Defence for Wisbech murder suspect David Newton highlights mistakes made by police as he calls investigation a ‘chaotic mess’

“Where was the dog?” was one of the main questions David Newton’s defence posed to the jury about his whereabouts on the night that Una Crown was murdered.

In his closing speech before the jury to deliberate if Newton, 70, of Magazine Close in Wisbech, is guilty or not guilty of murdering 86-year-old Una Crown, barrister Henry Grunwald KC took the opportunity to point out mistakes made by police - who initially treated Mrs Crown’s death as not suspicious.

He also questioned the whereabouts of Newton’s dog on the night of Mrs Crown’s murder. He was seen at about 8.30pm by a neighbour walking the dog, which is supposedly around the time that Mrs Crown was stabbed multiple times to the neck and chest before being set on fire.

Newton, a former kitchen fitter before retiring early in 2003, denies the murder of his neighbour Una Crown, who lived around the corner from him in a bungalow on Magazine Lane.

Mr Grunwald said: “Una Crown was murdered on January 13, 2013. She didn’t deserve to be killed. She also didn’t deserve what happened thereafter.

“Mistakes were made by the police, I want to call it a chaotic mess, but it was a mess.

“It’s difficult to comprehend that Sargeant Simon Gledhill could have come to the conclusion that this was nothing other than a disastrous death.

“Things that shouldn't have been done were done. She deserved for the police to have carried out a proper investigation into her death from the very beginning.”

Mr Grunwald pointed out that forensic evidence - some of Mrs Crown’s fingernail clippings - had gone missing and were later found and tested in the lab. They had Newton’s DNA on them.

“You have been given no explanation for how that happened, given nobody has come up with a proper explanation. How can you be satisfied that tests at that lab were done properly?”

He later added: “Do you know how it came about that the three nails disappeared? We do not have an answer. What we do know is that there was not best practice carried out in their lab.”

Mr Grunwald said the jury “cannot be satisfied that the DNA eventually found on the fingernail” was Newton’s, and drew a total of four possible conclusions.

Three of these conclusions led to it being Newton’s DNA under the fingernail clippings, but that it had got on there via contamination in the lab, or via the back door handle/lock, directly or indirectly, that Newton allegedly helped Mrs Crown fix sometime in 2012.

Another conclusion was that the DNA sample simply didn’t match Newton’s genetic profile.

Mr Grunwald said that the interview of Janet Newton, Newton’s wife, couldn’t be relied on as she was experiencing early signs of dementia.

He added that Newton’s dog, who he would be seen walking multiple times a day, proves Newton’s innocence.

Mr Grunwald said: “If, at the time, Mr Newton had the opportunity to do that to Una Crown, where is the dog? What happened to the dog?

“There is no evidence of dog hairs being inside Mrs Crown’s house. There is no evidence or anybody hearing a dog barking because it had been left outside. There is no evidence at all that Mr Newton went home to leave the dog and went back out again.”

He asked the jury: “Please just think about the fact, what happened to the dog?”

Mr Grunwald labelled prosecutor John Price’s allegations that Newton preyed on “vulnerable old women who lived alone”, as “rubbish”.

He suggested that the reaction of Newton’s aunt, who felt the comment her nephew made about massaging her, was inappropriate, didn’t suggest that Newton was drunk on the phone the night Una Crown was murdered.

He added that with the case of Carol Hall, whose home Newton supposedly walked into and saw her in her underwear, had been an “expression of love”.

“In 2000, David Newton was 46 and Carol Hall was 54, she was only eight years older than he, does that classify as preying on vulnerable old women?” Mr Grunwald said.

“It was an expression of love, there was no violence, or break-in, when he was asked to leave, he left.”

Mr Grunwald said that Newton’s next-door neighbour had described that Newton had entered her home on occasions both invited and uninvited.

He said: “Contact was not completely unwelcomed by her.

“When he was asked to leave, he did so.”

Mr Grunwald said the reason Newton hasn’t given any evidence throughout the trial was because “there was nothing more to say”.

“If he said something different, he would be accused of making it up by prosecution. There is nothing more he can tell you,” he said.

“He voluntarily gave DNA samples when asked. He was unfazed by it, is that a sign of a guilty man?”

Judge Justice Garnham began summing up the case this afternoon, he will finish doing this tomorrow morning before the jury is sent out to deliberate.

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The trial continues.