Cracking The Case

The investigative team were able to reach a conclusion through the work they carried out, which lead to collection of various pieces of evidence. This was carried out by a team consisting of Police Officers, Detectives Bernie Fitzpatrick & John Shephard, Scenes Of Crime Officers (SOCO’s), Pathologist and Forensic Scientists who all work together in order to aid the investigation. The conclusion that the investigating team ultimately came too was that Guy Paul Morin was guilty of the Sexual Assault and Murder of neighbour Christine Jessop; they came to this verdict by the use of the evidence found. After much discussion a re-trial was ordered as new techniques allowed for further analysis of a vital piece of evidence, Christine Jessop’s knickers. New DNA analysis techniques enabled the team to identify that the semen found upon Jessop’s clothing did not belong to Guy Paul Morin. Due to this Guy Paul Morin was acquitted of all charges.

The conclusions the investigative team came to cant be justified due to the many errors and inaccuracies made by the team which ultimately lead to an unlawful conviction of Guy Paul Morin. The evidence that was used to convict Morin was based on contaminated evidence, false testimonies, and carless work effort.

Due to the many errors made within the investigation as a result of the detectives and the local police force being fixated on Guy Paul Morin. Initially, Paul Morin had a solid alibi placing him at his workplace at the time of the disappearance. This alibi was checked by the detectives, it proved to be true placing him at his workplace at the time, however due to the tunnel vision the lead detectives made the parents of Christine alter their statement making it possible that Guy Paul could have committed the crime.

Evidence that was collected from Guy Pauls vehicle, blanket with fibres matching Christine’s jumper, was not placed into the chain of custody immediately and was left in a patrol vehicle over the weekend, the evidence was unaccounted for 48 hours, in this time anything could’ve happened. However it is stated that Christine was seen before she went missing at the shop and it was stated that she was not in fact wearing the jumper, the jumper was also not found with her body like the rest of her clothes making this evidence questionable.

An FBI profiler known as John Douglas was called on to help the police to hopefully give them direction during the investigation, as they made it seem as though they had no more lines to peruse. However they were already building a case on Guy Paul Morin. The profile constructed by John Douglas contained elements that fitted Guy Pauls profile; however the majority did not resemble Guy Paul.

A weakness of the case would be the tunnel vision of the investigation team. The term ‘tunnel vision’ refers to focusing on a specific object/person, in our case it was focused on Guy Paul, this meant that the team would disregard any information that did not aid the view and made Guy Paul look guilty. From day one the investigative team narrowed down on Guy Paul, they disregarded any evidence that didn't directly implement him and even went to the extent of making the parents alter their statement. The investigator team did have other suspects under investigation but decided they were innocent without fully analysing the persons, this allowed them to focus more intensely of Morin.

Another weakness regarding the investigation of Christine Jessop would be the lack of efficiency when carrying out all procedures. A lot of the procedures within the investigation were not carried out correctly or effectively this affected the outcome of the case. An example of this could be that the first attending officer, Constable McGowen, did not corner off the Jessop's household, which could have potentially contained important information regarding the whereabouts or the abduction. The perpetrator would have left a trace however due to McGowen not securing the scene members of the public walked in freely and potentially contaminated any evidence that could have been in the house.

A strength of the case would be the communication between different forces as Christine Jessop went missing in York county several months after the disappearance, the body of Christine Jessop was found in Durham county, meaning the case was then transferred to the Durham police force. This initially involved communicating between the two police forces in order to provide information, fortunately, this transaction of information was very successful as all information was successfully transferred. Once the Durham police retrieved all the information regarding the initial investigation they discovered that the initial assessments and procedures were not completed to a high standard. The conclusion that the investigator team came to was that Guy Paul Morin was guilty of the sexual assault and murder of Christine Jessop.