In this article, they cover the implications that the new developments have for Cleveland Police’s investigation into the murders of Donna Keogh and Vicki Glass in Middlesbrough.

They also cover the wider strategic failures by the British Police Service in how it investigates serial killers.

Three Chiefs and Four Cover-ups (Pt. 2)

by TIM HICKS & CHRIS CLARK

~~~~

Introduction

The authors have been systematically investigating serial killer Christopher Halliwell, who is currently in prison serving a full life sentence having been convicted of the brutal murders of Miss Becky Godden-Edwards in 2003 and Miss Sian O’Callaghan in 2011 in Swindon.

Since 2018, they have assessed that Christopher Halliwell is a very strong suspect for the murder of Claudia Lawrence, who was abducted on her way to work in the early hours of the morning in March 2009.

North Yorkshire Police (NYP) has consistently stated that there is no evidence linking Halliwell to the murder of Claudia Lawrence and has at various times arrested nine men in connection with her murder. None of whom have been charged with anything.

Re-cap of the latest developments

NYP is searching two fishing ponds in woodland at Sand Hutton Gravel Pits eight miles outside York for Claudia’s body. They are very similar to the pond at Ramsbury, Wiltshire, where in May 2014 Wiltshire Police found a cache of property in and around a fishing pond surrounded by woodland. It comprised a shotgun and sixty items of women’s clothing including a pair of boots that belonged to Miss O’Callaghan and a cardigan that belonged to Miss Godden-Edwards.

It is suspected that the pond at Ramsbury may be a “trophy store”, where Halliwell visited to obtain sexual gratification from the knowledge of the items concealed there, while fishing.

Additional new information has emerged:

• A witness has come forward confirming that Halliwell tried to entice her into his car at 06.00 in the morning after she finished her shift at Rowntree’s in York.
• Claudia’s brave mother Joan has called for NYP to investigate Halliwell as a suspect in her daughter’s murder. She is quoted as saying:

“I still don’t feel the police have investigated the link between Claudia’s disappearance and Christopher Halliwell. Something has always bothered me about Halliwell and leaves me feeling very uneasy. The police may not have proved he had anything to do with my daughter’s disappearance, but they haven’t disproved it either”.

• A witness has come forward with a sighting report of Halliwell in the North York Moors at a very significant location. The authors are withholding this location from the article because of its significance. This witness has revealed that Halliwell was moonlighting as an independent minicab driver in North Yorkshire, which corroborates the evidence of the witness that Halliwell tried to abduct in York and who in the authors’ opinion is very lucky to be alive.

Halliwell’s connections to Durham, Cleveland and North Yorkshire

Halliwell travelled all over the country for work as a ground worker, as well as a mini cab driver. Our information is that he was moonlighting as a minicab driver in North Yorkshire and he may have done this intermittently throughout his life when travelling away from Swindon.

He was a narrow boating enthusiast, frequenting popular leisure craft and narrow boat venues. Yorkshire has an extensive canal network. He was also a keen fisherman.

Halliwell lived in various northern towns. His Father is believed to have lived in North Yorkshire possibly at York, Ampleforth or Oswaldkirke.

Halliwell’s presence in and knowledge of Durham, Cleveland and/or North Yorkshire could therefore be as a result of:

• Work as a mini-cab driver, chauffer, bin-man, builder, groundsman or window-cleaner in the area.
• A fishing holiday in Middlesbrough or Darlington. The River Tees has excellent fishing along most of its length until the Tees Barrage, he could also have beenfishing at Middleton St George Water Park, Croft, Cleasby or the River Skerne. The River Tees is also a popular narrow boating venue.
• Sea fishing at Scarborough, or fresh water fishing in North Yorkshire at Scaling Dam, Sand Hutton Gravel Pits, or along the River Ouse.In this context, Scarborough could be significant. It is a popular venue for fishing and it is sixty two miles from Middlesbrough. The route from Scarborough to Middlesbrough goes to the fishing spot at Scaling Dam and then close to the deposition site for Vicky Glass at Danby. The route from Scarborough to York along the A64 goes past the Sand Hutton Gravel Pits.
• Visiting York on a narrow boating holiday.
• Visiting his Father, who is thought to have lived in various locations in Yorkshire and who died in 1992 in Huddersfield.

The Claudia Lawrence Investigation

In summary:

• A left-handed smoker was seen arguing with a woman that could be Claudia on her route to work on the night she disappeared. Halliwell was a left-handed smoker whose modus operandi was to pick up women in the hours of darkness, while posing as a mini-cab driver. A witness has come forward confirming he was working as a mini-cab driver in North Yorkshire, which would explain Halliwell’s contact with Claudia and what he was doing in York.
• The attempted abduction of a worker from the Rowntree factory and the abduction of Claudia Lawrence both fit Christopher Halliwell’s modus operandi perfectly.
• There have been four sighting reports of serial killer Christopher Halliwell in North Yorkshire, including the attempted abduction in York.

Whilst Halliwell may not be Claudia’s killer, he is clearly a very viable suspect. Yet Claudia Lawrence’s mother Joan has confirmed that NYP has not investigated Halliwell as a suspect. This accords with the author’s experience of the NYP investigation into Claudia’s disappearance.

