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Donal MacIntyre's Killer Evidence - Season 3 Episode 7 - Killer DJ
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Short filmTranscript
00:02a body lies in the street with no clues to the identity of the victim the only evidence is a
00:10tire track and some cigarette butts but close examination of her body uncovers a vital lead
00:18which could help convict the killer as police try to identify the teenager and trace her final
00:26movements witnesses pull the investigation in different directions when the sad fate of the
00:32young girl is discovered detectives must unravel a web of lies to prevent the murderer from ruining
00:39the lives of any more young women catching a killer requires conclusive forensic evidence
00:47from clues at the scene of the crime to my news examination in the forensics lab
00:53from the cold reality of the pathologist table to dna sampling digital analysis
01:00each piece of killer evidence brings the murderer closer to justice
01:14wednesday the 14th of january 2004 a dog walker and his friend make a grim discovery in harper hay
01:21manchester a teenage girl slumped on the ground they immediately called 999
01:29so we're now on westmere drive this is where the body was dumped on the 14th of january 2004 right
01:36by the roadside half on the pavement half in the road as you can see this is a very secluded
01:41area
01:41it's dark it was raining at the time there wouldn't be many passers-by within minutes police and
01:47ambulance crews arrive at the scene the body did have marks which suggested there was bruising and
01:55minor cuts but there's also a significant neck injury
02:00clear the paramedics wanted to save her if that was at all possible and they worked on it for quite
02:04a long time to do so
02:07in normal circumstances we may well have preserved the scene but in these circumstances she was taken
02:14straight to hospital sadly despite the best efforts of the crew the girl is pronounced dead on arrival at
02:21the hospital because the body has been removed from the crime scene where it would normally have been
02:28examined the ambulance needs to be checked for any clues what evidence is there in the ambulance the
02:33ambulance has got so much contamination in it because it's been used by the ambulance crew there's been
02:39other victims of assault in there etc so in my mind as a crime scene manager I would quickly have
02:46that
02:46ambulance looked at and any towels or sheets that were used to be taken out of the ambulance it'd be
02:53really
02:53important to look at the paramedics clothes because there may be evidence that's been transferred to
02:57them as they've been moving her about we have three scenes the body the location where the body was found
03:04and the ambulance at hospital each of those scenes could contain vital clues that might lead us to
03:11identifying the perpetrator at this moment in time we don't know who she is where she's been but there may
03:19be some clues in those scenes which will help us to establish that in the cul-de-sac where her
03:25body was
03:26found detectives are facing a testing crime scene we needed to preserve the scene because it was still
03:32raining when police arrived with the inclement weather it's really important to try and preserve a crime
03:39scene so put to put a forensic tent up so a forensic tent would effectively just cover the area where
03:45the
03:46body was and would preserve it for any trace evidence that might be washed away in the rain and so
03:52if
03:52there's any blood there any footprints could be damaged with the rain so you have a scene guard on which
03:57is
03:57effectively a police officer or PCSO that remains with that scene overnight the team start conducting a
04:05thorough search for evidence at the scene the crime scene manager did find a blood stain
04:13albeit that was contaminated by rain it merged and diluted but that was swabbed even so we had a tire
04:22mark and a
04:22footprint in it also recovered from the scene with some cigarette ends
04:30collecting blood from any crime scene very much depends on how long the blood's been there and what the
04:36quantities are the examiner might make determination to say is this all from one person is this from
04:43different people that might have bled in this particular scene contamination happens there's nothing
04:49you can do about it it's going to get rained on but maybe tapings of that would pick up sufficient
04:55blood
04:55flakes in order to get a DNA profile from whatever samples there were available we don't know at this
05:02point how the body has got there so we need to cover a wider area and cordon off the whole
05:07of Westmere Drive
05:08and Hendon Vale in case somebody's come down there in a vehicle or walk down with this young lady
05:16officers take statements from the dog walker and friend along with four teenagers who have gathered
05:22at the scene to discover if they saw anything that might help the investigation it's absolutely vital
05:28in an investigation like this to speak to any witnesses immediately get their first account
05:33because you know memory can fade even overnight so we would interview them take notes and then come
05:39back the next day probably to take a fuller statement when they might have remembered more
