00:00:07
NARRATOR: In February 1990, 22-year-old mother Julie Hogg had been missing from Billingham in the Northeast
00:00:15
of England for over two months. When her mother turned up at the family home to investigate a strong smell coming from the bathroom,
00:00:24
she would make a horrendous discovery. ANN MING: I had really severe post-traumatic stress
00:00:29
for a long, long time. And still, now and again, I still get flashbacks and nightmares about finding her.
00:00:35
NARRATOR: Julie was never missing. Her body had been under the bathtub in her home
00:00:40
for 80 days. Investigators were convinced that her killer was 26-year-old Billy Dunlop, but after two trials,
00:00:48
he was sensationally acquitted of Julie's murder. BILLY DUNLOP: They've been pointing the finger at me
00:00:53
for 20 months, and they've found, now, that it was in the wrong direction. NARRATOR: Despite his protestations,
00:01:01
Dunlop stunned investigators by confessing to the murder 10 years later. But a law dating back eight centuries
00:01:18
prevented authorities from doing anything about it. PETER BARRON: Here we had somebody confessing that he'd
00:01:25
committed a murder, but the criminal justice system couldn't do anything about it
00:01:30
because the law was an ass. NARRATOR: 17 years after Julie Hogg's murder, Billy Dunlop would finally be convicted as one of the world's
00:01:40
most evil killers. [THEME MUSIC PLAYING] In 2006, 43-year-old Billy Dunlop was finally found guilty
00:02:12
of the murder of Julie Hogg. The 22-year-old mother of one had been murdered in November 1989.
00:02:20
Her body was hidden underneath the bathtub of her own home for over two months. Dunlop's case made British legal history,
00:02:29
as he became the first person to have an acquittal for murder overturned in a court of law.
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The change in the 800-year-old legislation known as double jeopardy was brought about by a campaign
00:02:42
led by Julie Hogg's mother, Ann Ming. When somebody's been murdered, it's the whole ripple effect.
00:02:48
What's the perpetrator gained? He's lost his freedom. I don't care about that. She's lost her life, and it's just a waste of a life.
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It's just senseless. NARRATOR: Julie's son, Kevin, was just three years old when
00:03:06
his mother was murdered. He didn't find out the truth about what happened to her until he was a teenager.
00:03:13
KEVIN HOGG: I was scared to ask any questions. As much as they said, we can be open and as honest as much
00:03:20
as we can. We only can answer what we can answer. And a lot of the time, it was, I don't want to ask the question
00:03:26
in case I upset somebody. Whereas now, I don't have that. NARRATOR: Ann discovered her own daughter's body almost three
00:03:34
months after Julie had apparently disappeared from her home in Billingham near Stockton-on-Tees
00:03:39
in County Durham. The truth of what happened to Julie didn't surface until 1999, ten years after her death.
00:03:49
She was our daughter. She was Kevin's mum. She was a sister. She would have been an auntie.
00:03:55
Her whole life, at 22, was taken away by an evil killer, Dunlop. She didn't deserve to die like that.
00:04:04
He deserves a life behind bars. All his natural life behind bars. NARRATOR: This killer's story begins
00:04:15
in the Northeast of England. Billy Dunlop was born in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, in March 1963.
00:04:24
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Billy Dunlop was one of a family of four, but what distinguished Billy's childhood was
00:04:32
his very strict, authoritarian father, who didn't spare the rod. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He didn't hesitate
00:04:39
to use physical violence to keep his children in order. So he would smack Dunlop quite frequently.
00:04:46
So Dunlop comes to expect violence. It's part and parcel of his childhood. And he also learns that violence has a value.
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It's a way of getting something done. It's a way of exerting power and authority.
00:05:00
NARRATOR: As a young man, Dunlop was in and out of trouble with the law. When Dunlop was 18, he was in court
00:05:07
for kicking a man in the face, a really severe act of violence. And this doesn't come out of nowhere.
00:05:15
This is somebody who values violence, and is likely to have been violent before, even though that might not
00:05:21
have been recorded or reported. There is something about Billy Dunlop that is waiting to explode.
00:05:29
It's waiting to go off. You sort of only have to light the blue touch paper, and he goes off like a rocket.
00:05:37
And that makes him a very dangerous individual indeed. NARRATOR: Dunlop was no stranger to confrontation,
00:05:46
both off and on the sports field. Dunlop's rugby team were known as the Crazy Gang
00:05:52
because of what they used to get up to when they all went out together. They were quite rowdy, quite violent.
