An unsolved murder that ended in a miscarriage of justice
This Case of murder saw Andrew Evans serve 25 years in prison, wrongfully convicted of Judith Robert's murder.
At around 6 pm on Wednesday 7 June 1972, 14-year-old Queen Elizabeth grammar school student Judith Roberts left her home at 155 Gillway Lane, Wigginton, Tamworth. Judith took her green Raleigh bike, which had been a present from her parents two years earlier, and rode off along Main Road, then along Comberford Lane, which becomes Wiggington Lane.
Judith often rode this route after school, She would arrive home from school at around 4:30 pm, have her tea and do her homework for an hour or so before going for a ride on her bicycle. She would ride ‘round the block’, which consisted of Gillway to Wigginton Road, Comberford Lane to Comberford Road back to Gillway and home.
Occasionally she would pop into Borough Road Post Office and Sweet Shop, which closed at 6 pm. On those days Judith would leave Borough Road, riding her bike along Lakenheath Road in Mildenhall and then back onto Wigginton Road to complete her trip.
On June 7th 1972 Judith’s routine was pretty much the same as every school day. She arrived home at around 4.30 pm after school was over, her mother had prepared a salad and banana custard for tea, but Judith didn’t feel like eating, she had worrying things on her mind. Her period was three weeks late and with her mind full, her stomach felt the same. Judith left her salad and swallowed down the banana custard with a drink.
Her mother said that she would tell Judith’s father that she had not eaten her meal. Around 5.15 pm Vincent Robert arrived home to see that instead of eating her meal, Judith was doing homework in the living room, thoroughly engrossed.
Vincent was not happy that his daughter had missed her tea and summoned her to the kitchen, where he asked her to eat. Judith sat at the table but reportedly only nibbled half-heartedly at some lettuce, a tomato and spring onion.
Mr Roberts told his daughter off for not eating fresh food and told her to go back to complete her homework. He told her that he would expect her to eat what she had left for her supper. Judith finished her homework, put on her navy-blue anorak and went to get her bike from the shed in the back garden.
As always Judith let her pet hamster Horace out of his cage and pinned a notice on the shed door saying, ‘Horace on the floor’ and took off on her bike ride. She was still wearing her blue and white school uniform dress, her navy blue anorak with black tie-up shoes. Underneath her clothes, she wore a bra and two pairs of knickers (one under her tights, the other over).
There were witnesses to Judith leaving the house on that fateful evening and with it being summer time it was daylight so they could not have been mistaken. The next-door neighbour, Bertha Evans, at 153 Gillway recalled seeing Judith go left out of number 155 onto Gillway in the direction of Wigginton Road.
Maude Best of 134 Gillway, was out walking her dog and remembered seeing Judith close to the junction of Wigginton Road and Brown’s Lane, Judith had stopped briefly to chat with Maude before continuing her bike ride. Judith would normally make sure to be back by around 6.30 pm to watch ‘Cross Roads’, a TV soap opera that was very popular at the time. Sadly on the night in question, the 14-year-old did not make it home.
The pathologist report suggested that Judith came to Comberford Lane, where she had become separated from her bike for reasons that have not been established. The report indicates that at around 7 pm she was subjected to a frenzied attack, which left her dead.
Judith’s parents naturally became worried when she didn’t arrive home in time for her TV programme as usual and by 10.30 pm they had grown very concerned and after Vincent had searched the house and gardens he called the police. The sun had set and the sky was dark by the time Vincent explained to the police that his little girl was missing.
A description of Judith was distributed and the police began an investigation straight away with an intensive search of the area. Police with dogs searched the town with local volunteers, a mountain rescue team, RAF airmen and military troops from Whittington Barracks.
Judith was 5ft 1 inch tall, medium build, fair skin and hair with braces on her upper teeth. Obviously, there was always the green bicycle to be considered as Judith had it with her when she left home.
An intensive search for Judith spread through the day and night of Thursday and by Friday police with dogs were looking in canals, rivers, and local barns on farmland.
On Saturday 10 June, some 300+ members of the Whittington Army barracks joined the search. The Junior Soldiers Company from Whittington Barracks were called upon to make a search of local fields. A statement made by a soldier said that at 2.30 pm that afternoon the squad began to carefully search fields from south to north on the western side of Wigginton.
