DNA evidence revives mystery of nuclear protester's murder and British Intelligence involvement as doubt is cast on killer's conviction

New doubt has been cast on the conviction of a teenage burglar for the controversial Eighties murder of anti-nuclear campaigner Hilda Murrell.

Her nephew Robert Green, who was a naval commander, has written a book containing details of DNA evidence not disclosed at the trial.

The case has been hotly debated because at the time then Labour MP Tam Dalyell claimed ‘men of British Intelligence’ were involved.

Miss Murrell, 78, was abducted from her home in Shrewsbury in March 1984 and found days later in a nearby copse. Her car had been abandoned on a verge. The noted English rose grower had been stabbed, but the wounds were not fatal and a post mortem found she had died of hypothermia. Miss Murrell’s murder prompted questions in Parliament and gave rise to numerous conspiracy theories.

A vociferous campaigner against nuclear weapons, she had been about to give evidence to the inquiry into the proposed Sizewell B nuclear reactor in East Anglia. Some 19 years later, in June 2003, police charged Andrew George, a 35-year-old builder’s labourer, with Miss Murrell’s murder.

In 1984, he was 16 and in care at a children’s home near her house. His DNA was found to match samples taken from the scene and after a six-week trial in 2005, he was sentenced to life in prison with a recommendation that he serve at least 15 years before being considered for parole.

But shortly after the murder, Mr Dalyell had claimed an unnamed informant had given him information linking the sinking of the Argentine ship General Belgrano to Commander Green.

Now Cdr Green’s book A Thorn In Their Side questions George’s conviction and details the evidence he says could have acquitted him. Cdr Green, Miss Murrell’s closest living relative, has been given a previously undisclosed witness statement made by a forensic scientist in the case. The expert, Michael Appleby, says he found DNA on the underside of Miss Murrell’s fingernails from a male and that it did not match that of George.

According to Cdr Green, this evidence was withheld from the jury at George’s trial but ‘almost certainly would have acquitted George’.

Cdr Green is now calling for George’s release and a Commission of Inquiry into the case. Speaking from his home in Christ-church, New Zealand, Cdr Green said: ‘This is a cautionary tale about DNA evidence. ‘My first objective in publishing this book is to force a re-opening of the investigation into Hilda’s murder.’

Original report here




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