00:05:59
NARRATOR: It was through friends that Dunlop met a 22-year-old, recently separated pizza
00:06:05
delivery girl named Julie Hogg. Dunlop knew Julie through a friend of his who had had an intimate relationship with her.
00:06:14
And Dunlop viewed Julie how he viewed all women, essentially pieces of meat who were there to serve his needs, and his wants,
00:06:21
and his desires. He didn't see women as his equals. They were his playthings, and they had to do
00:06:28
exactly what he told them. NARRATOR: Julie had married young, and she often returned to the family home
00:06:34
to spend time with her mum. She was one of these girls that were like, although she
00:06:38
was married, she was at home every day, especially when she had Kevin, you know.
00:06:43
So I used to think, oh, she's here again. You know, because she was like that. She'd come over round the morning.
00:06:48
She'd just drop Andrew off at work, and round she'd come with Kevin, you know, when he was a baby.
00:06:56
NARRATOR: By late 1989, Julie was living on Grange Avenue with three-year-old Kevin.
00:07:03
She'd recently split up with her husband, but on the day Julie was supposed to sign a legal separation document,
00:07:10
something went awry. She was due to go to court on the 16th of November, and she had to be at the court for 10 o'clock.
00:07:17
So she said, will you wake me up in the morning, Mum, early? So when I rang the house at half 7:00
00:07:23
got no reply, because I had Kevin with me, I just thought she'd slept in. I rang a couple of times, and then I thought, well, I might
00:07:29
as well just drive down there. NARRATOR: Julie had been working late delivering pizzas into the early hours of the morning.
00:07:37
But it was unlike her to not answer the door when Ann arrived with three-year-old Kevin.
00:07:42
My gut feeling was there was something totally wrong. It was totally out of character for her not to be there.
00:07:48
Has a young child of three crying where was his mummy. So I drove around to where my son worked
00:07:54
and got my son out of work. And he came, and he broke in the back door. It was like a narrow glass panel, and he broke in there
00:08:01
and climbed in. And he came to the front window and opened up the curtains. And don't forget, it was November, so it was quite cold.
00:08:08
And my son opened the window. He said, [INAUDIBLE] Mum. He said, there's no keys anywhere.
00:08:13
NARRATOR: Julie's bed was made, suggesting it had not been slept in at all. Growing increasingly concerned about her daughter,
00:08:21
Ann paid a visit to Julie's boss. Me and my son went down to the pizza shop and went into the shops.
00:08:26
And they said he'd taken her home. And he'd dropped her off at half 1:00 in the morning.
00:08:30
And he'd seen her put the key in the door and go in the house. NARRATOR: Ann and her husband Charlie
00:08:36
headed to the local police station to report their daughter missing. Julie was nowhere to be found.
00:08:43
The 22-year-old mother had seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth. On the 20th of November, four days after she'd last
00:08:56
been seen, investigators decided to conduct a forensic search of Julie's home. They went into the house, and there was fingerprint dusts
00:09:06
all over the place. And at one time, we were in the bathroom. And it was me, the head of the forensic team,
00:09:12
and a policewoman. On the window ledge in the bathroom was the makeup bag. She wouldn't go to the end of the street with her makeup on,
00:09:18
I said. I felt, at that time, I was like a neurotic mother. That's what I felt like.
00:09:23
It probably wasn't the case, but I felt like that at the time. There was nothing I could see missing.
00:09:29
I couldn't see anything, anything at all. I can't even see any shoes missing, anything.
00:09:34
I remember starting off just as a mystery. And I think the police, initially, thought that she'd disappeared to London, you know.
00:09:42
Gone to see some friends. And it, gradually, the longer she was missing, the more the mystery grew what had happened.
00:09:50
NARRATOR: Weeks turned into months. Julie remained missing for Ann's birthday. And she wasn't there to celebrate Christmas
00:09:57
with her three-year-old son, Kevin. By that January, I started to feel angry towards her some
00:10:03
of the time, because I thought, if she just took off like the police keep suggesting,
00:10:07
why would she do it? We'd had no argument. There'd been no upset. Nothing. You had a little child crying for his mummy.
00:10:14
And why would she do it? NARRATOR: On the 5th of February 1990, 80 days after Julie had gone missing,
00:10:22
her estranged husband Andrew was in the process of moving back into the family home
00:10:28
on Grange Avenue in Billingham. He could smell something foul coming from the bathroom,
00:10:33
and called Julie's mother, Ann Ming, for some assistance. When I got down to the house, he opened the front door.
00:10:42
And I said, have you got rid of the smell? He says, it's getting worse. So I said, get out the way.