05:43but also that would include speaking to nearby residents had they seen anything was anybody
05:49walking the dog walking past there'd all be those kind of initial fast time enquiries to see if
05:55anybody had seen anything suspicious as soon as a homicide is identified then the officers must
06:01isolate the witnesses get their evidence and cordon that evidence often protected as quickly as
06:06possible simply put CCTV often is not available human memory degrades so getting the
06:13immediate account that's invaluable because even a night's sleep may degrade that memory and
06:19recollection if you've witnessed the murder it's a highly traumatic experience and you could have
06:2420 people witness the same murder and you will have potentially 20 different accounts you've got to
06:30isolate them to get their individual peculiar accounts because they may have a view of the murder that no
06:38it became evidence through questioning neighbors that the lady had not been there about half an hour
06:45before so she'd been dumped by the side of the road half on and half off the pavement very shortly
06:50before a body was found
06:55the young girl's body is sent to the mortuary for a post-mortem but detectives still don't know who she
07:01is so one of the first things we would do would check the missing persons reports but at that stage
07:06this young lady had not been reported missing so we made a description of her which would later release to
07:13the press
07:15a slim build young woman between 14 and 16 years of age she had curly hair and she was wearing
07:21an L top
07:23a press appeal can be incredibly useful to the investigation this instance it can immediately
07:30help identify the victim but at the same time simply put it can immediately alert the perpetrator
07:36on the other hand unless they can identify the victim as soon as possible then that victim's
07:42murderer may very well walk free the picture of the life that the victim led is crucial in helping
07:49to solve this crime how she lived who she met on a day-to-day basis how she spent her
07:55downtime after
07:56school these are all crucial questions detectives want to know it's part of a victimology that most
08:02investigators will rely upon to assist them in trying to track down the murderer while they wait to
08:08see if the press release can help reveal the girl's identity detectives must try to assess her movements
08:14before she died we don't know how the young lady came to be on westmere drive she could have been
08:20brought
08:20there in a car she could have been walking down there and met her fate whilst having an argument or
08:25whatever
08:25with whoever she was so an initial very important line of inquiry is to gather as much cctv as we
08:31could in
08:32in 2004 compared to what we have now in closed circuit television it was the early days the footage
08:40was jumpy it was analog so it tended to be blurry it tended to have a very low resolution i
08:51think the best
08:51way to describe it is it's crude nowadays cctv footage it's everywhere in those days it wasn't so
09:02there are huge gaps in 2004 that wouldn't be there today but the investigating team strike lucky
09:12there's a pub nearby which has cctv cameras outside so we needed to speak to a landlord there and seize
09:20their cctv as soon as possible while detectives search for cctv a distraught woman calls police
09:28after seeing the press release thursday after the body had been found a young woman came forward and
09:34said her sister mandy hardwick had been missing or not seen by any members of the family since about
09:40three o'clock the previous afternoon we were able to give a full description of all the clothing the
09:46young lady was wearing the jewelry and a small scar as well which she confirmed mandy had so that almost
09:53confirmed it without a visual inspection at that time that that was mandy hardwick the young girl
09:59has been identified by her sister as 15 year old mandy hardwick her sister has no idea about who might
10:06have wanted to murder her the police hope that the results of the autopsy will reveal some clue as to
10:13the
10:13identity of her killer a young girl dumped by a roadside in manchester has been identified as 15
10:31year old mandy hardwick detectives have discovered blood at the location where the body was found
10:39together with a tire mark with a footprint inside it there are also some discarded cigarette butts
10:45that they're hoping could provide vital dna evidence to track down the murderer
10:52mandy hardwick was just 15 years old who could have possibly killed her dumped her body on the side of
10:59the road in the dark and in the rain as officers build up a picture of mandy's life the results
11:06of the
11:06forensic post-mortem examination come in the first step in the post-mortem is to examine the clothes mandy's
11:14wearing and her skin for evidence mostly we try to remove the clothing in such a way that we don't
11:21cause
11:22any further damage to the clothing but sometimes and particularly with wet clothing it may well be there's a
11:28decision that has to be made to cut clothing from the body but again that's not a decision that's made
11:33lightly
11:34we're trying to preserve even the clothing as much as we possibly can in its original state
11:40and in a case where you're dealing potentially with a body that has been moved working out how the
