Howard Hughes (born 1965) is a convicted child murderer. Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ...

Early life

Howard Hughes was born in Llandudno, North Wales, in 1965, the youngest of four children born to Gerald and Renee Hughes. He had three older sisters, and his father was a wealthy businessman who ran a construction firm. He was born with a genetic disorder which caused him to grow at an abnormally quick rate, and on starting primary school in 1969 he quickly gained a reputation for being aggressive with other pupils. He was expelled from several primary and secondary schools for violent attacks on other pupils, and at one stage his father offered the headteacher of one private school double fees to keep him on, but the headteacher refused to allow Howard to remain at the school. , This article is about the town in Wales. ... Approximate extent of North Wales North Wales (known in some archaic texts as Northgalis) is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales, bordered to the south by Mid Wales. ... Also: 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ...

Hughes would regularly play truant from school, where he and other tearaways would steal items including bicycles from garden sheds. He would sell stolen bicycles from the garden of the family home. When his parents divorced, he moved into his mother's house.

Involvement in crime

Hughes came to the attention of police in 1981, when at the age of 16 he was arrested for strangling a seven-year-old boy so fiercely that he was rendered unconscious and had to go to hospital. He was convicted of assault and given a probation order. Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

After leaving home, he moved into a flat in Llandudno and began a lengthy feud with his female next-door neighbour. He would peer over the fence when she was sunbathing, threatened to 'blow her head off' with a gun, and regularly played loud music. In 1985, Hughes was briefly admitted to a mental hospital in Northamptonshire but failed to make any real progress. According to a friend, he continued to walk the streets of Llandudno and look up girls' skirts while standing below a footbridge, as well as peering into the dormitory at an all-girls boarding school. In 1987 he was charged with raping a 14-year-old girl but the case collapsed due to a lack of evidence. His Nickname to the school children in the area was Mad Howard. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Year 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar). ... Northamptonshire (abbreviated Northants or Nhants) is a landlocked county in central England with a population of 629,676 (2001 census). ... Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar). ...

The Sophie Hook murder

On 29 July 1995, seven-year-old Sophie Hook travelled to Llandudno with her nine-year-old sister Jemma, five-year-old brother Joe and three-year-old sister Ellie, as well as her mother Julie. It was the ninth birthday of her cousin Luke Jones, who lived at a house in Llandudno with his parents Danny and Fiona as well as his six-year-old brother Alex. is the 210th day of the year (211th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ...

Sophie, Jemma and Luke were allowed to sleep in the back garden in a tent that night. When the two other children woke up in the morning, Sophie was missing. Her naked body was found washed up on the beach at Craig-y-Don at just after 7.00am, by a man walking his dog. Sophie's parents identified her body later that day, and a post mortem revealed that she had been raped and strangled. Her arm was also broken.

Hughes was arrested within hours of Sophie's body being found, and he was charged with murder two days later.

The trial

Howard Hughes went on trial at Chester Crown Court on 24 June 1996, charged with abduction, rape and murder. Chester Crown Court is a law court in Chester, England. ... June 24 is the 175th day of the year (176th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 190 days remaining. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Child abduction is the abduction or kidnapping of a child (or baby) by an older person. ...

The jury heard no forensic evidence which linked Hughes to Sophie's death, but they received valuable information from three witnesses. Hughes's father Gerald told the jury that his son had admitted the murder to him shortly after he was arrested and being held in custody at a local police station. Jonathan Carroll, a 30-year-old thief who was in prison at the time he testified, told the jury that he had seen Hughes carrying a hessian sack along a Llandudno street on the night of Sophie's murder, and that he had caught a glimpse of a body in the sack. A third witness, convicted child sex offender Michael Guidi, testified that Hughes had boasted to him some time earlier that he would like to 'rape a girl of 4 or 5'. This article or section should be merged with Forensic science Forensic evidence consists of anything that can be used in a court of law to convict a person of a crime. ...

The jury also heard details of the injuries that Sophie had sustained in the attack, many of which had been inflicted before she died. However, there was no forensic evidence to link Hughes to these injuries. This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

On 18th July 1996, the jury returned a guilty verdict on all three charges against Howard Hughes. The 31-year-old was then given three life sentences by trial judge Mr Justice Curtis, who branded Hughes a 'fiend' and recommended that he should never be released from prison.

