'Terrible mistake' made at death scene, court told

One of the first police officers to arrive at the scene following the death of an 86-year-old widow told a court he and colleagues made a "terrible mistake" by initially not treating the death as suspicious.

Una Crown was found dead at her bungalow in, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire in 2013, having been stabbed four times and had her throat cut.

Former police officer Simon Gledhill told Cambridge Crown Court via a video link he and another officer deemed the death to be non-suspicious, and that a number of paramedics and others went through the house and her belongings without proper protective clothing.

David Newton, 70, of Magazine Close, Wisbech, denies murdering Mrs Crown.

Mr Newton, who lived near Mrs Crown, was charged in 2024 after DNA matching his profile was found on nail clippings taken from Mrs Crown in 2013.

Mrs Crown was found in her bungalow in Magazine Lane on 13 January 2013, the day after she was believed to have died. Her clothing had been set on fire.

Her body was discovered in the hallway after her niece's husband had gone to collect her for Sunday lunch but she failed to answer the door.

A post-mortem examination two days later found she died due to stab wounds to the neck and chest, and that her throat was cut.

However, when officers from Cambridgeshire Police arrived at the scene, they did not immediately recognise Mrs Crown's death as suspicious.

Prosecutor Claire Matthews, asked Mr Gledhill, a temporary police sergeant at the time: "Did you see the body of a woman lying face down in a hallway?

"Am I right that, considering what you could see that day, you decided this death was non-suspicious?"

He replied "yes" to both questions.

The court heard Mr Gledhill arranged for undertakers to take away Mrs Crown's body later that afternoon and for the power to be cut as he said a cooker ring was hot, despite appearing to be turned off.

He then left the house, arranging for crime scene photographers to come in later.

Ms Matthews asked him if he thought he would "ever hear about the death again", to which he replied, after a long pause: "I certainly didn't know we'd made the mistake we had."

Parts of a statement he made on 17 January 2013 were read out in court.

In them, he described Mrs Crown's home as "tidy, well kept, not disturbed" and said he could see no sign of forced entry.

He had gone through her handbag looking for a photograph for identification purposes and found her bus pass, he had said.

The court was then shown a photograph of a dimmer light switch, with blood on it.

Cross-examining Mr Gledhill, Roderick James, for the defence, said: "Some bad decisions were made on 12 January during your attendance at Magazine Lane?"

Mr Gledhill said "yes", adding: "May I add I acknowledge the impact it's had on the subsequent investigation and take responsibility for that, and apologise to the family."

Stressing the importance of preserving a crime scene, the defence asked: "Do you accept this was not treated as a murder scene would have been handled - secured and controlled?"

Mr Gledhill replied: "Yes."

He disagreed that little had been done to prevent contamination, saying he had worn gloves when he touched Mrs Crown's body.

However, Mr James said: "Multiple paramedic crews entered the bungalow. Between them, they touched Mrs Crown's body... to move things around without being controlled and monitored."

Mr Gledhill told the court "paramedics were rummaging through the drawers" and that one had managed to get blood on his finger, which was transferred to a light switch.

He further said he had told the fire service commander that officers should not be going through drawers and had asked ambulance staff to take their paperwork outside rather than completing it on a work surface.

Building the defence case of contamination, Mr James said: "We know that at least three fire officers, at least three police officers were there, plus paramedics".

There were also two staff from the undertakers.

"By the time the undertakers arrived, we'd made the decision it wasn't a suspicious death," said Mr Gledhill.

"We made a terrible mistake."

He told the defence he had no recollection of stopping people moving around Mrs Crown's home at the time and agreed that the only protective clothing worn had been gloves.

He said he did not recall how many times he had touched Mrs Crown's body, but in his statement from 2013 he had said that he "managed at some point to touch the key with the bloodied glove" and to "deglove and then touched the key and get blood on my hands".

The trial continues.

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