R v Christopher Halliwell
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 19 October 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Criminal |
| Court | Crown Court |
R
-V-
CHRISTOPHER HALLIWELL
T20107729
BRISTOL CROWN COURT
SENTENCING REMARKS OF MRS JUSTICE COX
19 OCTOBER 2012
Christopher Halliwell, the sentence for murder is life imprisonment and that is the
sentence I impose upon you now.
You are now aged 48. You have pleaded guilty to the murder of Sian O’Callaghan, a
much loved daughter, sister and partner – a happy, lively and caring young woman
who enriched the lives of all those who knew her and who had everything to live for.
In March 2011 she was just 22 years old.
What exactly you did to her, and why you did it, may never be known. On your behalf
your counsel has today, on your instructions, offered for the first time an explanation
as to how she met her death that night. I have considered it carefully and I have
considered it against all the evidence which exists in this case. Your account bears
the hallmarks of an account carefully designed to try and explain away separate
aspects of the evidence relied upon by the prosecution. It is important however to
view all that evidence cumulatively. The CCTV, telephone and Automatic Number
Plate Recognition evidence of your movements between 19 and 23 March, and
forensic evidence as to Sian’s injuries, all provide cumulatively a compelling picture
of events.
I reject the account you have offered today. I am satisfied so as to be sure on all the
evidence of the following facts. On Saturday 19 March, the night Sian was abducted,
and I am sure that she was abducted, you were working in Swindon as a taxi driver.
At 02.13 in the morning you turned your taxi handset off. But you did not go home,
as you told the taxi company you would. CCTV shows your car driving around the
area near the Suju nightclub in Swindon Old Town, circling round and round for
some 40 minutes until you saw Sian. She had spent the evening with friends,
drinking and having fun at the Suju. She left the club shortly before 3 a.m. to walk to
her home, about 10 minutes walk away. She was alone, she was intoxicated and she
was walking unsteadily. You saw her as you drove past, but you then stopped, turned
round and drove back to her.
You stopped and no doubt offered her, or persuaded her to have a taxi ride home,
because she got into your taxi. Poignantly, her partner had advised her never to walk
home alone but to always use a taxi. She probably had that advice in mind when she
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got into your taxi, thinking that she would be safe; that it was the right thing to do.
But she would soon have realised, with horror, that you were not taking her home,
because you drove off in the opposite direction – out of Swindon towards
Marlborough and the Savernake Forest - a distance it would have taken about half an
hour to drive. Having regard to all the evidence and in particular the telephone
evidence relating to the location of Sian’s mobile I reject the suggestion that you were
initially told to drive to Covingham. I am sure you knew exactly what you were doing
when Sian got inside your taxi.
You went home later that morning, but Sian did not. You had assaulted her and
murdered her and you had left her body somewhere in the Forest area. I am entirely
satisfied that you intended to kill her.
The evidence shows that you drove back to the area where you’d left her at lunchtime
on that same day – the 19 March. You logged on for work again that evening but you
deliberately turned your handset off again just before 7 p.m., no doubt to avoid your
movements being traced. In the three hours that followed, before you logged back
on, you were driving around and looking for a remote area somewhere on the
Berkshire Downs, where you could conceal her body.
At some point on Monday 21 March you moved Sian’s body from the place you had
first hidden her to the place on the Downs where she was eventually found by police
on Thursday 24 March.
On 22 March, while you were under surveillance, you were seen to be cleaning the
rear seat of your taxi with cleaning fluid and then to be putting seat and headrest
covers in an industrial wheelie bin, no doubt in an effort to remove any evidence that
could link Sian’s murder to you. Those items were found to have Sian’s blood upon
them.
On 23 March you drove back yet again to the place where Sian now was and later on
you made further efforts to get rid of evidence by burning more car seat covers by the
roadside nearby. You had displayed a police poster about Sian in your rear taxi
window, again no doubt to give the impression that you were not linked to this crime.
On 24 March Sian’s body was found, partially concealed amongst the undergrowth
and positioned down a steep bank where she would not readily be seen. She was
lying face down and she was naked from the waist down to her ankles. Her leggings
and underwear were wrapped around her ankles and fabric from these items of
clothing had been cut away in the crotch and buttock areas. Her bra had been
removed and a torn bra strap was found in the sleeve of her cardigan.
The cause of Sian’s death was considered to be the combined effects of two stab
wounds to her head and neck and compression of the neck. You had stabbed her
twice with a knife and there is little doubt that they were the fatal wounds. You admit
that you kept a knife in your car for self-protection. There is evidence that it was a 6
inch kitchen knife. One of those stab wounds was so deep and penetrating that it
passed right through her skull and would have required severe force. Deep bruising
and abrasions to her face were consistent with punches or kicks. Deep bruising to her
neck suggested pressure either from strangulation or, more likely, from blunt force
trauma in an attempt to restrain her. There were also bruises and abrasions to her
breasts, particularly her left breast and nipple, caused possibly by biting.
These, then, were the physical injuries you inflicted upon that young woman in what
was clearly a savage and brutal attack. The pain, terror, anguish and desperation she
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would have suffered, as you assaulted and then murdered her, is truly horrifying to
contemplate. But her terror would have started long before then. She would have
been terrified and panic-stricken right from the moment she realised that you were
not going to drive her home. She was terrified, helpless and alone.
