All language subtitles for Expert Witness - S01E02 - Blood Under Paint and Gait

When a serious crime is committed and
the police need all the help they can

there's one group of people they turn to
time after time.

Expert witnesses are the golden thread
that runs through cases that every

conviction needs.

An extraordinary army of men and women
with the expertise to reveal the hidden

clues criminals have left behind.

There are so many.

important pieces of evidence, paint
evidence, glass, fibre evidence.

They search harder and look deeper using
the very latest techniques.

If I can work out how old those insects
are, that's going to give me the minimum

time since death.

This is the inside story of how science
helps solve some of the UK's most

complex cases.

It really was becoming the last throw of
the dice.

Nothing's going to bring her back, but
she'd had the justice that she rightly

deserved.

In this programme, we reveal how brand
-new forensic evidence, uncovered by an

expert witness, helped catch a killer
and resolve a notorious miscarriage of

justice. I'm definitely angry.

I've always been angry since.

They say, oh, don't be angry, let it go.
Well, you let it go. Go and sit in the

cell for two years, take me away from
your family.

And we discover how forensic analysis of
fragments of CCTV footage blew apart a

suspect's alibi and identified him as a
killer.

When you looked closely, it almost
looked as though he had a limp. He had

an unusual gait.

A skilled expert witness does more than
just analyse existing evidence. They

guide detectives where to look for new
clues that can turn a case.

That's what happened in our next story,
where a forensic scientist helped police

locate new evidence to solve a murder
and correct a 15 -year -old miscarriage

justice.

This is the story of how DNA finally
caught the killer of Lynette White.

The Lynette White case demonstrated the
real importance of the new approaches we

were bringing to cold case work.

And the other thing it did was finally
sort out once and for all who was guilty

of Lynette's murder.

Lynette White was just 20 years old when
she was found stabbed to death in this

flat above a bookmaker's.

John Williams is a writer and journalist
who covered the case and its

consequences.

Lynette White was a sex worker from
Cardiff. She's a girl who'd had a very

troubled childhood.

She was found in a room that belonged to
a friend of hers.

She'd been stabbed something like 58
times.

John actually was 26 years old at the
time and living in this part of Cardiff.

He knew Lynette a little.

Just enough to say hello.

This is James Street.

I got the paper.

I said, oh my God, I know this girl from
walking around the streets, you know.

It's the first time actually I've stood
out here.

She was a young lady, you know, and it's
just sad that she went through such a

brutal, brutal murder.

In December 1988, after a nine -month
investigation,

the police arrested five men for
Lynette's murder.

John Actie was one of them.

The police knocked my door and asked me
if I could accompany them to the police

station. He'd been dragged from the
house, taken to a police cell, four days

questioning.

Then he took me back to another police
station and then he charged me.

I didn't come out of jail for the next
two years.

They put me in jail for a crime I never
committed.

All five men protested their innocence
and there was no forensic evidence to

link them to the crime, but they would
be held in custody for two years

the trial. The prosecution case rested
on witness statements that have since

been discredited and a confession from
one of the men which implicated all five

of them.

The real key piece of evidence was the
confession of Stephen Miller, who was

Lynette White's boyfriend.

Stephen Miller was a vulnerable young
man. He was assessed as having low IQ.

Not only did they badger him, but they
also led him on. They provided him with

evidence, and after hours and hours of
questioning, he had confessed.

They became known as the Cardiff Three.
With public support, their families

campaigned to prove their innocence.

Finally, in December 1992, Miller's
confession was deemed inadmissible and

were freed.

But the mystery of who killed Lynette
White remained unanswered, leaving the

killer at large, Lynette's family
searching for justice, and a stubborn

shadow over the innocence of all the men
involved.

I was living under a shadow of
suspicion.

Yeah, I've been called the murderer a
few times.

Being accused of killing a young girl,
stabbing her 50 to 70 times,

how could you live with yourself to
think about doing something like that?

In 1999, a cold case unit was set up to
reinvestigate the case and find the real

killer.

