Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
The evidence at centre of murder trial
ALLEGED MURDER WEAPON AND FORENSIC EVIDENCE
Callum Wheeler killed Julia by bludgeoning her with a pole weighing almost half-a-stone, says the prosecution.
The alleged murder weapon - the handle of a jack typically used to lift parts of the railway - measured close to a metre in length, at 96.6cm, and weighed more than 3kg, the court has heard.
Officers found the item inside Wheeler’s bedroom when they carried out a search of his home.
It was wrapped in plastic bags, says the prosecution, and Julia’s blood was found upon it in various places, along with Wheeler’s DNA.
Particles from the railway jack pole were also later found in Julia James’ hair, the court heard.
Julia’s blood was also allegedly found on trainers owned by Wheeler, while his DNA was found on her clothing.
WHO IS CALLUM WHEELER?
Little information about Callum Wheeler has yet been heard by the court.
It is known that he was 21 at the time of Julia’s death, but is now 22.
He lives in Sunshine Corner Avenue, in the village of Aylesham, with his father, and is not employed.
The prosecution claims that in the months before the attack on Julia, he had been seen by a number of witnesses walking around the local area during the daytime.
WHEELER’S CALL TO POLICE DAYS BEFORE KILLING PCSO
Callum Wheeler rang 999, calling police to his home just 10 days before he killed Julia.
On Monday, the jury was played footage from officers’ bodyworn cameras as they visited his address on April 17 last year.
The video showed officers interacting with Wheeler on his doorstep.
The prosecution describes him as acting “oddly” and offering no “coherent” reason for mak
ing the 999 call.
In the footage, officers ask Wheeler if he is OK, to which he is heard to respond: “Why are you talking to…go on, get
lost. Go on, get lost, go on, go and bother someone else.”
The video then shows police ask a man - Wheeler’s father - if everything is OK, to which he says: “It’s all right - he [called 999]…for some reason, I’m not sure.”
The front door is then shut and the clip ends.
DATA FROM APPLE WATCH MAPS JULIA’S LAST MOVEMENTS
Details of Julia’s final movements on the afternoon she died were extracted by police from her Apple Watch.
Jurors were shown a map, which shows Julia had walked through her back garden, around a field and to a personally significant spot in Ackholt Wood that her and her husband knew as the “butterfly place”.
The watch data shows she then stopped there, before turning back on herself.
But a short while later, her heart rate soared from 97bpm to 145bpm in a matter of 19 seconds.
Watch data also shows Julia’s pace “radically changed”, said Ms Morgan, and that she “took a sudden detour” out of Ackholt Wood.
The prosecution alleges this is the moment she spotted Wheeler.
“She began to move along the side of a field,” says Ms Morgan. “She had run out of the wood, doubtless to try and escape her attacker.”
Smart watch data shows Julia’s last heart rate was recorded at 2.43pm.
JULIA ‘HAD SEEN KILLER IN WOODS BEFORE’
Julia had allegedly encountered Wheeler in the vicinity of Ackholt Wood in the months before she was killed.
“Julia James was herself aware of the presence of a strange male in the area of Ackholt Wood,” the prosecutor told the jury.
“She commented to her hus
band that she had passed someone she described as ‘a really weird dude’ on the Ackholt Wood bridle path.”
Julia’s husband, Paul James, was walking with her in February 2021 - two months before her death - when she pointed the man outtohim.
This encounter took place “just metres away from where Julia would be killed”, Ms Morgan told the court.
After Julia’s death, Paul helped police put together an e-fit of the male walker, which the prosecution says bears “a striking similarity” to Callum Wheeler.
Mr James later identified Wheeler in an identity parade as the man they had seen.
JURORS RETRACE JULIA’S FINAL STEPS
On Tuesday, members of the jury were taken to visit the scene of Julia’s death.
Jurors boarded a minibus from Canterbury Crown Court to Snowdown, between Dover and Canterbury, to view areas connected to the suspected murder.
They disembarked at Sunshine Corner Avenue in Aylesham - the street where Wheeler lived.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan QC took jurors to Wheeler’s home, and showed them a gap in the hedge leading to Adisham Road, which he is said to have walked through on the day of Julia’s death.
