Dixie jury told to put aside their revulsion (From Your Local Guardian)

Dixie jury told to put aside their revulsion

11:28am Thursday 21st February 2008 in News

Jurors have been told to put aside their revulsion when considering whether Mark Dixie murdered Sally Anne Bowman.

Judge Gerald Gordon told the Old Bailey jury today they should also not allow their verdicts to be affected by sympathy for the 18-year-old model or her family.

Pub chef Dixie, 37, denies murdering Sally Anne in a frenzied knife attack in Blenheim Crescent, South Croydon, on September 25, 2005.

But he admits he had sex with her dead body and maintains someone else must have killed her.

During his summing up Judge Gordon said: "I can't ask you not to feel revulsion at certain aspects of this case.

"I cannot ask you not to be human. But what I can do is to ask you to put revulsion to one side when you come to consider the issues in this case."

“I can't ask you not to feel revulsion at certain aspects of this case."

Judge Gerald Gordon

He also told them that while he understood why jury members would feel sorry for Sally Anne and her family they must not let that influence their decision.

The court has heard how Dixie admitted an indecent assault on a Jehovah's Witness when he was 17.

And his DNA was found on a 19-year-old Thai student who was stabbed in Perth, Australia in 1998 - at the same time as Dixie was living in the city.

The trial continues.

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