Detectives hoped advances in forensic
science could now reveal new evidence.

And they turned to expert witness Angela
Gallop.

One of the things we decided to do as
part of our strategy was to have a look

everything that had been seized that
hadn't been looked at before, however

insignificant. And so we were looking at
things like bits of biscuit wrappers

and the cellophane that went round a
cigarette packet.

The innocuous piece of cellophane
revealed an intriguing item of evidence,

blood droplet formed in a very
distinctive shape.

That was really important because that
indicated that it had been airborne, so

tiny droplet of blood had landed on the
cellophane and that meant that it could

have come from the offender.

Angela now used modern DNA analysis to
begin to identify which individual this

blood had come from.

It was a male profile, and that was the
beginning of the unlocking of that case,

and we called him Cellophane Man,
because you have to refer to these

way, and he became massive in the
investigation.

Cellophane Man's blood did not match any
other samples originally recovered from

the crime scene in 1988, and one speck
was not enough to prove he killed

White.

But crime scene photographs showed
distinctive blood staining on one area

skirting board.

We'd noticed there was some sort of
blood splashing very close to Lynette's

body, of the right kind of, of the right
type to have been shed from someone who

was bleeding and wielding a weapon.

Angela believed this was the killer's
blood. The question was, would any still

be there over ten years later?

I visited the murder flat three or four
years after the actual murder, and there

was bloodstains all over the walls.
Someone had put one thin coat of white

over it, but you could still see the
bloodstains. It was absolutely

It had been over a decade since Lynette
White was murdered.

Now, Angela hoped to find the killer's
blood still at the crime scene and to

it to finally unlock the real murderer's
identity.

The whole flat had been painted twice in
the intervening years, and we scraped

very carefully away at the relevant
section of skirting board to try and

the blood under a low -power microscope
with a scalpel.

We recognised how risky this was because
it would only be relatively small

amounts of blood, we thought, underneath
the paint, and we didn't know exactly

what depth it was.

So we had to go really, really carefully
so that we didn't go too shallow and

never reveal it, and we didn't go too
deep and lose it all.

This painstaking work took two weeks,
but finally Angela's team found what

were looking for.

We were able to discover some blood
under the paint, and that also turned

be the same DNA profile as cellophane
man.

And that...

meant that the person it came from must
have had something to do with the

murder.

Analysis of the blood revealed a full
DNA profile, but when it was compared to

the police DNA database, they could find
no match, so detectives stepped up

their investigation.

The police then did a mass screening of
local people. They collected samples

from them and we tested them against
cellophane man, but they didn't get

anywhere with that.

It seemed the identity of Lynette's
murderer was going to remain a mystery.

I think so long after the murder, people
were starting to wonder whether they

would ever find the killer or whether
one would just have to accept that it

just some random guy who'd got away with
it.

But Angela and her team refused to give
up.

We decided not to abandon the database,
but to go back and see if we could find

some family member, so someone whose DNA
matched quite a lot of cellophane man's

DNA, but obviously wasn't.

So we started off looking at the rarest
component of cellophane man's profile.

It occurred in about one in 100 of the
population.

This comparison identified 70 possible
matches.

And further DNA analysis reduced that to
just one person.

But there was a problem.

The DNA match was with a juvenile.

The young man in question was a toddler
at the time of the murder. Then we

looked at the father's brother, and it
wasn't him, but he was very close.

And then the police discovered that
there was another brother.

They got a sample from him, and we
profiled that.

And that turned out to be the match, and
that was Geoffrey Gaffour.

Geoffrey Gaffour was now 37 and working
as a security guard. In 1988, when

Lynette White was murdered, he was
living and working in his family shop in

Cardiff.

He was the original, quiet loner and...

Yeah, it appears to be more or less his
only serious offence that anyone knows

of was this murder.

The Cole case team arrested Geoffrey
before.

When questioned, he broke down and
confessed to the murder of Lynette White

years earlier.

By his account, he had asked her for
sex, he'd gone back to the flat and

then he changed his mind.

