life.

14:28I didn't know how to grieve.

14:31None of us did.

14:33This is the only photo the family have to remember 15-year-old Jackie.

14:39It destroyed my dad, completely and utterly destroyed my dad.

14:43And I'd see him crying, and that man never cries about nothing.

14:47A very hard man my dad was.

14:49But it broke him.

14:55In the months before her murder, Jackie had spent time with her aunt,

15:00who had an abusive partner.

15:02His name was Dennis McGrory.

15:04He was violent to my auntie.

15:07Always drunk, or on heroin.

15:12We knew straight away it was him.

15:13We knew before he was even arrested, it was him.

15:17It is believed that on the weekend of Jackie's death,

15:22he found out that his ex-partner was in a relationship with somebody else,

15:27which may have fuelled his rage.

15:29It was believed, certainly by police at the time,

15:32that he was at the address trying to find his ex-partner.

15:37Where are you? I know you're here!

15:41Police suspected that when he discovered she wasn't there,

15:44he turned on Jackie.

15:51When he was detained, he had visible signs of injuries

15:55to his face, to his arms, to his hands.

15:58He explained to police he had been in a fight

16:02in the early hours of the 1st of June, 1975.

16:06He denied the offence and he denied being at the address

16:10at the time of Jackie's murder.

16:11In January 1976, 28-year-old McGrory stood trial for Jackie's murder.

16:20But the judge made an extraordinary decision at the start of trial

16:24and acquitted him, concluding that the evidence was all circumstantial.

16:28The police investigation team at the time were bitterly disappointed.

16:32They very firmly believed that they had the right man.

16:38He was laughing in the dock.

16:41He was like a Cheshire cat, smiling.

16:43No-one could believe it.

16:45It was so upsetting.

16:47For him to get off with it, as well as losing her,

16:50it was just a double whammy.

16:52I just wanted justice for my sister.

16:56That's all I've ever wanted.

17:02For nearly 40 years, Jackie's family lived with the knowledge

17:08her killer had walked free.

17:10Then in 2015, a television programme gave Cathy fresh hope.

17:14I was watching a documentary on the TV, sitting in bed, and it was about this woman.

17:22And she managed to get the murderer of her daughter re-arrested.

17:28And they called it double jeopardy.

17:32Well, my mouth just dropped.

17:35In 2005, a new law had come into force in England and Wales,

17:41allowing a suspect to be tried again for the same crime

17:45if there was new and compelling evidence.

17:47The first thing in the morning, I rang up this Linton police station

17:51and I said, I'd like to report a cold case murder.

17:54The police agreed to reopen the case.

17:59DC Jane Maskell worked on the cold case homicide team.

18:03There's only one opportunity to reopen the case under double jeopardy legislation

18:09and the bar is set very high.

18:12We could not approach Dennis McGrory.

18:16We could not conduct any sort of investigation in relation to himself.

18:21A check was done with our registry to see whether or not we still had any files

18:28relating to the murder of Jackie.

18:30We had a box of original statements that were made by witnesses at the time

18:35and it was apparent that Dennis McGrory had the motive, the inclination

18:41and was really the only person who could have realistically committed this crime.

18:46But they needed more than this to bring charges.

18:51Forensic evidence would be the only new and compelling evidence

18:56which would then show that McGrory had been at that scene at the time.

19:00We subsequently found that within the forensic files there were still swabs.

19:06Everything hinged on us getting DNA.

19:11Incredibly, the 30-year-old swab was exactly what they needed.

19:16I received a phone call from the scientist who told me that he had found DNA on the swabs from 1975,

19:24matched that of Dennis McGrory.

19:2643 years after Jackie's murder and the police were finally in possession of evidence to close in on her killer.

19:36It was actually quite emotional receiving that phone call.

19:41It was an incredible breakthrough for us.

19:44The evidence that we now had suggested very strongly that Dennis McGrory had not only murdered Jackie,

19:53he had also raped her.

19:55Now in his early 70s, Dennis McGrory was brought in for questioning.

20:01He presented as being physically, mentally frail.

20:04He appeared to have a number of health issues.

20:09However, he was a violent man.

20:11He was a bully and he had thought he'd got away with Jackie's murder for the last 45 years

20:17where he was free to do whatever he wanted to do.

20:22Police discovered other violent offences that McGrory had committed over the intervening years,

20:28which all painted a picture of a dangerous man.

20:31On the 2nd of February 2021, 46 years after Jackie's murder,

20:38the Court of Appeals quashed McGrory's acquittal due to new and compelling evidence.

20:44I can't even put into words how I felt.

20:48The relief of my heart, it just melted.

20:52In December 2022, Dennis McGrory was finally found guilty of the rape and murder of Jackie Montgomery.

21:02He was sentenced to life with a minimum of 25 years.

21:06You put Jackie through an horrific, violent and sustained ordeal in her own home.

21:14A place where she was entitled to feel safe.

21:18She must have been terrified.

