Dai Malyn – North Yorks Enquirer

Did Halliwell Murder Claudia Lawrence?

Tim Hicks — Thu, 23 May 2019 09:05:28 +0000

5.11: York: Did Halliwell Murder Claudia Lawrence?

3. Post Mortem on the Failure of Operation Essence 1

Initial success

by Chris Clark & Tim Hicks

~~~~~

Introduction

This article is Part 3 of the NYE’s series of six articles investigating the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence. This article covers the second investigation into Claudia Lawrence’s disappearance Operation Essence. It should be read in conjunction with the previous two articles, which covered its predecessor operation codenamed Operation Cabin and described some of the reasons that investigation failed. They can be accessed below

Background

In June 2013, NYP announced the creation of a new Major Crime Unit (MCU), set up to ease the burden on day-to-day policing. Based in Harrogate, the MCU was to be tasked from October 2013 to handle crimes including rape and kidnap, and review cold cases.

In July 2013, the force said the unit would assess several “stalled” cases when it opened that October, including the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence, which was codenamed Operation Essence.

Operation Essence

Operation Essence started in 2013 on the orders of the newly appointed North Yorkshire Police (NYP) Chief Constable Dave Jones. The Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) was Detective Superintendent Dai Malyn (pictured above, at the alleyway to the rear of Claudia’s home), who set to his task with commendable determination and thoroughness.

Detective Superintendent Malyn is a formidable career detective. He first came to my attention in 2005 following the successful investigation that led to the arrest of Mark Hobson. BBC coverage here, for which he received a very well-deserved award.

Interestingly, Chief Constable Jones was formerly the Head of Greater Manchester CID and an experienced detective. He will therefore have had the experience to support Detective Superintendent Malyn during Operation Essence. This may not have been available from the Operation Cabin Gold Group, to the earlier failed investigation codenamed Operation Cabin led by Detective Superintendent Galloway, which was led by an officer whose background was in traffic.

It must be emphasised that although the case was still fresh in the public eye and was only four years old, nevertheless this was a daunting task. According to former detective Mark Williams-Thomas here the earlier Operation Cabin investigation led by Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway was “poor”. An enormous amount of resources had been expended on the original investigation to no avail. It had not made any arrests, alienated the Lawrence family and had become controversial, attracting media criticism. Criticism which in fact turned out to be well-founded and verifies the need for the police to be the subject of media scrutiny.

Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway

Leader of Operation Cabin, the first “poor” investigation into Claudia Lawrence’s murder

Operation Essence 2013 – 2017: Initial successes.

Resuscitating the investigation after the failure of Operation Cabin was always going to be a difficult task. The trail was cold, witnesses memories less clear and forensic evidence would inevitably have decayed over time. The Crimestoppers reward for information leading to the arrest of Claudia’s murderer had been withdrawn.

Detective Superintendent Malyn and his team nevertheless made a good start and progressed the investigation. The progress they made appeared to be impressive by anyone’s standards. It conducted an impartial and questioning review of the original lines of enquiry, which made better use of information available to the original enquiry. The team completely re-examined the evidence and used the latest forensic tests to develop lines of enquiry and fresh evidence.

In the statement announcing that the Claudia Lawrence Case was being re-opened here Detective Superintendent Malyn made some revealing comments. These are reproduced throughout this article, but not necessarily in the same order as they appear in the statement.

The Operation Essence Team developed forensic evidence using the latest techniques, not available to the original enquiry.

“Science has moved on in six years. Additional fingerprints have been found using techniques that the review team have decided to capitalise on based on the advice of national experts. There are a number of people who we now know spent time in Claudia’s house and who literally left their mark there; but, for whatever reason, those individuals have failed to come forward and acknowledge their presence in her home.

Other experts have been involved to help us understand what may have happened to her phone, to identify vehicles of interest captured on CCTV and to advise on satellite navigation data that we have recovered.”

In the light of information that has only recently come to the fore, we are actively pursuing what are rightly described as new leads. Last month, we focused our attention on the alleyway that leads to the back of Claudia’s house. This was based on specific information that this review discovered causing me and the team to believe that the alleyway had potential significance in explaining what happened to her. This is still being very actively progressed”.

[NYP statement on the start of Operation Essence]

It completed a full forensic review of Claudia’s home, which was only possible because Claudia’s mother Joan Lawrence had refused to sell the house and deliberately preserved it as a crime scene. In this respect, she showed better judgment than the original Operation Cabin Team, which had indicated there was no further forensic evidence to be gained from the house.

On the fifth anniversary of Claudia’s disappearance, a new appeal was made on the BBC’s Crimewatch UK programme, which aired on 19 March 2014 (here at 25 mins). It identified the following new information, developed by the Operation Essence investigation:

