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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:00,880 --> 00:00:02,440 The double jeopardy rule meant that 2 00:00:02,520 --> 00:00:06,280 if you were tried and acquitted, 3 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:08,840 you couldn't stand trial for that charge again. 4 00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:11,720 However, when the double jeopardy law 5 00:00:11,800 --> 00:00:15,440 was abolished in respect of murder, 6 00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:16,640 it became possible to do it. 7 00:00:16,720 --> 00:00:19,960 The police sometimes will periodically go back 8 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:21,400 and look at cold cases 9 00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:25,040 and they will review them to see if there are any grounds 10 00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:28,040 for evidence to take them further forward. 11 00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:30,440 In 2008, 12 00:00:30,520 --> 00:00:32,680 nine years after Maureen went missing, 13 00:00:32,760 --> 00:00:34,840 Colin got hold of the review, 14 00:00:34,920 --> 00:00:37,480 looked at it and he was clearly not happy 15 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:38,920 at what he saw. 16 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:40,920 I mean, this was just a staggering piece of evidence. 17 00:00:42,440 --> 00:00:44,720 His wife has gone missing two days before 18 00:00:44,800 --> 00:00:48,640 and there he is offering a large sum of money 19 00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:52,560 to use a crematorium, 20 00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:54,200 an incinerator, 21 00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:57,000 you know, the only use of those is to dispose of a body. 22 00:00:57,080 --> 00:01:01,480 She disappeared and no-one knows what happened to her, 23 00:01:01,560 --> 00:01:03,240 there was a lot of circumstantial evidence 24 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:04,560 against the husband. 25 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:06,680 I'd say he was shocked, 26 00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:08,280 it was my opinion that he had no idea 27 00:01:08,360 --> 00:01:09,400 that he was going to be arrested 28 00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:11,800 or the police were even reinvestigating the matter. 29 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:14,120 The whole thing cost him his business, 30 00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:17,160 it's cost him everything. 31 00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:19,560 It was a crime of almost breathtaking... 32 00:01:19,640 --> 00:01:21,120 The man who tried to kill her 33 00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:23,280 will never be free to harm again... 34 00:01:23,360 --> 00:01:26,280 The life sentence may provide some closure 35 00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:28,120 for his victims' families. 36 00:01:28,200 --> 00:01:31,480 Targeted young women unable to defend themselves. 37 00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:38,640 Colin Sutton was a detective chief inspector 38 00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:42,920 and senior investigating officer at the Metropolitan Police. 39 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:49,120 He led the investigations into some of the most complex 40 00:01:49,200 --> 00:01:51,240 and high-profile cases ever, 41 00:01:51,320 --> 00:01:53,320 bringing dangerous criminals to justice. 42 00:01:53,400 --> 00:01:54,520 He showed his cowardliness... 43 00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:55,560 Then the screaming... 44 00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:01,160 ..another 146 victims. 45 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:02,480 In this series, 46 00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:04,760 we will take you inside those cases 47 00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:06,840 and show you how he caught these criminals 48 00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:09,640 using nothing but pure detective work. 49 00:02:09,720 --> 00:02:11,880 This is The Real Manhunter. 50 00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:14,600 Now been found guilty on all 25 of those charges. 51 00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:15,720 The oldest victim, 89. 52 00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:18,440 The officer in charge described it as a senseless tragedy. 53 00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:20,560 The life sentence may provide some closure 54 00:02:20,640 --> 00:02:22,240 for his victims' families. 55 00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:26,440 Every SIO, 56 00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:31,680 every murder squad in London carries a number of investigations 57 00:02:31,760 --> 00:02:32,800 that are unsolved 58 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:35,280 and sometimes you get the opportunity 59 00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:38,040 with new evidence or something turning up 60 00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:40,680 that means it's worthwhile re-opening 61 00:02:40,760 --> 00:02:43,640 one of these unsolved investigations. 62 00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:49,080 There are a number of justifications for re-opening a stalled case, 63 00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:51,400 an old cold case if you like, 64 00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:54,920 quite often it's when advancements in science means 65 00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:56,160 you can get DNA from the exhibit, 66 00:02:56,240 --> 00:02:59,720 you couldn't get back at the time or another witness comes forward. 67 00:02:59,800 --> 00:03:01,000 In the case of the disappearance 68 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:02,080 of Maureen Hale, 69 00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:04,440 it was slightly more unusual circumstances. 70 00:03:04,520 --> 00:03:06,720 It was a change in the law. 71 00:03:06,800 --> 00:03:07,800 At the time, 72 00:03:07,880 --> 00:03:12,120 her disappearance was investigated one would hope thoroughly. 73 00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:14,040 Martin Hale was arrested 74 00:03:14,120 --> 00:03:17,040 as prime suspect in her disappearance, 75 00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:19,080 but it could never be established 76 00:03:19,160 --> 00:03:22,920 obviously that she'd been murdered without a body. 77 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,040 That appeared to be no hope of taking the case any further. 78 00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:30,040 So, her disappearance was literally chalked up 79 00:03:30,120 --> 00:03:32,120 as a missing person. 80 00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:35,280 Martin Hale and family continued their lives 81 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:36,320 without Maureen. 82 00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:37,920 The double jeopardy rule meant that 83 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:41,520 if you were tried and acquitted, 84 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:42,720 you couldn't stand trial 85 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:43,920 for that charge again. 86 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:47,560 The fear with the Maureen Hale case was 87 00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:51,880 if her husband Martin had been charged for murdering her 88 00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:53,560 and was acquitted, 89 00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:56,240 when her body hadn't been found, 90 00:03:56,320 --> 00:03:58,560 at some point in the future, 91 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:00,440 the body might be discovered, 92 00:04:00,520 --> 00:04:03,680 there might be really good forensic evidence on that body, 93 00:04:03,760 --> 00:04:05,840 which will point to his guilt, 94 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:08,320 and it wouldn't be possible to take him to court again. 95 00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:11,080 So, that's why it had been held back. 96 00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:15,960 Colin and that team looked at the circumstances here 97 00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:18,160 and decided that they needed to go with it, 98 00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:20,800 and they needed to shake the apple tree 99 00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:22,160 and see what dropped off. 100 00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:23,240 And when we looked 101 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:25,520 at the circumstances 102 00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:27,600 and when we were able 103 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:30,040 to kind of lay it out 104 00:04:30,120 --> 00:04:31,240 and think about 105 00:04:31,320 --> 00:04:32,280 what might have happened 106 00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:33,400 to Maureen Hale, 107 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:36,280 it became an amazingly compelling case 108 00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:39,240 and really it looked 109 00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:41,920 even at the first review 110 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:43,200 as if we didn't need 111 00:04:43,280 --> 00:04:44,240 any more evidence 112 00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:45,960 that was discovered before, 113 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:47,480 but we did find some. 114 00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:51,480 I joined Colin's major investigations team 115 00:04:51,560 --> 00:04:53,560 during the case of the Levi Bellfield, 116 00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:55,920 so I was part of the investigating team there 117 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:58,800 and I worked alongside Colin for a number of years after that 118 00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:00,160 on other investigations. 119 00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:02,920 I hadn't worked with Kev McSharry before. 120 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:07,160 but he had been around the CID in South West London for a long time 121 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:10,640 and a lot of people on the team had worked with him, 122 00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:12,560 and when he became available, 123 00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:14,000 kind of encouraged me to say, 124 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:17,360 you know, we should try and get him onto the team, 125 00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:20,120 and not a single second of regret that I did that 126 00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:22,720 'cause he was a very capable man, 127 00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:24,520 he could be trusted through absolutely everything 128 00:05:24,600 --> 00:05:27,000 and anything to a good standard. 