Kevin Sweeney case
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Kevin Sweeney is a British businessman who is in jail in the Netherlands for the murder of his wife Suzanne Davies by arson on 17th July 1995. The case is controversial since according to international fire experts, all the fire evidence is characteristic of an accidental fire caused by smoking in bed. Kevin was 200 Km distant at the time the fire was discovered. All the doors of the house were bolted from the inside. He denied guilt, and the prosecution could not give a motive.
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[edit] Case
Kevin Sweeney and Suzanne Davies lived with their three children at Bousval, a village in the municipality of Genappe near Brussels, Belgium. They had recently bought a new house at Steensel, near Eindhoven in the Netherlands. On Monday 17th July 1995 Kevin had left the home at around 2 a.m. because one of his daughters, in the care of a nanny at the Sweeney's former house at Bousval, was ill. At about a quarter to three, the housekeeper and a policeman walked around the house in response to a report of an electrical failure by the recently installed burglar alarm. They noticed nothing, no-one answered the door, and they were unable to enter the house, since the doors were bolted from the inside. Half a year later, one of them mentioned that they had noticed a burning smell, but thought at the time it was maybe a barbecue somewhere. At half past three, smoke and later fire was noticed coming from an upstairs bedroom window by neighbours and passers by. At four o'clock, Kevin arrived home at Bousval. At the same time, the fire brigade, police and ambulance arrived in Steensel. Suzanne was found in the dressing room next to her bedroom. The bedroom was full of smoke and a small fire was burning at the foot of the bed. She showed signs of life, but reanimation attempts failed. Half an hour later she was pronounced dead. The cause was Carbon Monoxide poisoning.
[edit] Prosecution
Kevin Sweeney was charged with murdering Suzanne Davies by setting fire to her bedroom in Steensel. He was cleared by the court in Den Bosch of these charges on 24th October 1996. The Public Prosecutor appealed on 6th November 1996, but stated during proceedings on 3rd November 1997 that there remained much still to be investigated. The case was adjourned. Fire investigators made seven attempts at reconstructions of the fire, costing 6 million Dutch guilders. On 6 February 2001, three years and three months later, the appeal continued. The court in Den Bosch found Sweeney guilty and sentenced him to 13 years imprisonment on 20th February 2001. Appeals to the supreme court of the Netherlands, and then to the European Court of Human Rights[1], both failed.
[edit] Defence argument
The defence argues that the fire evidence is entirely consistent with a mattress fire, caused by smoking in bed. The reconstruction attempts, in which the fire was started using six litres of petrol and a naked flame, yielded quite different fire-damage. Witnesses reported that Suzanne was a smoker. There were cigarette butts in the bathroom, a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the floor. However the prosecution argued that she did not smoke because no ash-tray was found in her bedroom. Moreover, a police fire investigator stated that the idea that smoking in bed caused fire was a myth. The judge did not allow the defence to present data from the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics which show that this is one of the most common causes of house fires.[2]
[edit] Media coverage
Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries has reported suprise that Sweeney was convicted in view of the flimsyness of the evidence[3]. Philosopher of Science A. Derksen has studied this case together with four other controversial recent Dutch cases, and argues that the Public Prosecution service is committing the same major errors in all of them.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Dossier on the case at Fair Trials International, the organisation which supported Sweeney's appeal to the European Court of Human Rights
- ^ Website Justice for Kevin Sweeney
- ^ (Dutch)Crime reporter Peter R. de Vries' dossier on the Sweeney case
- ^ (Dutch)Het OM in de fout (Failings of the Public Ministry) by A. Derksen. This book exposes systematic failure of police and prosecution in five major cases in the Netherlands in recent years, including the Sweeney case