The new forensic searches at her home on Heworth Road found additional fingerprints and a man’s DNA on a cigarette end in her car.
Work surrounding her Samsung D900 mobile phone showed from cell site activity that she was in the Acomb area of York in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, and that the phone was deliberately turned off at 12:10 GMT on Thursday the 19^th of March 2009.
CCTV footage, recovered in 2009, showed two vehicles of interest to the enquiry:

1) A white Astra van parked opposite Claudia’s house at 21.00 on the night of her disappearance.

This prompted Chris Clark to enter the investigation. His part in the investigation is told in his own words below:

“My own research into Claudia’s case began on Thursday 20 October 2016 with regards to ex Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher’s thoughts that Chris Halliwell was responsible for her abduction and murder. (NYE coverage on Fulcher here and here)

I further became interested in the second vehicle featured on Crimewatch a White Vauxhall Astra Van sought by police for elimination which was captured by CCTV from a bus turning into Heworth Road at 9pm on Wednesday 18 March 2009. The Image below is from the Appeal which went out on Crimewatch during 2014:

“The next image is the police appeal with Heworth Place superimposed by me, showing the aerial location of where I found the Vauxhall Astra Van (or replacement) via Google Street View.”

“Third image is of either the same (or replacement) van parked at the end of Heworth Place within 50 yards of Claudia’s address. Image captured September 2014.”

“It is quite clear to me that NYP could have easily traced and eliminated this vehicle from their enquiries in March 2009 and subsequently. The Owners of the vehicle (and the previous one on CCTV) are Concrete Grinding Ltd, Dene House, Kirkburton, Huddersfield. This exercise took me five minutes of Google Street View Research. This shows how little initiative went into the investigation.”

Chris passed the information on to NYP Control Room and a Detective Constable contacted him and thanked him for his help.

A light coloured hatchback car possibly a Ford Focus driving along Heworth Road at the time Claudia is believed to have left her house to walk to work. The car’s brake lights come on, as it came level with Claudia’s house.

Two men were identified that the investigation wanted to trace:

1. A man seen in Haworth Road in the week leading up to Claudia’s disappearance. He is described as in his thirties 30’s five foot eight to Five feet eleven inches tall, with tidy brown hair with a fringe and a rucksack on his back. He looked as if he was looking for an address and he was on the ‘phone.
2. A man seen on the morning of Claudia’s disappearance aged fifty-five to sixty-five with grey mid-length hair, wearing a three-quarter length sandy coloured Macintosh.

Detective Superintendent Malyn tried to tackle the negative impact of the way Claudia was portrayed in the original Operation Cabin (See Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway at 8 mins in the first Crimewatch UK appeal). Which had needlessly destroyed her reputation. Worse, it damaged the investigation by alienating public sympathy from her, which may have further inhibited witnesses from coming forward. The second Crimewatch UK appeal had a very moving appeal by Claudia’s sister Ali Sims at 28 minutes, which put a much fairer picture of Claudia’s life.

In addition to the new evidence developed which was released in the Crimewatch UK appeal:

Detective Superintendent Malyn re-established contact with the Lawrence family and regained their trust by his skilful questioning. Repairing the damage done by Detective Superintendent Galloway’s investigation.
There was no mention of the Cyprus line of enquiry indicating that the Operation Essence Team identified that the original line of enquiry pursued by Operation Cabin, was a red herring and they did not waste any more time on it.
The Crimestoppers reward of £10,000 was re-instated.
A website was established, here, to keep the public up to date with developments and encourage witnesses to come forward. It includes this interactive map.
Forensic searches were undertaken in the alleyway at the back of Claudia’s home. On the 18^th of March 2015, there was an appeal on the sixth anniversary of Claudia’s disappearance with CCTV which showed a man behaving suspiciously on Lime Court near Claudia’s home at about 19.15 on the 18^th of March 2009. This was about an hour before Claudia’s last telephone conversation with her parents. The North Yorkshire Police appeal with the CCTV footage can be seen here.

North Yorkshire Police were provided with an initial draft of this article and asked for a media comment. My request was forwarded to Detective Superintendent Malyn, who responded most courteously as follows:

‘’Many thanks for your continued interest in this case and your research into outstanding lines of enquiry and the effort you put in. None of your information is ignored and for your information the team are satisfied with the vehicle you provided details of on Google earth and we have also linked in closely with the Halliwell incident room.

Many thanks

Dai Malyn’’

Coming Next: Operation Essence 2. What went wrong?

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:

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 quoting “Claudia Lawrence, North Yorkshire Police“.

Alternatively, if you would prefer to talk to a journalist, please contact the NYE using the e mail address news@nyenquirer.uk.

Peter Lawrence, Claudia’s dad, also has a dedicated website www.findclaudia.co.uk

The Claudia Lawrence appeal is also supported by the Missing People charity – www.missingpeople.org.uk

Did Halliwell Murder Claudia Lawrence? (Part 2)

Tim Hicks — Mon, 31 Dec 2018 10:29:09 +0000

Did Halliwell Murder Claudia Lawrence? (Part 2)

5.9: York: Did Halliwell Murder Claudia Lawrence? 2: Post Mortem on Operation Cabin Part 2

by Chris Clark & Tim Hicks

