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00:01Every 90 seconds, someone is reported missing.
00:06Many return to their families.
00:09For others, something has gone seriously wrong.
00:13There was no answer. My gran was frantic.
00:17In Bellingham County Durham, a young mother is missing.
00:21Time started to go on.
00:24Julie missed Anne's birthday. She missed Christmas.
00:27That was the million-dollar question of where was she?
00:31An 80-day search ends in a shocking discovery.
00:35To those of us that have experienced this,
00:39it's something that you will never forget.
00:41What happens in the police investigation that follows?
00:45We got a partial profile,
00:46which could exculpate a number of people
00:49who were of potential interest to the inquiry.
00:52What happens to the family at its heart?
00:54And the question I was asking is, is it money?
01:00When missing turns to murder.
01:18In terms of memories of my mum, it's very few and far between.
01:27Julie Hogg was born Julie Ming in 1967 to her parents, Charlie and Anne.
01:36My mum loved to dance.
01:38She's just a light, bubbly person.
01:42Julie was described as a mixture of introvert and extrovert by her mum.
01:49She didn't like to be the centre of attention.
01:51But when she was around those that she loved and the friends, etc.
01:55She liked to talk a lot.
01:57She was quite chatty.
02:00My mum worked primarily as a hairdresser.
02:03And then she did the odd evening at the pizza shop.
02:09At the age of 16, Julie met Andrew Hogg.
02:13And they started a relationship.
02:16And at 18, they got married.
02:18When Julie was 19, they had their first child, Kevin.
02:22And they lived in the family home in a village called Billingham.
02:26In the November of 89, my mum and dad decided to formally separate.
02:33So, at that time, she was a single mum.
02:36My dad was working away in London at the time.
02:40It's, you know, just a relationship breakdown, what had happened.
02:44And they both decided amicably to go their separate ways.
02:52Julie kept herself pretty much to herself.
02:55She lived at Grange Avenue with Kevin, a little boy who was three at the time.
02:59She had a new boyfriend.
03:00She was looking forward to moving on with her life.
03:06November 16th, my gran and I were supposed to call round to my mum's house.
03:12Initially to telephone, actually, to wake her up.
03:16Because on the 16th, she had the separation hearing at court.
03:20The court hearing was at 10am.
03:22And she'd asked Anne if Anne would go with her.
03:26She wanted a bit of support there.
03:29And obviously, Anne agreed.
03:30And Julie said to Anne, would you mind calling me at 7.30am
03:34just to make sure that I get up on time?
03:37Because I'm going to be working late that night.
03:39So, on the 16th of November, 1989, about 7.30 in the morning,
03:45Anne made a phone call to Julie to wake her up,
03:48to make sure she was up and getting ready for them to go to court.
03:51But Julie didn't answer the phone.
03:53She rang a couple of times with no reply.
03:56We ended up calling round to the house on the morning.
03:59Couldn't get access to the property.
04:02And was conscious of not waking up the neighbours.
04:04She shouted through the letterbox for Julie to open the door,
04:08but couldn't get any kind of response.
04:11But her mum came out to the house with Julie's brother.
04:16And he forced his way into the house to see if she was in the house.
04:20And the house was neat and tidy.
04:22She was nowhere to be seen.
04:23And that exacerbated Anne and Mum's concerns even more.
04:28Because, generally speaking, Julie was quite an untidy person.
04:31And Anne felt that the house was unnaturally tidy,
04:36I think is the term that she might use.
04:38And that heightened her concerns about, well, what's going on?
04:41What's going on here?
04:44And what they saw was that the house was empty.
04:48And one of the things that they noticed was that Julie's bed hadn't been slept in.
04:52It was perfectly made, indicating that she hadn't slept there that night.
04:56The house was spotless, there was no mess at all, as if it had been recently tidied up.
05:04The house was very tidy.
05:07She wasn't a house person.
05:10It had been cleaned, smelt of bleach.
05:13My uncle said the bed was made and there was something very wrong within the house.
05:19Julie's family were really concerned because this was completely out of character for her.
05:26Julie's mother, Anne, contacts the police.
05:32As part of the missing person investigation that was carried out when Julie was reported missing,
05:37a police forensic team went into the house, they were in there for some days,
05:40carrying out a forensic examination to see if there was a crime scene there.
05:44Of course, nothing of any significant evidential value was found during the course of that examination.
