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Killer beat earlier murder charge
David Smith brutally murdered Amanda Walker |
Killer David Smith, who is begining a life sentence for the murder of a prostitute, had walked free from court after facing an almost identical charge six years ago.
Smith, who was convicted on Wednesday of killing Amanda Walker, was acquitted of the murder of another prostitute, Sarah Crump, in 1993.
He was cleared after his defence counsel accused police in court of incompetence and of suppressing evidence.
Police denied the allegations and closed the case after the trial, saying they were not looking for anyone else in connection with it.
At the 1993 trial, Smith admitted paying 33-year-old Sarah Crump for sex on the night she died, but denied being involved in her murder.
Ms Crump, who supplemented her income as a psychiatric nurse by working for an escort agency, was found dead in her west London home in August 1991.
Wounds like scars
Marks on her badly decomposed body showed that she had been "dreadfully mutilated" after being stabbed.
The prosecution in the Sarah Crump trial said that the pattern of cuts was almost identical to operation scars on a woman - identified only as Janet - who had Smith had once known but who had rejected him.
The judge at that trial told the jury the coincidence between the scars and Ms Crump's injuries "will be for you to judge".
But Smith's defence counsel, Ronald Thwaites QC, told the jury that police were convinced his client was a murderer and had set out to prove it "at all costs".
The defence said the police had suppressed evidence by failing to disclose unidentified fingerprints found on Ms Crump's door handle and on a drawer and under her bed.
None of Smith's fingerprints were ever found in the house.
'Not equal to case'
Mr Thwaites also questioned the handling of the case by the officer who led the murder inquiry.
He said Detective Inspector Jill McTigue was "not equal to" being in charge of her first murder inquiry.
DI Mc Tigue said she and her officers had "bent over backwards" to alert the defence to all the evidence.
She said after the 1993 trial that she did not take it personally.
The officer, who has since graduated from Cambridge University, is now in charge of a specialist policy unit.
She was not available for comment after Wednesday's conviction of David Smith
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08 Dec 99 | UK |
|
Prostitute murderer gets life |
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