~~~~~

Because of the size of the article, the NYE review of Operation Cabin has had to be written in two parts. In Part 1, the authors covered:

Introduction

The abduction. York 19^th of March 2009. The basic facts.

The initial photograph of Claudia Lawrence issued at the very beginning of the investigation was inaccurate
Failure to establish basic facts of distance and time.
The rusty white van, enter Chris Clark
The possibility that the murderer was a stranger seems to have been ignored.
Premature focus on the theory that the murderer was connected to Claudia Lawrence’s love life.
Failure to obtain any empathy with the Lawrence Family.
Failure to preserve evidence for any future investigation.

If you have just started reading the NYE and have not read Part 1, you should do so before going any further. It can be accessed here.

“Detective Sergeant A” may have been a member of the Claudia Lawrence investigation team

Detective Sergeant A (DS A) has never been named, but he was a member of the police team that investigated Peter Jaconelli and Jimmy Savile in Scarborough. DS A was an experienced officer who had served in NYP throughout his career. He had a misconduct finding upheld against him in 2015 over his failure to record intelligence during an investigation into Peter Jaconelli and Jimmy Savile. NYE article here.

The IPCC investigation into DS A (here) states:

120. He (DS A) stated that …he was attached to Operation (Redacted) (from March 2009 onwards).

This may be a reference to Operation Cabin. Certainly there cannot be many operations that were so large they required the drafting of a Detective Sergeant from normal duties in Filey to another police station that were on-going in March 2009, the month that Claudia Lawrence disappeared.

121. DS A returned to Filey Police Station in August 2010.

125. DS A said that he had returned to Scarborough CID demotivated due to problems that he had with a previous supervisor. He said, ‘One of the things with it from, I’m not going to into my personal circumstances, but at the end of the day I lost a lot of motivation.

“Detective Constable A” was a member of the Claudia Lawrence investigation team

Detective Constable A (DC A) is also mentioned in the IOPC investigation into DS A here. It is not a very flattering account, although it should be emphasised that DC A was not found guilty of misconduct

83. On 21 March 2009, D/Supt N became the SIO for a major investigation into a person who had gone missing three days earlier. On the same day, DCA was removed from his normal duties and placed on a murder enquiry (Operation (Name redacted)) which was being run from York Police Station.

98. In the subsequent statement that D/Supt N provided to the IPCC on 25 November 2014, he stated that he had assumed investigative responsibility for a major investigation on 21 March 2009 which he said, ‘consumed virtually every moment of my duty time.’ This was an enquiry which he spent in excess of the next two years working on.

This was obviously a reference to the Claudia Lawrence investigation. The implications of these two paragraphs are:

“D/Supt N” is Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway.
DCA was transferred to York Police Station to work on the Claudia Lawrence murder investigation, being run out of Fulford Road Police Station.

“114. DCI O further stated that he was DC A’s manager when he returned to divisional duties in August 2010, following a lengthy period working on a major investigation. He stated that he had noticed a change in the officer saying, ‘…it was evident he was not the highly motivated officer that he had been prior to his abstraction (from divisional duties to work on a major incident). It was clear when speaking to him that he was completely disillusioned during this time (his return to duties in August 2010).”

Failure of management oversight within the Operation Cabin CID Team

The IPCC report is highly critical of DC A and DS A for not recording information properly. DS A subsequently had a misconduct finding upheld against him.

It appears from what can be pieced together from the heavily redacted and censored IPCC report above that at least one member of the CID Team (DC A) that investigated Claudia Lawrence was de-motivated and unreliable. Another (DS A) may not have been recording intelligence gained during the investigation properly.

They had a negative impact on the Peter Jaconelli investigation and the concern must be that they had a similar negative impact on the Claudia Lawrence investigation. A Detective Sergeant is a key and senior figure in a team of fifty detectives on a serious crime investigation.

The impact of having two members of the investigative team that were potentially dysfunctional cannot be assessed, nor are the authors able to determine how many other members of the Operation Cabin investigation may have been operating in a similarly dysfunctional state unnoticed by the CID management.

But it is clear that although DCI O was able to detect the decline in efficiency, the leadership of Operation Cabin did not. Instead of being returned to Uniform Branch, they were simply returned to normal CID duties. Even though both officers have admitted they were de-motivated and it is clear they were obviously not suitable for employment on an investigation of this importance.

The police command structure

The Senior Investigating Officer for Operation Cabin was Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway.

Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway

Senior Investigating Officer for Operation Cabin

A career detective who came to North Yorkshire Police (NYP) from Merseyside Police, following his successful investigation of the murder of Chantel Taylor by Stephen Wynne. A classic case of excellent detective work.

The SIO is responsible for the day-to-day running of the operation. In his book “Catching a Serial Killer”, Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher is scathing about forces that regularly change the SIO at short notice and for short periods of time. However, this aspect of both Claudia Lawrence investigations worked very well. NYP maintained the same SIO throughout the course of Operation Cabin and then a different SIO throughout Operation Essence – thereby avoiding disruption to through lack of continuity of key members and loss of experience.

Above the SIO is a Gold Group, which is established immediately a major investigation is declared. This is a team of senior officers who are responsible for the governance of the operation and supporting the SIO, intervening if anything has been missed, if the investigation has lost direction, is mistakenly allocating low priorities to lines of enquiry, or following lines of enquiry that are not promising.

As an example, in his book “Catching a Serial Killer”, Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher emphasises the key role the Gold Group plays in a major investigation. During his successful investigation into the murder of Sian O’Callaghan by local cab driver Christopher Halliwell, the first suggestion that the murderer may be a taxi driver came from the Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police Brian Moore, who had been a highly-experienced detective before being promoted to Chief Police Officer rank.

In the O’Callaghan investigation, the Gold Group handled media contact, thereby relieving the SIO of that burden and allowing him to focus on the investigation.