The group then moved on to Aylesham and District Social Club in Ratling, where the jury was shown a camera on the front of the building that recorded Wheeler walking past at 1.08pm that afternoon.
Ms Morgan told them the footage “shows the defendant carrying a bag containing a metal railway jack”.
Jurors were also taken to Julia’s former home, and along the footpath where she walked that day with her Jack Russell, Toby.
The jury walked along the route Julia is said to have taken the day she died.
They were shown where the prosecution claims she saw Wheeler in the woods and attempted to get away.
A yellow marker showed the point a short distance away - on a path beside a wheat field - where her body was found.
THE PHOTO THAT HELPED TRACE A KILLER
Wheeler was photographed less than a mile from the crime scene, the day after Julia was killed.
Local farmer Gavin Tucker whose land includes Ackholt Wood - spotted Wheeler in Pond Lane, Aylesham, on the afternoon of April 28, and took both dashcam footage and a clear photo of him.
The image shows Wheeler carrying a black-and-blue holdall, which the prosecution says contained a “metal bar covered at one end with the Tesco carrier bag”.
In the dashcam footage - which was played before the jury - Mr Tucker challenges Wheeler, asking “what are you up to?” before Wheeler runs away towards Aylesham.
It was not the first time Mr Tucker had encountered him.
On September 21, 2020 - seven months before Julia’s death - he had come across Wheeler on his land and challenged him on two occasions.
Giving evidence to the court yesterday (Wednesday), he said: “The way he came across to me...i just didn’t like the way it was.”
He told how he found Wheeler’s behaviour on April 28 “suspicious”, and took a photo of him which he handed to police.
“There’s a suspicious fella and he’s running off, and there’s been a death down at Ackholt,” he told the operator, in a recording played to the court.
On May 7 last year, the photo Mr Tucker took was circulated by police as part of a press appeal, prompting further witnesses to come forward.
WHAT THE PROSECUTION HAS TO PROVE
Wheeler has pleaded not guilty to murdering Julia James.
But as his trial began on Monday, the prosecution said he accepted he had killed the PCSO.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan QC explained that the difference between murder and killing someone lies in the perpetrator’s intentions.
She defined murder to the jury as “unlawful killing of another person with intention of killing that person, or causing them at least really serious harm”.
By continuing to plead not guilty to murder, Wheeler “does not accept that he had the intention requisite” to make the offence murder, she said.
“So [he] does not accept that he intended to kill her or cause her at least really serious harm.”
She added that there will be “no medical or psychiatric evidence in this case, suggesting he was not capable of forming the intention to murder”.
“How it is that the defence will suggest that when he hit Julia James repeatedly over the head with that a large metal pole, he did not intend to cause her at least really serious harm is a matter for him,” she added.
“The key question for the offence of murder in this trial is whether or not when he attacked Julia James, the defendant intended to kill her or cause her at least really serious harm.
“The prosecution will invite you to conclude that it is clear and obvious that he did.”
WHEELER ‘WAS SEEN CARRYING MURDER WEAPON’
Wheeler was spotted in the Aylesham area carrying the “murder weapon” in the days before and after the killing, says the prosecution.
The jury heard that on April 26 - the day before Julia’s death - a witness saw Wheeler walking in Spinney Lane, carrying a bag with a long, red object protruding from one end of it.
“If that is correct it means the defendant was roaming around this area armed with that metal bar 24 hours before he came to attack Julia James,” said Ms Morgan.
On the day after Julia’s death, the prosecution alleges Wheeler “went out again, carrying the weapon he had used to murder her”, covered in a Tesco carrier bag.
“Why he did that is known only to him,” said Ms Morgan.
“It could be that he was goading the police that were in the vicinity, or it could be that he was looking for somewhere to dispose of the weapon.”
Ms Morgan alleges that in the days after the tragedy, Wheeler “continued to tour around the area, sometimes carrying his bag, sometimes carrying his murder weapon”.
She told the jury he was out “playing games... running around trying to avoid police officers... running in and out of hedges, and into wooded areas”, and “kept a check on the police cordon”.
On April 30 - three days after Julia’s death - two witnesses reported seeing a man “looking weird”, standing in Spinney Lane and watching police as they guarded the crime scene.
The prosecution alleges that Wheeler was out carrying the murder weapon again on May 4 - a full week after Julia’s death.