00:10:45
I'll go and look myself. Well, at that point, I'd been working in an operating theater as a theater
00:10:51
nurse for over 20 years. And I went in the house, and inside, I was screaming, please
00:10:57
God, don't let it be Julie. Because I just knew what the smell could be. So I'm going up the stairs.
00:11:04
Inside, I'm screaming. Outside, it was like slow motion. And so I was like, watching myself.
00:11:11
Just a strange feeling. But as I leaned over to smell, my wobbly knees went against the bath panel.
00:11:18
[INAUDIBLE],, and the smell came out stronger. So I bent down and just pulled the top with my hands,
00:11:24
and she was under the bath. I was absolutely hysterical. And I ran down the stairs.
00:11:32
I'm screaming at Andrew, she's under the bath. She's under the bath. He thought I'd cracked up.
00:11:38
And Andrew said, I'll go, I'll get a screwdriver and we'll take the bath panel up.
00:11:42
And I'm screaming, please God, tell me it's not. So he just got a screwdriver and went to open it,
00:11:48
and then all I heard him say was, Jesus Christ, no. And he stood the top of the stairs, I'm picturing now.
00:11:53
And he's screaming, what do I do? What do I do? I said, dial 999. And I just ran out of the house.
00:11:58
And within minutes, the street was full of like police cars and vans and that. And all the street were out.
00:12:07
NARRATOR: For almost three months, Julie Hogg's lifeless body had been laying, wrapped in a blanket, underneath her own bathtub.
00:12:15
All the emotion came pouring out of Ann, and was directed towards the police, who'd
00:12:21
searched the property just four days after Julie's disappearance. And out of one of the cars got the Detective Inspector.
00:12:28
And he was the one person who had kept giving us hope throughout the three months, saying, you know,
00:12:33
she might have just took off. And we had the hope that she was still alive. And I wanted to take him back in the house
00:12:40
and prove to him that he was wrong. But of course, I couldn't do that because the police
00:12:46
were putting the tape across the front of the house. And I was put into a car with the policewoman,
00:12:54
with my grandson and brought home. That was the start of a living nightmare that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.
00:13:01
NARRATOR: After the failures of the missing person's investigation, Cleveland police were determined
00:13:07
not to make any more mistakes. Detective John Matthews was part of the team charged with looking into Julie's suspicious death.
00:13:17
JOHN MATTHEWS: After Julie's body was discovered, a major incident room was set up, and a team of investigators
00:13:23
were lined up to carry out all the actions that were about to unfold. Detectives are confronted with a series of complications.
00:13:33
For one, her body is decomposed, and so it's difficult to establish a cause of death.
00:13:41
It emerges that it could have been asphyxia, or strangulation, but there's no doubt the postmortem
00:13:48
reveals a severe vaginal tear. So the indications are that this has got murder written on it,
00:13:56
that it's almost certainly strangulation, that it's someone she let into the house, because after all, there's
00:14:02
no sign of forced entry and never has been. NARRATOR: As the investigations began,
00:14:07
Ann had to think of what to say to Julie's three-year-old son Kevin, who'd witnessed the shocking events
00:14:13
surrounding the discovery of his mother's body firsthand. He obviously knew something was wrong in the bathroom
00:14:19
because, you know, he was downstairs in the living room when I found her. We told him that his mum had slipped in the bath,
00:14:27
and she'd died and she'd gone to heaven. He didn't seem, then, to have any concept about the months
00:14:33
she'd been missing. To look back now, a three-year-old must have been absolutely terrified with the commotion,
00:14:41
what was going on, and probably about to unfold. When the body was being brought out of the house, where was I?
00:14:49
Because it was the same day that the body was found, where was I? I try to remember, and you just--
00:14:56
the mind just doesn't want to. Is it because it's so traumatic that I've blocked it out?
00:15:02
I don't know, NARRATOR: While the Hogg family were grieving, police inquiries had led them to the local rugby club.
00:15:11
Julie knew some of the team's players. There are quite a big pool of suspects. She was popular.
00:15:19
There's Billy Dunlop. There's a number of other members of the Billingham rugby club, the Crazy Gang,
00:15:25
so to speak, whom she also knew. NARRATOR: After interviewing and eliminating many of the players, there was one man who raised suspicions.
00:15:35
I think we knew from an early stage, with the evidence that was coming in, and his background character, that Billy
00:15:41
Dunlop was certainly number one prime suspect, without a doubt. NARRATOR: The 26-year-old was brought in for questioning.
00:15:50
It's probably the most peculiar interview I've ever done. Billy Dunlop being extremely intelligent, very
00:15:58
intense, thinking on his feet, it was like as soon as you flipped the switch on the tape machine, he was focused.