To perform this oversight role effectively, the Gold Group must be comprised of officers that have solid experience in that type of investigation. This is recognised in the College of Policing guidance (here) on the Gold, Silver and Bronze command structure:

“The command structure is role rather than rank specific. Officers of a senior rank to those nominated to undertake one of these three roles [Gold, Silver and Bronze] should not automatically assume superiority solely on the basis of rank or territorial responsibility. However, they are accountable for any information or advice given to commanders.”

This best practice from the College of Policing seems to have been ignored for Operation Cabin.

The Gold Commander for Operation Cabin was the then Deputy Chief Constable Tim Madgwick QPM.

Deputy Chief Constable Tim Madgwick (retired)

Gold Commander for Operation Cabin

Deputy Chief Constable Madgwick (retired), made his way up the ranks mainly in Uniform Branch and as a Traffic Policeman. He was not a career detective and was the ACPO Lead for motorcycling. He led the highly successful NYP operation to arrest Mark Hobson, for which he was commended. However, that was a very different type of enquiry to a no body murder.

He appears to have been appointed on the basis of his rank, not experience in large complex murder investigations. Based on my experience of him, I believe he does not have the right approach to media relations for an investigation requiring close media co-operation. In real terms, his subordinate Detective Superintendent Galloway probably had more experience in murder and serious crime investigations. This will to some degree have rendered the Gold Group somewhat superfluous, being unable to contribute more experienced expertise, because it had less investigative experience than the SIO.

The Gold Group was responsible for exercising overall supervision of the investigation and to intervene if anything was going wrong. It must, therefore, also share responsibility for any failings in the investigation. It should be said that without access to the Operation Cabin Policy Book, it cannot be determined what constructive role the Gold Group played in the investigation. I can find no evidence of it intervening to address any failings in the investigation e.g. the breakdown of communications between Detective Superintendent Galloway and the Lawrence family.

Detective Superintendent Galloway has been criticised in the press over the conduct of Operation Cabin. However, it may be that he was not as well supported by a Gold Group of officers experienced in this type of investigation.

Chief Constable Dave Jones succeeded Temporary Chief Constable Madgwick as Chief Constable of NYP and ordered a review of the Operation Cabin investigation. It should be emphasised that this was not a routine cold case review. The review determined that there were still lines of enquiry that could be pursued and the investigation was re-opened. The implication being that Operation Cabin was closed prematurely. If this is so, then it represents a catastrophic failure by the Operation Cabin Gold Group, possibly due to lack of experience. This will be covered in greater depth in the article in the series on Operation Essence.

Failure of media strategy

The comment below that Chief Constable Jones’s ordered the review “to re-invigorate interest in the case to generate new leads”. Indicates a failure in the investigation’s media strategy that did not generate as much media interest and information as it could have done.

Shortly after her disappearance, Crimestoppers offered a reward of £10,000 to anyone providing information leading to the arrest and conviction of any person linked to Claudia’s disappearance.

However, this was withdrawn in September 2010.

This also resulted in all of the posters asking for information on Claudia’s disappearance being taken off NYP police cars, because they mentioned the reward.

This was a serious blow to the investigation at a time when it was still running. It appears that the funding had been allocated to other investigations that were perceived to have a better chance of success.

In an investigation of this nature, media coverage is essential, so I was very surprised to read Detective Superintendent Malyn criticising the media for the attention it gave to the case. Indicating that the failure of the investigation was due to:

Witnesses not coming forward.
“The pressure of daily media attention”. (See below).

NYP appears to be trying to exonerate itself from any responsibility for the failure of the investigation by blaming the media and unknown witnesses that had not come forward.

Regular NYE readers will know that I have been highly critical of the attitude of North Yorkshire Police to the media. In his book on the successful investigation by Wiltshire Police into what was initially a “no body” murder, former Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher emphasised the importance of the media to the investigation, going so far as to state that the case would not have been solved without the assistance of the media. Nothing sums up the inability of this force to manage media comment better than Detective Superintendent Malyn’s remarks implying that – having appealed for assistance from the media and having got it – the daily media contact was a distraction and a contributory factor to the failure of the Operation Cabin investigation.

This may be indicative of a failure of the investigation to manage the media interest in the case. Certainly, if the Gold Group had been covering media operations, then in fact the SIO and his team would not have been distracted by this aspect of the operation.

Operation Cabin: Was it affected by NYP politics?

Deputy Chief Constable Tim Madgwick became Temporary Chief Constable in February 2012 following the disgrace and removal of his predecessor Chief Constable Graeme Maxwell. He was rejected for appointment to the role of Chief Constable and replaced by Chief Constable Dave Jones on the 3^rd of June 2013.

Deputy Chief Constable Madgwick retired in February 2017 after a distinguished career, all of it in NYP, having served twice as Temporary Chief Constable. He stated at that time how saddened he was that Claudia Lawrence’s murder remained unsolved. BBC report here.

In any operation that you are closely involved in on a day-to-day basis, it is very difficult for any human to take a step back and make an impartial, detached assessment of it. Any criticism of the conduct of Operation Cabin would reflect discredit on Chief Constable Madgwick personally, because he had been the Gold Commander. In short, he had a conflict of interest in considering the possibility of any failings in the operation, because he commanded it.

This may be why an impartial and objective assessment of Operation Cabin would only be undertaken after the appointment of Chief Constable Jones as Chief Constable of NYP. In the autumn of 2013 Chief Constable Jones ordered an impartial review of Operation Cabin be undertaken internally.

