Killing of Wendy Sewell

On 12 September 1973, Wendy Sewell, a 32-year-old legal secretary from Bakewell, Derbyshire, was attacked at lunchtime in Bakewell Cemetery. A witness saw her enter the cemetery at about 12:50 pm. She was struck around the head seven times with the handle of a pickaxe, suffering severe head injuries and skull fractures, and was sexually assaulted, with items of her clothing removed. She was found still conscious, fell and struck her head on a gravestone, and died two days later at Chesterfield Royal Hospital.

Stephen Downing, the 17-year-old cemetery groundskeeper who found her, was immediately suspected. He had learning difficulties and a mental age of around 11. He was questioned for hours without a caution or a solicitor present, and officers reportedly shook him and pulled his hair to keep him awake. He signed a confession, which he later retracted, claiming he had been at home at the time of the attack, though no evidence supported this. At his trial at Nottingham Crown Court in February 1974, Downing pleaded not guilty to murder but admitted sexually assaulting Sewell as she lay injured. A forensic witness testified that blood on his clothing was consistent with him being the assailant. The jury unanimously convicted him of murder after one hour's deliberation, and he was ordered to be detained indefinitely with a minimum term of seventeen years. Because he would not admit guilt, he was classified as "in denial of murder" and remained ineligible for parole. A 1974 appeal based on a new witness was rejected.

In 1994, Downing's family approached local newspaper editor Don Hale, who led a campaign highlighting breaches of procedure in the original investigation, including an independent forensic re-examination of the murder weapon that found no fingerprint evidence linking Downing to it. The case was referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 1997. Downing was released on appeal in 2001 after 27 years in prison, and in January 2002 the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction, ruling that his 1973 confession was unreliable due to the manner in which it was obtained.

Derbyshire Police then conducted a reinvestigation, Operation Noble, interviewing 1,600 witnesses at an estimated cost of £500,000. Twenty-two alternative suspects raised by Hale's campaign, including Downing's father, were examined and cleared. Police stated Downing remained the only suspect who could not be eliminated, citing recordings of him allegedly confessing after his release, though he declined to be reinterviewed. An independent oversight committee concluded the reinvestigation had been conducted fairly. Hale's book on the case, Town Without Pity, was separately criticised by police for inaccuracies, though he was not charged over its contents.

Following a 2005 change to double jeopardy law permitting retrials in cases with new and compelling evidence, Derbyshire Police applied to the Crown Prosecution Service to recharge Downing, but the CPS determined the evidence was not sufficiently compelling. As of the most recent reporting, Downing has not been retried, and the case remains without a further prosecution.