00:16:07
The moment the machine was switched off, he was like your best buddy. Talking about sport, talking about rugby,
00:16:14
as if, basically, he was in there with a group of mates rather than detectives investigating a murder.
00:16:21
NARRATOR: While Dunlop was being questioned by police, detectives searching the house where he was lodging
00:16:27
made a breakthrough. A full search team went in there, and they found keys hidden under the floorboards,
00:16:33
which was very interesting. They were then quickly identified as belonging to Julie Hogg, and the keys were for that house,
00:16:41
where Julie died. NARRATOR: Two fingerprints on the fob were a match to Dunlop, proving he had
00:16:47
used the keys at some point. Although he continued to deny it, on the 16th of February 1990, Billy Dunlop was charged
00:16:57
with the murder of Julie Hogg. When asked about the fingerprints on the key fob,
00:17:01
you sort of thought, well, people have been convicted on half a thumbprint, never mind more than one fingerprint.
00:17:07
And when the police said they've got 110% evidence, we felt quite confident. NARRATOR: As the forensic evidence from Julie's home
00:17:16
was scrutinized further, the case against Billy Dunlop strengthened. There was semen on the blanket that Julie's body had been
00:17:24
wrapped in, and Dunlop couldn't be ruled out as a contributor to that sample. There were also green fibers on the blanket,
00:17:32
which matched the fibers of the jumpers worn by the rugby team. NARRATOR: Dunlop's trial began on the 7th of May 1991,
00:17:45
at Newcastle Crown Court. Because she had found her own daughter's body, Ann Ming had to testify.
00:17:53
When I got on the witness stand, it was horrible, because the defense barrister,
00:17:57
he was saying, you know, when you went into the bathroom and you went to touch the back panel, which hand did
00:18:02
you put behind the back panel? Which hand, your left or your right? And it was terrible.
00:18:06
I mean, even the judge ordered him to stop questioning me like that, because all I was doing
00:18:09
was getting flashbacks where I could smell her, I could see it. It was horrible.
00:18:13
I can't tell you what it was like in that witness box. It's awful. And all the time, he was sat there,
00:18:18
knowing exactly what he'd done. NARRATOR: Dunlop's defense team attempted to cast Julie in the role of a promiscuous woman,
00:18:27
with many different sexual relationships. During the course of this trial, Julie's reputation was absolutely decimated.
00:18:34
She was portrayed as this nymphomaniac, this woman who had sex with all of these different men.
00:18:40
She was essentially portrayed as somebody who was not doing, you know, the appropriate things that respectable women should
00:18:47
be doing. I thought, my daughter's been murdered. He's the perpetrator. They said she was promiscuous, and they said she'd been
00:18:55
in a relationship with Dunlop. Now I knew nothing about that whatsoever. You've only got his word.
00:19:00
She's not there to defend herself. So the defense can say what they like about her.
00:19:05
NARRATOR: The defense even questioned the validity of the prosecution's primary piece of evidence, the key fob
00:19:12
with Dunlop's fingerprints on it that was found hidden away at his lodgings. Fingerprint experts for the defense
00:19:20
suggested that, yes, the two fingerprints on the fob were Billy Dunlop's, but the third fingerprint
00:19:27
wasn't Dunlop's because it wasn't identified at that time. And he said that that was the fingerprint of the murderer.
00:19:36
And that would have been quite enlightening to a jury to think, well, this expert thinks somebody else
00:19:43
has murdered Julie because there's a fingerprint on there that's unidentified. NARRATOR: The defense were able to cast
00:19:49
enough doubt over the evidence. On the 23rd of May, after 14 hours of deliberation,
00:19:56
the jury failed to reach a majority verdict. A hung jury meant there would have to be a retrial.
00:20:03
Dunlop was remanded in custody. I can't tell you what it felt like. No justice for Julie, no conviction,
00:20:13
just left in a state of limbo. I was hysterical. Absolutely hysterical in the court.
00:20:18
I just couldn't believe it, you know. NARRATOR: Knowing their key piece of evidence
00:20:22
had been scrutinized by the defense during the trial, Cleveland police arranged to meet with fingerprint
00:20:29
expert, Roger Shearn. ROGER SHEARN (VOICEOVER): We produce what we call an actual-size photograph,
00:20:34
an enlarged-size photograph, around five times normal size. ROGER SHEARN: We were in a position
00:20:39
to use specialist equipment to improve and enhance, and as a consequence of that, identified Dunlop
00:20:46
completely on that key fob. So it destroyed the defense concept that there was a third party.
