Witnesses’ details lost Police defend investigation into death
GLOUCESTERSHIRE police have defended their investigation into the death of Christopher ‘CJ’ Hall after it emerged the force lost key witnesses’ details.
Mr Hall, a 28-year-old labourer of Queen’s Retreat, died on July 8, after an attack in the lower High Street the previous evening.
Tom Bryan, 21, of Priory Street, was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by a Bristol Crown Court jury on Thursday. He was jailed yesterday for 13 years.
Gloucestershire police say the strength of their investigation is shown by Tom Bryan’s conviction, Michael Saunders admitting murder and Lauren Bryan pleading guilty to encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence.
During the trial of Tom Bryan, investigating officer DC Stokes was asked why the four witnesses to the attack did not give a full statement to police until five months after the incident.
These witnesses were Marcus Groome, Declan Flannery, Alice O’dell and Thomas Beney.
DC Stokes said this group approached a student police officer and two traffic officers to give evidence shortly after Mr Hall was attacked.
Their details were taken and put into the personal log of one of the officers. He believed he had electronically synced his log to the Gloucestershire police system.
But a technical error meant this did not happen, DC Stokes said.
The details were lost and it was only through CCTV analysis that police were able to track down the witnesses - some five months later, in December.
William Mousley, defending, said it is a police priority to gather as much witness evidence as soon as possible so as to avoid witnesses’ recollections becoming less reliable with the passing of time.
DC Stokes accepted this is a “fair” point.
Throughout the trial Mr Mousley argued the delay before the statements were made means they are less credible.
Mr Beney admitted his memory of the incident was “hazy”.
Mr Mousley said “an awful lot” of what the witnesses said was “demonstrably wrong”.
A Gloucestershire police spokeswoman said the “complex and lengthy” investigation involved identifying and interviewing more than 200 people who were in Cheltenham on the night of July 7.
She added: “As was heard in court this error was due to a technical issue, and although this caused a delay in collecting their statements, they were still identified along with 200 others.
“In any major investigation, there are various fail-safes and procedures in place to ensure that potential witnesses are traced and identified, and although there was a delay, those procedures were successful in tracing these vital eye-witnesses.
“Gathering evidence is crucial in any investigation and thanks to the hard work of all those involved, and the strength of the evidence gathered, we had two guilty pleas and a guilty verdict following a trial.
“During sentence the judge also praised the quality of the prosecution’s case.”
Michael Saunders, 24, from Delavale Road in Winchcombe, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 20 years.
Lauren Bryan, 28, of Alstone Lane, has been jailed for 15 months.