05:51They spent five days searching it forensically, looking for clues as to where Julie could be,
05:58trying to establish had any incident taken place in there, particularly violent crime,
06:04had any violent incident taken place in Julie's house.
06:08So the police were in the house for five days and they didn't find anything.
06:14In actual fact, the police officer leading the inquiry said to Anne, Julie's mother,
06:21that all I can do is assure you that Julie is not inside the house.
06:25They made a suggestion that she just took off to London.
06:29My family were adamant that that was never the case because she would never go anywhere without making contact.
06:35My gran was adamant and very persistent with the police that it was out of character,
06:40she wouldn't just disappear.
06:42And of course, you know, she had a three-year-old son, me, at home.
06:48When police are investigating the case of a missing person, they are looking for what's known as signs of life.
06:55So as we go about our everyday life, we leave a footprint behind us.
06:59In 1989, that would have been very different.
07:03For instance, we didn't have mobile phones, so we wouldn't have been making phone calls, logging on to the cell
07:09towers.
07:10We didn't have social media, so we wouldn't be logging in and out of our social media accounts.
07:16So the police in 1989, it would have been a much more difficult task to definitively say
07:24whether or not Julie was missing of her own volition or essentially had just gone off the radar completely
07:30and was leaving none of those footprints, none of those signs of life.
07:34So in that context, we have to consider it would have been much more difficult in 1989
07:39than it would be now to establish that someone actually just completely disappeared.
07:46The police turned to the public for any information surrounding Julie's disappearance.
07:54So as time went on, the local media were putting appeals out and we were participating in an appeal for
08:04my mum to get in touch.
08:06And as time went on, there was no news. The police kept saying no news is good news.
08:13My understanding is that various suggestions were put forward or hypotheses were put forward
08:18that she might have got a new boyfriend and perhaps gone off with a new boyfriend,
08:21that she moved to a different area, that she was seen by relatives who knew her in the Billingham area.
08:27There were various suggestions put forward by various people as to what might have happened to Julie.
08:33All of these had to be investigated and drilled down into and either proved or disproved.
08:40All of this information that comes in from the public has got to be looked at and pursued to an
08:46nth degree
08:47to see whether there's any credibility to the information that's been provided
08:50or whether in fact it's a false lead.
08:52So a huge amount of information generated, large investigation, but it didn't result in the discovery of Julie.
09:04Time started to go on. Julie missed Anne's birthday, something that she wouldn't have done.
09:11She missed Christmas. A Christmas with Kevin would have been a really special time for her and her family.
09:18She missed this. As the days and the weeks were going on, the family were becoming more and more concerned.
09:25From my experience, I think it's the not knowing. It's the not knowing.
09:29I do remember Julie's mum, Anne, Ann Ming, was waiting over Christmas for a call, perhaps on Christmas Day from
09:38Julie.
09:38But it's the not knowing, I think, that knows away, that eats away at families over time.
09:45And the longer that not knowing goes on, the more pernicious it becomes, the more traumatic and psychologically damaging it
09:54has the potential to be.
09:56Families need, to use the word closure, they need to know, they need to know what's happened to the loved
10:04one.
10:04During the missing period of, you know, the initial three months, my grandparents had me while my dad was working
10:12away.
10:13Then, of course, you know, as a three-year-old, a child's always asking, well, where's mummy?
10:20And, you know, that was a million-dollar question of where was she?
10:29In February 1990, Andrew decided that he would return from London and move back into the family home of Grange
10:39Avenue.
10:40So, after three months had elapsed, and we're in February 1990 now, and the police handed the keys back to
10:51my dad,
10:51and we were to be moving back into the property.
10:55My dad was in cleaning the fingerprint dust and generally, you know, cleaning the house.
11:02Julie's estranged husband, Andrew, he came back to the house in early February and moved back in, essentially.
11:09He put the central heating back on, and as the fabric of the house started to warm up again,
11:13an unpleasant order started to manifest itself.
11:16And he spoke with my gran that there was a strange smell coming from the bathroom.
11:26And my gran had said, you know, put some bleach down the loo and just leave it a couple of
11:32days and see how it goes.
11:34A few days had passed, and, you know, myself and my gran went round to the house, and the smell
11:43was worse.
11:44He was putting bleach down the drains and the basins and the toilets on a regular basis, but couldn't eradicate
11:49it.
11:49On the 5th of February 1990, which was now 80 days since Julie was last seen,
11:56Anne went to Grange Avenue, and she had Kevin with her.
12:00And she went to the property to help Andrew to try and identify what this smell was and see if
12:06she could help him.