00:20:54
And that was fantastic news. We just thought, well, that's it. That was the only reason the jury couldn't
00:20:59
make the decision last time. NARRATOR: In October 1991, Dunlop was back in the dock
00:21:06
at Newcastle Crown Court. This time, the defense didn't question the fingerprint evidence, but there was still a major issue.
00:21:14
The main problem was that we didn't have a definitive cause of death. And as a consequence, we couldn't actually
00:21:20
say exactly how she'd died. And again, I think that raised a bit of a cloud and an element of doubt.
00:21:28
How can the jury convict when they don't actually know exactly how she died? NARRATOR: It was a devastating blow to the prosecution,
00:21:36
and on the 16th of October, the judge instructed the jury to make a quick and definite decision.
00:21:44
It was deja vu, really, because they couldn't reach a conclusion. There was enough doubt.
00:21:48
The jury was split. And because this was a retrail, that was it. He was acquitted.
00:21:54
NARRATOR: Incredibly, despite all the evidence against him, Billy Dunlop was free.
00:22:01
It was very difficult, yeah. Really annoying to know that a criminal has been acquitted of a crime for which you know he's guilty.
00:22:09
I have no doubt he's guilty. And when it's a capital offense like murder, obviously, much more galling.
00:22:15
But as I say, infinitely worse for the family. You felt deflated, because the evidence was so strong.
00:22:24
It was just unbelievable, you know. You felt like, just a total disbelief. It was like, surreal, actually.
00:22:31
NARRATOR: To rub salt into the wounds, just days after his acquittal, Billy Dunlop
00:22:36
appeared on the local news. BILLY DUNLOP (OVER TELEVISION): And I would like them,
00:22:40
now, to reopen this case and start looking in the right direction. NARRATOR: In October 1991, Billy Dunlop
00:22:47
had been found not guilty of the murder of 22-year-old mother Julie Hogg. Although the evidence strongly suggested he was the killer,
00:22:57
Dunlop was a free man, and he wasn't planning on hiding away from the spotlight.
00:23:03
They've been pointing the finger at me for 20 months, and they've found now that it was in the wrong direction.
00:23:10
And I would like them, now, to reopen this case and start looking in the right direction.
00:23:15
He had a few interviews for local TV stations and suchlike. And he was full of bravado, and saying, I knew.
00:23:23
I told the police had got it wrong. So they've, now, got to reinvestigate and find the real murderer.
00:23:28
And that was basically his act, he was goading. But obviously, we've got to take that sort of thing,
00:23:34
but it must have been pure agony for Ann. We never ever, ever, in all of what's happened,
00:23:41
think that the police had got the wrong man. We knew it was him what killed our daughter.
00:23:48
We knew that. NARRATOR: But Billy Dunlop couldn't suppress his violent nature, and six years after his acquittal,
00:23:56
the 34-year-old was back in police custody. He basically found out that his ex-girlfriend was
00:24:03
seeing a boyfriend, so he decided he wasn't going to have that. Nobody else was going to have his girlfriend.
00:24:11
So he decided to arm himself, I believe, with a baseball bat, broke into the house, and basically
00:24:17
mashed them both to a pulp. It is unwarranted, premeditated, violent, ugly, savage attack, motivated solely by Dunlop's conviction
00:24:30
that he can have any woman he wants and they're going to stay with him. And not going to go off with anybody else.
00:24:36
He is a misogynist. He thinks that women are his property. So how dare you end your relationship with me,
00:24:43
and set up home with somebody else? I'm going to teach you a lesson, is essentially what he was saying.
00:24:49
NARRATOR: News of the brutal attack soon reached Ann. We got to know the next morning,
00:24:54
when the police came to see us, and he said, we've got him. He's charged with attempted murder of two people.
00:25:00
So I thought, thank God. We just want him off the streets. We didn't want him to kill again.
00:25:04
Didn't want to put a family through what we'd been put through. NARRATOR: In May 1998, Dunlop pleaded guilty to the lesser
00:25:15
charge of grievous bodily harm, and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Despite protesting his innocence in the murder of Julie Hogg
00:25:25
for almost a decade, suddenly, whilst behind bars, Billy Dunlop began to admit his role in Julie's death.
00:25:33
He would openly discuss killing the 22-year-old with prison officers, and in letters to friends.