21:20You have shown not one iota of remorse or compassion for Jackie or Jackie's family.

21:28I can only hope that your conviction and the sentence I pass will provide them with some closure,

21:35safe in the knowledge that you have been brought to justice and will hereafter live out your days in prison.

21:41It was a very emotional day to convict somebody who had conducted the most horrific attack on a 15-year-old girl.

21:55It's a key message to people who think they've got away with something that happened a long time ago.

22:00We will still keep trying. We will still look at cases that are historic and we do have the means to be able to solve them.

22:12It's been a long time coming, a very long time coming.

22:16Now I know justice is done and he's sitting in prison.

22:20I feel great.

22:23It doesn't bring her back.

22:25But justice has been done.

22:30With one killer who thought he had got away with it now behind bars,

22:40Cambridgeshire police are determined to send the killer of 86-year-old Una Crown to jail too.

22:48It's always frustrating to know that whoever killed Una Crown was walking around and they haven't been brought to justice.

22:54It was really important for the constabulary to be able to solve this case for the sake of the family and to get justice for Una.

23:03But with no concrete evidence placing Newton at the crime scene, the team needed a breakthrough.

23:09And that finally came nine years after Una's death, when the cold case team re-examined the forensic evidence, calling on the help of DNA expert Claire Jarman and her team.

23:22In the case of Mrs Crown, the main issues we had with that was there was a great deal of blood staining.

23:30And we know that that can overwhelm any DNA from anybody else.

23:34The other issue was that many of the items were quite badly burnt and we know that can destroy DNA.

23:39We initially focused on her clothing and samples taken from her body to see if we could get a DNA profile.

23:50But we were unable to detect a clear unknown male profile.

23:54But innovations in forensic science meant they could now reassess the samples with more precision.

24:00Where Una was lying in the hallway, her right hand was clenched in a fist beneath her body.

24:09So it was in effect preserved from any of the fire damage.

24:12And the right hand also had defensive wounds.

24:15So we know that that hand was in contact with the assailant at some particular point during the attack.

24:21So we know that the evidence that could be on there is very, very important.

24:25We received the fingernail clippings of Mrs Crown that had been taken at the time of her original post-mortem.

24:34And they then get submitted to the DNA profiling laboratory to carry out profiling tests on them.

24:41This showed whilst there was a very high level of total DNA, most of which we assumed to be from Mrs Crown,

24:47there was also a smaller amount of male DNA within that sample.

24:51This was a significant discovery.

24:55Police submitted the DNA from previous suspects, including David Newton, to the forensic biologists,

25:02who used a technique called YSTR profiling.

25:06Scientist Rachel Pollard is a specialist.

25:09Well, our DNA is stored on chromosomes.

25:12YSTR profiling looks at 23 different areas on the Y chromosome.

25:17So it's specific to male individuals.

25:20And they are very useful in targeting small amounts of male DNA in samples that are rich in female DNA.

25:28And we compared the profile we got from the fingernail clippings to several reference samples of suspects.

25:36The DNA under Una's nails matched David Newton.

25:40When the match came back to David Newton, there was certainly an element of shock and surprise,

25:51but it was reaffirming that David Newton was the prime suspect for Una Crown's murder.

25:56Now with a clear DNA link, Cambridgeshire Police submitted one of their largest ever evidence bundles to the CPS for consideration.

26:04There were over 10,000 items of disclosure that needed to be reviewed.

26:09So we had to have dedicated officers and I had a team of six at one point working solely on looking through the disclosure items.

26:16And it's a real painstaking review and it took a number of months.

26:20At that point, we'd reached the threshold where CPS were happy to charge the case.

26:25On the 15th of April, 2024, David Newton was rearrested and charged with the murder of Una Crown.

26:35It felt very good to have David Newton in custody.

26:38There's a little bit of relief, but obviously the hard work is still ahead of you.

26:42The family were very pleased, but also a little bit overwhelmed with what happened because obviously it was over 11 years since the murder.

26:49In January 2025, after a five-week trial, the jury found 70-year-old David Newton guilty of Una's murder and he was given a life sentence with a minimum of 21 years in prison.

27:05This was a truly horrendous case. This is one that's never gone away.

27:09For more than a decade, there was a murderer out there that was never brought to justice.

27:13When I went into the major crime unit, the first thing my wife said to me was, you've got to solve this murder.

27:21So to actually finally end up being the senior investigating officer and then ultimately to see justice served, I'm just immensely proud of the outcome that we managed to achieve for the family.

27:31Una, by the actions she took on that night, solved her own case.

27:35She fought her attacker. In doing so, the transfer of DNA evidence happened.

27:40The attack was brutal, horrific and an assault on a defenceless, frail elderly widow.

27:49The verdict has prevented him from causing further distress and misery to others.

27:55Since her untimely death, three close family relatives, including her brother, have sadly passed away not knowing if that killer has been brought to justice.

28:04We'd like to thank all who have helped us get to this point and we can now carry on with our lives knowing justice has been done.

28:11so

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