129 00:05:27,080 --> 00:05:29,840 And he did it all with a smile, a nice fellow too, 130 00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:34,440 so he was a really valuable addition to the team at the time. 131 00:05:34,520 --> 00:05:35,960 In 2008, 132 00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:38,240 the Metropolitan Police decided to do a cold case review 133 00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:41,720 on the disappearance of Maureen Hale 134 00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:44,840 and that's when a fresh investigation 135 00:05:44,920 --> 00:05:46,240 was initiated. 136 00:05:46,320 --> 00:05:49,480 It was during the trial of Levi Bellfield 137 00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:51,200 and obviously he was very, very stretched, 138 00:05:51,280 --> 00:05:54,000 but he made sure he spoke to me every morning 139 00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:55,080 because I was the case officer, 140 00:05:55,160 --> 00:05:57,880 and my job was the day to day running of the investigation, 141 00:05:57,960 --> 00:06:00,680 so we would discuss what was happening that day 142 00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:03,360 and how we were gonna move the investigation forward. 143 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:05,000 We had to do the two simultaneously, 144 00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:06,600 if we were going to really make some progress 145 00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:07,840 with Maureen Hale's disappearance, 146 00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:10,440 so that was why that was really given off 147 00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:13,080 to another part of the team, and principally, 148 00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:17,200 DS Kevin McSharry and DI Amy Perrot had a look at that 149 00:06:17,280 --> 00:06:20,680 and once we were able then to finally disentangle ourselves 150 00:06:20,760 --> 00:06:22,680 from the Bellfield investigation, 151 00:06:22,760 --> 00:06:24,120 then Maureen Hale's disappearance 152 00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:27,160 became a kind of priority focus for the team. 153 00:06:27,240 --> 00:06:30,440 It was given to our team to revisit all the witnesses, 154 00:06:30,520 --> 00:06:33,480 look at all the evidence and make decisions around 155 00:06:33,560 --> 00:06:35,760 what direction that investigation would then take. 156 00:06:37,160 --> 00:06:40,120 Maureen Hale was born as Maureen Weatherly, 157 00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:42,560 and she got married at a young age, she was about 19, 158 00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:44,800 she got married to a man called Agg, 159 00:06:44,880 --> 00:06:46,320 so she became Maureen Agg 160 00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:49,200 and they, together, had a son called Nathan. 161 00:06:49,280 --> 00:06:52,040 And when that marriage split up, 162 00:06:52,120 --> 00:06:53,240 she took Nathan, 163 00:06:53,320 --> 00:06:54,280 he was still quite young then, 164 00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:56,520 she took him with her 165 00:06:56,600 --> 00:06:58,080 and then when she got together 166 00:06:58,160 --> 00:06:59,200 with Martin Hale, 167 00:06:59,280 --> 00:07:02,200 Nathan was adopted into the family. 168 00:07:02,280 --> 00:07:05,160 And although they went on to have four more children, 169 00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:07,280 Nathan was very much part of the family 170 00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:08,600 and they always thought of themselves 171 00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:10,400 as having five children. 172 00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:14,320 Maureen Hale really fell nicely into her role 173 00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:16,480 as sort of stock broker belt mother. 174 00:07:16,560 --> 00:07:19,000 She didn't work, she didn't have to work. 175 00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:21,520 Martin's business was booming, 176 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:23,600 and she spent her time looking after the children. 177 00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:25,480 And then while the children were at school, 178 00:07:25,560 --> 00:07:29,000 it would be coffee mornings and gym sessions 179 00:07:29,080 --> 00:07:32,240 and socialising with the other women in the area 180 00:07:32,320 --> 00:07:33,720 that were in a similar position to her, 181 00:07:33,800 --> 00:07:38,160 and she had a lot of friends. 182 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:40,320 Martin Hale was essentially a self-made man. 183 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:43,160 He started off with the fruit and vegetables at Kingston Market 184 00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:46,160 and by the '90s he had built up a business worth 185 00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:47,200 over a million pounds 186 00:07:47,280 --> 00:07:49,360 based at Western International Market. 187 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:52,240 It was wholesaling fruit and vegetables. 188 00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:54,680 It was a lucrative and profitable business for him, 189 00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:56,640 he employed two or three people. 190 00:07:56,720 --> 00:07:58,120 And the profits from that meant 191 00:07:58,200 --> 00:08:00,200 they could afford to live in Ember Court Road 192 00:08:00,280 --> 00:08:03,120 in a five-bedroom detached house in the stock broker belt. 193 00:08:04,920 --> 00:08:07,040 Maureen Hale didn't have to work, 194 00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:08,560 she brought up the five children 195 00:08:08,640 --> 00:08:11,880 and she became part of the local sort of mum's set 196 00:08:11,960 --> 00:08:14,680 going to coffee mornings, making friends, 197 00:08:14,760 --> 00:08:17,480 to all external appearances she had an idyllic life. 198 00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:20,600 Martin Hale was a trader in here for many, many years. 199 00:08:20,680 --> 00:08:22,960 He was one of the biggest wholesalers 200 00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:24,760 in Western International. 201 00:08:24,840 --> 00:08:27,120 I used to work opposite Martin, 202 00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:29,160 did so for a number of years. 203 00:08:29,240 --> 00:08:32,520 Very quiet man, just a decent sort of chap. 204 00:08:32,600 --> 00:08:34,760 He had a very good catering business which did restaurants 205 00:08:34,840 --> 00:08:36,880 and food service side that was very good, 206 00:08:36,960 --> 00:08:38,160 he had the wholesale unit, 207 00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:41,640 and then he had his retail unit as well, 208 00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:44,520 which seemed to work very well. 209 00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:46,560 Very hard working, very conscientious, 210 00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:48,960 did everything right as far as the stand goes, 211 00:08:49,040 --> 00:08:50,840 yeah, well run stand, good business. 212 00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:52,720 But it did have its pressures for him though, 213 00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:55,000 as it was a trade that works in the early hours of the morning. 214 00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:57,200 It meant that for years he was getting up 215 00:08:57,280 --> 00:09:00,000 at 2:00 in the morning six days a week, 216 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:01,800 and although he was home by lunchtime, 217 00:09:01,880 --> 00:09:04,400 that sort of lifestyle puts pressure on anybody. 218 00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:07,520 The hours are a bit off, it's got earlier and earlier. 219 00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:09,560 It used to be a 5:00 start, 220 00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:11,240 we're now here by 1:00, 221 00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:13,560 some of the guys are even here at midnight. 222 00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:15,240 There's two different sets to the business, 223 00:09:15,320 --> 00:09:17,720 there's the wholesale business, then there's the food service. 224 00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:20,160 The food services are 24 hours, they supply restaurants. 225 00:09:20,240 --> 00:09:24,200 He would come home, and he would grab some sleep 226 00:09:24,280 --> 00:09:25,960 and then he'd be back again 227 00:09:26,040 --> 00:09:27,400 early hours of the morning 228 00:09:27,480 --> 00:09:28,920 and it was a tough life in that way. 229 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:30,840 To the outside world, 230 00:09:30,920 --> 00:09:33,920 they appeared to be a happy married couple, 231 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:36,960 living a comfortable lifestyle. 232 00:09:37,040 --> 00:09:38,360 But in reality, 233 00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:43,320 Martin and Maureen had a fractious relationship. 234 00:09:43,400 --> 00:09:44,880 There had been suggestions 235 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:47,360 that he had assaulted her in the past. 236 00:09:48,720 --> 00:09:52,640 Martin Hale working all the hours he can virtually, 237 00:09:52,720 --> 00:09:55,200 Maureen's got her life with children, 238 00:09:55,280 --> 00:09:56,280 taking children to school, 239 00:09:56,360 --> 00:09:59,840 coffee mornings with the other mums and that sort of thing. 240 00:09:59,920 --> 00:10:02,600 And it took a toll on their marriage 241 00:10:02,680 --> 00:10:04,840 and then they started arguing 242 00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:06,720 and that was when Maureen, 243 00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:09,560 despite all the wonderful surroundings she had, 244 00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:11,800 the home, the children and everything, thought, 245 00:10:11,880 --> 00:10:14,160 you know, there could be more to life than this 246 00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:17,800 and she started thinking about being with somebody else, 247 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:19,000 and that was what led her 248 00:10:19,080 --> 00:10:22,440 into starting affairs outside the marriage. 