The NYE has contacted NYP and requested a meeting to go over the new evidence it has collected from media appeals. However, our e mail appears to have been deliberately ignored in accordance with Chief Constable Winward’s bizarre media policy covered here.

Over the years NYP has arrested nine suspects for the murder of Claudia Lawrence, but none of them has been charged. The concern must be that NYP is obsessively focussing on suspects based on Claudia Lawrence’s social and personal life, to the exclusion of other suspects and it is rejecting Halliwell as a suspect, to avoid admitting past errors in the investigation.

The NYE will continue to press Chief Constable Winward to openly investigate Halliwell as a suspect and to co-operate normally with the media. We will report back to our readers on this in due course.

The Darlington Investigation

The NYE has previously linked Halliwell to the 1990 murder of Mrs Ann Heron at Aeolian House, just outside Darlington and close to the Middleton St George fishing park. NYE investigation here. Her murder has in turn been linked to the murder of Mrs Trevaline Evans in Llangollen in 1990.

The Middlesbrough Investigations

In October 2018, the NYE published an article by the authors suggesting that Christopher Halliwell should be considered as a suspect in the murders of 17-year-old Donna Keogh in 1998 and of 21-year-old Vicki Glass in November 2001.

Cleveland Police have not linked the murders. Assistant Chief Constable Jason Harwin said: 

“There is commonality between the cases through the sex and ages of the victims and all being linked geographically to Middlesbrough. It is too early in the re-investigations to say if there are any other links.”

Donna Keogh was 17 when she disappeared during the early hours of 19 April 1998 from Hartington Road, near the Shipmate pub (now the junction), in Middlesbrough town centre. She was last seen around 3am being forced into a red hatch back car which headed off up Newport Road. Her body has never been found and the police believe she has been murdered.

In June 2018, Cleveland Police conducted a search for Donna Keogh’s body in wasteland in Middlesbrough, which was unsuccessful.

Vicky Glass was a 21-year-old sex worker who was dropped off by taxi outside the Shipmate pub, in Union Street, Middlesbrough, at about 4am on Sunday September the 24^th 2001. Her naked and mutilated body had been concealed and was discovered twenty miles away on an isolated track on the North York Moors near Danby, by a dog walker in a stream, six weeks after she disappeared. Her clothes and possessions have never been found.

The Sand Hutton Gravel Pits are thirty-nine miles from Danby in the North York Moors, where Vicki Glass’s body was discovered.

The authors believe Halliwell should be considered as a suspect in both murders because:

• Halliwell was well dressed, clean, tidy and persuasive. He would have no difficulty persuading either victim to accept a lift from him, or go with him for business.
• Both abductions are consistent with Halliwell’s modus operandi of picking up women late at night.
• Both victims fit Halliwell’s victim preferences.
• The abduction point for Donna Keogh at Newport Road leads to the River Tees, famous for its fishing and a popular route for narrow boating. The Tees Barrage has narrowboat moorings. In the murders of Hannah Deterville, Lindsay Jo Rimer and Carol Clark, which the authors believe Halliwell is a good suspect for, the authors suspect that the victim may have been held on a narrowboat. This may also be the case for Donna Keogh and Vicky Glass
• Vicky Glass was a sex worker abducted by car from the area of the Shipmates Pub, which is in the red light district and was the epicentre of both murders. Halliwell used sex workers and there is no red light district in North Yorkshire. If Halliwell was living/staying in or around York or fishing in the Middlesbrough/Darlington/Scarborough area, Middlesbrough would be the closest red light district to him and he may have become familiar with the centre of Middlesbrough from using it.
• Vicky Glass’s body was taken from the Cleveland Police force area into the neighbouring NYP force area. This is a tactic used by Christopher Halliwell in the abduction and murder of both Becky Godden-Adams and Sian O’Callaghan. Both were abducted in Swindon and carried into the Gloucestershire Constabulary and Thames Valley Police force areas respectively, to complicate the investigation and make it less likely the bodies would be connected to Swindon.
• Both bodies were concealed. Donna Keogh’s body has never been found, Vicki Glass disappeared in September and her body was found in a stream at Danby on the North York Moors two months later. Halliwell also concealed his victims. He took care to conceal the body of Becky Godden Edwards so skilfully, that it was not discovered for eight years. Sian O’Callaghan’s body had been rolled down an embankment into thick undergrowth and was not visible from the road. Both bodies would probably never have been discovered had Halliwell not taken Detective Superintendent Fulcher to them, after his remarkably skilful interrogation of him.
• Halliwell was fascinated with water and places of outstanding natural beauty. The three deposition sites we know Halliwell used at Eastleach Gloucestershire, Savernake Forest Wiltshire and Uffington Oxfordshire are all rural locations in the countryside next to a road and were selected with great care to ensure the bodies could be deposited quickly and remain concealed. Vicky Glass was discovered in countryside next to a track that was usable by a vehicle and her body was put into a stream with a bank.
