Case against murder charge teen 'fatally flawed'

3:53pm Monday 14th July 2008

The case against the Ammanford teenager accused of murdering Kelly Hyde was flawed from its outset, a jury at Swansea Crown Court has been told.

Defence barrister Huw Davies QC told the court that prosecutors had claimed "a meticulous inquiry had made a formidable case," but, he said, the very opposite was true.

Instead, he said that the entire case was based solely on circumstantial evidence that failed to link the boy either with Ms Hyde or with her murder.

Mr Davies said that police and prosecutors had made evidence fit their version of events, rather than building a case based on fact.

"The best adjective to describe the prosecution case is flawed," said Mr Davies.

Mr Davies accepted that the dumbbell weight discovered near the 24-year-old's battered body was undoubtedly the murder weapon, however he said the prosecution had been unable to prove the accused had ever owned or even touched the weight, despite endless forensic tests.

He also claimed that tests had failed to prove the footprint found near the body had been that of his client.

Mr Davies also raised the question of a sexual motive behind the murder, a theory dismissed by police and the prosecution at the initial stages of the inquiry.

Mr Davies pointed to an unidentified pubic hair found on Kelly's scarf that, he said, raised the very real possibility that there had been some sexual motive behind Kelly's death.

Mr Davies said officers had ignored the discovery because it failed to support their theory.

He said that the prosecution had been flawed in its analysis of the evidence, and its case was equally unstable.

"What they have built, no matter how it is presented, what they built is flawed," he added.