Appeals

On 5 September 1997, the Court of Appeal gave Howard Hughes leave to appeal against his conviction for the abduction, rape and murder of Sophie Hook. Six months later he sparked further outrage by launching a £50,000 compensation claim against the Bryn Estyn children's home, where he claimed he was abused as a child. Two weeks later, the Court of Appeal rejected Hughes's bid to have his convictions quashed. is the 248th day of the year (249th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar). ... Court of Appeals is the title of certain appellate courts in various jurisdictions. ... Compensation has several different meanings as indicated below. ...

Hughes's second appeal took place on 4 September 2001, but the Court of Appeal again decided that there were no grounds for his convictions to be quashed. The judges who made the decision also ruled that they would not allow Hughes to further contest his convictions unless any new evidence turned up. Hughes then decided to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights, but has so far yet to do this. is the 247th day of the year (248th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... European Court of Human Rights building in Strasbourg The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), often referred to informally as the Strasbourg Court, was created to systematise the hearing of human rights complaints against States Parties to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted by...

Blunkett's ruling

On 24 November 2002, the then Home Secretary David Blunkett announced that four convicted child murderers would each spend a minimum of 50 years behind bars before being considered parole. Howard Hughes was one of them, the others were Roy Whiting, Timothy Morss and Brett Tyler. This ruling meant that Hughes would not be considered for release until 2045 and the age of 80, but the Home Secretary's powers of setting minimum terms was stripped within 48 hours as a result of a legal challenge by another convicted murderer who took his case to the European Court of Human Rights. is the 328th day of the year (329th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the United Kingdom Home Office and is responsible for internal affairs in England and Wales, and for immigration and citizenship for the whole United Kingdom (including Scotland and Northern Ireland). ... Roy Whiting Roy Whiting was born in Horsham, West Sussex, on 26 January 1959. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Brett Tyler (born 1966) is a British convicted child sex offender and murderer. ... 2045 (MMXLV) will be a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Doubts over Hughes's guilt

Following the conviction, new evidence emerged that suggested that Howard Hughes may have been innocent of the murder, and that a miscarriage of justice may have taken place. Twelve years after the incident, Hughes continues to fight to clear his name, and has vehemently maintained that he had nothing to do with the murder Image File history File links Broom_icon. ...

The key reasons for this include:

• There was, and remains, no forensic evidence whatsoever to link Howard Hughes to the murder. The only evidence was circumstancial, and alone this circumstancial evidence is still questionable and not totally reliable.
• Hughes's unusual habits including cycling around Llandudno at night and collecting junk items off the streets were in fact long-standing and not unique to the night of Sophie's murder (as was alleged by the police).
• Hughes was behaving calmly and following his normal daily routine the morning after Sophie's murder, as well as wearing the same clothes he had been seen wearing the previous night. Police reports stated that Hughes was "frightened of the police" (possibly due to a separate, unrelated incident a year earlier where he had been hit by a police officer with a baton during an interview). If he had committed the murder it was unlikely (although not impossible) that he would kept the same clothes on for so long after committing the offence. No forensic evidence was found on these clothes, which were releieved from Hughes shortly after the arrest.
• Hughes was spoken to by patrolling police at 2.55am on 30th July 1995, 25 minutes after Sophie's last confirmed sighting (in the tent, by her sister Jemma). The pathologist who performed the post-mortem on Sophie's body believed that Sophie had died at around this time, and in this period of time it would have been virtually impossible for Hughes to have committed the crime on foot, and just as unlikely that he could have used a bicycle and lugged both the cycle and Sophie up the steep hill on the road up to the beach in such a short space of time due to the combined weight he would have had to have carried. It is more likely that Sophie was murdered by somebody who used a car, and Hughes had never driven a car in his life.
• Another factor that also indicates a motorist committing the offence was that eye-winesses described Sophie as "looking like a road-crash victim" on first sightings
• It seems very unlikely that, if Sophie was murdered slightly later that the pathologist believed, Hughes would have committed the murder after speaking to the police, because he would have known that they were observing him.
• Hughes admitted to picking up (and then throwing away) a garment which was later identified as Sophie's night-dress on the night of the murder; it would have been stronger evidence against him if he had denied it.
• The garment was found outside a derelict house which may have been occupied by one of the witnesses who gave evidence against Hughes at his trial. This witness had spent five years in prison for child abuse, and had further unconnected charges against him dropped by the police (possibly in return for giving evidence?). This type of witness giving evidence in such cases prior to (and after) this murder has repeatedly proven to be unreliable.
• Police who searched Hughes's home after his arrest found indecent photographs of his niece, which undoubtedly influenced the suspicions of the police and possibly influenced Hughes's father into saying that his son had admitted to the crime. It was later revealed that Hughes had already admitted to his sister before the murder that he had taken these pictures; in themselves these pictures are not a reliable indication of Hughes being the killer. Aside from this evidence, there was nothing else found at the house that pointed towards Hughes being the guilty party either.
• A six-year-old girl claimed to have been approached by Hughes in Llandudno just hours before Sophie's death. She picked him out of an identity parade, in which a group of suspects had been sitting down. This raised concern, as Hughes's height (6ft 8in) would probably be his most memorable feature. She then described the jacket which the man who approached her wearing, and it was quickly established that Hughes did not possess any clothing which matched the given description.
• Hughes's allegations that his father invented the confession were supported by the fact that several days after he supposedly confessed to the crime, his father was heard saying Whoever has done this and I only hope they find the person responsible. Hughes and his father (who was in fact his step-father rather than his natural father) had never got on well with each other, and his father had allegedly abused and subjected Hughes to violence as a child; Hughes was about to present evidence that he believed would prove this in an unrelated enquiry.
• No DNA was found on the tent from which Sophie disappeared, which suggests that she was not directly abducted from the tent.
• In addition Sophie was not sleeping next to the tent entrance but between her sister and her cousin, which raises the concern of how a 6ft 8in man could have abducted her from the tent without alarming (or even also abducting) the other two children; again, this would suggest that Sophie was not directly abducted from the tent, but left the tent before the abduction took place.
• A security light which was trained on the garden and the tent was proved to have been in working order both before and after Sophie went missing, and was never activated during the night.
• The only piece of forensic evidence found on the tent was a footprint on the tent flap. All shoes belonging to both Howard Hughes and Danny Jones (Sophie's uncle) were examined, and none of them matched the print. It was never identified.

• After his arrest, Hughes voluntarily underwent DNA and Forensic tests. It would have made more powerful evidence against him had he refused to do so.[clarify]
• A doctor on the Forensic Access Team presented evidence from these tests during the trial that indicated (albeit not completely reliably) that there was no way that Hughes could possibly have had sexual intercourse with any person (let alone Sophie Hook) for at least six months prior to the offence.[clarify]
• Scratch-marks from the killer's fingernails were found on Sophie's body. Medical records proved that Hughes's fingernails had been bitten down to the extent that he could not have left scratch-marks for almost 20 years prior to the murder.
• The police reportedly failed to investigate other promising leads. One of them related to the suicide of a former soldier who had been suffering from Gulf War Syndrome, and had taken his own life shortly after Sophie was killed. He had been residing at a psychiatric unit near the house where Sophie was staying. He had been absent from the unit for several hours that night and had returned with wet clothes which suggested that he had been in the sea. It is highly unlikely that this man murdered Sophie, as there was no forensic evidence to link him to the murder either, and in addition he had no previous history of violence or sexual offences; however, despite reports from the psychiatric unit the police failed to investigate the possibility that this man might have had something to do with Sophie's death. Also, this incident showed that Hughes was not the only person who was out and about and acting 'strangely' at night.
• The prosecution stated early in the trial that they had forensic evidence to link Hughes to the crime. This was never presented. It was never explained why this evidence was not presented at the trial, and if it ever did exist, no one knows what happened to this evidence, or where it is now if it still exists

References and sources

• http://www.bernardomahoney.com/forthcb/pdt/sharticles.shtml
• http://www.innocent.org.uk/