249 00:10:22,520 --> 00:10:26,240 Maureen being unhappy in her marriage, 250 00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:28,160 feeling that she wasn't really getting 251 00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:32,520 the companionship she wanted from Martin, 252 00:10:32,600 --> 00:10:34,000 started to look elsewhere 253 00:10:34,080 --> 00:10:35,920 and the first person 254 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:36,960 she turned to 255 00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:38,040 was a man called John Potter 256 00:10:38,120 --> 00:10:39,760 who was a local plumber 257 00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:40,960 who'd done some work for them, 258 00:10:41,040 --> 00:10:42,320 was friendly with them. 259 00:10:42,400 --> 00:10:43,720 And that never came for her, 260 00:10:43,800 --> 00:10:45,160 I think, she went out for a drink with him 261 00:10:45,240 --> 00:10:48,440 and they might have had a quick kiss in his car, 262 00:10:48,520 --> 00:10:50,880 but what happened was that for some reason Martin 263 00:10:50,960 --> 00:10:53,760 had suspected something was going on between the two. 264 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:57,320 And he had put a recording device in Maureen's car, 265 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:00,400 and he had a recording of her with John Potter 266 00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:04,320 and was able to confront her with it and she had to admit it 267 00:11:04,400 --> 00:11:06,640 and it caused further conflict between them. 268 00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:07,800 It's perhaps worth thinking, 269 00:11:07,880 --> 00:11:10,680 you know, that most people don't feel 270 00:11:10,760 --> 00:11:13,960 the need to put listening devices into their partner's cars, 271 00:11:14,040 --> 00:11:16,440 there was obviously something going on, 272 00:11:16,520 --> 00:11:21,800 some sort of suspicion in Martin Hale's mind 273 00:11:21,880 --> 00:11:23,920 that Maureen was up to something or might be up to something, 274 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,880 otherwise he wouldn't have gone to those lengths 275 00:11:26,960 --> 00:11:29,720 to record her in the car when she went out. 276 00:11:29,800 --> 00:11:33,120 Clearly Martin Hale had a lot to lose, 277 00:11:33,200 --> 00:11:36,320 if Maureen walked out the door and divorced him, 278 00:11:36,400 --> 00:11:37,920 there were five children, 279 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:40,040 there was an expensive house, 280 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:41,960 there was a thriving business. 281 00:11:42,040 --> 00:11:46,800 And she potentially had claims on all of those things 282 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:48,440 if they divorced. 283 00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:51,480 So, the next time 284 00:11:51,560 --> 00:11:54,720 she was a little bit more careful I suppose. 285 00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:58,440 And she struck up a relationship with a man called Andrew Horton. 286 00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:03,040 Now, Horton was a gardener, 287 00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:06,240 he worked at the military cemetery at Brookwood. 288 00:12:06,320 --> 00:12:11,080 And Maureen Hale had been there visiting with her friends 289 00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:13,920 to look at the gardens and the flowers there, 290 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:15,840 got into a conversation with him 291 00:12:15,920 --> 00:12:18,280 and they had exchanged phone numbers. 292 00:12:18,360 --> 00:12:20,840 It's quite fair to say that 293 00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:26,200 Andrew Horton was probably somebody you'd describe as a ladies' man. 294 00:12:26,280 --> 00:12:30,320 He was not backward at trying to make new relationships 295 00:12:30,400 --> 00:12:34,280 with women he encountered during his job. 296 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:37,760 Maureen, although she was absolutely devoted 297 00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:39,000 to her children, 298 00:12:39,080 --> 00:12:41,440 became disillusioned with the marriage. 299 00:12:41,520 --> 00:12:45,040 And there were one or two episodes of severe arguments 300 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:48,280 between her and Martin, some domestic violence, 301 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:51,000 although not to cause serious injuries. 302 00:12:51,080 --> 00:12:54,280 Maureen decided in 1999 303 00:12:54,360 --> 00:12:57,240 that the marriage really wasn't gonna go anywhere, 304 00:12:57,320 --> 00:12:58,880 and she needed to be out of it 305 00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:01,520 and she was going to file for divorce. 306 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:04,640 This all came to a head on the 22 June, 1999. 307 00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:07,040 It was the very day that Maureen Hale 308 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:09,880 had divorce papers served on Martin Hale, 309 00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:12,640 and about 10:00 that night in their house here, 310 00:13:12,720 --> 00:13:14,000 they had a terrible row. 311 00:13:14,080 --> 00:13:16,680 Blazing noisy row that all the children heard. 312 00:13:18,320 --> 00:13:21,960 Martin Hale's version of events was that at the end of that row, 313 00:13:22,040 --> 00:13:23,520 Maureen Hale took up, 314 00:13:23,600 --> 00:13:26,360 left the house and was never seen again. 315 00:13:29,920 --> 00:13:32,760 The police sometimes will periodically go back 316 00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:35,520 and look at cold cases and they will review them 317 00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:39,400 to see if there are any grounds for evidence 318 00:13:39,480 --> 00:13:40,840 to take them further forward. 319 00:13:40,920 --> 00:13:43,440 In 2008, 320 00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:46,240 nine years after Maureen went missing, 321 00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:48,440 Colin got hold of the review, 322 00:13:48,520 --> 00:13:51,160 looked at it and he was clearly not happy 323 00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:52,240 at what he saw. 324 00:13:52,320 --> 00:13:53,600 Maureen was still outstanding, 325 00:13:53,680 --> 00:13:56,840 and the investigation had never come to a conclusion. 326 00:13:56,920 --> 00:14:01,240 So, the Metropolitan Police decided there would be a cold case review. 327 00:14:01,320 --> 00:14:07,000 When we started to re-open the case of Maureen Hale's disappearance, 328 00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:09,640 the first thing we did was to repeat all those inquiries 329 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:11,120 that had been made nearly a decade before 330 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:12,360 when she went missing first of all. 331 00:14:12,440 --> 00:14:14,400 So, we looked at her bank account, 332 00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:17,360 her doctors, her dentist, 333 00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:20,760 hospital records, all her friends, 334 00:14:20,840 --> 00:14:23,960 all her family that we could trace, 335 00:14:24,040 --> 00:14:25,360 and we got the same answers, 336 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:28,080 nothing, still no trace of her, 337 00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:32,280 no brush with officialdom since 1999. 338 00:14:32,360 --> 00:14:34,280 She disappeared 339 00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:37,160 and no-one knows what happened to her, 340 00:14:37,240 --> 00:14:39,080 there was a lot of circumstantial evidence 341 00:14:39,160 --> 00:14:40,400 against the husband. 342 00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:43,000 On the evening she was last seen, 343 00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:47,240 she certainly had an argument with Martin Hale 344 00:14:47,320 --> 00:14:50,800 and the children in the house gave evidence of this. 345 00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:52,360 They heard a noisy argument 346 00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:54,640 between the parents. 347 00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:56,280 Coincidentally perhaps, 348 00:14:56,360 --> 00:14:59,840 it was the day that Martin Hale had received 349 00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:02,080 the divorce papers through the post 350 00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:04,840 saying that his wife wanted a divorce. 351 00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:10,480 It wasn't until 25 June, 1999, 352 00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:13,400 some three days after Maureen Hale had disappeared 353 00:15:13,480 --> 00:15:15,080 that her husband Martin Hale came here 354 00:15:15,160 --> 00:15:18,840 to Kingston Police station to report her missing. 355 00:15:18,920 --> 00:15:20,720 The missing person report was assessed 356 00:15:20,800 --> 00:15:23,120 as they always are by a supervising officer 357 00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:25,480 to see if anything else needed to be done. 358 00:15:26,760 --> 00:15:30,520 No hide or hair was ever heard from her again, 359 00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:32,920 she didn't attend dental appointments, 360 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:35,520 there was no money taken from her account, 361 00:15:35,600 --> 00:15:38,680 she didn't take her son to a medical appointment, 362 00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:40,880 which her friends found very strange, 363 00:15:40,960 --> 00:15:43,840 and she missed out on not going to a concert 364 00:15:43,920 --> 00:15:45,160 which she had tickets for 365 00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:49,520 and had been eagerly looking forward to going. 366 00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:50,920 For all intents and purposes, 367 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:53,280 she just disappeared into thin air. 368 00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:55,200 And then finally in the middle of July, 369 00:15:55,280 --> 00:15:58,520 so about two or three weeks after the missing report was made, 370 00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:00,720 the police here in Kingston decided 371 00:16:00,800 --> 00:16:04,000 to arrest Martin Hale on suspicion of murder. 372 00:16:04,080 --> 00:16:05,040 They never had the evidence, 373 00:16:05,120 --> 00:16:06,360 they knew they didn't have the evidence 374 00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:07,440 to charge him with 375 00:16:07,520 --> 00:16:10,000 unless he admitted it once he was arrested. 376 00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:12,240 But it did give them the opportunity to interview him, 377 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:13,480 get his side of the story, 378 00:16:13,560 --> 00:16:14,640 his account 379 00:16:14,720 --> 00:16:19,960 and also to search both his home and his workplace. 380 00:16:20,040 --> 00:16:22,760 The gist of the allegation was that Maureen 381 00:16:22,840 --> 00:16:25,640 had wanted a divorce from her husband 382 00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:30,200 and he didn't want to settle an expensive divorce claim 383 00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:34,080 and lose his house and lose his children potentially, 384 00:16:34,160 --> 00:16:36,680 and the argument was that he decided to kill her 385 00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:40,480 rather than go through the divorce. 386 00:16:40,560 --> 00:16:43,240 So, if Martin Hale were to be believed 387 00:16:43,320 --> 00:16:47,920 and she just literally upped and left after the argument, 388 00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:50,200 she'd done that without any 389 00:16:50,280 --> 00:16:52,120 of the basic sort of necessities, 390 00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:55,360 clothing, means of support, money, 391 00:16:55,440 --> 00:16:56,880 means of communication, 392 00:16:56,960 --> 00:16:58,760 means of transport. 