11:48person died becomes secondary to harvesting the trace evidence that's the crucial part in some of these
11:58investigations tellingly the body examination of mandy revealed there was short cut hairs on a body
12:05there were red fibers on a face and a body and there was a small metallic substance on the back
12:12of one hand
12:14they're all samples forensic evidence which a scientist could potentially match with an offender
12:23the next step is to examine her body for evidence about how she might have died
12:29she has severe neck bruising which could indicate that she's been strangled we're looking for evidence
12:35of asphyxial signs signs which indicate there's been lack of oxygen to the head and neck area in
12:42particular because somebody has obstructed the blood vessels in their neck and obstructed their breathing
12:47and that manifests itself as a deep red or purple discoloration of the skin there are multiple tiny
12:56little hemorrhages due to burst blood vessels and you see these typically in the eyes and that would lead
13:03us to determine that this is a potential case of strangulation we then examine the neck to see
13:10how the person was strangled are we dealing with manual strangulation or ligature strangulation
13:16looking for marks on the surface of the neck small bruises small grazes linear marks indicating a
13:22ligature the home office pathologist determined that mandy had died from pressure to the neck in other
13:28words strangulation but he was unable to determine what form that had taken you know whether it was manual
13:35or whether it was a ligature next swabs are taken around the wound on mandy's neck
13:41looking primarily for any dna which might have come from the killer dna over the years has become more
13:49sensitive and now we can obtain a dna profile from only a few cells and one method is low copy
13:59number dna
14:01analysis and that is simply using a very small number of cells to be able to replicate the dna
14:10low copy number dna is crucial when you're dealing with what as a pathologist we would call touch dna if
14:19you touch somebody you leave your fingerprints you're leaving dna as well and we can now harvest a dna profile
14:27from that martin bottomly needs to understand more about mandy's life and friends so he sends family
14:35liaison officers to talk to her family family liaison officers are especially trained to interact
14:41with families who are newly acquainted with trauma and you need to have you know very experienced officers
14:48passing on and taking on this duty because it's a moment the family will never forget and it's a moment
14:55that must be handled with great caution and care they perform several functions among them is
15:03obviously to support the family but also they're helping to maybe unlock a number of evidential clues
15:09or puzzles that the family may hold to unlock perhaps a key to this murder investigation
15:18mandy's older sister reveals important information about the day she was killed she was able to tell us
15:25that mandy left home about three o'clock on the wednesday afternoon the day before she said she
15:30was going to do some shopping and visit her uncle michael but she never returned home michael hardy was
15:37referred to as mandy's uncle he wasn't a blood relative he was just somebody who mandy had met and
15:44he he she used to go around to his house for treats if you like he would give her cds
15:49he would feed her sometimes and on occasions she would have a bath at his house they told us that
15:55he bought mandy a mobile phone and sometimes he gave her money her sister also tells officers that
16:03mandy had a boyfriend mandy had a good relationship with a boyfriend you know there'd be no quarrelsome
16:09troublesome disagreements but she was able to tell us that there had possibly been some intimacy
16:15which is obviously significant to our inquiries with two possible names to investigate further
16:21detectives now need to track down any other potential witnesses so i decided to have a poster
16:27made up which would be placed in local shops pubs off licenses to try and get people to come forward
16:33with more information about whether they knew mandy whether it's seen at these specific times we're
16:38interested in between 3 p.m and 9 30 p.m on the wednesday so at this point we know
16:45that her sister
16:45has told us that mandy was going to see uncle michael and she left her home home at 3 p
16:51.m on the
16:51wednesday one witness said he saw mandy on her own at 4 30 that afternoon another witness said they saw
17:01mandy
17:01with a blackmail at 5 p.m that afternoon but beyond 5 p.m until mandy's body was discovered just
17:09after
17:099 30 p.m that night we don't know where she was or what she was doing or who she
17:13was with
17:15but the picture's coming a bit confusing mandy's boyfriend the blackmail she was with
17:21other witness having seen her on her own michael hardy might have an innocent explanation
17:26while you are centering on one key suspect there are a whole bunch of other suspects out here you
17:32have never followed up there are many cases miscarriages of justice and also like the yorkshire ripper
17:36where suspects jumped in and jumped out of the frame and officers simply got distracted because