12:07As she got to the stairs, she noticed something. She noticed a familiar smell.
12:15Now, Anne was a nurse. She worked for 20 years in an operating theatre.
12:19And as she was walking up the stairs, the smell she recognised was one that immediately concerned her.
12:28She went upstairs into the bathroom and, as she says, she leaned against the bath panel.
12:35There's only so many places in a bathroom where a smell can come from, and the smell wafted out stronger.
12:42Now, to those of us that have experienced this, it's something that you'll never forget.
12:48As soon as you smell that, you know what it is.
12:52She entered the bathroom.
12:55And as she knelt next to the bath, her knees touched the side panel.
13:02And this caused the smell to be released even more.
13:05So she knew at that point, whatever was creating this odour was coming from behind the bath panel.
13:17And she made the horrendously traumatic discovery of her daughter's remains that were concealed behind the bath.
13:28Anne had gone to visit Andrew.
13:32My recollection is that Kevin, the little lad, was in the car at the time.
13:37So she had a grandson with her.
13:39She'd gone into the house and it must be, it's bad enough for anybody to find any human remains in
13:47any circumstances.
13:50But for Anne to find the remains of her daughter in the situation that she was, is just horrendous.
14:01Her body, her decomposing body, had been put underneath that bath, wrapped inside a blanket.
14:11My mum was discovered by my gran and my dad.
14:16Under the bath.
14:19Three month police investigation, where they said nothing untoward had happened within the house.
14:27Threw everyone into disarray.
14:30That's when really my memories as a young child really started.
14:35The catalogue of events was, you know, I was at the bottom of the stairs.
14:40I was screaming because my gran and my dad were hysterical with uncovering a body from underneath the bath.
14:51And the question I was asking is, is it mummy?
14:58After the body had been found, that's when the police knew it went from a missing persons investigation to a
15:06murder enquiry.
15:11This is now a crime scene. This is no longer a missing persons case. This is a murder.
15:18I'm told immediately after the body was discovered, my gran was hysterical, of course, with the events that were unfolding.
15:27And they called 999 for the police to come.
15:33And within 15 minutes, the police were there. They had police cordons.
15:38And from what my gran says, it's when one of the detectives had turned up.
15:43The first thing he said was, we don't know what you've found yet.
15:48And I think when a person finds a body, and it's the daughter, I think they know exactly what they've
15:53found.
15:55All the officers that had been involved in the missing person enquiry were taken off.
16:00And a new team were brought on to investigate Julie's murder.
16:03Julie's remains had been under the bath from the date that she was killed to the date that she was
16:12found by mum.
16:13That's about 80 days in total.
16:15So now, the police's task was to identify what had happened to Julie. How did she die?
16:25And importantly, who was it that killed her? And who put her behind that bath?
16:35A home office forensic pathologist attended the scene and examined Julie's body in situ before the remains were removed to
16:43the mortuary for a post-mortem examination.
16:46One of the first tasks of the police would have been to carefully remove Julie's body from underneath the bath,
16:55ensuring that they're not destroying evidence, introducing DNA to it.
17:00So very carefully, the police would have taken Julie's body out and they saw that she was wrapped inside a
17:07blanket.
17:08The blanket would then have been submitted to a laboratory for careful examination to see if that could yield any
17:15evidence.
17:16These examinations would take some time, especially in 1990.
17:21The evidential harvest that their remains might produce for you can tell you an awful lot.
17:30If a body's been out in the open air, in water, been secreted as Julie's remains were for something like
17:3680 days,
17:38the body starts to decompose and any samples, evidential samples, that might be really helpful to the investigation often degrade
17:47to a point where there are little or no use to the investigations.
17:51And that was a situation with Julie's remains.
17:55A body had decomposed to an extent where, although there was some evidential harvest from a body, it wasn't anything
18:02like as strong evidential as it might otherwise have been.
18:06That because of the way that the body fluids had drained vertically down the body into the floorboards that the
18:16body was laid on,
18:17that was conclusive evidence, forensic evidence, that the body had not been moved for some considerable time.
18:23And it had started its process of decomposition in situ, so to speak.
18:29Central to any murder investigation is to establish exactly how a person died.
18:35And that would be done during what's known as a special post-mortem, and it would be carried out by
18:41a forensic pathologist.
18:43In this instance, that would have been made difficult.
18:46This was 80 days since Julie had gone missing, and the body decomposes.