00:25:40
In October 1999, Dunlop was arrested and interviewed by detectives. This time, he decided to tell them
00:25:47
exactly what had happened back in the early hours of the 16th of November 1989. Astonishingly, almost exactly ten years after the event,
00:26:07
Billy Dunlop was confessing to the murder of Julie Hogg. He told detectives that he got into a fight at Billingham
00:26:15
Rugby Club before heading to Julie's, in need of consolation. We didn't know any of this was happening until the police came
00:27:06
to see us. And they said, we've got something to tell you. And they had taped a conversation in which he'd
00:27:11
gone into great detail, how he'd strangled our daughter and concealed her body. NARRATOR: Dunlop's confession didn't include any explanation
00:27:34
for the four-inch vaginal tear inside Julie Hogg's body, apparently disregarding any sexual motive
00:27:41
behind the murder. Well, we've only got Billy Dunlop's version of events, and during that interview, he actually said, explained
00:27:49
that he was forensically aware. He'd stripped Julie. He then wrapped her in a blanket,
00:27:55
and then tried to dispose of the body, I believe, in the loft to start with, but that
00:27:59
would have been awkward, particularly as he's only a small person. So that would have been out of his reach.
00:28:06
So he decided, oh, bath panel. NARRATOR: Unbelievably, despite openly confessing
00:28:40
to the killing, Dunlop could not be charged with Julie Hogg's murder as he had already been
00:28:46
acquitted in a court of law. So they said, with all of that, he couldn't be tried again for murder,
00:28:53
but he could be tried for perjury. NARRATOR: Dunlop's perjury trial was set for April 2000.
00:29:00
Knowing that the press would report on the case, the family felt it was time to tell
00:29:05
a 13-year-old Kevin Hogg the truth about his mother's death. I was numb. It was like an out of body experience.
00:29:14
It was something, as a child, I was shielded from, the word Dunlop. As much as the name did come up, I was oblivious, really,
00:29:24
to the name. And it's a name, probably, what will stick with me and haunt me for a while.
00:29:31
NARRATOR: On the 14th of April 2000, Billy Dunlop pleaded guilty to perjury, admitting to lying under oath at his previous trials.
00:29:40
Ann Ming was in attendance throughout the hearing at Teeside Crown Court. He said the reason why he confessed,
00:29:48
because he felt sorry for Julie's family, and especially Julie's son. The prosecuting barrister said that was a load of rubbish.
00:29:55
He'd confessed because he knew he couldn't be retried for murder, so perjury was a lot lesser sentence,
00:30:03
and he thought he'd play the system. And this remorse was a load of rubbish. NARRATOR: Although he'd brazenly admitted to murder
00:30:11
in the courtroom, Dunlop could only be given a sentence relating to the perjury charge, six years in prison.
00:30:19
I remember the photograph of him being taken out of the courtroom that day. And I remember the grin on his face.
00:30:25
He was laughing at justice, really. NARRATOR: Before Dunlop had left the courtroom,
00:30:31
Ann Ming confronted the man who'd killed her daughter almost 11 years previously.
00:30:37
I got out my seat, and I ran. He was the back of the court, handcuffed to a security officer.
00:30:43
I was that far off him. I said, six years. I said, I'll see you rot in hell. I said, you weren't full of remorse
00:30:49
when you sat for three months knowing where her body was. I didn't care about anything.
00:30:53
I just wanted to have my say, you know. And I came out that court that day. And I said to my husband, I said six years,
00:31:01
and he can't be retrialed. I said, this is not right, because of a ancient judicial law.
00:31:06
The double jeopardy law is an ancient law which was always seen as a cornerstone
00:31:10
of the British criminal justice system. And what it meant was that if you were acquitted of a crime,
00:31:16
you couldn't be retried for that same crime again. And I just thought, at the time, that this is crazy.
00:31:23
This law is out of date. Because it worked the other way, that if you were found guilty
00:31:27
of a crime but new evidence came to light, you could then be found innocent on appeal.
00:31:33
Why couldn't it work the other way? I just didn't understand. Here, we had somebody confessing that he'd committed a murder,
00:31:40
but the criminal justice system couldn't do anything about it because the law was an ass.
00:31:46
Nobody has ever confessed in a court of law before to a killing when they've been acquitted.
00:31:53
It made British legal history. So I came out that court, and I thought, right. We're going to see our MP.
00:31:59
I said, this law has got to be looked into. NARRATOR: Ann Ming was determined to seek justice for her daughter's murder,
00:32:07
but it wouldn't be easy. To make sure Billy Dunlop would finally get what he deserved,
00:32:13
Ann would have to overturn the so-called double jeopardy law that had been in place for over eight centuries.
00:32:21
Her first port of call was the heart of government, the home office. I wrote the letter to Jack Straw, our MP,
00:32:28
got us an appointment to see him fairly quickly. Went into Jack Straw's office at the home office,
00:32:35
and I had a picture of Dunlop and a picture of Julie. And I said, that's our daughter.
