Police missed vital tapes, court told (From Your Local Guardian)

Police missed vital tapes, court told

8:26pm Friday 30th November 2007 in

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Those investigating the attempted murder of bus stop victim Kate Sheedy have been branded negligent, the Old Bailey heard.

The court was told how blood samples taken from Miss Sheedy on the night she was run over twice were never collected by Hounslow police and six months later destroyed by the hospital, despite being only 15 minutes from each other.

This came before the revelation that vital CCTV images were missed as police had only watched three of the six tapes seized from a nearby pub which had captured the white vehicle in question.

Former Shepperton bouncer and clamper Levi Bellfield denies all charges of attempting to murder Kate Sheedy, now 21, after she got off a bus in Isleworth in the early hours of May 28, 2004.

His defence counsel William Boyce QC said: "It would be almost automatic basic good policing to obtain the blood prior to a transfer or operation to see the condition of the blood.

"As night follows day police would require blood to see how much alcohol or drugs were in the blood at the time.

"The hospital involved disposed of the blood sample because the police never picked it up. Quite a negligent act in the circumstances."

Investigating officer Detective Sergeant Phillip Royan of Hounslow CID defended the police's action and said that as Kate had survived the need for blood sampling had diminished as she could give a first hand account of events herself.

The court then heard how clues revealing the suspected white vehicle following a bus were missed after police only watched half the seized CCTV evidence.

D Sgt Royan said: "A number of tapes were seized, six in all. The officer took out some of the tapes and viewed them.

"I do not have his rationale as to why he did that. I was informed that the tapes had been viewed and was none the wiser that only three of the six had been watched."

Further evidence was given by motorist Phillip Lancaster, from Oxfordshire, who had to pay a man he later identified as Bellfield to remove a clamp on his car.

He said Bellfield had driven up and parked a white Toyota Previa into the car park to block Mr Lancaster from leaving.