17:41there are too many fragments and often just too many different lines of inquiry so the police must
17:47always keep an open mind even when a key suspect looms large police begin talking to the people
17:55most likely to have been with mandy around the time she died we traced monday's boyfriend who was
18:01very open and honest with us he told us everything he knew about mandy and where he'd been he said
18:06he
18:06last saw monday on the tuesday but we want to test it we want to check his his alibi and
18:13because we
18:13strongly suspect that a vehicle may have been involved in transporting monday to where she was dumped
18:19we seized his vehicle with his consent and examined it
18:24the boyfriend's car reveals nothing suspicious and his alibi appears to check out the next person
18:31police want to talk to is michael hardy known as uncle to mandy michael hardy was a 35 year old
18:38dj
18:39he worked in local pubs some minor convictions and was known to be a bit of a jack the ladder
18:43according
18:45to his sister mandy was going to see uncle michael at half three on the wednesday afternoon michael hardy said
18:52he last saw two weeks ago
18:55the fact that somebody's a liar doesn't make them a murderer but i'm very concerned about his account of
19:01what he was doing or supposedly doing that afternoon and evening it's very vague he said he didn't see
19:07anybody else or have any other visitors at his house the key thing about michael hardy is that he was
19:14encouraging young girls to come around to his address he was buying monday gifts cds mobile phone
19:22under the sexual offenses act adults who build relationships with children under 16
19:27with the intention of sexually abusing them known as grooming can be prosecuted
19:33grooming is the manipulation of a power differential between a respected authority figure and someone
19:39who is vulnerable that may mean the offering of treats and cash money for odd jobs and the slow
19:47development of relationships ultimately with an ulterior motive a groomer in 2004 and a groomer today
19:55operates exactly the same way the tools may be slightly different because there's lots of grooming online
20:00today but often those who are in those situations even today are blind to their circumstances and
20:06that's because the perpetrators and groomers are exceedingly manipulative while michael hardy has
20:12clearly summoned police need to investigate further ds bottomley received some new information
20:18the family liaison officer had spoken to two teenage girls they told her that they met a taxi driver
20:25about three weeks ago who wanted to know where mandy was and if they'd seen her because he said to
20:30them and i quote he's been pissing me about she's going to get it tracing the taxi driver becomes a
20:37priority for police so we can't dismiss anything and at the end of the day at a trial the defense
20:43could
20:44say well why didn't you go and interview the taxi driver he could very well be the murderer
20:50they start by formally interviewing michael hardy focusing initially on the day that mandy was
20:56killed michael hardy tells us that he was at north manchester general hospital for an outpatient
21:02appointment between two and three o'clock the afternoon and then he traveled home in his silver
21:07toyota corolla he said after returning home from hospital he stayed at home until about 11 p.m
21:14at night and then went out to collect a girlfriend who he'd just met that day at the beginning of
21:20this interview michael hardy had mentioned about having shaved his head at this point in time we'd
21:26examined mandy's body there'd been a post-mortem and we noticed how many cut hairs were on a body
21:33so when michael hardy gives us that information unwittingly perhaps i took the decision that he
21:40needed to be arrested he was the main suspect in this investigation michael hardy's shaved head and
21:46the presence of tiny hairs on mandy's body seems too much of a coincidence for police to ignore
21:53on saturday afternoon michael hardy is arrested on suspicion of murder
22:11detectives in manchester are investigating the murder of 15 year old mandy hardwick
22:17at the location where her body was dumped they found smeared blood
22:22a tire mark containing a footprint and cigarette ends which could provide vital dna evidence
22:32a post-mortem reveals short hairs on her body together with red fibers
22:39and a metallic substance on her hand
22:45mandy's so-called uncle michael hardy has been arrested on suspicion of murder he's been
22:50very elusive about his movements and lied about the last time he saw the teenager
22:55detective superintendent martin bottomly believes he may be involved in mandy's murder and he now
23:01needs the evidence to prove it police locked down his property for forensic examination
23:08that could have been the location where mandy died so i didn't want any contamination of it i wanted
23:15officers to guard it to give the forensic scientists and the crime scene investigators as much time as
23:21they needed to gather each and every possible piece of evidence that might be in there
23:27once somebody's been arrested for any offense and in this case we're dealing with an offense of murder
23:32the police have statutory powers to enter property to seize property that belongs to the suspect at that stage