18:52There were difficulties citing the cause of death conclusively, and that was primarily because of the extensive state of decomposition
19:01of Julie's remains.
19:02In fact, the cause of death couldn't be conclusively established.
19:10The investigators face additional difficulties establishing a profile from the limited DNA evidence.
19:17In this particular case, and I'm going back 34 years here, it was in the early stages of DNA evidence.
19:24Nowadays, if I plucked a little bit of skin perhaps from my nail or from my wristwatch or a single
19:30hair,
19:31a scientist would be able to obtain a full profile, a complete profile.
19:35In those days, you needed a neck cut full of blood or semen or other body fluids to be able
19:41to stand a chance of getting a full profile.
19:43So where you've got some human remains or human samples that have degraded,
19:48trying to extract DNA, meaningful DNA with a full profile, was just a non-starter.
19:56And in fact, some of the DNA that we were able to recover from Julie's remains,
20:01we've got a partial profile, which of itself could exculpate a number of people who were of potential interest to
20:09the inquiry,
20:10but could not exculpate the person who was responsible.
20:13So things have moved on scientifically massively in the last 34 years to a point now where forensic evidence is
20:22much more finely tuned than ever it was,
20:25and certainly than it was 34 years ago.
20:29Now they have found Julie's body.
20:32The police need to find her killer.
20:38This was now a murder inquiry, and when it comes to identifying how a person died,
20:47the police have to first identify how they lived.
20:51It's often known as victimology.
20:53It's a case of building up a picture of a person's life,
20:57because invariably there will be someone or something in their life.
21:06Well, there were certainly five or six individuals who were of interest to the investigation,
21:12all of whom knew Julie to a greater or lesser extent,
21:16all of whom lived in general proximity,
21:19some of whom may have had a motive to cause some harm,
21:22but as the investigation moved forward,
21:24one of those individuals emerged as a person of significant interest.
21:29Some would call him the prime suspect.
21:31That was Billy Dunlop.
21:35Local man, violent background.
21:39Julie had strong connections to a rugby club,
21:42Billingham Rugby Club.
21:47And this became one of the focuses of the police investigation,
21:52and they were looking to see who it was that she associated with.
21:57It was only later, after the police had went to the rugby club
22:00and took various statements from people,
22:03that it became apparent Billy Dunlop was a potential suspect.
22:10Police then turned their attention to Dunlop,
22:13a man known to the investigators due to his repeated violent behaviour.
22:19Dunlop's connection with my mum was through my dad.
22:21We played football together.
22:23As a rugby player, he'd maybe appreciate he's quite a fit, strong fella,
22:28not particularly tall, cocky, arrogant,
22:31all of those adjectives, I think, would accurately sum it up.
22:35As the enquiry moved forward, it was evident that there'd been an event,
22:39a social event taking place at Billingham Rugby Club
22:42on the night that Julie was killed.
22:45Dunlop was there with his pals, drinking to excess.
22:50There were strippers there.
22:54He got involved in a serious assault with another man at the rugby club,
22:59both inside and outside in the car park.
23:00As a result of that, he'd sustained an injury to his eye
23:03and he required him go to hospital for some treatment
23:06for his eye to be stitched up.
23:08It was when he came back from the hospital
23:10that he went back to Grange Avenue,
23:12visited his friend who lived next door to Julie
23:14and said to his friend they might put round Julie's.
23:19Dunlop was living in lodgings around the corner
23:23and, of course, when the body was found,
23:25it then became a murder investigation,
23:27so they did door-to-door enquiries.
23:30And the person who Dunlop was residing with
23:35initially gave a statement saying that he'd came in
23:37two o'clock on the morning of the 16th.
23:41His lodgings were literally a two-minute walk
23:44down the road in Rydal Avenue.
23:47The landlord who lived at Rydal Avenue with him,
23:50he was fast asleep on the sofa,
23:52woke up about half one in the morning.
23:55He knows it was half one because he had a video recorder
23:57and he could see the green light at the time on it.
23:59He went upstairs to bed, looked in Dunlop's room,
24:03the bed was made, nobody was laid in it.
24:05Where was he at that time?
24:08Probably round at Julie's.
24:10The decision was made by the murder investigators
24:13that they would arrest Dunlop on suspicion of Julie's murder.
24:21On the 13th of February, 1990,
24:24police arrested Dunlop on suspicion of Julie's murder.
24:28He was brought to the police station,
24:30given the right to have a solicitor present
24:32and he was interviewed on tape.
