Justice at last for Julie?

WHEN Billy Dunlop unburdened his conscience to a prison officer, he must have thought he was safe. Ten years after he killed Julie Hogg, and in the middle of a jail sentence for assault, he finally confessed to the crime.

Having already been tried twice for murder, and formally acquitted when the second jury could not reach a verdict, he knew that, under British law, he could not be tried for that offence again. He may have still been in jail, but a life sentence was not part of his reckoning. But he had reckoned without Ann Ming.

Ann has been burning with a sense of injustice ever since her daughter went missing, on November 16, 1989. Firstly, over the police handling of the case; and secondly, over the fact that Julie's killer seemed to have got away with murder.

Julie was 22 when she disappeared. Cleveland Police carried out a fingertip search of the pizza delivery girl's Billingham home, but found no clues, and Julie was put down as yet another missing from home case. Nothing suspicious, just someone else who found it easier to disappear than cope with the realities of life.

It was only when police returned Julie's keys, three months later, that Ann discovered her daughter's body behind the bath panel. Even though it was badly decomposing, it was clear that Julie had been brutally sexually assaulted and her body mutilated.

Ann was eventually awarded £20,000 in an out-of-court settlement against the police over their handling of the case, but it was bringing her daughter's killer to justice which preoccupied her most.

Local labourer Dunlop was quickly charged with Julie's murder. Despite strong forensic evidence, he denied the charge and claimed he had been framed. Two juries were unable to make up their minds, and after the second trial, Dunlop was set free and formerly acquitted of the crime.

Following the second trial, he called on police to "find the real killer", but Ann and her husband Charlie were never convinced of his innocence.

But there it might have remained if Dunlop had not made his prison cell confession in 1999. Whatever his motives, whether it was an act of remorse or of boasting of how he had got away with it, it was to land him with an extension of his stay in prison - and set the Mings off on a remarkable fight against a law which dates from the 13th Century.

The immediate effect was that Dunlop was given a six-year jail sentence when he was convicted of committing perjury in the original trials. The more long-term consequence was to provoke a challenge to the double jeopardy law, which has been enshrined in the English legal system since the Middle Ages and prevents anyone from being retried for the same offence once they have been acquitted.

Appalled by the injustice that meant the man who admitted he had killed their daughter would go unpunished, Ann and Charlie began a fight to get the law changed, arguing that the double jeopardy law should not apply in exceptional circumstances.

Now it is a fight which looks to have ended in success, at least of a sort. Home Secretary David Blunkett is today expected to unveil proposals which will stop self-confessed - but acquitted - killers like Billy Dunlop hiding behind the law of double jeopardy.

At the start of her campaign, Ann said: "We lost our daughter. We are the ones who have been serving a life sentence. He has made a mockery of the justice system."

The Justice for Julie campaign has taken the Mings, along with Julie's son, Kevin, from their modest home on Teesside to the corridors of power, meeting with ministers and civil servants. It has also made Ann something of an expert in the finer points of the law, and has seen her appear on television and radio both here and abroad.

After The Northern Echo told of Ann's campaign as part of our Criminal Injustice Campaign, hundreds of readers signed a petition calling for a change in the law, to allow for a retrial if compelling new evidence emerges where serious crimes are concerned.

And, perhaps most importantly for Ann, she wants any changes to be made retrospective, so alleged miscarriages of justice that have already happened can be reversed.

Two of just a handful of cases nationwide which could be affected by this move would be the murders of Stephen Lawrence and Damilola Taylor, where those accused of the crime have either been found not guilty or formerly acquitted when the case was thrown out of court.

Damilola's father Richard supports the campaign to overturn the double jeopardy law, where there is compelling new evidence and a retrial would be in the interests of justice. "It would go a long way to bringing justice to the victims who have suffered as a result of this law," he says.

But Julie's murder is believed to be the only one in the country which involves the almost indisputable evidence of a killer's confession.

But there are fears that any change in the law may not be in the interests of justice. Opponents claim that introducing the right to more than one trial could result in shoddy detective work, with investigations not being carried out fully first time round, with a belief that police could always have a second go.

Civil rights group Liberty has also criticised the proposal. Director John Wadham says: "The protection from double jeopardy is a fundamental part of our justice system and will increase the chances of innocent people being convicted if we remove it."

But last year a committee of MPs backed the Mings' call for change and recommended that the law should be revised to allow retrials in exceptional circumstances, a move which was welcomed by one of the Mings' most ardent supporters, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate.

Lord Mackenzie, who was an advisor to former Home Secretary Jack Straw, believes victims of crime should be given the same rights as those wrongly convicted, so mistakes in courts can be rectified.

He says: "We should be able to overturn miscarriages of justice whether someone is wrongly convicted or acquitted."

Today, Ann will learn whether her fight has been successful. Joined by her husband and Kevin, who was just a toddler when his mother was murdered, she is travelling to London to hear Mr Blunkett's proposals first hand.

And as the Home Secretary outlines his Criminal Justice White Paper to the House of Commons this afternoon, Ann will be hoping that it will signal an end to her 12-year battle. "We are apprehensive until we see the White Paper but we do believe any changes will be retrospective. We have worked too hard for this all to be wasted," she says.

"I am hopeful that the guidelines will contain everything we want to see and that they will then be taken up by the Government and made law. All I am doing is waiting to hear what Mr Blunkett has to say. I really do not know what I will do if criminal injustice is not revoked in the White Paper.

"We have come too far not to get a result now. I have been very nervous in the last few days just waiting to hear what will happen. If we get justice for Julie we can finally lay our daughter to rest."

But Ann knows she may not get all she wants. Even if the law is to be changed, and that is eventually approved by MPs, there will be weighty opposition to making such a change retrospective. But even if it does not mean justice will finally catch up with her daughter's killer, at the very least it should mean there will be no more Billy Dunlops.