• Vicky Glass’s body had been mutilated. Halliwell mutilated the body of Becky Godden-Edwards.
• The deposition site for Vicky Glass at Danby is on the route from York to the fishing point at Scaling Dam.

Chris has been contacted by Cleveland Police and has forwarded his research to them. Tim has contacted Cleveland Police asking for a meeting to discuss Halliwell as a suspect. It is unclear if Halliwell has ever been considered as a suspect in either murder by Cleveland Police.

Halliwell: A major failure for the British Police Service

Christopher Halliwell represents a major failure for the British Police Service: It is unable to detect serial killers that are itinerant, mobile and operate across force boundaries.

Detective Inspector Mike Rees (Retired), Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher who arrested Halliwell and Detective Superintendent Sean Memory who succeeded Fulcher as the Senior Investigating Officer into Halliwell’s crimes have stated that they believe that Halliwell has other victims. This is an entirely logical deduction.

Serial killers do not suddenly stop and take up tiddlywinks or tennis instead of murdering women. Sometimes they pause their murderous activity, but normally they do not stop unless they die, are incarcerated or are too old or ill to carry on.

There were sixty items of women’s clothing found in his trophy stash at Ramsbury and a pair of knickers found in his garage at home did not belong to his wife or either of his daughters. Halliwell murdered Becky Godden-Edwards and Sian O’Callaghan in his car. Between 1987 and his arrest in 2011, Halliwell had eighty vehicles. The implication being that he was disposing of vehicles regularly because they had been involved in a crime.

Yet the antecedent investigation to identify his full range of offending was given a ridiculously small budget of £40,000, thereby ensuring it would be superficial and would fail. Wiltshire Police released this statement to the NYE:

“Detective Superintendent Jeremy Carter said: “The figure of £40,000 does not cover any of the salaries of those working on this case but relates purely to specialist work such as forensic digs and searches, and specific expert advice. Officers working on this case carry out a vast amount of work as part of their daily duties which would not be captured in this figure. The Force continues to maintain dedicated staff who work on this job.”

As a consequence, Halliwell has never been convicted or even named as the prime suspect in any other murder.

Joan Lawrence has been scathing about the antecedent investigation. Please see this excellent Daily Mirror article Claudia Lawrence’s mum blasts peanuts budget.

The total failure of the antecedent investigation conveniently allows the British police service to evade the huge wave of criticism that would follow, if this truth was to emerge.

In the authors’ opinion, Halliwell was murdering women across the country with impunity, completely unnoticed by the police for twenty five years. This is covered very well in this Daily Mirror article quoting Chris on his new book “The New Millennium Serial Killer”, which details Halliwell’s other victims, including the four mentioned here. It is the only impartial, credible antecedent investigation into Christopher Halliwell available to the public.

The authors will continue to press for a full investigation into Halliwell’s crimes, so the truth comes out, no matter how inconvenient or embarrassing it is for the Police.

NYE Appeal for Information

Whenever we run an article on a cold case, the NYE always runs an appeal for information, to try to progress them by keeping these cases in the public eye and generating information. This is in the public interest and can assist the police. We will finish with our usual appeal for information:

Christopher Halliwell is pictured above in the lead illustration. He had a slim athletic build and spoke with a slight Swindon accent. You can see and hear him in the video here, trying to negotiate immunity for admitting to another crime.

Claudia Lawrence

• Did he offer you a lift in his minicab?
• Did you see Christopher Halliwell:
• Fishing at Scarborough?
• Fishing at Whitby?
• Fishing at Scaling Dam?
• Fishing at Sand Hutton Gravel Pits?
• In York?
• At Ampleforth?
• At Oswaldkirk?
• In the car park at the Kilburn White Horse?
• Did you know of Christopher Halliwell’s Father Alan Keith Halliwell who lived in Huddersfield, York, Ampleforth or Oswaldkirk and who previously served in the RAF?
• Did you see Christopher Halliwell staying in a bed-and-breakfast or hotel along the A19, in Darlington, Middlesbrough, Scarborough, York or the North York Moors area.

Vicky Glass and Donna Keogh

• In Middlesbrough?
• Fishing at Scaling Dam?
• Fishing along the River Tees?
• Fishing at Scarborough?
• Fishing at Whitby?
• On the North York Moors?

Ann Heron

• In Darlington?
• Fishing along the River Tees?

East Lancs Ripper murders

• At Aughton Park?
• In Merseyside/Liverpool?

Trevaline Evans

• In North Wales?
• Fishing along the River Dee?
• At an antiques shop or fair?

You can submit information on the murders of Vicky Glass and Donna Keogh to Cleveland Police, using the website www.finddonna.co.uk

If you have any information that could assist the Claudia Lawrence investigation, please contact North Yorkshire Police on 101, select option 1, and pass details to the Force Control Room, quoting “Claudia Lawrence”.

If you would prefer to remain anonymous, please pass information to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

If you prefer to speak to a journalist, please contact the authors using the letters@nyenquirer.uk address.

by TIM HICKS & CHRIS CLARK