Chief Constable Dave Jones (retired)

A very experienced and capable detective who realised the need to impartially review the conduct of Operation Cabin

Review reveals failings in Operation Cabin investigation

Chief Constable Jones was an experienced detective in his own right and a former Head of Greater Manchester Police CID. He would not have ordered police resources to applied to the case if he thought the original investigation had satisfactorily exploited all the information and intelligence it had received.

The NYP statement on the decision to review Operation Cabin and then order another investigation codenamed Operation Essence can be read here. It contains seven revealing quotes (my emphasis in bold) from Detective Superintendent Malyn:

In the autumn of 2013, North Yorkshire’s Chief Constable Dave Jones decided that the four-year-old enquiry should be thoroughly reviewed by the then newly-formed Major Crime Unit to see what opportunities existed with information given at the time and to re-invigorate interest in the case to generate new leads.

Without any prior involvement in the case, my team and I have been able to look back at the events of March 2009 and the enquiries that followed it, at a different pace and with a fresh perspective.

Without the pressure of daily media attention, we have spotted things that may not have seemed significant or hugely relevant at the time, and to prioritise and put greater emphasis on certain aspects of the enquiry that this new team felt were necessary and warranted.

By scrutinising in meticulous detail what people told the original enquiry, and then comparing that with other information that was either available at the time or which has only recently come to light, two things have become evident: first, that there are people locally who knew Claudia and who have actively sought to keep that a secret – and we know who some of those people are; secondly, we know that some people have deliberately lied about a number of issues concerning their association with Claudia.

In the months since we started our review, we have made very significant progress.

In the light of information that has only recently come to the fore, we are actively pursuing what are rightly described as new leads. Last month, we focused our attention on the alleyway that leads to the back of Claudia’s house.

This was based on specific information that this review discovered causing me and the team to believe that the alleyway had potential significance in explaining what happened to her. This is still being very actively progressed.

Detective Superintendent Malyn made a separate point in the statement that science has moved forward in the six years since Claudia’s disappearance and that he has exploited these developments. So the statements above relate to evidence and lines of enquiry that have arisen as a result of detective work, rather than improvements in forensic science.

Police officers normally close ranks and do not criticise each other publicly. The statement has obviously been worded to avoid criticism of the Operation Cabin investigation. However, it is clear from Detective Superintendent Dai Malyn’s comments above, that the new team were able to generate new information and also exploit existing information that had been available to the Operation Cabin team at the time, but which was not exploited properly.

Operation Cabin Summary

Whilst the above is not exhaustive, or a blow by blow account of the investigation. In summary, it appears that Joan Lawrence may have been right that the initial investigation was not well handled.

The authors believe this was clear to an experienced detective like Chief Constable Jones and that is why he ordered the review, resulting in a new approach from a new team.

Operation Cabin has never been subjected to the same impartial searching review that the Yorkshire Ripper enquiry was subjected to by Chief Constable Sir Lawrence Byford of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC). Nevertheless, sufficient information has emerged to cast serious doubt on the quality of the investigation.

By analysing some aspects of the investigation and some members of the investigation team, using material that is in the public domain, we have revealed that aspects of the initial investigation into Claudia Lawrence’s disappearance was mismanaged. In my opinion, bungled would be too strong a word. But it is clear that opportunities were missed.

No doubt other mistakes were made which have not emerged, because journalists do not have access to the Operation Cabin policy book or the detailed records of the investigation, and because Operation Cabin has not been subjected to a review by HMIC.

By applying the sort of searching in depth analysis that NYE readers have come to expect to the actions of Chief Constable Jones and the public statements of Detective Superintendent Malyn, the NYE has identified that the confidential internal assessment of Operation Cabin by North Yorkshire Police was essentially the same as Mrs Lawrence’s.

NYP is particularly jealous of its reputation and does not accept external criticism. Hence, there had been no official comment on the reasons for the failure of Operation Cabin, other than those by Detective Superintendent Malyn above, which exonerated North Yorkshire Police and blamed the media. This shows the importance of having police operations subjected to external and impartial comment by journalists.

The question has to be asked, why is it that Wiltshire Police were able to arrest Christopher Halliwell for the similar abduction of Sian O’Callaghan, while North Yorkshire Police were not able to solve the murder of Claudia Lawrence? There could be many reasons for this.

However, I cannot help but suspect that if the investigation had been run by a top-rate detective of the same calibre as former Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher, it is possible that Claudia’s murderer would have been apprehended.

North Yorkshire Police were provided with a copy of the article but chose not to comment.

NYE appeal for information. Have you seen Christopher Halliwell at any time in the period 1987 – 2011?

Christopher 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. He is pictured in the lead illustration.

The NYE has reason to believe he operated in North Yorkshire.

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.

North Yorkshire Police were provided with a copy of the article but chose not to comment.

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:

The breaking of Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher. By Tim Hicks
Book review: “Catching a serial killer” by Stephen Fulcher. By Tim Hicks
Christopher Halliwell and Peter Sutcliffe compared. By Chris Clark & Tim Hicks
Christopher Halliwell how many victims? By Chris Clark & Tim Hicks
Christopher Halliwell: The Secret Murders. By Chris Clark & Tim Hicks. Parts 1 – 14.