393 00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:03,040 No trace of Maureen Hale 394 00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:06,440 existed officially after that moment, 395 00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:10,280 she hadn't spoken to her doctor, her dentist, 396 00:17:10,360 --> 00:17:13,840 hadn't used her bank account, hadn't used her mobile phone. 397 00:17:13,920 --> 00:17:16,920 Everything was just dead. 398 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:19,800 There was no trace of her in any way. 399 00:17:19,880 --> 00:17:21,680 She hadn't contacted any of her friends, 400 00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:24,240 her other family and crucially 401 00:17:24,320 --> 00:17:27,320 she hadn't contacted any one of her five children. 402 00:17:28,800 --> 00:17:32,000 Everybody said that this was just completely out of character, 403 00:17:32,080 --> 00:17:35,600 even if it had all got too much for her 404 00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:37,440 and she disappeared, 405 00:17:37,520 --> 00:17:39,200 she would still have maintained contact 406 00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:40,400 with those children. 407 00:17:43,360 --> 00:17:47,000 There were a number of things that were out of the ordinary 408 00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:49,760 in relation to Martin Hale's business here 409 00:17:49,840 --> 00:17:52,600 on the night that Maureen Hale went missing. 410 00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:56,400 First, he called his manager and told him that he was unwell 411 00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:58,800 and he wouldn't be in to work that night, 412 00:17:58,880 --> 00:18:01,800 but the manager drove past Martin Hale's house 413 00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:04,600 at 2:00am as he did every day, 414 00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:05,840 and they used to sort of check 415 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:08,480 to make sure each other had woken up, 416 00:18:08,560 --> 00:18:11,360 and he noticed that Martin Hale's BMW car 417 00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:12,400 was missing. 418 00:18:12,480 --> 00:18:13,440 So, he found this a bit odd, 419 00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:16,160 and his boss had phoned him to say, "I'm not well. 420 00:18:16,240 --> 00:18:17,560 "I'm not coming to work" 421 00:18:17,640 --> 00:18:20,560 but when he went past his house in the early hours of the morning, 422 00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:23,560 his car wasn't there implying that he was out somewhere. 423 00:18:23,640 --> 00:18:26,760 You could say that was suspicious. 424 00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:32,720 There were further circumstances which would have created suspicion. 425 00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:34,640 When the manager got to work, 426 00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:36,360 they found that there was a spade missing, 427 00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:39,200 they had a spade that they use for clearing up the rubbish 428 00:18:39,280 --> 00:18:41,400 and bits of old fruit and veg 429 00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:43,600 and they had to find another way of doing it for a few days 430 00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:47,400 and then Martin Hale brought the spade back to work 431 00:18:47,480 --> 00:18:49,600 and he was not asked about it, and nobody said anything about it. 432 00:18:49,680 --> 00:18:50,640 He was the boss. 433 00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:53,120 He could do what he likes, but it was an odd thing 434 00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:55,800 that he would want to use the spade at home for reason 435 00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:58,280 during that period immediately after Maureen went missing. 436 00:18:58,360 --> 00:19:00,720 Lastly, both Martin Hale as the owner of the business 437 00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:02,440 and his manager had company cars, 438 00:19:02,520 --> 00:19:05,760 but they were very different, Martin's was a 7 Series BMW, 439 00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:08,360 whereas the manager had a little Ford Fiesta. 440 00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:14,120 An employee of Mr Hale stated that on the night in question 441 00:19:14,200 --> 00:19:16,120 when Maureen vanished, Martin, 442 00:19:16,200 --> 00:19:17,840 Mr Hale had rung him 443 00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:21,960 and said that he wanted to use his Ford Fiesta car. 444 00:19:22,040 --> 00:19:24,200 He said, "Well, I just fancied a change, 445 00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:26,120 "I'm allowed to change my mind, 446 00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:28,280 you know, "they are both cars belonging to my business 447 00:19:28,360 --> 00:19:29,400 "and I'm entitled to drive them, 448 00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:32,480 "and I just fancied driving something different for a while." 449 00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:37,320 During the course of the search of Martin Hale's house, 450 00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:38,600 a briefcase was recovered 451 00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:41,680 and within that briefcase was a list. 452 00:19:41,760 --> 00:19:44,720 In his briefcase were the divorce papers 453 00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:47,360 that Maureen had had sent to him, 454 00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:49,480 and with them was a pad, 455 00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:50,760 and on that pad, 456 00:19:50,840 --> 00:19:52,040 in Martin Hale's own handwriting, 457 00:19:52,120 --> 00:19:54,920 which he admitted to writing himself, 458 00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:58,520 there was a numbered list of four choices, 459 00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:02,120 "At sea, landfill, 460 00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:05,880 "acid, by fire," 461 00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:08,480 and when he was asked why he had written that, 462 00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:11,720 he said he'd been having some dark thoughts 463 00:20:11,800 --> 00:20:15,960 and he thought about if he were to kill his wife, 464 00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:19,200 how would he be able to dispose of the body. 465 00:20:19,280 --> 00:20:22,000 And he had written that down as his brainstorming session 466 00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:25,120 with himself, but of course he never meant it 467 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:26,640 and never come through with it 468 00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:28,280 and never did go through with it. 469 00:20:28,360 --> 00:20:30,000 He told the investigating officers, 470 00:20:30,080 --> 00:20:31,280 the interviewing officers 471 00:20:31,360 --> 00:20:34,360 that he was going through a black time at that stage 472 00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:36,920 and that he used to make notes about absolutely anything. 473 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:42,200 He said, "Yes, I did write it, that's what they are, 474 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:44,080 "I was in a particularly dark place, 475 00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:45,520 "but it doesn't mean I did it, 476 00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:47,800 "I was just writing down dark thoughts." 477 00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:50,280 Now, who knows why someone would have wanted 478 00:20:50,360 --> 00:20:52,320 to write those things down, 479 00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:53,520 but it could be argued 480 00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:58,600 that it may be in the instance of disposing of a body. 481 00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:02,000 When the double jeopardy rule was changed 482 00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:04,360 and it became possible to try people twice 483 00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:06,400 for the same murder, 484 00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:11,080 then that really was the removal of the barrier to prosecuting him, 485 00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:13,680 so that was why in 2008, 486 00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:18,120 we decided to re-open the investigation thinking that 487 00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:20,360 even if we couldn't find the body, 488 00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:22,800 then we still had a chance for prosecution. 489 00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:27,880 It's so difficult to search in this part of the world. 490 00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:31,760 There's so many woods and forest and opens land, 491 00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:34,800 we saw that in the Millie Dowler investigation 492 00:21:34,880 --> 00:21:38,200 where Surrey police searched their county virtually continuously 493 00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:41,560 for six months and still hadn't competed it, 494 00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:45,160 there was no way that we could do a speculative search like that. 495 00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:47,040 If we were going to search somewhere, 496 00:21:47,120 --> 00:21:50,080 we had to be doing it on firm intelligence, 497 00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:53,520 with a good idea that we were gonna succeed. 498 00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:57,080 So, when it came to the searches that we were going to do 499 00:21:57,160 --> 00:21:59,640 for Maureen Hale's body, 500 00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:03,720 we had to be a little bit selective and the only place really 501 00:22:03,800 --> 00:22:06,200 that we had any source of intelligence 502 00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:08,800 or idea that it was a good place to look 503 00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:10,320 was of course the family home. 504 00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:11,360 They had a large garden 505 00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:14,560 and we searched not only inside the house 506 00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:16,920 and the building but the entire grounds 507 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:19,200 and that even meant as far as removing 508 00:22:19,280 --> 00:22:22,360 a recently erected shed and looking underneath it, 509 00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:25,760 we had ground penetrating radar there 510 00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:27,480 to see if we can find areas of land 511 00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:30,560 that had been recently turned open or disturbed, 512 00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:32,560 and the whole thing took three or four days 513 00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:36,080 and was quite a large operation. 