~~~~~

5.7. Police Media Ops against the NYE Halliwell investigation 

The Police and the Media

The police have a difficult relationship with the media, because it is often critical of the police, in accordance with its duty to hold them to account:

“The media also play a vital role in holding the police service to account and in connecting us with the public – this includes highlighting when things may have gone wrong or where policing is under legitimate scrutiny. The relationship should also therefore be challenging and we need to recognise the role the media discharge on behalf of the public in ensuring that we are accountable. 

The responsibility to be open, transparent and accountable is part of the Code of Ethics and sits with everybody in policing. 

In recent years there has been a perception, rightly or wrongly, that the police have withdrawn and communicate less openly with the media. This does policing a disservice and I am determined that we need to reset the relationship with the media – an appropriate and professional relationship between the police and the media is in the public interest.”

Deputy Chief Constable (DCC) Gareth Morgan (National Police Chiefs Council Lead for Media Relations). 

Information Warfare: The NYE’s approach vindicated by the BBC

The murder of independent investigative journalists Daphne Caruana Galizia (NYE tribute here) and Jamal Khashoggi have highlighted the dangers facing journalists that investigate the state and/or criticise public bodies like the police. Accordingly, the NYE has been running a series of articles on information warfare being conducted against journalists.

This theme has now been taken up by the BBC – thereby vindicating the NYE’s approach to this subject and justifying its extension of it from the military, to the police and other public bodies. Jane Kinninmont writing in a BBC article about the Khashoggi case [1] commented:

“Mr Khashoggi’s case is an unusually prominent incident, but it is a symptom of deeper trends – of …….. intolerance of free expression”. 