00:32:42
That's the evil killer who's killed her. We're not happy with the perjury sentence.
00:32:46
What are you going to do about it? That's what I said to him. NARRATOR: Ann had the backing of both
00:32:51
the local police and press. CHARLES WESTBERG: How anybody can live through that is a mystery to me.
00:32:58
You can't even begin to imagine what was going through her mind and the minds of her family.
00:33:05
She was determined to seek justice for her daughter. And she started a campaign.
00:33:11
And police agreed with her, and did everything they could to bring justice for Julie.
00:33:18
The Northern Echo is a newspaper that always had really proud campaigning traditions.
00:33:22
I just saw this as an opportunity to change a law that was absurd, absolutely absurd,
00:33:29
and it needed to be changed because we had a man, an evil, wicked man who had taken a young woman's
00:33:38
life in the most horrific circumstances, and he was getting away with murder. He was laughing at justice.
00:33:44
This was never going to be an overnight campaign. You don't change the law, you know, by next week.
00:33:49
You've got to keep on going. And we kept on going for years. But we kept on going because Ann was driving it all the time.
00:33:57
And we had a duty to support her. NARRATOR: Ann was granted an appointment with the Law
00:34:03
Commission, but just as it got going, the campaign was almost derailed. While we went to have an appointment,
00:34:11
Dunlop was granted the right to appeal against his six year sentence. Granted the right to appeal against a six year sentence
00:34:19
to counts of perjury, when he'd confessed to murder. NARRATOR: In November 2000, Ann Ming
00:34:29
put forward her case for Dunlop's appeal to be rejected. And these three court appeal judges,
00:34:36
I mean, I've done like an impact statement for them, and they read part of my statement out.
00:34:40
And they threw his appeal out. And I think that was the first time we felt that it
00:34:45
was going like our favor. It felt like a bit overwhelming, actually. Because I've seen where he was for the length of the perjury
00:34:54
sentence, and I thought, I'm definitely going to campaign about this too. [INAUDIBLE] got to carry on with this.
00:35:00
NARRATOR: Supported by her husband, Charlie, Ann's campaign went from strength to strength.
00:35:06
In March 2001, the Law Commission recommended that there should be exceptions to the double jeopardy law, and the following year,
00:35:15
an historic bill to overturn the archaic law was passed by MPs. By 2003, Ann found herself preparing to make
00:35:25
a speech in the House of Lords. The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, he said, are you going to be all right?
00:35:31
I said, I'll be fine. He introduced me, and he talked about the double jeopardy law.
00:35:37
And hopefully, it would get through the House of Lords and the Parliament respectively.
00:35:41
And then I got my chance, and I stood up. I thought, I've got one chance, and one chance only.
00:35:46
I've got the biggest mouth. I need justice for my daughter, and justice for families
00:35:50
to come in the years to come. NARRATOR: After a moving speech, the House ratified
00:35:56
the new criminal justice act. Ann's passionate crusade had succeeded. I got a phone call from our MP.
00:36:04
It was about a couple of weeks after we'd got the House of Lords. And he just said, double jeopardy
00:36:10
will apply retrospectively. And he said, Ann, it's through. And I just absolutely felt, just absolutely overwhelmed,
00:36:17
you know. NARRATOR: The new law came into effect in 2005. Dunlop could now be legally charged with Julie's murder,
00:36:27
but only if the case against him was backed up with new information. It's got to be new evidence, that
00:36:34
wasn't introduced at previous trials, and it's got to be compelling evidence. And obviously, if someone who has been acquitted of murder
00:36:42
subsequently starts bragging about having murdered someone, knowing that you can't be tried for it
00:36:47
ever again, then obviously, this is compelling evidence. NARRATOR: Before the new trial could be heard,
00:36:55
Dunlop's acquittal from October 1991 would have to be quashed. Ann was in attendance at the Court of Appeal in May 2006.
00:37:05
They got up, and they walked out, shut the door. They must have counted to ten, walked back in, sat down,
00:37:11
crushed the acquittal like that. Nobody could believe it. I said, thank you. Thank you.
00:37:17
He said, you don't need to thank. He said, the whole establishment needs to thank
00:37:20
you for what you've done. And I was absolutely dumbfounded. NARRATOR: Finally, Billy Dunlop could
00:37:28
be officially charged with the murder of Julie Hogg for a second time. On September the 11th 2006, in the first case of its kind,
00:37:39
the 43-year-old killer's trial began at the Old Bailey in London. Dunlop was brought up.