23:41in order to examine them you can't do it with somebody who's under suspicion but hasn't been arrested
23:47you could ask them to do it voluntarily and if a defendant or suspect is sure of their innocence
23:56then they may well say absolutely filly boots help self if if they know that they are in fact guilty
24:02they're probably going to say no in which case the police have to effect an arrest in order to get
24:07access to that property with hardy in custody dna samples are taken from his clothes and body
24:15obviously we're now three days into the inquiry so it's not immediately after the event but there might
24:19still be traces of dna either on his clothing or on his body or mandy's dna on him that could
24:25be
24:25relevant to the inquiry so we'd be looking to see if there's any scrapings or flesh and that would
24:31involve a whole load of swabbing of him including some intimate swabs two young women arrive at the
24:37police station to wait for him they agree to give statements about their relationships with hardy
24:42and one woman tells officers he's the father of her son one of them told us that michael hardy had
24:50cut
24:50his son's hair on the tuesday night the night before mandy was killed that was critical she also told us
24:57that she became pregnant by michael hardy when she was just 15 which at that time was unlawful sexual
25:04intercourse this heightens further the suspicion his interest in young girls the other woman
25:12told us she'd rang him on the wednesday the 14th of january about 7 pm he told her he was
25:19working
25:19and that he wouldn't be finished till about 10 o'clock by about 20 past 10 he still hadn't rung
25:26so she rang him again and he said he was washing his clothes and waiting for them to dry which
25:31again
25:32you know quite suspicious and significant at this point in time clearly michael hardy is the main suspect
25:39so we also seized his vehicle that would be put on a low loader be taken to a secure garage
25:45where
25:45forensic scientists and crime scene investigators would minutely examine every part of that car the
25:52examination of the vehicle would have involved uh taping all of the seat areas on the headrest and
25:58then in the boot too you've taken fiber tapings from those areas that can be matched to clothing
26:05to say who might have been where there'll be debris potentially in the footwells so if you've taken the
26:11mats from the footwells and then collected other parts of debris you can compare that with somebody's
26:15shoes or a particular area of woodland or you can say we've got leaf debris here which suggests that the
26:22people who were in the car may have been walking through this particular area in a murder investigation
26:28then clearly you want to collect as much as possible particularly if you don't know how many people are
26:34involved there could be more than one victim there could be more than one suspect there could be all
26:38sorts of other people who've been involved that are people of interest and you still need to locate
26:43them and then rule them in or out of the inquiry during an inspection of the boot of hardy's car
26:50two long dark hairs were recovered and of course mandy did have dark hair that could be attributable
26:57to suggesting that mandy had been in the boot of hardy's car the inspection also discovers small flecks
27:04of silver paint which need to be tested to see if they're the same as the silver paint found on
27:10mandy's
27:10hand at the post-mortem a thorough search of hardy's home is still underway in the search for evidence
27:18that mandy might have been there the night she was killed we know that mandy hardwick regularly
27:25visited michael hardy's address we know that she'd had baths there but we don't know what happened
27:30that day so it was vital that we got evidence if there was any to be found that might be
27:35on a towel
27:35that she'd used so we had to consider all those items that might be significant and seize them
27:42when a suspect is arrested for a serious crime as a murder if they start to produce a story as
27:48to
27:48their version of events it's useful for us to then either support or refute that allegation so in this
27:56case the suspect has stated that they've shaved their head they've also shaved their son's head and
28:02therefore the hoover was seized they took fiber tapings from around the bath to see if there's
28:08any extraneous hairs on those fiber tapings and again in the in the living room a lot of surfaces in
28:15there were also fiber taped again looking for any traces of evidence that could support the fact that the
28:22victim had been in those situations but also refute the allegations that the suspect had made
28:27and sometimes on cases like this it's very difficult to provide many unusual forensic links
28:34you know mandy is used to attending the house so her dna and fingerprints can legitimately be there
28:41it's really important that we still search to see if we can find them there to support that evidence
28:47but then you're looking for something that hasn't been admitted or something that looks a little bit
28:52unusual what we found when we examined the tape list that we'd taken from hardy's home address
28:57was there was large quantities of short cut hair what we don't know at this stage is whose hair it
29:03was
