THE convictions of two North-East brothers who were jailed for life for the murder of an amateur boxer are unsafe and should be quashed, a Court of Appeal hearing was told yesterday.

David and Terry Reed, of Tennyson Avenue, Grangetown, Middlesbrough, are challenging their convictions for murdering Peter Hoe, 43, at his home, in October 2006.

Lawyers for the pair say the way DNA evidence was dealt with at Teesside Crown Court in August 2007 was wrong.

Plans to challenge the technique of low-copy number DNA profiling used in the original case have been dropped.

James Hill, representing David Reed, 31, told the court how the brothers had been linked to the murder after their DNA was found on plastic splinters, most likely from knives, lying beside the body in the house, in Jubilee Road, Eston.

He said at the trial a forensic science service officer was called to give evidence about the samples, but may have been wrong in giving an opinion on how the DNA must have reached the knives.

“The principle issue is whether or not the reporting officer was entitled to give the opinion she did, namely that the most likely explanation for DNA profiles on the two exhibits was that the appellants were handling those knives at the time that they broke,” he said.

“In reaching the opinion that David Reed was most likely holding a knife, the officer was seeking to displace and ignore the other evidence in the case, the scientific evidence.”

He added that pathologists had agreed that there was no evidence of any twisting of knives in Mr Hoe’s wounds, while a metallurgist had stated that, in order for such knives to break, such motion or contact with a hard surface would be needed.

And although the officer said she had not ruled out methods of the DNA reaching the knives without them ever touching them – so-called secondary transfer – she had told the jury that it was “unrealistic”.

The appeal before Lord Justice Thomas, Mr Justice Kitchin and Mr Justice Holroyde, is expected to last four days.

It started in dramatic circumstances when both men stood up without a word to the judges or barristers and walked out of court. The pair returned after an adjournment.

Lawyers for the crown will argue that, even if the judges find that there were problems in the way the DNA evidence was dealt with, the convictions can be upheld on the basis of other circumstantial evidence.

The hearing continues.