Jonathan Jones (wrongful conviction)
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Jonathan Jones is a Welsh man convicted of murder but acquited on appeal.
On the 26th July 1993 Harry and Megan Tooze were found shot dead at their farm in South Wales. Both had been shot with a shotgun at short range and their bodies moved into the cowshed. Suspicion soon fell on Jonathan Jones; he was a 34 year old man who lived with the Toozes' daughter Cheryl in Orpington, Kent.
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[edit] Trial
The trial lasted 11 weeks, and on 6th April 1995 Jones was found guilty on two counts of murder and jailed for life. The main points of the prosecution case were:
- A shotgun had been stolen from the Toozes' farm in September 1992. At this time Jones had been staying with his mother in Caerphilly 18 miles away.
- A month prior to the murders a man was seen in the lane next to the farmhouse. He was described as 5'9" to 6'0" in height and wore a trench coat. One person identified this man as Jones, but no identification parade was held. There was evidence that Jones owned a trench coat but he is 6'4" in height.
- On the day of the killings Jones drove from Orpington to the farm, committed the murders at about 1.30 p.m. and then drove home. Some neighbours had heard 2 shots at about this time.
- A partial thumbprint of Jones' was found on a piece of china on the kitchen table.
- Jones travelled from his home to the farmhouse that evening to meet the police at the farmhouse. It was put forward that his journey took an hour longer than it should have, and speculated that he used this time to get rid of incriminating evidence.
The main features of the defence case were -
- Apart from the thumbprint there was no forensic evidence linking Jones to the crime.
- His defence was one of alibi. He had spent the morning wandering around Orpington looking for office space and returned to his flat at 1.30 p.m.. At this point he had seen and spoken to 2 men working on the lift. He then watched cricket on the television.
- There were no eyewitnesses who saw Jones on the day either during his alleged journeys or near the scene of the crime. In addition no evidence of the supposed disposal of evidence was brought forward.
The trial judge permitted the prosecution to treat Cheryl Tooze as a hostile witness in respect of several parts of her testimony because they differed significantly from her previous statements.
[edit] Appeal
Following the trial, Cheryl Tooze told reporters that the verdict was a "miscarriage of justice". Jones was sentenced to life imprisonment, but immediately appealed against his conviction. Most of the Touze family condemned the appeal, preferring to believe that the jury's verdict was cut-and-dried proof of his guilt. They organised petitions, demanding that Jones' conviction be upheld, and some even accused Cheryl of being his accomplice. However, their assertions were based mostly upon grief and a desire to see someone punished, rather than on sound argument. In a TV interview, one relative made the bizarre statement: "If she (Cheryl) has nothing to hide, why is she supporting him?" (She was supporting him on belief that he was innocent, and in any case if she had had anything to "hide" she would have served her purpose far better by remaining silent!)
On 25th April 1996 Jones' convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal. It was held that features of the alibi were inconsistent with his guilt. In particular his meeting with the workmen and his report of what he had seen while watching cricket on the television were misrepresented at the original trial. Some features strongly pointed to his innocence. His defence team also pointed out that the original trial judge had expressed doubts about the verdict (although this particular point was rejected on the grounds that the judge was expressing a personal opinion). The Appeal Court felt that the alibi was so strong that no re-trial should be held.
[edit] Aftermath
Cheryl Tooze had always remained convinced of Jones' innocence and they later married. Following the appeal, South Wales Police said that they would "not reopen the case", though this decision was later reversed. However, no one else has ever been charged. The case was one of several high profile murder cases in the period 1985 - 1995 investigated by the South Wales police that resulted in wrongful convictions.