514 00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:37,480 But of course it came to nothing 515 00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:39,960 and we found no trace of her there. 516 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,800 when the back garden was re-examined and that was dug up 517 00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:54,440 to see if they could find a trace of her there which they didn't. 518 00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:55,720 We dug up the patio 519 00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:59,480 and we dug up areas of interest in the garden, 520 00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:01,240 but we never found any body 521 00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:04,720 or any bones or anything like that. 522 00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:06,840 I don't think that they realistically 523 00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:11,680 would have had any expectation of finding Maureen, wherein, 524 00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:14,560 you know, lay the great problem with this case 525 00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:16,680 because without her body 526 00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:19,240 and the potential forensic opportunities 527 00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:21,280 that might have thrown up, 528 00:23:21,360 --> 00:23:26,960 it neither rules Martin Hale in as a definite suspect 529 00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:29,760 nor rules him out as definitely being innocent, 530 00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:32,520 at least in the eyes of the police. 531 00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:33,840 During the course of the investigation, 532 00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:36,920 we were contacted by a man by the name of Timothy Gilbert, 533 00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:40,760 he was the manager of the Silvermere Pet Crematorium, 534 00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:44,480 and he told us that around the time that Maureen Hale went missing, 535 00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:46,520 he was approached by a member of the public 536 00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:48,520 who asked to hire the crematorium. 537 00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:52,920 There was another remarkable piece of evidence. 538 00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:57,400 And Martin Hale was in the habit of drinking 539 00:23:57,480 --> 00:23:59,320 in a sports club 540 00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:03,160 which is effectively in the middle of Sandown Park race course, 541 00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:04,680 but there is a bar and he used to go in there 542 00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:06,320 and drink quite a lot. 543 00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:09,160 And just a day or two 544 00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,440 after Maureen had gone missing, 545 00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:17,800 he is in the bar and he meets a man 546 00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:20,000 he went to school with, went to primary school with 547 00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:23,400 but he hasn't seen for 30 or 40 years. 548 00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:25,840 And he's chatting to him and this man tells him 549 00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:30,360 that he's now the manager of a pet cemetery 550 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,640 and golf course down in Cobham called Silvermere. 551 00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,000 So, Martin says, "That sounds really interesting. 552 00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:38,240 "I might pop down and have a look," 553 00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:41,080 and the man who he was speaking to, 554 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,440 the old friend thought that he meant the golf course 555 00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:45,720 and he was interested in playing golf. 556 00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:49,440 But Martin Hale turned up there the very next day. 557 00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:51,280 And it wasn't the golf course he was interested in, 558 00:24:51,360 --> 00:24:52,320 it was the crematorium. 559 00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,560 He asked the manager 560 00:24:55,640 --> 00:25:00,480 if he ever rented out the incinerators at the crematorium 561 00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:03,000 and he looks at him, you know, aghast and said, "No," 562 00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:05,360 and Martin Hale then said, 563 00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:10,400 "What if I were to offer you 20,000 pounds, 564 00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:13,800 "would you let me borrow one for the weekend then?" 565 00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,440 We found this quite interesting because it wasn't the norm 566 00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:18,360 and we asked Mr Gilbert, "Was it the norm?" 567 00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:19,760 And he said it was very, very unusual 568 00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:22,640 for individuals to approach and ask to hire it, 569 00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:24,800 not to cremate an animal, 570 00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,440 so he found it very interesting, 571 00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:29,320 and we also found it very interesting. 572 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:32,920 I mean, this was just a staggering piece of evidence. 573 00:25:34,360 --> 00:25:37,200 His wife has gone missing two days before 574 00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:40,560 and there he is offering a large sum of money 575 00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:44,520 to use a crematorium, 576 00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:46,160 an incinerator, 577 00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:49,400 you know, the only use of those is to dispose of a body. 578 00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,000 He just said, "No, that didn't happen, 579 00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:53,960 "I went there, I spoke to the man in charge, 580 00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:56,480 "who was an old friend from primary school. 581 00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,480 "But I went there to look and talk about the golf course, 582 00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,520 "not about the pet crematorium." 583 00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:05,520 The legal position is when someone has been missing 584 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:07,600 and there is no proof of life for over seven years, 585 00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:10,400 you can apply to the court to have them ruled 586 00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:11,440 and deemed as dead 587 00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:15,320 and that leaves you free to marry again 588 00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:19,320 and also claim on any insurances or various other things. 589 00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:21,560 You know, that the person is legally treated as dead then, 590 00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,160 although there is no hard evidence of it. 591 00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:25,320 As I understand it, 592 00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,920 it was very shortly after that seven-year period was up 593 00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,200 that Martin Hale made the application to the court. 594 00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:33,200 The court had no option but to declare her dead 595 00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,640 because there was absolutely no trace 596 00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:37,120 of her being alive 597 00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,840 since that day in 1999 when she was last seen. 598 00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:42,720 Our thought was you know, 599 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:44,800 if you put everything we know about this case 600 00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:46,960 in front of the jury, and you have got, 601 00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,440 you know, Hale trying to lose his car 602 00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:51,920 for a few days, 603 00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:53,880 borrowing a shovel from work, 604 00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:55,880 listing on a piece of paper 605 00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:57,360 the ways which he might dispose 606 00:26:57,440 --> 00:26:58,840 of his wife's body, 607 00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:03,960 and then asking if he could pay a large sum of money 608 00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,240 to rent a pet crematorium for the afternoon. 609 00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:09,320 There's so much there 610 00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:12,040 to build a circumstantial case 611 00:27:12,120 --> 00:27:14,840 that I thought it was time we went to the CPS 612 00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:16,480 and said, "What do you think?" 613 00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:21,400 A file was eventually presented to the Crown Prosecution Service 614 00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:23,960 and because he never had previously been charged 615 00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:27,320 or taken to court and acquitted, 616 00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:30,480 there were no double jeopardy issues, 617 00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:34,400 and the CPS gave the go ahead for him to be prosecuted 618 00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:35,800 on a charge of murder. 619 00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:37,040 It didn't take the CPS very long 620 00:27:37,120 --> 00:27:38,080 to come back to us 621 00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:39,120 and say, "Yeah, we've looked 622 00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:40,240 at this circumstantial evidence 623 00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:43,200 "and we think there's a realistic prospect 624 00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:44,520 "of conviction here," 625 00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:46,480 and that's the criteria they use, 626 00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,560 "Go and charge him." 627 00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:51,200 I was the arresting officer for Martin Hale. 628 00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,840 Colin Sutton had decided that he wouldn't be arrested 629 00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:54,960 at his home address 630 00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,120 because we didn't want to bring any more pain 631 00:27:58,200 --> 00:27:59,200 to his family. 