Detectives in Wiltshire missed “significant opportunities” to bring the double killer Christopher Halliwell to justice sooner for the murder of one of his victims and were slow to search a pond he used as a “trophy store”, an investigation managed by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has found.
The current chief constable, Kier Pritchard, was criticised specifically for his role overseeing the flawed investigation into the death of Becky Godden-Edwards, which the report said was hampered by poor supervision, meaning good lines of inquiry were not immediately pursued and key evidence not forensically examined.
Wiltshire police apologised for its failings and revealed that it had recently commissioned an external review to look at whether Halliwell may have committed other crimes.
Halliwell, a Swindon taxi driver, was arrested in 2011 for the abduction and murder of Sian O’Callaghan, at which point he also confessed to killing Godden-Edwards and burying her body in a field eight years earlier.
He was jailed for life for O’Callaghan’s murder in 2012, but a judge ruled the Godden-Edwards confession was inadmissible because of the manner in which it was obtained. The police officer leading the search for O’Callaghan, Steve Fulcher, had broken the rules by ordering Halliwell to be taken to a remote hillside where he spoke to him without his lawyer being present.
Halliwell was not brought to trial for Godden-Edwards’ murder until September 2016, when a different judge ruled the confession evidence was admissible. He is serving a whole life term.
Directed by the IOPC, three outside forces looked at the investigation and pinpointed a series of failures that could have resulted in an earlier conviction.
Examples included:
A soil sample from a spade belonging to Halliwell that was seized when he was arrested in 2011 not being forensically examined until three years later, when it was found to match the field where Godden-Edwards’ body was discovered.
Evidence from an RAC recovery driver who attended to Halliwell’s broken-down vehicle in the early hours of 3 January 2003, six miles from where Godden-Edwards’ body was buried. Police knew of this in 2011 but details of it were established only three years later.
The testimony of a GP in April 2011 that Halliwell visited their surgery on 3 January 2003 with severe scratches to his face and damage to his hand, claiming he had been assaulted by a passenger in his taxi.
Perhaps most importantly, the IOPC highlighted a pond in Ramsbury, Wiltshire, where women’s clothing, including one of O’Callaghan’s boots, was found. This has been identified as Halliwell’s “trophy store”. The report says it was not investigated until 2014, by which time items had degraded and lost any forensic potential. There has long been speculation, including from Fulcher, that Halliwell may have killed other women.
A gamekeeper at Ramsbury contacted the police at the time of O’Callaghan’s murder reporting seeing a taxi in the area. If the gamekeeper had been identified and interviewed sooner, Halliwell’s “trophy store” may have been discovered as early as 2011. The relevance of Ramsbury pond was not established until May 2014.
At the time of the Halliwell case, Pritchard was a detective chief superintendent and had overall responsibility for all serious and major crime investigations across the force.
The investigation found he had a case to answer for misconduct in that he did not ensure a sufficiently thorough murder inquiry took place and it was agreed he would receive “management action”.
The IOPC regional director, Catrin Evans, said: “The force allowed a fog of confusion to develop regarding who was in command. This led to the murder investigation stalling, a lack of appropriate reviews, and obvious lines of inquiry that were potentially capable of securing Halliwell’s conviction being overlooked.”
The force and Pritchard have formally apologised to Godden-Edwards’ family and 10 recommendations made by the IOPC have been addressed.
Godden-Edwards’ mother, Karen Edwards, from Swindon, said she was elated with the outcome of the report and to have finally received an apology after she spent years campaigning to keep the case in the spotlight. “There has been such a failure within Wiltshire police – it is unbelievable,” she said.
Wiltshire’s deputy chief constable, Paul Mills, said: “The force has continued to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry and has, where relevant, worked with other forces, to consider whether Halliwell may be responsible for any further offences. To this end, the force has recently commissioned an external review of the investigation.”
Pritchard said he had “voluntarily accepted management action”, which had encouraged reflection and learning.
