Murder of Shirley Banks

Shirley Banks, a newly married 29-year-old textile factory manager from Clifton, Bristol, disappeared on the evening of 8 October 1987 while shopping in Broadmead. Her husband raised the alarm after she failed to return home, and a call to her workplace the next morning found that someone had phoned in sick on her behalf shortly before he called. Investigators later concluded she had been held overnight in the flat of her abductor, who persuaded her to phone in sick before her death.

The investigation involved 150 officers from five police forces and around 140,000 man-hours. Police pursued television appeals and searched Bristol Docks for her car. John Cannan, then living at Foye House in Leigh Woods, was arrested on 29 October 1987 in Leamington Spa in connection with a knifepoint assault at a Regent Street dress shop. During the arrest, police found a knife and a blood-stained bag, and his black BMW contained rope and an imitation handgun. A search of his car three weeks after Banks disappeared uncovered a tax disc for her car in the glove compartment, and her Mini Clubman, repainted, was found in a lock-up garage at his block of flats.

Further evidence linked Cannan to the crime: a taxi driver reported a call placed from Cannan's flat on the day after Banks vanished, which Cannan denied; his movements were unaccounted for between 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm that day; and a witness, Julia Holman — whom Cannan had attempted to abduct the night before Banks disappeared — identified him in a police line-up. Forensic evidence included bloodstains on a raincoat Cannan had taken to a dry cleaner, consistent with Banks's blood group, and a fingerprint match on a document found in his flat. Cannan was charged with Banks's kidnap and murder on 23 December 1987.

Banks's naked, decomposed body was discovered on 3 April 1988 in a stream at Dead Woman's Ditch, part of an Iron Age encampment at Dowsborough in the Quantock Hills, roughly 48 miles from Bristol. Pathologist Bernard Knight determined she had been killed by repeated blows to the head with a rock.

Cannan's trial began on 5 April 1989 at Exeter Crown Court, where he faced the murder charge along with eight further charges including rape, buggery, kidnap, attempted abduction, indecent assault, and abduction for sex. After a three-week trial and ten hours of jury deliberation, Cannan was found guilty on all counts on 28 April 1989, including the abduction and murder of Banks, the rape and buggery of a woman in Reading, and the attempted kidnap at gunpoint of Julia Holman. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by Mr Justice Drake, who commended the investigation led by Detective Chief Inspector Brian Saunders. Cannan remained in prison, continuing to protest his innocence, until his death in Full Sutton Prison on 6 November 2024.