Oxford Mail's true crime podcast: The killing of Vikki Thompson - Part 2

This week we continue where we left off, a not guilty verdict for the killing of 30-yeard-old Vikki Thompson.

LISTEN TO PART 1: The killing of Vikki Thompson

Mark Weston left court an innocent man in 1997, soon after he secured legal aid funding to try and sue TVP for wrongful arrest and imprisonment. In fact, he was urged to do so by the foreman of the jury, Carlos Coran, who felt sorry for the man.

It was 15 years before Vikki's grieving family heard the guilty verdict. It took police officers to reopen a cold case and advances in DNA testing.

Listen to the second part of this episode:

You can read along the words to this mini-podcast here:

You're listening to the Oxford Mail's True Crime podcast with me Fran way.

This is a new series where I'll be delving deep into our archives of unsolved crimes.

This week we continue where we left off, and not guilty verdict for the killing of 30-year-old Vikki Thompson.

Mark Weston left court an innocent man in 1997. Soon after, he secured legal aid funding to try and sue Thames Valley Police for wrongful arrest and imprisonment. In fact, he was urged to do so by the foreman of the jury, who felt sorry for him.

Weston later sold the story to Take a Break magazine, detailing how he never got much of a fortune, but enough money to settle down having lived a year in prison. Meanwhile, Vikki's case went cold.

15 years had passed since the gruesome attack. Finally, the grieving family of Vikki Thompson had the word they waited so long to hear: "guilty".

It was a long and painful wait for Jonathan, the man who had found his childhood sweetheart laying in a pool of blood by the railway line when she didn't come home from an afternoon walk with their dog.

It took police officers to reopen the cold case, advances in DNA testing, a change of law and one pair of blood-stained boots to make sure the killer wouldn't get away with murder twice.

In 2005, 10 years on from the brutal attack, police officers reopened the case and looked at all the evidence again.

Behind the scenes they were examining Weston's stuff that had been seized in the first investigation in the 90s. This included black boots, which were sent to the forensics team for close inspection.

First, forensics rang to say we found blood. The second, they said 'we've narrowed it down to female blood'. And the third they confirmed the news. It's Vikky's blood.

Peter Burns said it had been a euphoria as police finally got the breakthrough that they needed.

Describing what had changed when looking at the boots, Alison Levitt, who was at the time the principal legal adviser to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the DPP, said that looking for bloodstains is really, really difficult.

She said: "It's a black boot with irregular surfaces and looking for bloodstains involves the combination of the naked eye, a microscope where you can, and dabbing areas with a reactive agent."

Weston was arrested in October 2009 at the same home address, which was 150 yards away from where Vikki had live with her two children, husband and dog.

He was charged with murder the next day, but he denied everything again. And so another trial was held this time at Reading Crown Court. But to get there wasn't easy.

Before this case, nobody who was convicted or acquitted of an offence could be retried for the same crime.

So Weston, having been let off for murder could never go back to court for killing Vikki Thompson again.

However, in 2005, the year that this cold case was reopened, the UK amended the law on so-called 'Double Jeopardy' cases.

With that new legislation meant that where fresh evidence of somebody's guilt emerged in very serious crimes like murder, criminals can go back to the dock.

But prosecutors had to get the DPP's personal consent before applying to the Court of Appeal for Weston's acquittal to be quashed, so that legally he could be retried without being not guilty of her murder.

Mrs Levitt, from the DPP, added: “The threshold is an extremely high one for the prosecution to reach because although the legislation permits it, it’s accepted by everyone it’s an exceptional step to take.”

During the second trial, jurors were told that Vikki had been murdered because she caught Weston watching her and masturbating.

Opening the case, John Price said: “She reacted to this in a way which prompted him to chase and fatally attack her as she tried to back up in the lane screaming.”

The police were also able to use a key piece of evidence this time around. The two bras which had been found in the London carrier bag near the crime scene (we mentioned this in the first episode) both of which was stained with semen matching the DNA profile of Weston.

During the first trial, the judge hadn't allowed this evidence as he feared the jurors would judge Weston with an air of disgust.

We can't be sure how and why the jurors came to their verdicts. But with the blood on the boots and the bras, it was clear it was damning.

Mark Weston was found guilty of murdering Vikki Thompson.

After the trial, her husband Jonathan said Western would be well looked after in prison but that his wife, who had been brutally murdered, was never coming back.

Justice had been ‘done in court’, Jonathan said, but ‘ultimately, there is no justice in death’.