“This trend is exacerbated by the escalating use of information warfare.” [My emphasis in bold].

Information Warfare was until recently a military term but is a very broad concept. It is now applied outside military conflicts and the armed forces. Therefore, a discussion of information warfare terminology is required at this point in the article:

• Information Warfare [2] is a United States military concept involving the collection [2] of tactical information, assurance [2] that one’s own information is valid, spreading of propaganda [2] or disinformation [2] to demoralize [2] or manipulate [2] the enemy and the public, undermining the quality of opposing force information and denial of information-collection opportunities to opposing forces. Most of the rest of the world use the much broader term of Information Operations [2] which has combined the making use of technology, as well as focusing on the more human-related aspects of information use.
• Media manipulation [2] is a series of related techniques in which an image or argument that favors their particular interest of the organisation is promulgated. Media manipulation tactics may include the use of outright deception and often involves the suppression of information [2] or points of view.
• Information Operations and Media Manipulation are often incorporated into Media Operations [8].

In this context, police media operations are part of Information Warfare and can be passive, proactive and/or aggressive. They can include:

• Information suppression.
• Information withdrawal.
• Media manipulation.
• Withdrawal from contact and interaction.
• Media suppression.
• Legal action or threats of legal action.
• Computer.
• Surveillance, both electronic and physical.
• Detention or arrest.
• Stonewalling: “A refusal to communicate or cooperate. Such behaviour occurs in situations such as ….diplomatic negotiations, politics and legal cases. Tactics in stonewalling include giving sparse, vague responses, refusing to answer questions, or responding to questions with additional questions”.

The NYE has covered the murders Christopher Halliwell may have committed, but which the police have not detected. AS a result, the authors assert that it appears the NYE has become the subject of media operations by four police forces.

1. Wiltshire Police.
2. North Yorkshire Police (NYP).
3. Cleveland
4. Greater Manchester Police (GMP).

This article covers the response of Wiltshire Police, NYP and Cleveland Police. The next article will cover GMP.

These operations have been aimed at supressing media comment on the failure of the police service to successfully investigate the full range of crimes committed by Christopher Halliwell. Examples of the information warfare techniques applied to the NYE are highlighted in bold in the article.

1. Wiltshire Police proactive media operations against the NYE.

Wiltshire Police released this statement to the NYE, which is clear that the ongoing investigation into Halliwell should not be commented on by the media:

“There has been much speculation in the press in relation to other women who may or may not have been a victim of Halliwell. This speculation is not helpful and is very distressing to the families involved. At this time, Wiltshire Police has not uncovered any links between Halliwell and any other murders across the country. We will undertake a proportionate investigation to establish whether Halliwell may have committed any further homicide offences – it would be inappropriate at this time to discuss specific cases.”

A skilful piece of stonewalling to proactively suppress information and supress media comment of this aspect of the investigation into Halliwell’s crimes. It omits to mention that the victims’ families have a right to expect that the police will do everything they can to resolve unexplained murders and disappearances. Or that the media have a duty to report this.

2. North Yorkshire Police (NYP) passive and proactive media operations against the NYE: Claudia Lawrence

The NYE regularly runs NYP appeals for information and has recently assisted the NYP Cold Case Review Team on a historic enquiry.

The NYE is aware that we have a following amongst NYP officers and that historically, NYP has monitored our articles for the purpose of obtaining evidence to mount a prosecution against NYE journalists.

Such is the importance that Chief Constable Lisa Winward attaches to the NYE, that on the day she was appointed as Temporary Chief Constable (17^th of April 2018), practically her first act as Chief Constable was to write NUJ member and freelance journalist Tim Hicks, (who writes on crime for the NYE). The reason? To inform him that under her leadership, NYP would not recognise him as a journalist, would not recognise the NYE as a media outlet, or respond to any journalistic enquiries from it.

This appears to be a throwback to a bygone age, when the police considered themselves to be above criticism, resented journalists holding the police service to account and did not work with the media. In short, a classic example of media and information suppression by withdrawal as described above by DCC Morgan above.

Predictably, Chief Constable Winward’s approach has had a negative impact on operational policing in North Yorkshire. 