29:04whether it was michael's whether it was his son's or could it be mandy's so that that hair comparison
29:09would need to be conducted to the later date by scientists under microscopic conditions
29:15to see whether any of the hair on mandy's body matched any of the hair recovered from the tape list
29:20obviously we didn't want to alert michael hardy at this stage the significance of hair so we asked
29:27his son's mother if we could take a sample and that was cut hair from his son normally to get
29:34the
29:35dna of a minor to assist in a murder investigation you're going to require the permission and consent
29:42of parents that's all the more difficult one of the parents is a suspect so in this case the police
29:47simply didn't want to alert michael hardy as to this particular line of inquiry so they took quite
29:53a risky situation they took to consent for the mother both parents had the ability to give consent
29:59but as they were estranged the mother's consent was sufficient the hair samples retrieved from hardy's
30:06house are tested and the results are in i received an update that there were two types of cut hair
30:12found
30:13at his address and those cut hairs were very similar to the hair found on mandy's body
30:21clearly that was extremely significant forensic analysis confirms that none of the hairs belong to mandy
30:29they are in fact from hardy's son that tells me that mandy at some point has been naked
30:35in hardy's house and that she's picked up cut hairs either from the floor from a towel from hardy himself
30:43from the bath and we needed to know how that transfer had taken place interviewing officers put this to
30:49hardy hardy and he finally admits that she went to his house on the day she died
30:54i'm in my house i made myself a brew on a foster care cellar and then i got to get
30:58a knock on the door
30:59and it's monday and she's come in with a bag with a drawstring bag yeah a drawstring bag yeah
31:04it was a reddish like a dark red like it like a marina summer a red bag she's asked me
31:11to put a few clothes
31:12in the wash off a jeans yeah and the socks and i put them in the wash off yeah don't
31:16forget he was telling me that
31:17i've got my son's hair i've been found there she's had a bath me and your son had a bath
31:21the night
31:21before on the trees right we've had a bath and she's had a bath right done a thing and she's
31:25gone about
31:26seven and that's it she's gone i looked at her like she was a daughter but there was nothing going
31:30on between us we can examine her i've never ever had sexual intercourse with her you know by no dna
31:36listen listen because i've never i've never right this is the truth now and what i want to do yeah
31:43is i want
31:44to go through it step by step all right okay i don't want to tell you are you going to
31:48still
31:49do me anyway this is what i mean so why should i call this was quite an unusual form of
31:53words that
31:53he was using towards the police we don't stitch people up he was trying to accuse us of it because
31:58he was wanting to wriggle his way out of all the building evidence so when somebody is trying to kind
32:05of provoke the police we can see a bit of narcissism a sense that they are jostling for power and
32:12control
32:12that they want to be the cleverer one the brighter and more competent individual most people i've
32:21worked with who have this kind of presentation and are violent have a real distrust of authority a real
32:29sense that it's them and us if they're in a situation where there is an authority figure whether
32:35it's a teacher or a police interviewer or a psychologist they will be mocking them and provoking
32:42them and getting into kind of yeah a power struggle hardy provides an alibi for his movements around
32:48the time mandy's body was discovered a math man so i think i'm on cctv i was in the shop
32:54i was buying
32:54some rebels because i'm addicted to rebels while officers are listening to the interview a senior
33:00investigating officer will literally in real time be dispatching you know colleagues to test and check on
33:06the evidence being given by a suspect to check hardy's version of events check the store check
33:12other locations to see if what he was saying was possible if what he was saying was true hardy's
33:18account that he went to laundry store to purchase some sweets didn't turn out to be true but of course
33:24being a liar doesn't necessarily make you a murderer but that did factor into my account and my
33:30assessment and raised suspicions even further detectives also need to determine whether mandy
33:36had brought a red drawstring bag full of washing to his house as hardy's claiming they checked with
33:43her family monday's family are adamant that she didn't leave her home address with the red drawstring
33:50bag on the wednesday afternoon it was found by officers at her home address that was significant
33:57to pointed to yet another lie that hardy had told us as the reason for mandy coming around to wash
34:03her
34:03clothes that was not the case in my mind we're getting closer to the truth
34:10the items found next to the body the blood the tire track containing a footprint and the cigarette butts
34:16all fail to yield any dna or forensic results linked to hardy it's a blow to ds bottomly he needs
34:25more
34:25evidence it needs to build a strong enough case to charge hardy with murder to make matters worse
