Supreme Court bid over DNA evidence

Dawn Walker died in February 2005
13 March 2014

A salesman who is serving life in prison for murdering his ex-girlfriend will take his fight to have key forensic exhibits retested to the Supreme Court today.

Kevin Nunn was convicted in 2006 of the murder of Dawn Walker after her partially clothed body was found on the bank of the River Lark in Suffolk, but he claims he is innocent.

Nunn's legal team are trying to force Suffolk Police to give them access to key forensic evidence linked to the case that they said was not properly examined at the time.

This includes sperm found on Miss Walker's body after she died in February 2005, from which the original investigators were unable to get a full DNA profile.

Solicitor James Saunders said: "The infamous cases of Stephen Lawrence, Damilola Taylor and Rachel Nickell were all solved when cold case reviews found evidence missed in the original investigation.

"In Mr Nunn's case, we know the killer must have touched certain items on which he could have left his DNA. Sperm was found on Ms Walker's body which could not have come from Mr Nunn, who had a vasectomy, but which the technology at the time could not profile. There have been major advances in DNA profiling since 2006 which hold out the real prospect of a breakthrough coming out of a cold case review.

"If Mr Nunn does not have the right to have the case reviewed, we face the worrying possibility of an innocent man rotting in jail when the evidence that might exonerate him is locked in a store at the police station. Equally worrying is that if Mr Nunn is innocent, the real killer is still out there, free to attack someone else."

Nunn was denied permission to appeal his conviction in 2007, and in 2012 his attempts to get Suffolk Police to grant access to key exhibits were also turned down.

Prosecutors claim he killed Miss Walker in a jealous rage after she left him for a man with whom she had previously had a relationship.

Describing his original murder trial, Nunn's sister Brigitte Butcher, who lives in Norfolk, said: ''There was character assassination in the courtroom that he was lying and he was jealous. Perhaps he was jealous but not to the extent that he would kill Dawn.

"He had no previous convictions, he had only ever had a parking ticket.

''There wasn't one piece of evidence against Kevin. Poor Dawn's death was a hideous ordeal that she went through, but there wasn't anything against Kevin forensically.''

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in