24:34In that interview, he denied any knowledge
24:37of Julie's murder.
24:39If a person is arrested for murder,
24:42an important element of the police's tactics
24:45would be to search their home address.
24:48And from there, they will be looking for any evidence
24:50that could link the suspect to the crime,
24:53either the crime scene itself or to the victim.
24:56And this is what the police did
24:58whilst Dunlop was in custody.
25:00And how Dunlop became a suspect was
25:05the police got a search warrant for his lodgings
25:09and that happened because his landlord had said
25:14initially he came in at 2am
25:16and it was only later that he changed his statement
25:20and said it was much later.
25:21The police obtained a search warrant,
25:23searched his house, the lodgings where he was staying,
25:26and they found my mum's keys under the floorboard.
25:34Later on, after forensic analysis and fingerprinting,
25:38his thumb and fingerprint was on the key fob.
25:46Significantly, the front door key had a brass Playboy key fob on it
25:49and on that key fob were fingerprints belonging to Billy Dunlop.
25:54Significant piece of evidence in the case.
25:59The keys to Julie's house and particularly the fingerprints on the key fob
26:03were a critical piece of evidence
26:04and that, together with the other bits of forensic evidence,
26:08the fibres on the blanket that matched the rugby shirts
26:10he was wearing that night,
26:11the partial profile that we were able to get from semen
26:15that was on the blanket that exculpated everybody else
26:18but couldn't exculpate Dunlop.
26:22Once the police had searched Dunlop's lodgings
26:26and they found the initial evidence of the key fob and the keys,
26:34they were still searching the house at the same time
26:37and further evidence did become apparent, such as in the loft,
26:42my mum's bank cards were in there, her purse, handbag, her ID.
26:48This was a huge breakthrough in their investigation.
26:51They could now physically link Dunlop to Julie.
26:56All of that came together as significant pieces of the jigsaw.
26:59The most significant piece, of course, was the keys secreted at his lodgings
27:04that had his fingerprints on the brass key fob
27:05that Julie had used the night that she was killed to get into their house.
27:09And that, collectively, gave the CPS the confidence
27:13that he should be charged with murder.
27:15He was charged with Julie's murder, put before the court
27:17and remanded in custody pending trial.
27:25Believing they have a strong case,
27:28Billy Dunlop stands trial for the murder of Julie Hogg.
27:32So, in the May of 91, the first trial was at the Moot Hall in Newcastle.
27:38As a prosecution team, we were reasonably confident
27:40that it was a strong prosecution case.
27:43But our job, as the investigator, is to investigate the crime
27:47and present the evidence to the prosecutor, the prosecutor's jobs to prosecute the case,
27:51we were confident, reasonably confident, of the strength of the prosecution case
27:56that it would be sufficiently strong to convince a jury to convict.
28:01And the prosecutors brought the evidence in of the key fobs,
28:07the door keys that were found at his lodgings at the time.
28:11Julie's character was brought under severe pressure and scrutiny by the defence.
28:17In these types of cases, what often happens is the defence will set out to try and almost demonise the
28:26victim,
28:27to try and paint them in a light that almost removes sympathy from the jury.
28:33The defence tried to paint Julie as this promiscuous character,
28:39somebody who had casual relationships with a large number of men.
28:46Murder trials are hard enough on family members, the bereaved family, at the best of times.
28:54But to have to sit and listen to their loved one's character being destroyed by the defence just makes it
29:02even worse.
29:05All that was brought out in court, much to the shagrid and upset of a mum and dad,
29:10who had briefed, they were aware that it was likely coming,
29:12but even when it came, it still came as a shock and was very upsetting for them to hear.
29:17His defence team majored on the evidence of the keys and the fingerprints that were on the brass key fob,
29:27essentially saying that their expert came and said that there were some other marks on that key fob
29:32that hadn't been identified by the Fingerprint Bureau at Durham.
29:37And then of course the inference from the defence team was that somebody else had handled the keys
29:42after Mr Dunlop had touched them perhaps some weeks before when he visited Julie
29:47and that had they been planted on Mr Dunlop and had he been framed by the police.
29:56Dunlop was adamant that he was being framed,
29:58couldn't explain how his fingerprints had ended up on the key fob and on the keys.
30:06And when the jury went out to deliberate, they came back and the question was asked,
30:13had they reached a unanimous verdict?
30:16And because the jury couldn't reach the verdict, the judge had ordered a new trial.