The NYE released information in the article The River Tees Murders that Christopher Halliwell had been seen in North Yorkshire. The NYE believes that monitoring of the website by NYP still continues and is conducted by all our fans in the Force Intelligence Bureau and Cold Case Review Unit. So the information that a serial killer who was known to be active as a serial killer between 2003 and 2011 had been in North Yorkshire, is probably known to NYP.

This should have caused NYP some concern, particularly as Halliwell has been linked in the press to the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence in York.

It should also have elicited contact to the NYE from NYP to see if our coverage could produce any more information that would further any missing persons or cold case enquiries. In fact no contact was received (Passive media suppression by withdrawal) and a potential witness has been ignored, as a result of Chief Constable Winward’s media operations policy.

3. Cleveland Police passive, proactive and aggressive media operations against The Daily Star and the NYE: The Rachel Wilson case.
   

Rachel Wilson, aged 19, was last seen on CCTV at 07:02 on the 31^st of May 2002 in the Woodlands Road area of Middlesbrough town centre in the “Triangle of Death” around the Shipmate Pub in Middlesbrough (NYE investigations here).

Her naked remains were discovered in woodland in a shallow grave near Newham Hall Farm Estate in Coulby Newham only on the 27^th of June 2011.

Chris contacted Cleveland Police suggesting they should consider Halliwell as a suspect. He was told that it had started looking at Halliwell and that at some stage officers would contact him. He recommended that they obtain Halliwell’s known timeline for the North-East from Wiltshire Police and check the victims clothing against the clothing recovered from Ramsbury. Needless to say he heard nothing more from them and a potentially useful line of enquiry was ignored. (Passive media suppression by withdrawal)

Shortly afterwards the Daily Star covered Chris’s belief that Halliwell should be considered as a suspect in the murder of Rachel Wilson, Donna Keogh and Vicky Glass.

However, when the Star put the above article online, Cleveland Police Legal Department instantly sprang into action. It alleged that because a man had been arrested four years ago and was still being held on police bail, the article was “potentially prejudicial”. This tactic was highly successful and the Star was intimidated into removing it. (Aggressive media suppression through implied threat of legal action)

Likewise, when the NYE asked for a press comment on a similar article, the response from their press office was instantaneous:

“our legal dept. is of the view (articulated to the Daily Star which then removed their article on this case) that discussing Rachel Wilson in this way, with a person having been arrested on suspicion of her murder and currently being on bail, is potentially prejudicial. We would advise that you take independent legal advice on this issue.”

“The original arrest was several years ago but bail has been renewed at various points since. Proceedings are active in this regard.” 

The implication being that if the NYE published, the authors could be subject to legal proceedings for prejudicing the case against the man on police bail. (Aggressive media suppression through the implied threat of legal action) 

Cleveland Police were effectively demanding that the NYE impose a news blackout on the case. This struck the authors as strange, given that no one had been charged, a man had been held on police bail for four years and that in fact legal proceedings were not in progress. So the NYE challenged Cleveland Police’s position.

Letter from Bhatia Best:

Cleveland Police responded: 

“As you say our concerns are around the Rachel Wilson case, our legal dept. are concerned that proceedings are active in this case (due to the arrest and bail) and that this should be considered by your client. In effect we have someone arrested on suspicion of murder and your client is saying they didn’t do it (that a serial killer was in fact to blame). You’ll appreciate we felt we needed to flag these concerns. When we raised similar concerns with the Daily Star over the same subject/research they agreed this could be prejudicial and removed their article. 

Publication is a matter entirely for your client. We felt we had a duty to inform him of our concerns and having done so feel the matter lies entirely with your client who rightly carries these responsibilities solely.”

(The authors wish to clarify that they have never said that a serial killer was responsible for the murder, or the man on police bail didn’t do it. We have only said that Christopher Halliwell should be considered as a suspect.)

