Julie Mugford acted on her own conscience

[Erik Narramore]

The thing to bear in mind here is that, irrespective of whether Jeremy is guilty, he was already involved in unrelated criminal activity.  This means he will have been coy with the police about his girlfriend, Julie, as some of what he was up to would have involved Julie or Julie would have known about it.  This is why I am inclined to take the view that Julie did volunteer the cheque offences to the police, but there is a caveat I must add.

It could well be (I rather suspect it is the case) that Julie's criminality was much more extensive than has been admitted and the only reason we know about the cheque offences is because she happened to mention it to Jeremy and, for this reason, realised that she had to confess it to the police.

[Erik Narramore]

The glaringly obvious is that the Bank may have been influenced or pressured to drop charges involving offences of dishonesty because Julie Mugford was a witness whose evidence depended on her 'believability'.  It's one thing to receive a caution for drug offences, it's quite another to be cautioned for dishonesty prior to giving evidence as a witness in which you allege things that depend entirely on your own say-so and cannot be corroborated.

I appreciate that the trial judge did in the end tell the jury she had been cautioned for those offences anyway, but this was incorrect, so the question arises: why did the trial judge mislead the jury in that way?  Was it because there was a need to balance out the equation and ensure there was no prejudice to Jeremy by highlighting Julie's offences?  Or was it because the trial judge was promoting the idea that Julie had come forward voluntarily and spontaneously as an act of conscience?  If the latter, then her evidence was an orchestrated sham, and for that reason, could be viewed as unreliable in that the police had her in a corner and she in effect told them what they wanted to hear, albeit perhaps she was telling the truth with an exaggerated spin under the duress of threats that she would otherwise be charged as an accomplice to murder.

Reading the tone of the judge's summing-up, and considering Mr Dovey's contradictory evidence, I believe her evidence was coached and coerced, and I do not view her as a reliable witness.  The police and prosecution were advancing a naive narrative about Julie, which is repeated on here by you and other guilters.

[Erik Narramore]

Did Julie pay back the caravan park?