30:26In this instance, the prosecution decided to go for a retrial,
30:30that there would be a second trial where hopefully the jury will be able to come to that decision.
30:38The mistrial comes as a huge blow to Julie's family.
30:42As a family, the big question is, have you got the right person?
30:47And the chances of conviction.
30:50Looking back, being told that information, you automatically just assume that there's going to be a conviction
31:00and you're going to get some form of justice.
31:05You rely on 12 strangers and these 12 strangers who sit on the jury come from all different backgrounds.
31:13And of course, ultimately, how Dunlop's defence team muddy the waters as such
31:21to make the jury think otherwise.
31:28Well, at the end of the first trial, the trial judge, Mr Swinton Thomas, discharged the jury and ordered a
31:34retrial.
31:35We were clearly disappointed.
31:37Anne and Charlie were shocked and upset.
31:40They felt that that was just another kick in the teeth for them.
31:44They felt, as we felt, that the case was sufficiently strong,
31:48sufficiently strong to convince a jury to convict.
31:50We were wrong.
31:51A retrial was ordered.
31:53That retrial took place at the same court at Newcastle in the October of that year
31:57before a different jury and a different trial judge.
32:00With this being the last chance of securing a conviction,
32:03every piece of evidence is re-examined in minute detail.
32:07Well, I took that FOB down to London to the counter-terrorist branch of the Metropolitan Police.
32:12They were trialing new techniques and fingerprint examination and new lighting techniques.
32:19They examined the key fob.
32:20They found three additional marks on that key fob,
32:24as found by the defence experts at the first trial.
32:27But they were able to tell me conclusively,
32:30yes, there are marks on there, Mr Braithwaite, but they all belong to Billy Dunlop.
32:33So, for the second trial, we were able to really nail that down.
32:41October 91.
32:43The second trial commenced.
32:45As we geared up for the retrial, for the second trial in October,
32:49we were, again, confident, arguably more confident, because we'd nailed the fingerprint evidence on the key fob.
32:57We were reasonably confident, again, that the case was sufficiently strong as to convince a jury to convict.
33:03Again, he denied any involvement in Julie's murder.
33:07And at the second trial, his defence team completely abandoned the challenge of the keys and acknowledged it.
33:13The second trial, the defence majored on probable cause of death.
33:19Billy Dunlop's defence team try once again to pull Julie's character into question.
33:27Dunlop really painted a portrait of my mum as being promiscuous.
33:32He said that they had had relations historically.
33:37Again, as a family, we found that very hard to believe.
33:40And again, it's just on his say so.
33:42He was trying, ultimately, to get out of the trial to get the not guilty verdict by painting this portrait.
33:50And, ultimately, again, the jury, you know, failed to reach a decision.
33:58The failure of the jury to reach a decision results in Billy Dunlop being formally acquitted of all charges against
34:06him.
34:06We, as a prosecution team, we felt that we let the family down.
34:13We felt we'd done our best, but that it wasn't good enough.
34:16But it was a jury decision at the end of the day, or a jury indecision, and the judge's determination
34:22to formally acquit.
34:25What we were certain of at that time was, in relation to Julie's murder, that we were at the end
34:29of the road.
34:33The acquittal of Dunlop was devastating for Julie's family because they were in no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that it
34:43was Dunlop that had killed Julie.
34:46As a prosecution team, we felt the case against him had been strong.
34:49We were mistaken, but that didn't diminish the fact that we felt there was a significantly strong evidential case against
34:57Dunlop.
34:59I knew that Billy Dunlop was a violent man.
35:02He'd been brought up as a violent young person. He was a violent man.
35:06So it was my firm belief that it wasn't going to be long before he came back to the attention
35:10of the police for another serious assault case.
35:13And I was proved right in that regard.
35:17So, after Dunlop was acquitted for the second time, Dunlop went on to commit a catalogue of crimes being violent.
35:37He subsequently went on to threaten his former partner and a new boyfriend, threatening to kill them.
35:46He was convicted of that offence.
35:48He subsequently attacked another former girlfriend and her new boyfriend with a baseball bat and another fork.
35:57He laid him wait for them and I think he probably would have killed them if they hadn't been followed
36:02by some friends who intervened as the attack was taking place.
36:05In relation to the new boyfriend, he smashed his face in with a baseball bat to such an extent that
36:10the guy required extensive facial surgery to reconstruct his face, his facial bones.
36:15And he stabbed the ex-girlfriend in the chest, punctured her lung, she nearly died.