632 00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:00,680 So, it was decided he'd be followed away 633 00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:02,800 from his address, 634 00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:04,080 when he came to a stop, 635 00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,480 we'd engage with him and he would be arrested, 636 00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,000 unfortunately as we were following his car away, 637 00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:12,120 the surveillance team lost sight of him, 638 00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:16,680 and we bomb-bursted to all corners of Surrey 639 00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:17,760 to try and find him. 640 00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:19,960 I parked up in a Tesco's car park 641 00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,640 and was reviewing what was said in the logs. 642 00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:26,080 It said he left his home address with an orange carrier bag, 643 00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:28,360 and as I sat in the car on my own, 644 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:30,400 I thought, "Halfords," 645 00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,160 so I drove to the nearest Halfords and his car was parked up there. 646 00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:36,560 He came out of Halfords with another male, 647 00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:37,840 as he approached his car, 648 00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:39,880 I stopped him, introduced myself, 649 00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,120 and formally arrested him and cautioned him. 650 00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:43,800 I had never met him, 651 00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:47,120 so I hadn't formed an opinion on him, 652 00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:48,840 during the cold case review, 653 00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:50,880 I met him on a number of occasions, 654 00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:55,040 and I found him to be accessible, 655 00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:56,560 he would always talk. 656 00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:59,040 Pretty normal to be perfectly honest, 657 00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:00,280 I didn't dislike him, 658 00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:03,105 but I had a job to do and that's what I had to do. 659 00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:03,240 GOOD EVENING 660 00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:06,280 When Martin Hale was arrested, he was polite, 661 00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:07,840 you know, he was a reasonable man. 662 00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:09,800 He was a man who ran a business 663 00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:11,520 and knew how to interact with people. 664 00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:13,360 I'd say he was shocked, 665 00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:15,120 it was my opinion that he had no idea 666 00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:16,440 that he was going to be arrested 667 00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:18,800 or the police were even reinvestigating the matter, 668 00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:20,720 so when I formally arrested him, 669 00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,880 the expression on his face I'd describe as sheer shock. 670 00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:28,680 Martin Hale was arrested, interviewed, 671 00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,040 and he denied knowing anything more than he had said before 672 00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:33,600 about the disappearance of his wife, 673 00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:35,200 that he had nothing to do with it at all. 674 00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:36,640 So, we were always unable 675 00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:38,520 to find Hale's body, 676 00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:42,160 but nevertheless we went to court in 2008 677 00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:48,160 and we were reasonably confident that we had enough evidence 678 00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:50,760 that any reasonable jury 679 00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:52,800 would look at all the facts 680 00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:53,880 and conclude 681 00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,000 that she must have been murdered by him. 682 00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,080 The children didn't know which way to turn, 683 00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:02,400 once we'd arrested him and charged him 684 00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,720 because they've already lost their mother, 685 00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:07,680 they've lived with their father growing up 686 00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:09,240 into adults, most of them 687 00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,200 and, you know, it was really difficult for us 688 00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:12,600 to deal with them 689 00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:16,640 because they wanted to be supportive of their father 690 00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,120 and we sort of tried to deploy family liaison officers 691 00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:21,160 to them as we would do 692 00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,480 to the children of any murder victim. 693 00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:25,000 But of course, the difficulty was, 694 00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,760 the suspect was also very close to them, 695 00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,120 it's a really unusual situation. 696 00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:34,520 The children I'm sure were extremely traumatised 697 00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:35,560 by losing their mother 698 00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:38,240 and I'm aware that they supported their father 699 00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:40,520 throughout the whole trial process 700 00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:41,680 and didn't believe 701 00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:43,160 that he could have killed their mother. 702 00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:44,560 And perhaps even more so 703 00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:48,480 because they'd spent the last seven or eight years 704 00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:50,440 thinking their mother has deserted them 705 00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:52,080 and they are living with their father, 706 00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:54,840 so there is a lot of kind of conflict 707 00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:57,160 and conflicted ideas and views 708 00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:58,760 for those young people to understand. 709 00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:00,840 It was something we were never 710 00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:03,040 really able to come 711 00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:04,520 to terms with satisfactorily, 712 00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:07,760 the relationship that we had with the children 713 00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:09,800 was always a little bit at arm's length. 714 00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:11,160 It wasn't like 715 00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,360 a normal family liaison relationship 716 00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:15,560 because of that. 717 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:20,520 By the time the case came to trial in 2009, 718 00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:23,480 Martin Hale had already had his wife, Maureen, 719 00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:25,600 declared legally dead by the court. 720 00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,400 Although we had to go 721 00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:30,240 through the process of proving that 722 00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:31,600 and making sure that we could find 723 00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:33,280 no trace of her being alive, 724 00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:34,320 I really don't think 725 00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:35,440 that was an issue for the jury, 726 00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:39,440 their sole issue was who killed her. 727 00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,560 The defence case was clearly 728 00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:44,400 that Martin Hale had nothing to do with it. 729 00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:46,440 He couldn't answer anything more than he'd answered already, 730 00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:47,840 he didn't know what happened to his wife, 731 00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:48,920 she just left. 732 00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:50,200 What they also did though 733 00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,920 was they kind of exploited 734 00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:55,880 the lover Andrew Horton. 735 00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,760 Martin Hale was eventually charged with his wife's murder 736 00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:03,960 and stood trial here in Kingston Crown Court 737 00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:07,520 in January and February 2009. 738 00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:10,560 What happened was that Andrew Horton who was Maureen Hale's lover 739 00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:12,480 was called as a witness. 740 00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:16,520 He gave a rather colourful account of his lifestyle 741 00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,040 and his philandering and misogyny I suppose. 