(C) Private Eye, 2006 - www.private-eye.co.uk

Headline: Rocks and a hard place

THOSE campaigning for Gordon Park, jailed for killing his wife in the high profile "Lady in the Lake" case, will hold a vigil outside Manchester prison on Saturday 28 January to mark the first anniversary of his conviction. Foremost among those who believe Park innocent and who will be handing out flyers that raise a series of crucial questions about the case, will be his son, Jeremy, a 35-year-old IT consultant.

Carol Park disappeared from her home in July 1976. But as she had previously left home periodically to have affairs with other men, no one thought her disappearance strange and Park, a schoolteacher, did not initially report her missing. One man with whom she lived for almost a year in 1974-5 was a former police officer. Her whereabouts remained a mystery until her heavily trussed-up body was found on the bed of Coniston Water in the Lake District in August 1997.

Park was immediately arrested for her murder and briefly held in Preston prison; but the charge was dropped iu January 1998 through lack of evidence. However, Park was rearrested in January 2004 and stood trial from November 2004 to January 2005. So what evidence did the police have in 2004 that they didn't have in 1998?

The first stemmed from a comparison of the knots tying the "body parcel" with those from Park's house, garage and boat. It was a report from the prosecution's knots expert, Mike Lucas, that led to the murder charge being reinstated.

As the case went to trial, however, Lucas read a defence report and (to his credit) retracted his conclusions and withdrew. The knot patterns were not similar at all. In Park's own knots, there were more half-hitches than any other kind of knot; yet there wasn't a single half-hitch on the body parcel. Conversely, the single most-used knot on the body was a granny knot; and there was not a single such knot among all those on Park's property.

The prosecution also exhibited a piece of Westmorland green slate found on the lake bed in 2004 which was held to be "very similar" to slate on Park's house. At trial, however, this evidence collapsed. As the judge, Mr Justice McCombe told the jury, even the prosecution acknowledged that "slate had been worked in the Coniston area for hundreds of years" and this piece "could have come from anywhere".

Then there was a rock, said to have been found on the lake bed with some clothing, around 70m away from the body. The prosecution asserted that it corresponded closely to rocks in Park's garden wall. However, while he was giving evidence, the police diver who had supposedly found the rock was shown it. His response was unexpected, he fainted. "It was," commented the judge, "a bit of a shock." No one knows why he fainted, but his evidence contradicted the Crown's case. After recovering, the police diver testified that ifhe had noticed a rock during his dive (which he hadn't), he would have left it where it was. On top of this a geological expert for the defence said that far from the rock having been in the lake for 21 years, there was no evidence that it had been in water at all.

And finally there was also – just like in the Robert Kennedy case (see this page) – the classic cell-confession. While steadfastly maintaining his innocence to family, friends and lawyers, Park, in his brief stay in Preston prison, is said to have suddenly confessed to two prisoners. One has a severe learning disability and is, according to psychiatric reports, "highly suggestible"; the other has used cannabis for the last 14 years, "suffers memory loss and hears voices". Hardly surprising, then, that the accounts Park is said to have given to each did not match -another reason for doubting whether Park had ever told them anything at all.

Park had no criminal record whatever, and medical records of which he had been unaware revealed that Carol Park had told a doctor in 1975 that Park had never used violence or threats towards her. The family believe there are other suspects or former lovers who are violent.

But the most convincing evidence pointing towards Mr Park's innocence, according to his family, is that their mother was seen alive after Park was supposed to have murdered her. On the day that she "disappeared", Mr Park had taken his two children to Blackpool for the day. After they had gone, a VW beetle was seen parked on the family's driveway for more than 20 minutes. Neither the car nor the male driver has ever been identified.

Another neighbour also saw Mrs Park on her driveway that day. But later that evening, at about 6pm, she was seen by another friend at a service station on the southbound carriage of the M6.

"Why hasn't the VW driver come forward or been found?" asks Jeremy Park. "Where was my mother going that evening? There were such big holes in the prosecution case, we never ever believed my father would or could be convicted."

Now the family hopes that new geological and other expert evidence, coupled with concerns about material that have gone missing in the case, will lead to a speedy appeal.

(C) Private Eye, 2006 - www.private-eye.co.uk