36:21He ultimately pleaded guilty to serious assault charges and was sentenced to a term of seven years imprisonment for those
36:27attacks.
36:28Violent, violent individual.
36:31That was 97 he was convicted and he got seven years for that.
36:36It was a charge of attempted murder.
36:39However, Dunlop and his legal team done a plea bargain with the CPS and it was dropped from attempted murder
36:50to ABH.
36:52Which ultimately again, in 97, being aware of these charges and him getting seven years was just absolutely, it was
37:05mind blowing to me.
37:06Because at every stage, he was getting away and the justice wasn't really being fair to us as a family
37:16as victims, but also his other victims as well.
37:25Whilst serving prison time for these assaults, Billy Dunlop makes a shocking confession.
37:34Some considerable time later, Anne made contact with me and wanted to speak to me to tell me that it
37:41had come to her knowledge that there was a rumour going round Billingham that Dunlop had actually admitted killing Julie
37:47to some of his friends.
37:50And that he was effectively bragging that the police couldn't do anything about it because of the double jeopardy legislation.
37:59It transpired subsequently after the attack on a former girlfriend and her new partner that Dunlop was in prison, serving
38:07a prison sentence.
38:08And he went on to make a similar admission to a prison officer whilst he was in custody.
38:14That information came back to Cleveland police and then another investigation was commenced to seek to get that information, that
38:22intelligence into some sort of usable form of evidence.
38:27On tape, Dunlop admitted to killing Julie.
38:33He said that he was there that night and that he had been in a fight at the rugby club
38:39and he needed to speak to somebody about it and he needed to sound somebody out about what had happened.
38:47So, he went to Granger Avenue.
38:50So, he went to Granger Avenue.
38:50There he saw the lights on so he knew that Julie was at home.
38:54He knocked on the door, went in and they had a cup of tea together.
38:59And he says that Julie started to tease him.
39:05She started to take the mickey out of him that he had a black eye, a split lip, that he'd
39:11lost a tooth and this made him angry.
39:14So, he strangled Julie, strangled her and killed her.
39:18But, of course, the legislation was still in place for double jeopardy so he could not be charged again with
39:25Julie's murder.
39:29Despite a recorded confession from Dunlop, an 800-year-old law prevents him from standing trial again for Julie's murder.
39:38This is a piece of legislation that's been in place since the 1500s, since King John was on the throne
39:44of Magna Carta, that no man should be held in peril again for a crime of which he'd been acquitted.
39:51That's essentially the nature or that's essentially was the nature of the legislation at that time.
39:56As a 13-year-old, not understanding law and legislation becomes harder to comprehend.
40:05The person responsible for murdering their daughter had admitted it, admitted it to the police on tape.
40:13But because of the double jeopardy law, a law that had been in existence for 800 years, there's nothing that
40:20could be done about it.
40:22But that just didn't sit right with the family, understandably so, and they weren't going to let it lie.
40:30It was after the retrial that I had a conversation with Anne about double jeopardy.
40:35That's when both her and Charlie started to understand the principles behind double jeopardy and the enormity really of the
40:44task that she faced in seeking to get the law changed.
40:49Because historically it had been there for the best part of 800 years, so it wasn't going to be changed
40:53easily.
40:55And she started to begin to appreciate that this was going to be a real hill to climb if she
40:59was going to achieve any success with it.
41:03But Anne will stop at nothing until this ancient law is overthrown and Dunlop faces justice for her daughter's murder.
41:18She went to see her local MP. She started the campaign. She spoke to senior members of the judiciary as
41:28part of the judicial review that was taking place.
41:31She went down to the House of Lords, to Parliament, and gave evidence to the House of Lords.
41:35She went to see Jack Strother, then Home Secretary at the time. She spoke to the Justice Secretary, Lord Faulkner.
41:40Anne would speak to anybody and everybody who was in a position of authority, who she felt might be able
41:45to do something to influence this.
41:48What she felt was a common sense change to the law.
41:53She knocked doors down, not literally, but metaphorically. She is a granny from Billingham.
41:58Quite an ordinary person in one sense, but ultimately achieving something extraordinary.
42:07My gran had done research on the double jeopardy law and made an appointment with Frank Cook at the time,
42:16who was our MP.
42:20And that was the start of the political campaign of moving forward with changing the double jeopardy law.
42:31But most importantly, making it retrospective, which means an offender can be tried twice, historic crimes rather than just moving
42:41forward with future crimes.