For this offence of murder I have to decide on the minimum term you must serve, as
punishment, before the Parole Board can even consider your release on licence. I do
so having regard to the seriousness of the offence. Your counsel has conceded that,
since you had a knife with you in the taxi and you used it to stab Sian, the starting
point is 25 years. However, the Prosecution submit that this was a murder involving
sexual conduct and that the starting point should therefore be 30 years.
I am satisfied on the evidence, viewed cumulatively, that this was a murder involving
sexual conduct. I reject the submission by your counsel that I cannot be sure of that
on the evidence in this case. The Prosecution do not suggest that there is, here, any
evidence of overt sexual activity. Sexual conduct can, however, take many forms and
again I view the evidence cumulatively. After circling the area where you eventually
saw Sian, you deliberately abducted this attractive young girl, who was alone late at
night, and you drove her some distance away. Her injuries included injuries to her
left breast and nipple consistent with bites or another form of aggressive assault. Her
body was found half naked, with her leggings and underwear around her ankles.
These factors, together with the cutting away of fabric from those items of clothing in
the crotch area and the removal of her bra, point clearly to sexual conduct. Had Sian
survived, this evidence would have amounted to evidence of a sexual assault.
The starting point in fixing the minimum term is therefore 30 years imprisonment.
I make it plain that I shall ignore completely your previous convictions, which were
many years ago now and were for offences of dishonesty. You have no convictions for
sexual or violent offences.
There are a number of aggravating features in this case. You abused your position as
a taxi driver, in a car clearly marked as a taxi, and as someone Sian thought she could
trust; her abduction was clearly premeditated; as a young woman walking alone late
at night and under the influence of drink she was a vulnerable victim; there was here
a prolonged period of time in which she would have suffered extreme fear and terror
as well as severe pain from the injuries you inflicted upon her; and you made
extensive efforts to conceal her body.
There is little advanced by way of mitigation. I accept, however, that your plea of
guilty has avoided Sian’s family having to endure a trial, which is an important factor.
Taking all the relevant factors into account and having careful regard to the overall
seriousness of this offence the starting point will remain as 30 years.
I shall allow a discount of five years for your plea of guilty, taking into account the
legal advice you received, entirely properly, and the time that elapsed in this case as a
result. There will also be deducted the period of 571 days, which you have already
spent in custody. That period will be deducted from the minimum term of 25 years,
which is the term I consider properly reflects the seriousness of this case. If you are
eventually released on licence you will remain on licence for the rest of your life.
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In the Bristol Crown Court T2011/7126
Hearing date: 9 May 2012
Regina
V
CHRISTOPHER JOHN HALLIWELL
RULING ON PRELIMINARY ISSUES: ABUSE OF PROCESS
Introduction
1. This defendant was originally charged on two counts of murder in an
indictment before Bristol Crown Court. Before he was arraigned the
Court heard two applications made on his behalf.
2. First, there was an application to exclude the evidence contained in the
witness statement of the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) Detective
Superintendent Fulcher, together with associated evidence said to be
tainted by the activities of that officer. This evidence related to the
period from the moment of the defendant’s removal from his place of
arrest, at 11:06am on 24 March 2011, until his arrival at the police
station four hours later at 15:15 hours. The basis of this application
was that the documents revealed such substantial and irretrievable
breaches of PACE and the applicable Codes that the evidence was
rendered inadmissible.
3. On 4 February 2012, after a four-day hearing on a voire dire and for the
reasons subsequently sent to the parties in writing, I granted that
application. In respect of Count 2 on the indictment, charging the
defendant with the murder of Becky Godden-Edwards, that amounted
to a terminating ruling. The Crown did not appeal.
4. There was then a further application for the trial on this indictment to be
stayed as an abuse of the process. In summary, the basis for this
application was that, after the defendant’s arrest, the SIO had called a
series of press conferences and briefed the press in detail on what the
defendant had told the police and how he had led them to separate
locations where two bodies could be found. There was then extensive
and repeated national media coverage of the case and of these facts in
particular, over a number of weeks, such that it is no longer possible to
rectify the damage caused by this publicity and the defendant could not
have a fair trial.
5. I heard some preliminary submissions on this matter immediately after
my ruling on the first; and I subsequently gave directions for the
hearing. I heard full argument on 4 April 2012 and reserved judgment
in order to consider the substantial volume of documentation submitted
by the defendant, based on the media coverage of this case.
6. At a hearing on 9 May 2012 I dismissed the application and agreed to
send full reasons to the parties in writing. These are the reasons for my
decision on that application.
7. Subsequently, at the PCMH held at Preston Crown Court on 31 May,
the Defence applied to dismiss Count 2, the Crown did not resist the
applications and Count 2 was deleted from the indictment. The
defendant was arraigned on Count 1 and pleaded not guilty. His trial
on that Count is now fixed to be heard at Preston, the case having now
been transferred from Bristol Crown Court, commencing on 25
February 2013, with a provisional time estimate of two weeks. The
case will be listed for further case management directions after the
parties have had an opportunity to consider these written reasons and it
was agreed that no Defence Statement need be served until then.
8. For convenience, because the two applications are linked and the SIO
gave evidence at the voire dire which is relevant to the second
application, I am attaching as an Appendix to these reasons the first
ruling on admissibility, so that the issues on the second application and
the context in which they arise may be properly understood.
9. The background facts are set out in full in that first ruling, which may
helpfully be read first, and I do not therefore repeat them here.
ABUSE OF PROCESS
The Relevant Facts
10. In his evidence at the voire dire DSupt Fulcher described the media
strategy adopted from the start of Operation Mayan. The strategy
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