Eight leading forensics experts say polo player convicted of murder 35 years ago may be innocent
EIGHT esteemed pathologists and forensic experts have cast serious doubt on the Crown’s case that an ex-polo-playing landowner murdered a vagrant with a suffocation technique made famous by 19th-century body-snatchers.
In documents submitted to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), they have debunked claims that Clive Freeman killed Alexander Hardie using the so-called ‘Burking’ method perfected by serial killers in Edinburgh in 1828.
William Burke and William Hare killed 16 people to sell their corpses for medical research in one of Scotland’s most notorious crimes.
Many of the experts say, in written reports seen by the Daily Mail, that the most likely cause of Mr Hardie’s death was the mixture of alcohol and prescription drugs found in the dead man’s body, and suggest the most appropriate cause of death is ‘unascertained’.
The theory that so-called ‘Burking’ was used to kill Scots-born Mr Hardie, 49, in a flat in south-east London in 1988 was put forward by respected prosecution pathol
Has this ex-polo-playing soldier from a wealthy family spent 35 years in prison for a murder that never happened? From yesterday’s Daily Mail
ogist Dr Richard Shepherd at Freeman’s Old Bailey trial.
It was accepted by the jury, which found him guilty of murder and arson.
The Zimbabwean father- of-three was given a minimum 13-year jail term in 1989 – but he has now served an additional 22 years because, he says, he has refused to admit murdering Mr Hardie and trying to destroy his body in a fire.
Now 80, Freeman is increasingly frail but determined to clear his name before he dies.
Yesterday, as the CCRC reviews his case for a fifth time, a major Mail investigation raised troubling questions about the safety of his convictions, and asked whether he has spent 35 years behind bars for a murder that may never have happened.
In documents submitted to the CCRC, the eight pathologists and forensic scientists (not including original defence pathologist Professor Keith Mant) rejected claims that Mr Hardie, a former plumber from Edinburgh, was killed unlawfully. In doing so, they aligned themselves with the views of the late Professor Mant, a giant in the world of pathology, who in his pre-trial report and in evidence at Freeman’s trial, strongly rejected the Crown’s case of murder.
In a report dated January 20,
1999, forensic pathologist Dr
Peter Acland said ‘any pathologist would be hard put to give a definite cause of death in this case and, whilst he would be perhaps unwise to rule out foul play, I think he would have considered the natural or alcohol-related potential causes of death more likely’.
In October 2001, Professor Christopher Milroy, another forensic pathologist, said: ‘I agree with Dr Acland that the cause of death in this case cannot be ascertained. Dr Shepherd gave the cause of death as suffocation. There were no positive pathological findings in his autopsy to support such a conclusion.’
In 2017, Professor Jack Crane, state pathologist in Northern Ireland, wrote: ‘I understand that CCRC has asked Dr Shepherd to review the case and I should say that I find this highly irregular and objectionable. If the case were to be reviewed by a pathologist, it should be an independent pathologist, especially since five other extremely senior pathologists have already disagreed with him over the past 20 years.’
Professor Nicholas Birch, a consulting pharmacologist, wrote in March 2014: ‘The concentration of alcohol likely to have been present in the blood of Alexander Hardie in the hours prior to his death, especially when combined with the toxic effects of diazepam and dothiepin (anti-depressants) at substantial concentrations, make it extremely likely that the cause of death was related to alcohol consumption.’
Five years ago, forensic pathologist Dr Alexander Kolar wrote that ‘there is no evidence in isolation or in combination that allows a cause of death to be put forward, in particular there is no evidence that allows a diagnosis of suffocation, crush asphyxia, Burking or similar’.
As revealed by the Mail yesterday, there were also alleged failures by the police to disclose vital evidence at Freeman’s trial, and a key eyewitness retracted his statement placing Freeman at the alleged murder scene on the night in question, saying he was mistaken.
Prosecutors believed Freeman may have learned the ‘Burking’ murder technique while serving in the former Rhodesia’s Grey’s Scouts mounted infantry unit in the 1970s and killed Mr Hardie in a bizarre plot to defraud an insurance firm out of £300,000.
Dr Shepherd did not respond to requests for comment.
The pathologists’ reports will increase pressure on the beleaguered CCRC, widely criticised after the recent scandal involving Andy Malkinson, who was wrongly convicted and jailed for 17 years for rape.
‘No evidence of suffocation’