And she wouldn't give him his money back
and he lost his temper and then he

stabbed her to death.

In court, Caffour pleaded guilty and was
sentenced to life.

Angela's evidence made forensic
scientists... This was the first time

was used and someone was still alive and
they could be charged. These guys were

able to, you know, walk the streets
without, you know, a cloud of suspicion

following them.

I'm definitely angry. I've always been
angry since. They say, oh, don't be

angry, let it go. Well, you let it go.
Go and sit in the cell for two years.

Take it away from your family.

It is a case that I'm very proud of and
proud of the scientists that worked with

me. It showed how powerful DNA profiling
had become.

But on another level and over above all
of that...

It finally gave closure to Lynette's
family because they were finally looking

the person who had killed their daughter
or their relative.

It's a rule in police investigations
that the more elaborate the alibi...

the more suspicious it is. In this story
is a murder case in which a prime

suspect claimed he was elsewhere being
mugged at the time of the murder.

As alibis go, it was an unusual one and
detectives had a hunch something wasn't

right. It took an expert witness,
though, to show their suspicions were

If you're being mugged in Lewisham, how
are you on camera a stone's throw from

the murder scene?

The way every person walks or runs is
actually unique.

In forensic gate analysis... January
2007,

Vauxhall, London.

It's a Saturday.

New Zealander Cathy Marlow has gone to
her office to catch up on some work. She

then plans to meet friends for lunch,
but never turned up.

Later that day, her body was discovered
at her office.

She'd been strangled.

Detective Damien Allen was put in charge
of the investigation.

We had marks that led from the attack
site to a communal shower room and

body was found in the shower cubicle.

Cathy's hometown was Hawke's Bay in New
Zealand where her sister Debbie was

about to receive the terrible news.

2 .28am and our doorbell rang and the
police don't call.

Kathy Marlow was just 28 years old when
she was killed.

She had been away from home for three
years.

Loved sibling and daughter.

There's only so much you can do in small
town New Zealand, so she was quite keen

to get out there and experience the
world, really. And you expect them to

back in one piece, and my brother and I
did it, and so why shouldn't she?

Cathy's colleagues have paid tribute to
her, describing her. Began with a

fingertip forensic search of the offices
and surrounding area.

There were no witnesses. We had a
complicated forensic scene. There was no

inside the venue.

But there were cameras dotted about, you
know, in the locality.

Police had hundreds of hours of CCTV to
scroll through. But after weeks of false

leads, they had still not identified any
firm suspects.

It's a popular misconception by the
public that CCTV is the panacea when it

comes to investigations, but the reality
is somewhat different.

It's a busy urban area, you've got lots
of cameras, varying quality.

Does it depict, to a good enough
standard, the facial imagery?

And the answer to that question is quite
often no.

Weeks went by, and with increasing media
scrutiny, the pressure was on Damien's

investigation.

After four weeks, he and the team had
made slow progress.

And then, a big leap forward.

I had a call from the forensic science
laboratory to say, we've identified one

male DNA profile from two separate
suspects.

And what we established was that Fagan
had worked for that company, the same

company Cathy had worked for, and really
he was an underperforming employee that

ultimately resulted in him being sacked
six months previously.

Fagan's DNA was found on Cathy's
fingernails, but because they had shared

office, it wasn't conclusive proof he
had attacked her.

But Damien did now have his first
possible suspect, and when detectives

to the CCTV, they found another crucial
clue.

So here, here's the CCTV camera that
picks up Fagan heading towards the

But that was a shot through this iron
gate.

So we've got Fagan at about 13 .02, 13
.03, moving towards

the office block where Cathy worked. So
this is in advance of the murder.

Two hours later, Fagan can be seen
again.

This street was quite important because
this is where Fagan was captured twice

on CCTV.

just after 3 o 'clock, walking away from
66 South Lambeth Road.

This is at 15 .03.

This is after the murders have taken
place.

And it looks as though he's carrying
something at this point.

Fagan was brought in for questioning,
but insisted the person seen on camera

not him.

He even gave an alibi.