(1. Wiltshire Police, 2. North Yorkshire Police and 3. Cleveland Police).

Police media operations against the NYE’s Halliwell investigation. Part 2:

4. Greater Manchester Police. 5. Greater Manchester Police & Crime Commissioner).

York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 1: Operation Cabin Part 1.
York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 2: Operation Cabin Part 2.
York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 3: Operation Essence.
York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 4: Why the authors believe Halliwell should be considered as a suspect.
The Swindon connection.
InsideOut Justice. Who murdered Linda Razzell?

Did Halliwell Murder Claudia Lawrence?

Tim Hicks — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 10:32:34 +0000

Did Halliwell Murder Claudia Lawrence?

5.9: York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 1: Post mortem on Operation Cabin Part 1.

by Chris Clark & Tim Hicks

Introduction

The North Yorks Enquirer (NYE) has been running a series of articles on convicted serial killer Christopher Halliwell, who has been convicted of two murders, to assess the wider range of crimes he may have committed.

Serial killers prefer to operate in areas they are familiar with and know their way around. It follows from this piece of human psychology that to assess other crimes potentially committed by Halliwell, it is necessary to identify areas he was familiar with, identify his modus operandi and then compare it to unsolved crimes committed in those areas.

The authors have completed this analysis, based on the circumstances of Halliwell’s two known murders (Miss Becky Godden-Edwards and Miss Sian O’Callaghan) and his deposition sites at Ramsbury Wilts. This can be seen in tabular format here.

The authors have also performed an analysis of areas Halliwell was familiar with. He worked in dozens of jobs, including window cleaner, builder, groundworker, chauffeur, taxi-driver and bin man. Halliwell lived in several addresses in Swindon, the Liverpool area and Northampton. His father also moved up north; it has been reported that he lived in Huddersfield and the York area — possibly in Ampleforth or Oswaldkirk. Halliwell’s hobbies were narrow-boating and fishing. He travelled widely by car and narrow-boat, so he may have stayed with his father. Consequently his geographic knowledge and area of operations was extensive.

From this analysis, the authors have come to three conclusions relevant to the Claudia Lawrence investigation:

The murder of Claudia Lawrence is consistent with Halliwell’s modus operandi.
Halliwell had a good knowledge of many Northern cities and the area around them, probably including York.
Halliwell had reason to visit Yorkshire in connection with work, and his hobbies of narrow-boating, and fishing.

The Claudia Lawrence investigation was code named Operation Cabin. It started on the 20^th of March 2009 and was reviewed in late 2013. Following the review, Chief Constable Dave Jones ordered the case re-opened by the Major Crimes Team and code named Operation Essence, led by Detective Superintendent Dai Malyn. It is important to note that this was not a routine cold case review, or a review in the normal course of events by another force. It was a full review by a different team of detectives, of an open ongoing investigation being conducted by his own force.

Operation Essence ran from the Autumn of 2013 until the 10^th of January 2017 when the investigation was wound down.

Because of the size of the Claudia Lawrence case, the investigation will be covered in four articles. The first three articles will assess the two separate investigations into Claudia’s disappearance and the fourth will argue the case that Christopher Halliwell should be put forward as a suspect in her disappearance.

5.9: York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 1: Post mortem on Operation Cabin 1

5.10: York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 2: Post mortem on Operation Cabin 2

5.11: York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 3: Post mortem on Operation Essence.

5.12: York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 4: Why the authors believe Halliwell should be considered as a suspect.

So far as we are aware, this is the only time the investigation has been assessed as a whole by a team consisting of a retired police officer and local investigative journalists, who have the skill base to credibly conduct such an assessment. The investigation into Claudia’s murder has been closed since January 2017.

Both authors believe that all the information that will become available has now emerged into open sources. Now is therefore the right time to try to conduct an impartial review of the case, using information not just from all available open sources, but also from sources that have only become available exclusively, through the NYE’s local media footprint.

The abduction. York 19^th March 2009. The basic facts.

Claudia Elizabeth Lawrence was a thirty-five year-old chef at the University of York’s Goodricke College, who disappeared on the 19^th of March 2009. The basic facts of her abduction are as follows:

Claudia was last sighted at around 3.05pm on Wednesday 18 March at the junction of Heworth Road and East Parade walking back towards her home on Heworth Road.
Claudia spoke to her father and mother Joan Lawrence that Wednesday evening over the telephone and made plans with her mother to spend Mother’s Day together. She later sent a text message to a friend and has not been heard from since. The last text message from her was sent at 8:23 p.m.
Claudia was due to walk the three miles to work on Thursday 19 March for a shift beginning at 6am. But did not turn up for work on that day.
Claudia was reported missing by her father Peter Lawrence on Friday the 20^th of March 2009, after friends became concerned that they had not heard from her since Wednesday the 18^th of March.
Claudia was described as white, around 5ft 6in tall, slim build, with brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans and trainers.
Despite the intensive police search effort in and around the Heworth and York University area, and detailed enquiries further afield, Claudia’s disappearance remained unexplained.
No body has been found and no abduction point identified.
Claudia’s mobile phone – a silver Samsung D900 – and blue and grey Karrimor rucksack in which she carried her chef’s whites, have never been found. Although there were reports that a similar rucksack that was spotted near the University of York at about 1pm on Thursday 19 March 2009.
Her passport and bank cards were found in her home.
Claudia had no reason to disappear.