The situation with regard to the Rachel Wilson murder causes the authors some concern:

• Cleveland Police have arrested a man for the murder of Rachel Wilson, but has not charged him. As with the Ann Heron murder, any future conviction of anyone other than this man will result in severe media criticism and possibly legal action against the police. Hence perhaps the opposition of Cleveland Police to media reporting of a credible new suspect. (Confirmation bias. Proactive stonewalling for the purpose of media and information suppression).
• Reporting restrictions come into force when a person is charged with an offence, not when he has been arrested and released on police bail four years earlier. Attempting to prevent the media covering a highly controversial case when there have been no charges brought is a major erosion of press freedom. (Proactive media suppression).
• The arrested man has been on police (or pre-charge) bail for four years, without charge, although this is an infringement of his civil liberties. When the NYE contacted Cleveland Police asking for an explanation of this, it refused to comment. (Aggressive stonewalling for the purpose of media and information suppression).
• Cleveland Police has a history of conducting aggressive information operations against journalists. It falsely alleged they had committed a criminal offence by leaking information to the press [4] Then it used this as a justification to use the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to illegally monitor the telephones of two former police officers, their solicitor and two journalists (Aggressive disinformation to justify information suppression and covert surveillance). The full story can be read in these excellent articles by Julia Breen [7] and Graeme Hetherington [7]. His Honour Sir Michael Burton from the United Kingdom Investigatory Powers Tribunal found that there was no proof of criminality and no evidence of Cleveland Police taking any legal advice to support its actions. The officers’ legal team observed that the “force’s casual disregard for the legal framework beggared belief’ [4].

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire Services (HMICFRS) has recently castigated Cleveland Police over its investigations into the murders of Donna Keogh, Vicky Glass and Rachel Wilson. Excellent article by Naomi Corrigan giving full details here.

“Among the complaints made against the force by Donna’s Keogh’s family were allegations that statements had been lost and crucial witnesses and potential suspects were not interviewed by detectives.”

Interestingly, Cleveland Police initially made the same mistake as the authors assert the GMP made with the Helen Sage case:

“It [The HMICFRS Report] noted that the force did not regard Rachel’s or Donna’s cases as homicides, even after the tragic discovery of Vicky Glass’s body and two other murders of young women – Kellie Louise Mallinson in September 2000 and Sarah Jane Coughlin in August 2003.”

Could this be the reason that Cleveland Police reacted so aggressively to the coverage by the Daily Star and the NYE?

Surely not.

Coming next

In the next article in the series, the NYE will cover the strange case of Helen Sage.

Whenever we run an article on a cold case, the NYE always runs an appeal for information, to try to progress these cases by keeping them in the public eye and generating information. This is in the public interest and can assist the police. We will finish with our usual appeal for information:

NYE Appeal for Information

Have you seen Christopher Halliwell at any time in the period 1987 – 2011?

Claudia Lawrence and Christopher Halliwell

Halliwell had a slim athletic build and spoke with a slight Swindon accent. You can see and hear him in the video here taken while he was in custody.

Any information would considerably assist our knowledge of Halliwell’s movements. So please contact the NYE using our e mail address: news@nyenquirer.uk if you think you can help.

Sources used in the article are accredited in brackets as follows:

[1] BBC article or broadcast.

[2] Wikipedia article.

The NYE Christopher Halliwell series 

The NYE has recently run a series of articles on the crimes which may have been committed by serial killer Christopher Halliwell, who is currently serving a full life term for two murders committed in Swindon in 2003 and 2011.

These articles are now arguably the best source of information on the full range of crimes potentially committed by Halliwell openly available.

If you enjoyed this article, you may want to read the others in the series:

1. The breaking of Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher. By Tim Hicks
2. Book review: “Catching a serial killer” by Stephen Fulcher. By Tim Hicks
3. Christopher Halliwell and Peter Sutcliffe compared. By Chris Clark & Tim Hicks
4. Christopher Halliwell how many victims? By Chris Clark & Tim Hicks
5. Christopher Halliwell: The Secret Murders. By Chris Clark & Tim Hicks. Parts 1 – 11.
   • Scotland.
   • Is Halliwell the “East Lancs Ripper”?
   • The other Northern and Midlands cases.
   • Have you seen this man?
   • The River Tees Murders.
   • Halliwells undetected victims.
   • Police media operations against the NYE’s Halliwell investigation.
   • GMP and Helen Sage.
   • York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence?
   • The Swindon
   • InsideOut Justice. Who murdered Linda Razzell?
6. Christopher Halliwell the documentary.
7. Detective Superintendent Fulcher the TV series.