Fagan claimed he was five miles away in
Lewisham, that he had been mugged,

injured his head and had then gone to
hospital to have his injuries looked at.

Damien wasn't convinced.

We found no evidence that he had been in
Lewisham at that time and no evidence

of any journey there, whether by
walking, public transport or vehicle.

The hospital confirmed Fagan did have a
head attack.

Now he needed to prove it.

The problem was the CCTV footage was
nowhere near clear enough to do that in

court of law.

But Damien had another idea.

Part of the role of being a senior
investigating officer is understanding

is available out there in terms of
forensic experts.

How Fagan walked, it almost looked as
though he had a limp.

He had such an unusual gait.

Damien turned to an area of forensic
science known as gait analysis.

So this is the setup from our gait
laboratory.

Dr Julie Stebbins of Oxford University
is an expert in the field and runs a

laboratory that analyses how people
walk.

Most people fall within a fairly narrow
band of how you walk.

So the way we analyse people is to
compare their walking patterns to a

band. So we're looking for where they
fall outside of that band.

Gates' analysis allowed a comparison
between footage Fagan agreed with him at

hospital and the footage Damien believed
was him near the crime scene.

So I would first of all look at overall
how the person's moving, if there's

anything about the smoothness of their
walk, the symmetry of their limbs.

So, if you're looking at the knee from
the side, I would expect the knee to be

fully extended when the foot first hits
the ground, then to be a slight degree

of flexion, then back to fully extended
as the body comes over the leg, and then

the knee flexes in order to be able to
swing the leg through.

Sagan's gait in this footage was then
compared to the man seen in the CCTV

near the crime scene.

So... If I'm trying to determine the
angle at the knee, I need to be able to

the line of the upper leg and the line
of the lower leg. So it would take quite

a long time to examine this footage, to
go through it in the amount of detail

that you need to be able to identify
each feature.

So you would look at this over and over
and over again.

Forensic gait analysis.

It's not that you're directed towards
one feature.

You have the whole person and you're
trying to say, is there something about

this whole person walks that's
identifiable in two pieces of footage?

It looks like he has a bit of trunk sway
to the left and possibly one of his

feet pointing more than the other.

The analysis confirmed in Matthew
Fagan's gate a scene in the hospital

was the same as the man seen walking
near the crime scene.

And that this gate was distinctive
enough to prove it was the same man.

It went to the heart of what Fagan was
suggesting, that he was being mugged in

Lewisham. Well, if you're being mugged
in Lewisham, how are you on camera a

stone's throw from the murder scene?

Damien confronted Fagan with the new
evidence.

He immediately changed his story.

Fagan now claimed he was part of a gang
who went to Burgoyne of Cathy's murder,

and forensic analysis now revealed
further evidence of Fagan's involvement.

We found a hair on a fleck of flesh on
the wall where the attack had taken

place. We found his blood, DNA and
blood, underneath the desk, where he'd

to steal the laptop.

So there was physical evidence of his
involvement at the scene.

Blood and DNA proved Fagan was at the
scene.

Gate analysis proved he had tried to
cover his tracks with a complicated

Police believed it was a robbery that
went horribly wrong and they now had

enough evidence to bring a prosecution.

In September 2008, Fagan stood trial at
the Old Bailey.

He pleaded not guilty to murder.

Kathy's sister, brother and father were
also there.

I think the hardest thing was watching
Fagan lying, but you just

hope that Damien and his team have got
it right.

They had.

Fagan was found guilty of murder and
sentenced to life.

Damien stood with Cathy's family as they
heard the verdict.

You build a relationship with the
family, especially in a case like this,

where... You know, I had contact with
them over a long period and

you do become very close to the victims'
families.

You form a real bond.

He was our only link to CAF to get the
right result for us as well and make

that the right person was brought to the
court.

We got, I won't say justice, but we
got... The thin tint set will give us

time to heal.

Two cases there that show the clues to
crack a case can be found in the most

unexpected places.

You just have to look hard enough, which
is why there's always an expert

witness.