Una Crown: 'DNA breakthrough' led to murder charge over pensioner's 2013 death
ITV News Anglia's Katie Ridley reports from outside Cambridge Crown Court.
A man standing trial for the murder of a retired postmistress in her home 12 years ago was first arrested two weeks after her death - but not charged until a DNA breakthrough a decade later, a court heard.
David Newton, 70, denies the murder of Una Crown, 86, who was found lying in her hallway in Magazine Lane, Wisbech in Cambridgeshire in 2013.
She was found in her bungalow with her throat cut, a stab wound to her chest that passed through both her lungs and her heart and her clothing set on fire on 13 January, the jury heard.
But there was a two-day delay in preserving the scene at the house due to a “grave error of judgment by police officers who went to the house” and did not deem it suspicious, prosecutor John Price told jurors.
Mrs Crown's death was initially treated as an accident before a murder investigation was launched two days later when concerns were raised about her injuries at a post-mortem examination.
The court was told that Newton was first arrested on suspicion of her murder on 31 January 2013, and interviewed by police on that day and the following day.
He was released on bail as inquiries continued and told on 1 July that year that he would not be charged.
But the court heard that in 2023, further scientific tests - which used samples taken from under Mrs Crown's fingernails - linked Newton to the crime, and after he had provided a fresh DNA specimen he was re-arrested and charged with Mrs Crown's murder on 15 April last year.
The court was played the 999 call made from the scene after Mrs Crown's body was discovered in which a neighbour told police: “I think she’s been on fire.”
Newton wore black-rimmed glasses, a dark-coloured jumper and jeans and was assisted by an intermediary as he listened to the prosecution opening from the secure dock.
John Price KC, prosecuting, said Mrs Crown’s niece Judith Payne and her husband John Payne had been expecting Mrs Crown to join them for lunch on Sunday 13 January 2013.
When he arrived at her bungalow, there was no answer and after a call to his wife he asked a neighbour for the spare key.
Mrs Crown’s neighbour, an elderly woman called Dorothy Swaine, lived with her daughter Christine Swaine, who was her full-time carer. Mr Price said Christine Swaine located the spare key and gave it to Mr Payne.
A care agency worker, Julie Buckle, who was visiting the Swaines that day, “noticed that (Mr Payne) seemed shaken and panicky”, Mr Price said.
“She offered to go with him when he opened the door, because he was concerned about what he was going to find,” the barrister said.
Mr Price said Mr Payne opened Mrs Crown’s front door using the spare key, and Ms Buckle later described what she saw in a statement to police.
“The door opened easily,” she said. “I could see Una lying on the floor about four to five feet from the front door, with her feet towards the front door, her head towards the kitchen.
“Una was lying with her face down into the carpet, her arms by her side, her legs straight out behind her.
“I could see either blood or body fluids around her and assumed she wasn’t alive.
“I said, ‘we need the police and ambulance’.”
She said Mr Payne was unable to call on his mobile phone, and she asked him if Mrs Crown had a phone, which Ms Buckle used to call 999.
In this call, she described a fire on the kitchen wall, a burnt tea towel on a rail and burnt debris on the floor in the hallway.
In audio of the 999 call played to jurors, Ms Buckle said: “I think she’s been on fire.”
Evidence from the scene
Prosecutor Mr Price said that an officer had been asked to photograph all the rooms at the house on 13 January, so “we can therefore see how things appeared on the day the body was found, while it was still there and before family members were allowed into, and changed things, within the house”.
He said there was “no doubt that Una Crown was the victim of a crime of murder, the only issue that will arise for your (the jury’s) decision is: who did it?”
Mr Price told jurors at Cambridge Crown Court that the prosecution “relies upon a combination of several different pieces of evidence” to identify Newton as her alleged killer.
“At their heart is scientific evidence,” he said.
“It’s male DNA, the profile of which matches that of David Newton and which was discovered by scientists in 2023 on nail clippings, which had been taken from the fingers and thumb of the unburnt right hand of Una Crown.”
He said the clippings had been taken at a post-mortem examination in 2013.
“The prosecution alleges that it was David Newton who murdered Una Crown and that he did so acting alone,” said Mr Price.
“He it was who somehow got into her house that night.
“We say he did so on the Saturday night – that’s to say he killed her on the evening of January 12.
“Once he was inside of her home, there came a time thereafter when he used a knife to stab her several times and to kill her.
“The fatal assault, we say, most likely happened not long after he got into her house, but probably not immediately.
“After he had killed her, he set fire to her body, and at some time while he was in the house, he set … two other fires.
“Then we say he left, taking with him her key to the front door and using it to lock that door behind him.
“He will probably have found that likely either in the keyhole on the inside of the front door or in her possession.”
The trial, estimated to last four to five weeks, continues.
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