Leading campaigners for justice will address a public meeting in Bury St Edmunds on Saturday 3 October 2009.
The meeting is organised by the Kevin Nunn Campaign. The campaign was set up following the conviction of local man Kevin Nunn at Ipswich Crown Court in 2006 for the murder of Dawn Walker. Kevin Nunn has always protested his innocence of the brutal attack which ended Dawn’s life.
The purpose of the meeting is to inform those who are interested about the problem of miscarriages of justice, thank those who have supported Kevin Nunn and make a further appeal for help in solving the question of who killed Dawn Walker.
The key speakers are Bob Woffinden (well known documentary producer and author of “Miscarriages of Justice”) and Sandra Lean (author of “No Smoke: The Shocking Truth About British Justice”). They will share their wealth of knowledge of the problem of miscarriages of justice.
Other speakers are Jane Hickman (Secretary of the Criminal Appeal Lawyers Association, and Kevin Nunn’s lawyer) and Carol Parris (a highly experienced enquiry agent). They will raise the key questions which trouble Kevin Nunn’s supporters and explain what the campaign has been trying to do.
The case against Kevin Nunn
Kevin Nunn and Dawn Walker had been together for two years but Dawn had returned to an old boyfriend in recent weeks and the relationship ended on the evening of Wednesday 2 February 2005. Dawn did not appear at work the next morning, and her body was found beside the River Lark on the afternoon of Friday 4th February.
The cause of death was uncertain – it might have been exposure to cold. Dawn had clearly been in the river, and may have been tied up to railings beside the river on a bitterly cold night. After death her body had been partly burned. It was a horrific crime.
Police conducted door to door enquiries but none of the neighbours adjacent to Dawn’s home had seen anything that could help. About 10 days later one of these neighbours recollected seeing “Dawn’s boyfriend” removing something heavy from Dawn’s house in the early hours of the 4th. At an identity procedure she identified this man as Kevin Nunn.
Eye witness identification is notoriously unreliable and has led in the past to many miscarriages of justice. There was no direct forensic evidence to connect Kevin to the crime. On Dawn’s body were live sperm heads which cannot have come from Kevin, who had had a vasectomy some years before. The Crown explained these away as something Dawn must have picked up earlier in the gym at the Swallow Hotel. But that explanation is not good enough, say Kevin Nunn’s supporters. People do not “pick up” sperm in public places in this way.
And perhaps more importantly, the question now being asked is where this murder could have happened. Dawn had no marks on her body indicating that a struggle had occurred. There is widespread agreement that she was considerably stronger than Kevin Nunn. She cannot have met her death at home with him since she had been in a pond or river before she died. If her death occurred elsewhere why would Kevin need to return to her home in the early hours of the night after?
Jane Hickman, a very experienced appeals lawyer, says “This case concerns me greatly. Suspicion always falls on a partner in such a case but the actual evidence against Kevin Nunn was weak. It comes down to an identification made from a fairly fleeting glimpse in poor light. The inherent unlikelihood of Kevin returning to Dawn’s home the night after her death is a further warning marker. The evidence of the sperm heads means that this is a case which may have gone very wrong”.
The campaign is appealing for anyone who knows anything that could assist in settling for once and for all who killed Dawn Walker to come forward.
Meeting details: 2pm, Lecture Room, Cathedral Centre, Bury St Edmunds, IP33 1LS
