The Times - UK (2021-12-22)

the times | Wednesday December 22 2021 V2 29

News

A former police officer who spent 17
years in jail after being convicted of
murdering his pregnant girlfriend
has been freed after the case against
him was thrown out at a retrial.
Gary Walker, 57, was given a life
sentence in 2004 after being found
guilty of murdering Audra Bancroft
in Burton upon Trent on the day that
she was due to have an abortion.
After Walker sought a review by
the Criminal Cases Review Commis-
sion, the Court of Appeal ruled in
January that the conviction was un-
safe and ordered a retrial.
The judge at his retrial at Warwick
crown court found this month that
Walker, who had always denied
murder, had no case to answer.
He was a serving officer with Avon
and Somerset police when Bancroft,
36, died on December 8, 2003, but
quit the force when the case went to
court. He was convicted the next year
of strangling her after a sustained
attack that left Bancroft with 50 inju-
ries. However, the retrial heard that
Bancroft, a mother of three, died as a

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PULLOUT

Ex-police officer cleared of

murder after 17 years in jail

result of a paramedic moving her

from the recovery position on to her

back, where she stayed for five hours,

leading to “positional asphyxia”.

Walker was accused of murdering

Bancroft after finding out that she

had run up £4,000 in debt on a credit

card. He was also said to have

“staged” calls to her mobile phone

asking where she was in an effort to

make it look like they were not in the

house together at the time.

David Emanuel QC, for the de-

fence, said Walker’s case was that he

had not assaulted her and that the in-

juries were the result of “force he

used in self-defence” after she “went

for him with a potato peeler”.

Mr Justice Holgate QC told the ju-

ry the only way that the prosecution

could establish that Walker had

caused her death was by making sure

that the injuries from the alleged

assault “had made a significant con-

tribution to her reduced state of con-

sciousness by the time the paramedic

started to treat her.

“I came to the firm conclusion that

no reasonable jury could be sure that

the prosecution had proved this very

special causal link to the high stan-

dard of proof required,” he said.

The judge agreed with a submis-

sion from the defence barrister that

there was no case to answer.

The ruling was challenged by

Rachel Brand QC, for the prosecu-

tion, but after a hearing in the Court

of Appeal on Friday the judge’s ruling

was upheld.

A not guilty verdict was recorded

and Walker was freed.

West Midlands Ambulance Ser-

vice said the former Staffordshire

Ambulance Service, which it now

runs after a merger, had responded to

the incident in 2003.

“An internal investigation was un-

dertaken at the time by the then trust

with the findings provided to police as

part of their investigation,” it said.

John Simpson Crime Correspondent

Gary Walker had

been convicted

of murdering his

pregnant

girlfriend

F

or nearly a

century it was

billed as a

one-off event

(David

Crossland writes). The

Christmas truce of 1914,

when British and

German soldiers played

football in no man’s

land, was thought not to

have been repeated.

Since the German

historian Thomas Weber

debunked this notion

more than 90 years on,

he has been inundated

with letters about tens of

thousands of soldiers

mixing at other times.

He has told The Times

fresh details from the

“avalanche” of accounts

in soldiers’ letters and

regimental diaries.

Even in 1916, after

mass slaughter at the

Somme, soldiers were

fraternising, to the fury

of commanders, who

ordered artillery fire and

sniping to stop it. Weber,

of Aberdeen University,

said there were friendly

encounters on the

western and eastern

fronts, at Gallipoli and

in East Africa. There

was a Christmas Day

kickabout between the

15th Battalion of the

Royal Welsh Fusiliers

and a Bavarian unit in

1915 near the French

village of Laventie.

Private Bertie Felstead

recalled: “A few of the

Germans came out first.

A whole mass of us went

out to meet them... We

weren’t afraid. Nobody

would shoot at us when

we were all mixed up.”

One soldier brought a

football. “It wasn’t a

game as such — more of

a free-for-all. ”

The truces weren’t on

the scale of 1914 but

mixing was surprisingly

common, said Weber.

Officers banned

seasonal fraternisation

after 1914. Commanders

of the 2nd Battalion

even ordered a “special

programme” of artillery,

trench mortars and

machine guns on

Christmas 1916.

The censors removed

stories from letters.

“You have to bear in

mind all the men who

didn’t come home. It

would not have been

good for [survivors] to

return and to say ‘we

had a jolly good time

with the Germans and

they weren’t so bad’.”

Truces

weren’t just

for 1914

Christmas

NNNNNeeewwwssss

The truce match in no man’s land in 1914 wasn’t a

one-off. Soldiers fraternised at other times and on many

fronts, including Russian and Austrian forces in 1916

UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/UIG/GETTY IMAGES