Police ‘coerced’ gipsy to make murder confession

An illiterate gipsy was wrongly jailed for the rape and murder of a schoolgirl. Noel Jones was 18 when he was “coerced” into signing two confessions after two days’ continuous questioning before being allowed a solicitor, Mold Crown Court heard.

Mr Jones, now 59, served six years of a 12-year sentence for manslaughter for the attack on Janet Commins, 15, in Flint, North Wales in 1976.

Last year he was told the case had been re-opened after advances in DNA analysis of semen samples from the crime scene showed an almost-certain match to another man, Stephen Hough. Ex-soldier Hough, 58, denies the murder and is now on trial.