KILLER’S BID FAILS
‘This needs to stop now,’ says Balcombe’s mum
MARKET Square murderer Karl Hague’s bid to overturn his conviction for killing teenager Ricky Balcombe in 1995 was yesterday thrown out by the Court of Appeal.
MARKET Square murderer Karl Hague will be jailed until at least 2035 unless he wins a last desperate bid to prove his innocence in the nation’s highest court.
To clear his name, Hague will have to appeal to the High Court after the Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed the 46-year-old’s bid to overturn his conviction for killing teenager Ricky Balcombe on May 5, 1995.
His appeal, following a seven-week trial last year, was sought because his lawyers said: THE PROSECUTION case was weak and tenuous; HIS conviction was unreasonable; and, FRESH evidence, namely Nick Munn allegedly twice confessing to the murder, meant a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred.
But appeal justices Anne Ferguson, Mark Weinberg and Richard Niall ruled the prosecution case was “strong” and that the 26-year maximum sentence handed to Hague last year was not “manifestly excessive”.
“We have dismissed applications brought by Mr Hague for leave to appeal both conviction and sentence,” Justice Ferguson told the court.
“The court was not left in doubt as to the correctness of the jury’s verdict.”
Fighting back tears outside court, Balcombe’s mother, Christine Loader, said she hoped Hague would not appeal to the High Court.
“Hopefully it won’t come to that, ” Ms Loader said.
“This just needs to stop now. He needs to do his time. We’ve had enough; the last 24 years have been so hard. It’s enough for all of us.”
Ms Loader described yesterday’s result as “amazing”.
The appeal justices described Balcombe’s friend Paul Bellia — who told the jury at last year’s trial Hague was the culprit — as a “challenging witness” but said “it would be a mistake to proceed on the basis that his evidence was worthless”.
At trial the court heard most of the descriptions of Balcombe’s killer matched Hague’s appearance at the time.
Among more than 60 people to give evidence at trial, Mr Bellia was the only one to directly identify him as the person who stabbed Balcombe with a knife near the Market Square shopping centre’s lifts.
The justices said evidence of others putting Hague at the mall at the time of the killing was reliable.
And that due to his varying accounts of his movements at the time of the murder “it was open to the jury to reject his evidence” because it was not credible.
The appeal heard evidence that convicted murderer Munn allegedly confessed to the Market Square murder in the days before he killed his mate Jason Fry last year, and also in 2003 at the Metropolitan Remand Centre.
Of the alleged Munn confessions, Justice Ferguson said: “The court concluded that the evidence lacked credibility. If the evidence were to be placed before a jury, there was no significant possibility that it would affect the outcome of the trial.”
Due to time on remand, Hague who appeared in court yesterday via video link, has served more than three years of the 26-year sentence imposed on him last year.
There was no indication on Thursday that he would appeal to the High Court.
His parole after he has served his 20-year minimum will be a matter for the Adult Parole Board.