00:37:45
From what I remember, he was dressed in black with a black ponytail. Ann was sat there.
00:37:51
Mrs Ming was sat, looking at him all the time. And the case was heard before the Lord Chief Justice.
00:37:58
Dunlop pleaded guilty to the murder. Billy Dunlop showed no emotion whatsoever as he stood
00:38:05
in the dock at the Old Bailey. He'd got away with murder for many years, and finally, the law had caught up with him.
00:38:18
NARRATOR: Nearly 17 years had passed since Ann Ming discovered the lifeless body of her daughter.
00:38:26
Now, finally, justice had been served to Billy Dunlop. I can't tell you what it felt like,
00:38:32
after 17 years of her being killed, to hear him say, guilty. Dunlop. I can't tell you what it felt like.
00:38:41
And he got a life sentence with a 17 year tariff before he can apply for parole.
00:38:47
And I pray that the justice system will see what a cold, evil killer Dunlop is. This man should never, ever be released
00:38:59
back into the public domain. Never. And as long as I'm drawing breath, I'll do everything I can to keep him behind bars for the killing
00:39:10
of our daughter. Sorry. It's 30 years on, and this is [INAUDIBLE].. But I've got to.
00:39:18
I've got to keep him in prison. NARRATOR: This historic case made headlines around the globe.
00:39:27
At one time, I think we had three or four television crews in the street outside the Old Bailey.
00:39:32
It started to pour with rain, and everybody got soaked. But everybody wanted to know about the case.
00:39:40
And it was the lead item on all the news that night. And I think it went all over the world.
00:39:47
ANN MING (OVER TELEVISION): It's taken 17 years to finally hear a judge give Dunlop 17 years
00:39:52
for the murder of our daughter. And I remember getting a phone call from the reporter
00:39:56
saying that he's guilty. And that's when I punched the air. And I remember there was a cheer in the newsroom,
00:40:02
because we'd followed this case for so long. And there was this sense of justice in the newsroom.
00:40:10
And, you know, we were able to publish that front page, which I'd been-- I'd been dreaming of the front page for a while.
00:40:17
You know, murderer, Billy Dunlop, you're a murderer. You're not laughing at justice anymore.
00:40:22
That front page will always stay with me. NARRATOR: Since the double jeopardy law was quashed
00:40:28
in 2003, numerous high profile miscarriages of justice have been overturned in Britain, all thanks
00:40:36
to the determination of Ann Ming. My nan, Ann Ming, has been an influence on my life,
00:40:43
because there was a time where my life went in the wrong direction. And now, you know, I just look forward.
00:40:52
I look at my nan. She comes over for dinner every week, stays over, we chat. And she's not just my gran.
00:41:01
She's my friend. She made British legal history by changing that law, my nan. The MBE was kind of the icing on the cake, but it's my nan.
00:41:14
No one can take that away. Ann Ming is undoubtedly one of the most incredible people I've ever met.
00:41:22
I've met a lot of people in my career. I've been a journalist for nearly 40 years,
00:41:26
but I will always remember her as being an outstanding example of somebody who just refused to give in.
00:41:33
Incredibly determined, incredibly passionate about her family, and I honestly think that she
00:41:40
did the world a great service. This very ordinary Northeast mum rose to the challenge of what had happened,
00:41:48
and changed the world. And, you know, she should be very proud of what she did. NARRATOR: Billy Dunlop remains behind bars.
00:42:02
It took 17 years for justice to catch up with the brutal killer whose actions affected the lives of two
00:42:10
generations of Julie's family. My feelings towards Dunlop is nothing. I have no hatred, I have no anger.
00:42:18
But I'll tell you why, because I have the attitude of, if I think of him, he's taking headspace.
00:42:27
And that means he's won. I don't think of him as an individual, as a person, because he's not a person.
00:42:38
He's not human. He's an animal. Hate. Hate with a capital H. These people who say they forgive
00:42:46
the family member's killer, I don't understand where they're coming from. The hatred I feel for him, the hatred
00:42:52
that I feel for him sitting for three months knowing where her body was. I just absolutely hate him, and I hope he gets
00:42:59
his just desserts, I really do. NARRATOR: Dunlop was a violent individual who killed
00:43:05
Julie Hogg in cold blood. But due to the tireless efforts of Ann Ming, her daughter's killer is now in prison
00:43:13
and an archaic law has been changed for good. We may never know the real reason for the attack,
00:43:20
but there can be no excuse for leaving a three-year-old boy motherless, which makes Billy Dunlop one of the world's
00:43:28
most evil killers. [MUSIC PLAYING]