34:30he's running out of time once they've arrested somebody and put them before the custody sergeant
34:36the clock starts ticking and the police have to complete their inquiries in relation to that suspect
34:44by a certain period of time the starting point is 24 hours once that period has come to an end
34:51and it literally is to the minute they have no power to hold that person any longer so they have
34:57to make that decision charge or bail the cps decide there's not enough evidence and hardy must be bailed
35:06it was disappointing that we had to bail hardy but it was the right decision without a doubt at the
35:10time
35:10you know if we discharged him and then not had enough time to collect and analyze the further
35:16forensic evidence that could have collapsed the case detectives also need to eliminate other
35:21potential suspects they need to track down the taxi driver that the two girls reported had been
35:26looking for mandy we traced and interviewed the taxi driver he gave us a specific account of where
35:33he'd been and what he'd been doing that day he arrived home later that evening about six o'clock
35:37quarter past six where he stayed all evening till 10 pm but of course we weren't just going to take
35:42his
35:42word for it so we seized his car we examined it we did tape lifts we took impressions of his
35:47tires and
35:48ultimately that gave me the confidence that he was not involved in this offense now there's only one
35:54man left in the picture and that's michael hardy gs bottomley tasks the cctv team with finding footage
36:02of hardy's car so they can track his movements from 7 pm on the wednesday evening one of the problems
36:09in
36:092004 is the resolution of the footage you get and therefore it is highly unlikely from commercial cctv
36:19you'd actually be able to pick up the index number of the vehicle what you're looking for is the shape
36:26of the vehicle the shape of the headline the flare of the wheel arches the wheel trims anything that
36:35actually makes it stand out from what effectively would be one of thousands of vehicles detectives
36:42have a breakthrough when they discover a camera covering the end of the cul-de-sac where mandy's
36:47body was found we've examined a lot of cctv at this point but we've got one sequence and that shows
36:53a car
36:54similar to a toyota corolla verso traveling down at 20 48 hours and back up again four minutes later at
37:0120 52.
37:04it's been just under four minutes at that scene that's not sufficient time to
37:10knock on somebody's door and have a chat with them have a brew whatever something has happened
37:14very suddenly very quickly and at all points of the suspicion that michael hardy has just driven down
37:20with mandy's body in his boot and just dumped her
37:26despite growing certainty police still don't have enough evidence to charge hardy with murder
37:32to build a case that will stand up in court detectives need the science to tell them
37:36exactly what happened in hardy's house and whether his version of events can survive forensic scrutiny
37:55michael hardy is suspected of murdering 15 year old mandy hardwick detectives searching his car have
38:02found dark hairs in the boot which are being tested to see if they're hers and shortcut hairs located in
38:09his house appear to match those discovered on mandy's body in interview hardy has given an alibi
38:16claiming he was out shopping at the time that mandy was killed detectives need to move quickly to test
38:22hardy's account witness statements are revisited house to house inquiries continue in harper hay and
38:30forensic teams work through hardy's car and property in the search for evidence that will either support his
38:36account or else completely undermine it before officers hand back the house to hardy detective
38:44martin bottomley makes one more key decision he decides to send his colleague to inspect the scene
38:50for one last time contrary to what you see on the television we could be in a crime scene for
38:55several
38:56days or potentially several weeks looking for forensic evidence and as the case progresses and intelligence
39:03comes through quite often we will go back to a scene to recover further evidence to support an
39:08allegation because once you release the scene that's it you can't go back by this point we knew that
39:14some silver substance was of significance because something similar had been found on mandy's hand
39:21there was also dj equipment which had been sprayed silver near the back door of the premises so that
39:28appeared to me to be very significant and they were seized meanwhile further results come back from the
39:35post-mortem examination of mandy's neck so the scientists have told me that there are neck swabs
39:41taken from amanda hardwick and that michael hardy's dna is on mandy's neck what that indicates is that
39:49michael hardy has been in contact with mandy's neck it doesn't definitively say that michael hardy has
39:56strangled her as they search for more concrete evidence analysis of mandy's clothes reveals that
40:03they have not been washed as hardy claimed he said that she'd taken her clothes off she'd had a bath
40:09she'd washed her clothes and put a towel around her that clearly wasn't the case it shows us that hardy
