Horse trainer sues murder police for ‘framing her’ over lover’s bonfire death
A HORSE trainer cleared of killing her former boyfriend and burning his body on a bonfire is suing police for more than £300,000 in damages.
In an explosive lawsuit, Kirsti Windsor, 41, says detectives acted ‘maliciously’ and ‘cherry-picked’ evidence that led to her being charged with murder and perverting the course of justice.
Ms Windsor claims that following the death of her ex-boyfriend, handyman David Langdon, officers arrested her on the basis of a false statement that wrongly stated where his body was found.
And they ‘recklessly ignored’ the testimony of experts and witnesses that suggested Mr Langdon had committed suicide, she says.
Ms Windsor was put on trial in 2011, accused of Mr Langdon’s murder. Her friend, Katie Brown, was charged with perverting the course of justice by helping her cover up the alleged crime. But a jury unanimously cleared both women after deliberating for under three hours. The pair are now suing the Chief Constable of West Mercia, citing ‘wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution’.
Ms Windsor, who has trained horses for top owners such as Sheikh Mohammed, says the ordeal left her suffering from panic attacks, depression and insomnia and that she has been unable to work since.
According to the writ, she contacted police in August 2008 after discovering the body of Mr Langdon, 40, on a bonfire at the back of her remote cottage in Wormelow, Herefordshire.
The couple had recently separated and Mr Langdon had been staying alone in the cottage while Ms Windsor visited friends in the Lake District. Four days after her return on August 14, her sheepdog Molly ‘went sniffing around the bonfire’ and found the body.
In a 999 call, an ‘extremely upset’ Ms Windsor said she thought Mr Langdon had committed suicide. But at the six-week trial in February 2011, the prosecution alleged that Ms Windsor and Ms Brown tried to dispose of his body on the bonfire in an attempt to ‘completely obliterate the physical evidence’.
Ms Windsor insisted she and Ms Brown had spent the evening on the patio drinking red wine, unaware that the body was close by. After the
‘Malicious detectives cherry-picked evidence’
discovery, she first called her neighbours and then her mother, who told her to call the police.
After voluntarily making a statement at Hereford police station, she was arrested on suspicion of murder. In the papers submitted to the High Court, Ms Windsor accuses the police of ignoring obvious lines of inquiry and ‘misrepresenting’ evidence. She says they gave ‘false questionnaires’ to residents they visited seeking witnesses but could not produce a feasible motive.
Neither was there any forensic evidence to support the claim that she struggled with Mr Langdon, a tall and well-built man who could easily have overpowered her.
The writ describes how Mr Langdon was prone to erratic behaviour when drunk and was sometimes threatening. After their relationship broke down, he had no job, no money, and was homeless.
He left a series of notes in the cottage showing he was trying to put his affairs in order, including one saying his mobile phone had £10 credit and ‘you may as well use it’.
Ms Windsor and Ms Brown say police deliberately ignored evidence supporting their account, including a blowfly infestation on the body, and chose not to call a specialist fire investigator. One of the grounds for arrest was ‘the location and position of the body in the fire’, according to the writ. This was wrongly recorded, however, as being 15 to 20ft from the front door of the cottage. ‘The true position was that the body . . . was 19.2m [63ft] from the rear of the cottage,’ says the writ.
Witnesses told police they had seen a fire at the cottage at about midday on August 10. But according to mobile phone data, Ms Windsor could not have arrived at the cottage until 5pm at the earliest. ‘As it was accepted that Mr Langdon died on August 10, this evidence strongly supported the hypothesis that he had killed himself by throwing himself on the fire,’ says the writ.
Ms Windsor’s lawyer said: ‘She’s been to hell and she’s still not back and it’s all down to police officers not doing their jobs properly.’
West Mercia Police said: ‘It would be inappropriate for us to make any further comment at this time.’