The search came to a local corn field known as ‘Robinson’s Field’, not far in Comberford Lane, at about 4.30 pm. Private Barry Gibson, a soldier in the search said, “On reaching Comberford Lane we commenced searching the field on the other side of the lane. To enter this field, which had been roughly ploughed, I opened a gate and walked in first in front of L/Cpl Steele.” In the field, Private Gibson made three dreadful finds.
Soon after entering the field, the soldier found a green Raleigh bicycle thrown into a thorn hedge, the front wheel sticking out of the hedge. “I turned left and started to walk up the hedge,” reported Gibson. “I had gone about seven yards when I saw about two yards in front of me a green Moulton pedal cycle lying into the hedge with the front wheel towards the gate. I shouted and was joined at once by L/Cpl Steele and others.”
The soldiers scoured the field and about a yard to the right of the cycle there was a big pile of hedge trimmings.” A soldier noticed a piece of blue-coloured material sticking out from the mound of hedge cuttings. When he lifted a piece of cloth he saw human hair covered with blood and a piece of human flesh. He had found the blue anorak that Judith had been wearing when she set out on her bike ride three days before.
The final horrifying discovery was hidden under the hedge cuttings. Three pieces of corrugated sheet, underneath which were two fertiliser bags covering Judith’s body face down. Forensic investigations revealed that she had been bludgeoned to death, her skull shattered into 18 fragments and viciously sexually assaulted. Judith had been put into a shallow grave and pushed under the hedge feet first.
Officers from Staffordshire Police arrived at the scene within minutes of receiving a to say that soldiers had discovered a body. A Home Office Pathologist, Dr Scholtz Barendo Van-Der-Merwe, was also called to attend the scene of the crime and arrived within around two hours.
The police reported that Judith had been stripped of her clothes from the waist down with the front of her dress and anorak pulled up over her breasts. Her bra was still in place with the breasts covered.
Detective Constable Ephraim Prince's report reads “At 4.45 pm on Saturday 10 June 1972 I visited a field off Comberford Lane, Wigginton near Tamworth. As I entered the field and to my left, I saw lying in the weeds at the base of the hedge, a green Raleigh pedal cycle. This cycle was facing towards the gate and the wheels were sixteen feet from the hinged gatepost at the entrance to the field. Some yards further into the field I saw a pile of privet hedge cuttings. I could see part of a hand protruding from these cuttings. I then awaited the arrival of the pathologist Dr Van-Der-Merwe’. DC Prince SOCO: ‘Underneath the hedge cuttings were three pieces of corrugated sheet lying on top of a body. Beneath these was a blue plastic bag and a clear plastic bag”.
A report from the Home Office Pathologist reads, “At approximately 6.45 pm on Saturday 10 June 1972, I visited the scene of a serious crime in a field off Comberford Lane, near Tamworth. It had been and was still raining. Present were Mr Rees Chief Constable of Staffordshire, Mr Bailey Assistant Chief Constable, Detective Chief Superintendent Wright, Detective Superintendent Jordan, Detective Constable Prince as well as two photographers and other police officers”.
“The field had been roughly ploughed but there was a fairly wide border of ground (headland) over which grass and weeds were growing, moderately short near the ploughed edge and very long at the edge which was tall and overhanging. A newish pedal cycle lay at the base of the hedge some yards inside the gate and not visible except from inside the field. Various pieces of rubbish and pieces of brick lay on the grass verge and a large pile of relatively fresh privet hedge clippings, a pile of soil and rubble lay near the cycle but separated by tall weeds from it. Some yards further along the foot of the hedge and below its overhang another pile of clippings was visible through a gap in the weeds and grass”
“This almost totally obscured the body of which only a hand was visible, and nearest the field, part of a blue anorak and a corner of white plastic material. The grass beneath the body was flattened by the weight of the body, relatively orderly in fashion, not churned about and dry to the touch. The feet were extended well into the hedge with stems of dry grass and twigs caught between some toes. The site where the body lay was relatively orderly and gave the appearance that it had been placed there fairly carefully and that it had been pushed under the hedge feet first”.
Mr Wright continued, “The body was subsequently removed to the Public Mortuary at Kettlebrook, where it was identified to me by Mr V.E. Roberts, to be that of his daughter Judith Roberts, aged 14 years. At 8.15 pm the same night I was present when Doctor Van-der-Merwe carried out a Post Mortem examination on the body which saw him remove a navy blue quilted pattern anorak…. a blue coloured patterned dress…. and a brassiere…. which appeared to be intact and in place. I saw obvious and multiple injuries to the left side of the face, temple and scalp”.