40:14is lying the scientists went on to tell me that cut fragments of ginger body hair found on mandy are
40:21matched to michael hardy's pubic hair this is killer evidence silver paint found in the boot
40:29potentially from transporting his painted dj equipment has also been analyzed there are 16
40:35silver paint fragments recovered from the body tapings from mandy's body similar paint fragments
40:42recovered from the boot of hardy's toyota are microscopically indistinguishable from those
40:49found on the victim's body and clothing at this stage in my mind there's only one suspect for
40:54mandy's killing that's michael hardy michael hardy is re-arrested on suspicion of murder and brought
41:00into the police station to face a further round of questioning his demeanor had definitely changed
41:05from the early interviews he was so cocky in the early interviews now the weight of evidence was
41:12dawning on him and he was getting agitated the scientists disabled very shortly before she was
41:19found in westmere drive when the heartbeat was carried in a boot of the toyota vehicle belonging to
41:25michael hardy do you disagree with this evidence is it lies are these scientists wrong scientists are
41:33right scientists are right are they wrong yeah forensic science you know what i mean it's it wasn't
41:40meant to happen it was just a spare of the moment job i flipped i lost it to blackmail me
41:45i lost it
41:46to blackmail me and i just did it and it was too late then i come from the bedroom i
41:51put my hands
41:51right up my neck and that's it and i've gone onto the bed from there and that's it and what
41:57have you
41:57done when you've landed on the bed and that's it she's just it's okay it tastes like are you telling
42:03me michael that you're strangled that's it that's it that's all i've done it's my unconscious and
42:09there's still water in the bath just like i use no soap and after that i've put her straight in
42:13the
42:13bath after i've done that i thought what am i gonna do now and i put her in the boot
42:20and i drove down
42:22there dropped it off and then just drove on michael hardy has admitted he strangled her martin bottomley
42:31knows he has the evidence to convict him and charges him with mandy hardwick's murder ds bottomley
42:38breaks the news to her family the family was still grieving at this stage it was a difficult
42:44conversation but clearly they were satisfied with the outcome that he'd been charged
42:50on the 25th of april 2005 12 months after hardy's confession the trial is held at manchester crown
42:58court michael hardy says he flipped perhaps he flipped because he tried it on with mandy perhaps
43:05he'd had sex with her or sexually assaulted her and clearly she wasn't going to stand for that she
43:10was going to tell somebody about it so he felt he had to silence her and silence her he did
43:17faced with compelling evidence and his own confession michael hardy has no option but to plead guilty
43:23to the murder of 15 year old mandy hardwick by strangling her to death the post-mortem shows
43:30she was already dead when he placed her in the bath we were always very suspicious of michael hardy from
43:36day
43:36one i never truly believed any of his excuses and i believed even less as the forensic evidence mounted
43:44and as it mounted and it was put to him he had no other way to turn other than to
43:51confess and a
43:52just outcome was found in this case at sentencing mr justice richard field painted a picture of the crime he
44:01said
44:02michael hardy strangled mandy hardwick in his bed after she threatened to tell people
44:07he had molested her he had molested her he then held the youngster down in a bath of water before
44:12dumping her body half a mile away in a cul-de-sac he told the court just hours after killing
44:18the
44:19youngster he had sexual intercourse with a different young girl in the same bed the judge said after
44:27forensic evidence showed him to be the murderer hardy broke down and confessed saying he was worried
44:34mandy would ruin his reputation as a professional dj with mandy's family watching on hardy is sentenced
44:43to life imprisonment with a minimum of 12 years when michael hardy was sentenced i was slightly surprised at
44:51the term of 12 years for killing a 15 year old girl but to be fair i was pleased that
44:58he'd been
44:58convicted of this horrendous crime what was crucial to this case was the persistence of all the team
45:05who performed magnificently the persistence of the interviewing officers over 22 interviews
45:11the professionalism of the crime scene investigator the crime scene coordinators the forensic scientists
45:17all worked together as a team over many weeks to build up this case which ultimately
45:23brought together a mountain of evidence which proved conclusively that michael hardy had callously
45:29killed mandy at his home address put her in the bath put it into the back of his car and
45:36dumped
45:36her by the side of the road
45:51what began as a web of lies and suspicion unraveled through painstaking detective work
45:57and compelling forensic evidence faced with an overwhelming case michael hardy confessed to the
46:04murder of mandy hardwick but for mandy's family no conviction can undo the loss of a 15 year old girl
46:12who's life was so tragically cut short
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