42:44I started to feel she's got some traction here. She's got some, the campaign's got some traction and they may,
42:51as part of this judicial review, decide to repeal the legislation.
42:54It would be a major, or a seismic, monumental change in English law if they did.
42:59But I felt that the campaign was gaining some traction.
43:02So I encouraged her in that regard, whenever she did call me, to say, look, I think, I think it
43:08might happen, this.
43:10And if it does, it will be monumental.
43:13But I also cautioned her at the same time that if Parliament did make the changes to double jeopardy, they
43:20might not apply retrospectively to historic cases.
43:28Anne's speech within the House of Lords, she just spoke how it is.
43:33And, you know, there was no airs and graces.
43:36And when she delivered the speech, you could hear a pin drop because everything was silent.
43:44And it was only after that, a few weeks later, that it went to the policy makers and it was
43:50decided that the recommendation was for it to be changed, for it to be made retrospective.
43:59And I think at that stage was probably the start where I actually started to feel the justice system was
44:08working for us as a family, rather than against us.
44:12In the event Parliament did change the law, they did apply it retrospectively when Mr Blunkett, the then Home Secretary,
44:21announced in Parliament.
44:22And the first case to come back on the statute as a result of the change was this one.
44:30In 2002, the double jeopardy law was changed.
44:34For 800 years, if somebody was acquitted for a crime, they couldn't be retried on it.
44:39Now the law had changed.
44:42If new evidence came to light, somebody could be retried.
44:49And importantly for Julie's case, that was made retrospective, meaning it wasn't just about now, it was about cases that
44:58had happened in the past.
44:59It was my privilege to be able to oversee the process of Billy Dunlap being charged with Julie's murder.
45:08Well, after 17 years and a bit after he was acquitted of it, all those years ago at Newcastle.
45:18After almost two decades and a change in an 800-year-old law, Billy Dunlap is once again standing trial
45:25for the murder of Julie Hogg.
45:31Well, after 17 years of the legislation being changed, we weren't sure what Dunlap's plea was going to be.
45:40I mean, things have changed even more recently than that with defence statements and the like.
45:44So we weren't actually convinced that he was going to plead guilty until we got down to London and literally
45:50heard him utter the words himself when he was charged.
45:53Dunlap, on this occasion, with the new evidence, decided he had no other option but to plead guilty to Julie's
46:02murder.
46:03A massive relief to Julie's family.
46:07We had the indication he was going to plead guilty and then we were told he was going to plead
46:12not guilty, not enter a plea.
46:17He eventually did put his guilty plea in and hearing the words guilty was euphoric for us as a family.
46:31Because for the 20 years that it took almost for him to be convicted for murder, which the evidence had
46:46always been there.
46:48The evidence had never changed.
46:49Just hearing the words guilty brought me some peace and accepting of what had happened.
47:02When he pleaded guilty, I was relieved as much for Anne and the family as much as anything else.
47:10This was a case that was unfinished business really for Cleveland Police.
47:15Billy Dunlap is sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 17 years.
47:22So it took 17 years from when he was acquitted Dunlap to the day he was convicted of murder.
47:31Ironically, he got 17 years, which worked out one year sentence for every year that my mum had been dead.
47:42I mean, I've met support and dealt with many families in traumatic circumstances.
47:48None have displayed the level of resilience and fortitude that Anne's displayed throughout what could only be described as 18
47:59years of torture, really.
48:00From start to finish, I could only wish her well with the rest of her life.
48:06So when the law changed in April 2005, it was as a family, we felt that it was going to
48:13be an everlasting legacy to my mum.
48:16So when we do as a family see that another perpetrator has been convicted under the rule of double jeopardy.
48:23Of course, it's an amazing feeling to know that we as a family campaign to change a law, but also
48:32to secure convictions for other families too, to get justice like we have had.
48:41Julie's son, Kevin, now works with the victim's families who have been bereaved by manslaughter or murder.
48:48I've been working for them for 16 years now, and it makes me feel a sense of achievement helping these
49:02families that there is light at the end as such.
49:09However, such a traumatic experience in life and the loss of a loved one, you know, I want to get
49:21out there that you can laugh, you can live somewhat of a normal life.
49:26I would like to think that my mum would be proud of what I'm doing going forward.
49:33She certainly would be proud of my nan.
49:37she would be proud of my stomach to marry someone.
49:49She would be proud of her, too, to win the future of her life.
50:32Transcription by CastingWords
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