Operation Cabin. The first investigation

From the beginning, North Yorkshire Police (NYP) assessed that she had been abducted and treated her disappearance as a crime, not a case of someone voluntarily going missing. This was highly commendable and led to the right actions being taken immediately. (Most other forces now determine if a missing person is in fact dead using the same “Proof of life” approach that NYP adopted. An exception is Greater Manchester Police, which follows the “Bottomley criteria” and will only designate a missing person as murdered if there is physical evidence of a crime).

Six weeks after Lawrence went missing, the investigation into her disappearance was formally reclassified from a missing person’s case to a suspected murder enquiry, although NYP has acknowledged it has no physical evidence of a crime or that she is dead.

This North Yorkshire Police statement gives a summary, including the Crimewatch UK program on her disappearance.

All of the North Yorkshire Police statements on the Claudia Lawrence investigation can be accessed here.

A timeline of the investigation can be read here.

In early June 2009, a reconstruction of Claudia’s last known movements was featured in a Crimewatch appeal. The feature generated more than 60 telephone calls. Also in June 2009 100 days after his daughter went missing, Peter Lawrence launched a YouTube appeal for information. In the appeal, he stated his belief that the internet was vital in the search. In late August 2009, NYP and the Lawrence family used the annual Whitby Regatta in North Yorkshire to publicise the campaign.

In September 2009, NYP revealed that the investigation had been extended to Cyprus. Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway stated that Lawrence “knew several people who live on the island” and that she may have “received job offers” while there. Galloway also stated that some people who had been interviewed had been “reluctant and less than candid” when spoken to, and that a team of officers had been sent to Cyprus to interview people whom Claudia met there. It was reported that the last text message received by Claudia Lawrence was from a man who was on the island.

Operation Cabin. What went wrong?

With an investigation of this size, journalists cannot produce a definitive account of every twist and turn of an investigation, without police co-operation, which has not been forthcoming. However, the following points should give an indication of the scale of the errors that were made.

The initial photograph of Claudia Lawrence issued at the very beginning of the investigation was inaccurate

According to press reports Claudia had recently been on holiday in Cyprus and her hair had been bleached by the sun. Her hairdresser confirmed he had dyed her hair with a darker dye than usual three-and-a-half weeks before her disappearance.

York Press article here.

Yorkshire Post article here.

Detective Superintendent Galloway denied this at the time. However, it must have been of critical importance in the investigation to have the very best likeness of Claudia issued in the appeals for information. This may not have happened.

Failure to establish basic facts of distance and time.

This North Yorkshire Police statement gives a summary of Claudia’s movements and states:

“Claudia was due to walk the three miles to work on Thursday 19 March for a shift beginning at 6am.”

In fact the distance from Claudia’s home is inaccurate. It is about two miles, which takes just over half an hour to walk. Map here. So to get to work for 6am Claudia would have had to leave home by at least 5:30am unless she had pre-arranged a lift.

This is of critical importance to the investigation, because if they got the distance wrong, the assessment of the time it would have taken for Claudia to walk to work would be wrong and this impacts on the various incidents along her route. The implication of this is that the police time-line for her movements may have been inaccurate.

In his research, Chris visited York and physically walked the route Claudia would have taken to work. Hence, he has verified the timings. It appears that the leadership of Operation Cabin did not undertake this elementary step. Hence this major inaccuracy.

The rusty white van, enter Chris Clark

In October 2009, NYP revealed they were looking for the driver of a white van who was seen trying to talk to women on Claudia’s route to work in the days before she disappeared. NYP appeal for information on the van here.

This prompted Chris Clark to enter the investigation. This was before he started contributing to the NYE. His part in the investigation is told in his own words below:

I further became interested in the second vehicle featured on Crimewatch, a White Vauxhall Astra Van sought by police for elimination which was captured by CCTV from a bus turning into Heworth Road at 9pm on Wednesday 18 March 2009. The image below is from the Appeal which went out on Crimewatch during 2014:

The next image is the police appeal with Heworth Place superimposed by me, showing the aerial location of where I found the Vauxhall Astra Van (or replacement) via Google Street View.

Third Image is of either the same (or replacement) van parked at the end of Heworth Place within 50 yards of Claudia’s address. Image captured September 2014.

It is quite clear to me that NYP could have easily traced and eliminated this vehicle from their enquiries in March 2009 and subsequently. The owners of the vehicle (and the previous one on CCTV) are Concrete Grinding Ltd, Dene House, Kirkburton, Huddersfield. This exercise took me five minutes of Google Street View Research. This shows how little initiative went into the original investigation.”

Chris passed this information on to NYP Control Room. A Detective Constable contacted him and thanked him for his help.

The possibility that the murderer was a stranger seems to have been ignored.

Whilst stranger murders are rare and most murders of women are by their spouse, partner or lover, (70%), this does not mean that this line of enquiry should be pursued alone, to the exclusion of all others.

NYP did consider similarities with the Joanna Yeates and Melanie Hall cases. The Melanie Hall case is consistent with Malliwell’s Modus Operandi and is to be covered in a separate NYE article on Halliwell’s offending in the Swindon area.

But from the start, the investigation seems to have prematurely focussed on deductions it made about Claudia’s love life. Ignoring other motives or the possibility that Claudia had been abducted and murdered by a complete stranger.