742 00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:22,120 And he told the jury all about 743 00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:25,080 how he would often have several lovers 744 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:26,240 on the go at the same time 745 00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,680 and I don't think he really endeared himself to the jury. 746 00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:33,560 And the defence then called a couple of his former girlfriends. 747 00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:36,320 And the jury heard 748 00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,040 that he had been violent towards them 749 00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:41,120 and he threatened on one occasion to kill them. 750 00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:45,200 There was some potential evidence against Martin Hale, 751 00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:47,480 otherwise the case would never have been brought. 752 00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:49,360 There was a note he'd written, 753 00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:51,120 he didn't deny writing it, 754 00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:54,920 in which he wrote about the various means of disposing of a body. 755 00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,040 He'd gone to see someone about the potential 756 00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:00,520 for using a pet crematorium. 757 00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,600 There was the aspect of his fractured relationship 758 00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:04,720 with Maureen. 759 00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:07,280 There was some evidence that was never even presented 760 00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:10,000 to the jury 761 00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,120 in the sense that it didn't lead anywhere. 762 00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:17,480 But Martin Hale had a reasonable explanation for 763 00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,080 all of the evidence that was put against him. 764 00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,640 The fact that his marriage broke down, 765 00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:23,920 that kind of thing happens, 766 00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,240 it doesn't mean that someone has killed somebody 767 00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:27,320 or murdered someone. 768 00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:31,680 It doesn't necessarily provide a motive 769 00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:33,600 for killing his wife. 770 00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:37,000 All that you need is a reasonable doubt 771 00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:39,560 and all it needed was just a couple of members of that jury 772 00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:43,840 to think this rather unsavoury character 773 00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:45,400 who they see before them 774 00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:47,080 could have been responsible for the murder. 775 00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:48,400 It was a three-week trial, 776 00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,440 and at the end of the trial he was found not guilty 777 00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:52,960 and so allowed to go a free man. 778 00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:58,840 It took the jury three hours to acquit him, 779 00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:00,880 hardly anything in a long murder trial 780 00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:04,040 as this was or a longish murder trial. 781 00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:06,880 They must have been fairly certain 782 00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,840 that there was not enough evidence to convict 783 00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:11,600 and that he was therefore 784 00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:13,960 not guilty of the crime, 785 00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:17,080 the only way that could ever be changed now 786 00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:22,840 is with double jeopardy laws and the discovery of a body. 787 00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:25,640 I was sitting at Kingston Crown Court 788 00:34:25,720 --> 00:34:27,600 waiting for the verdict 789 00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:32,880 and it came rather more quickly than we might have expected. 790 00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,760 And it's a fool's game really to try and read into that 791 00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:39,920 because, you know, you can have guilty verdicts very quickly, 792 00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:42,320 you can have not guilty verdicts very quickly. 793 00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:46,200 But I guess given the amount of evidence 794 00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:48,040 that I thought we'd presented to the court, 795 00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,640 I kind of expected it to take a little bit longer 796 00:34:51,720 --> 00:34:54,840 for the jury to deliberate through it, 797 00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:55,880 and I was shocked, 798 00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:57,000 I really was shocked 799 00:34:57,080 --> 00:35:00,120 because I thought we had presented 800 00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:01,840 a compelling case 801 00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:03,680 and we'd worked hard at it. 802 00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:06,400 And it was difficult really to see 803 00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,880 if, you know, the jury accepted the evidence 804 00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:12,320 that we'd discovered, 805 00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:15,760 then I thought they were bound to convict him. 806 00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:17,960 The children gave evidence in court, 807 00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:19,800 saying there had been a row between their parents 808 00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,160 on the night that Maureen vanished, 809 00:35:22,240 --> 00:35:24,000 but their demeanour towards their father 810 00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,080 was the all-important thing for a jury, 811 00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:29,600 they would have been looking very carefully at that 812 00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:34,120 and it wouldn't fail to register with them 813 00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:37,360 that Martin's children were being supportive of him 814 00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:40,720 in what must have been his darkest hour at that point, 815 00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:44,120 facing trial for the murder of his wife, 816 00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:48,160 their mother, a very difficult situation. 817 00:35:48,240 --> 00:35:51,360 But the fact that the children didn't turn their back on him 818 00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:55,560 would certainly have been a compelling factor in this case. 819 00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:58,440 It's always difficult when you think you've got a good 820 00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:01,960 and solid case and you go to court, and the jury acquit. 821 00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:06,640 In this case, we had a mass of circumstantial evidence, 822 00:36:06,720 --> 00:36:10,440 there was all the evidence about Maureen not having any contact 823 00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:12,400 with officialdom with her bank, 824 00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:14,600 doctors, hospitals, anything like that, 825 00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:16,800 missing out on important family events, 826 00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:19,640 walking out and never saying a word again 827 00:36:19,720 --> 00:36:21,480 to five children. 828 00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:24,520 You've also got the fact that on the night that she went missing, 829 00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,720 Martin Hale borrowed a spade from his place of work 830 00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:30,040 which he didn't take back for a few days 831 00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:34,000 and bizarrely also at the same time swapped his 7 Series BMW 832 00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:36,520 with his manager's car, which was a Ford Fiesta. 833 00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:39,120 And he didn't swap that back 834 00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:41,200 until after he had been arrested by police 835 00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:42,520 and they'd searched the Fiesta. 836 00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:44,520 But the fact is that 837 00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,200 it is the prosecution who bring the case 838 00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,920 and the prosecution have to prove it beyond any reasonable doubt, 839 00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,280 if any member of the jury has a reasonable doubt, 840 00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:53,640 they have to say not guilty. 841 00:36:53,720 --> 00:36:56,960 It's always slightly disappointing when you get a non-guilty verdict, 842 00:36:57,040 --> 00:37:00,720 but the evidence was put before 12 men and women 843 00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:04,080 and they came back with a not guilty conclusion, 844 00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:06,720 so we have to accept it and move on. 845 00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:08,840 I think in this case, 846 00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:11,160 there was a witness called Andrew Horton 847 00:37:11,240 --> 00:37:14,280 who was Maureen Hale's lover. 848 00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:17,080 What the defence then did was brought two witnesses 849 00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:19,800 who were former girlfriends of his 850 00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,720 who kind of painted a picture of him as this misogynist 851 00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:24,560 and somebody who'd been violent towards them, 852 00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:26,160 threatened violence to them, 853 00:37:26,240 --> 00:37:29,200 and in one case actually threatened to kill her. 854 00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:31,840 I remember watching Andrew Horton give evidence 855 00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:34,200 at Kingston Crown Court during the course of the trial. 