“At 3.15 pm on Tuesday 20th January 1972 with Detective Chief Superintendent Saunders and Detective Constable Prince, I again attended the Mortuary whilst Doctor Van-der-Merwe carried out an examination of the skull and brain”.
The pathologist report states that Judith was dragged by her upper right arm from the area where she was initially attacked on Comberford Lane to Robinson’s Field where she was party to a frenzied stabbing to her left temple area and masturbated over.
Professor Van-Der-Merwe concluded that the cause of death to Judith Roberts was a fractured skull, due to blows to the head with a sharp or potentially pointed object.
Sadly, despite the case being one of the most intense murder hunts in the history of the Midlands, this horrific murder still remains unsolved over 50 years on.
More than 200 police detectives worked on the investigation and took over 15,000 sets of fingerprints, carried out 11,000 door-to-door enquiries and took more than 11,000 statements.
Over 4,000 pieces of information were reviewed but in spite of all that the case still remains unsolved after almost 51 years.
The case was believed to have been solved for a number of years as a soldier who had been based at Whittington Barracks at the time of Judith’s murder, for some reason walked into a local police station, asking to see a photograph of the victim. He was interviewed over a three-day period and gave a full statement in which he confirmed his guilt.
As part of the police investigation into the murder, soldiers who were in residence at Whittington on June 7th 1972 were required to fill out a form detailing their whereabouts on that evening and provide referees to confirm their story.
Andrew Evans said that he had spent that evening in question at the barracks and gave the names of three other soldiers who could confirm this. Police failed to find one of the soldiers, and discovered the remaining two had in fact left the barracks before June 7th. Evans was questioned again in October by police at his grandma’s house.
On the morning after the interview, Andrew told his grandma that he intended to go to the police station and ask to see a picture of Judith He made that decision after having a dream in which he saw “a hazy combination of images of women’s faces” which somehow left him believing that he was the killer.
Although his grandma told him that it was not a good idea to do such a thing he still reported to Longton Police Station in a state of great distress. Evans made the request, telling them he had dreamt of Judith, saying, “I keep seeing a face. I want to see a picture of her. I wonder if I’ve done it".
Although Andrew Evans subsequently retracted his confession, a jury convicted him of murder at trial in 1973, and he was handed a life sentence.
A 1970s legal team advised Evans that he had absolutely no grounds for appeal, so he spent the next twenty years in prison before his case was brought to the attention of a British media journalist in 1994, and was taken up by the human rights group Justice when he contacted them about it.
Evans conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 1997 and he was released from prison. He was eventually awarded £750,000 compensation by the Home Office in 2000 and the true killer remains unknown. There is every possibility that the killer is now dead of course.
There is a course of a belief that Judith may have been murdered by the Yorkshire ripper, Peter Sutcliffe and whilst it is possible I am not so sure.
An armchair detective, Chris Clark believes that he and his team have uncovered evidence that Judith was yet another victim of the Yorkshire Ripper.
Interestingly Chris has recently published a book, ‘Mark of a Serial Killer’ with a co-author, Tanita Mathews.
They claim to have searched national archives, studied pathology reports and read every word of the transcripts of Andrew Evans’ trial. They also claim to have spoken to Judith’s family.
They called upon the services of an independent pathologist to review the case. Chris Clark firmly believes that Judith was monster Sutcliffe’s unknown victim.
The Ripper died after contracting covid in 2020 aged 74 while a whole life sentence for the violent murders of thirteen women and the attempted murder of seven more. According to the author, Chris Clark, Judith’s murder fits with Sutcliffe’s modus operandi like a glove.
Allegedly on the evening of the teenager’s death, June 7th 1972, Sutcliffe was making a major journey to visit his then-fiancee in a hospital in Bexleyheath, London. He then returned to Bingley, West Yorkshire, where he worked nightshifts on the Baird TV company assembly plant.
So, let’s just let that sink in, Sutcliffe drove 250 miles to London, a long journey in the 70s with cars travelling at around 60mph top speed, visited his partner, drove 250 miles back, stopped off to viciously murder a 14-year-old girl, who he had no idea would be there for the taking, then drove to work. Possible? Yes. Likely? No, not in my opinion anyway.
I think that the killer was local and intentionally targeted his particular victim for a specific reason, but I am open to persuasion of course.
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