Premature focus on the theory that the murderer was connected to Claudia Lawrence’s love life.

In the modern world, many people pursue uninhibited lifestyles and have affairs with married partners, but do not get murdered. There is no automatic presumption that this will lead to a murder. Nevertheless, the investigation seems to have concluded that the murderer was known to Claudia Lawrence and was prematurely focussed on suspects associated with Claudia’s love life. Relentlessly pursuing the theory that Claudia had been murdered by someone she knew.

According to the family, Detective Superintendent Galloway did not ask them questions about what Claudia was like or her interests and lifestyle. Yet he nevertheless pursued a main line of enquiry that her lifestyle was the key to solving her murder.

Her family asserts that the allegations about Claudia Lawrence’s personal life do not reflect reality.

Claudia’s father Peter queried the comments made by Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme, specifically that parts of Claudia’s life “remain a mystery” and that police believe she had “complicated relationships” that her family and friends knew nothing about. He said that he “did not recognize” his daughter after the claims that had been made about her personal life. Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme on 4 June 2009, Peter said he doubted NYP claims that she had a secret life.

The authors believe that Claudia Lawrence may have been murdered by a stranger and the focus on her lifestyle may have obscured this possibility. We will explore this aspect in the fourth article in the series.

Failure to obtain empathy with the Lawrence

Claudia’s mother Joan has also criticised the investigation. In this York Press article by leading journalist Rob Parsons from 2017, she is quoted as saying:

“After a criminal investigation, led by Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway, which Mrs Lawrence felt missed opportunities to find out what really happened to Claudia, the case was resurrected by the force’s Major Crime Unit in 2013. But three years and £1 million later, and with not enough evidence to charge four men suspected of Claudia’s murder, the investigation was scaled down. “You don’t know what is going to happen, who is going to be out there, who is going to call you. One morning the police turned up at 8am and said someone had been arrested. I was still in my dressing gown.

The anger Mrs Lawrence feels at the failings of the original investigation into her daughter’s disappearance is unmistakable, but she has struck up a warm relationship with Detective Superintendent Dai Malyn, who leads the review team. “Dai Malyn is human, he is the first one involved who is human,” she said. “The previous team weren’t human at all. There was no sensitivity and no tact whatsoever.

“This one is 100 per cent better but because the first team messed up so much he has had a very hard task to take it all on. He is absolutely dedicated to it. “The police never once asked about Claudia, what her hobbies were, what her interests were, what she did, anything, so they never had a picture of her. “One of the first things Dai did was to ask ‘can you tell us a bit about Claudia’. I said ‘it has taken five years for this to come out’.”

Claudia’s sister, Ali Sims was also critical. She was quoted in the Telegraph as saying that the portrayal of Claudia was “unfair“. She observed very reasonably that: “Yes, she was pretty, she had lots of admirers, it’s just how a normal 35-year-old would lead their life”.

Failure to preserve evidence for any future investigation.

The Operation Cabin team failed to preserve Claudia’s home as a crime scene for any future investigation, or for re-examination using more advanced future improvements in forensic science.

Fortunately Claudia’s mother Joan’s lack of confidence in the Operation Cabin team was so strong, she realised that the house should be preserved in case they had missed anything and so she refused to sell Claudia’s home. Again quoting from this York Press article by Rob Parsons from 2017:

At one stage [Claudia’s father] Peter said he wanted to sell [the house] but I just had this gut feeling we might need it again and we did because we got a new team in. I fought like mad to get that new team in, and as soon as they started they went over the house. If we had sold it, that wouldn’t have happened.

As we shall see, this was an important decision, which was of inestimable help to Detective Superintendent Dai Malyn, when he started Operation Essence in 2013.

Coming next:

5.10: York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 2: Post Mortem on Operation Cabin Part 2.

The authors will cover:

Detective Sergeant A
Detective Constable A
Failure of management within the CID Team
The police command structure
Failure of the media strategy
Was the investigation affected by NYP politics?
Review reveals failings in Operation Cabin investigation
Operation Cabin: Summary

It will be published shortly.

NYE appeal for information. Have you seen Christopher Halliwell at any time in the period 1987 – 2011?

The NYE has reason to believe he operated in North Yorkshire.

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.

North Yorkshire Police were provided with a copy of the article but chose not to comment.

The NYE Christopher Halliwell series

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:

The breaking of Detective Superintendent Stephen Fulcher. By Tim Hicks
Book review: “Catching a serial killer” by Stephen Fulcher. By Tim Hicks
Christopher Halliwell and Peter Sutcliffe compared. By Chris Clark & Tim Hicks
Christopher Halliwell how many victims? By Chris Clark & Tim Hicks
Christopher Halliwell: The Secret Murders. By Chris Clark & Tim Hicks. Parts 1 – 14.

(1. Wiltshire Police, 2. North Yorkshire Police and 3. Cleveland Police).

Police media operations against the NYE’s Halliwell investigation Part 2

(4. Greater Manchester Police. 5. Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner).

York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 1: Operation Cabin Part 1.
York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 2: Operation Cabin Part 2.
York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 3: Operation Essence.
York: Did Halliwell murder Claudia Lawrence? 4: Why the authors believe Halliwell should be considered as a suspect.
The Swindon
InsideOut Justice. Who murdered Linda Razzell?