856 00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:36,520 He was very confident, 857 00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,200 and he came across as very believable 858 00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:41,480 and that's a case of swaying the jury 859 00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:43,240 with what he had to tell. 860 00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:45,120 He had been involved in numerous affairs 861 00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:48,240 and he had assaulted numerous ex-girlfriends, 862 00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:50,160 but he was quite happy to talk about that. 863 00:37:50,240 --> 00:37:52,960 I think it's easy to understand 864 00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:56,600 how the jury didn't take to him 865 00:37:56,680 --> 00:38:00,040 and the suggestion that it could have been him 866 00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:03,280 and not Martin Hale that murdered Maureen Hale 867 00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:05,400 was enough in some of those jurors' minds 868 00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:08,040 just to provoke that doubt and that's all they need, 869 00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:10,840 a reasonable doubt and they must acquit. 870 00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:14,120 And I think it is the main reason 871 00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,320 that the jury found there was a doubt 872 00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:21,560 because the question was left hanging there, 873 00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:26,720 you've got Maureen's lover at the time is this man, 874 00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:31,560 who has a record of using violence towards women. 875 00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:34,720 Is it possible, members of the jury, that he might have killed her? 876 00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:39,000 I was surprised that the jury found him not guilty, 877 00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:40,840 but our justice system means 878 00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:44,480 that there only has to be a small amount of doubt 879 00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:46,800 to go for a not guilty verdict, 880 00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,080 so I can only assume that they thought 881 00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,520 there was some reasonable doubt that he had not murdered his wife. 882 00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:53,840 That's what happened. 883 00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,200 Ultimately professionally, 884 00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:58,000 you know, I did my job, 885 00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:02,120 I got a team together to get the most evidence we could 886 00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:03,440 and to put it before a court 887 00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:07,120 and then the rest of that process kind of takes over. 888 00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:08,800 Of course, during the trial, 889 00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:11,040 the fact that Martin Hale 890 00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:14,320 might have been in another relationship himself 891 00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:15,920 was never put before the jury 892 00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,320 and indeed it was difficult for us to work out, 893 00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:20,360 we still really don't know 894 00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:23,600 how long his relationship had been going on 895 00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:25,480 and whether that was prior 896 00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:27,240 to Maureen's disappearance 897 00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:29,120 or something that occurred afterwards. 898 00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:33,840 I think the depth and breadth of the evidence 899 00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:36,480 that we presented to the court in this case 900 00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:39,440 exceeded that in other cases that I had 901 00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:41,960 where the defendant was found guilty. 902 00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:43,240 At the conclusion of the trial, 903 00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:45,160 the Metropolitan Police made a statement 904 00:39:45,240 --> 00:39:47,080 to say that there was no further leads 905 00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:48,640 for them to pursue at that moment, 906 00:39:48,720 --> 00:39:51,760 so unless it goes back to another cold case review 907 00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:53,400 or someone approaches the investigation 908 00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:55,720 with some new information at this stage, 909 00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:57,440 it's not being re-opened. 910 00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:00,480 He seemed a very decent quiet chap, 911 00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:03,640 yes, and still is a very level-headed, 912 00:40:03,720 --> 00:40:05,560 calm sort of person, 913 00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:08,640 that's as much as we know him. 914 00:40:08,720 --> 00:40:10,720 The whole thing cost him his business, 915 00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,160 it's cost him everything. 916 00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,680 Yes, it's a very strange, horrible situation. 917 00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:22,440 The law was served 918 00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:26,480 and police officers in that position 919 00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:31,440 have to expect that verdicts 920 00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:33,080 are not always gonna go their way, 921 00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:37,000 they may invest a long period of time, 922 00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:38,920 a lot of resources, 923 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:43,920 they may spend weeks and weeks in terms of administration 924 00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:46,560 that goes into mounting of a court case. 925 00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:47,920 But at the end of the day, 926 00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:53,240 it's a jury of 12 fellow peers, 927 00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:56,240 the man and woman on the Clapham London bus 928 00:40:56,320 --> 00:41:00,120 will decide whether a person is guilty or not quite rightly 929 00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:03,320 and in this instance the world has to assume 930 00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:06,680 that Martin Hale was innocent. 931 00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:08,120 I'm overjoyed really, 932 00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:10,680 it put some sort of closure on the case 933 00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:14,680 and really I'd just like to thank my legal team, Richard Christie, 934 00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:17,320 that's worked very hard on putting the case together 935 00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:18,560 over the last few months. 936 00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,840 There's not much really more to say on the matter at the moment. 937 00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:30,560 I'm really just pleased to be out and there's some closure on it. 938 00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:32,120 After Martin Hale's acquittal, 939 00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:34,480 the Metropolitan Police re-assessed the case 940 00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:37,760 and decided not to proceed with the inquiries any further, 941 00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,440 the case effectively now is closed. 942 00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:46,400 And one has to accept a course of a jury's decision, 943 00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:51,480 but perhaps we're also entitled to look at why a case was brought 944 00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:53,960 in the first place against a suspect, 945 00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:57,680 there is still a mystery about what happened to Maureen 946 00:41:57,760 --> 00:41:59,560 because her body has never been found. 947 00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:01,800 We took every opportunity there was, 948 00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:03,200 we found new evidence, 949 00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:05,280 we found compelling evidence, 950 00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,160 the only clincher may well have been 951 00:42:07,240 --> 00:42:09,880 had we'd been able to find Maureen's body 952 00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:13,200 because that may have given us some more scientific evidence 953 00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:17,000 or its location might have pointed towards guilt or otherwise. 954 00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:21,880 Martin Hale was found not guilty for his wife's murder, 955 00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:24,600 so he is free to continue the rest of his life, 956 00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:27,640 and in the meantime, Maureen remains missing. 957 00:42:27,720 --> 00:42:29,040 It's increasingly difficult 958 00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:30,240 in the 21st century 959 00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:32,840 to disappear without trace 960 00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:34,720 because everything has a record, 961 00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:36,000 you know, your phone, money, 962 00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:38,280 doctor, dentist, 963 00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:39,560 all sorts of things like that. 964 00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:44,280 And, you know, there was just simply no trace of Maureen Hale 965 00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:45,600 from the day she was last seen. 966 00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:48,360 Yeah, I'm sure she's dead. 967 00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:51,720 It was the only case I did where there wasn't a body, 968 00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:54,280 and it's also the only murder case 969 00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:57,160 that I ever had that got before the court 970 00:42:57,240 --> 00:43:00,080 and the defendant was acquitted. 76729

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