End of the road for Charlotte's killer?
NICK Rose, the Ilfracombe man convicted of murdering teenager Charlotte Pinkney in 2004 "has nowhere else to go," after his final appeal faced another blow.
One of the policemen who investigated the murder case has urged Rose to "re-think his position," after his latest, and possibly last avenue for appeal stumbled.
-
Nick Rose denies he killed Charlotte Pinkney
Rose has always protested his innocence, despite pleas from police to admit guilt and tell them where they could find Charlotte's remains, for her family's sake.
But this week, his mum Kay was reported to have said she was "still optimistic" after the Criminal Cases Review Commission — set up to investigate possible miscarriages of justice — provisionally said there were insufficient grounds for a new appeal.
Three judges rejected his case at the Court of Appeal in 2006, saying the evidence was "formidable" and Rose is currently serving 20 years in the high category Wakefield Prison.
Mrs Rose, who posts regular updates on the Facebook group 'Justice for Nick Rose,' said: "I was a bit disappointed when the CCRC came back with their statement of reasons but when I spoke to the solicitor, they said that this happens."
But she is determined to fight her son's case.
"I have my moments but I've got to keep fighting. That's what keeps me going."
But Barnstaple-based DS Dave Atkinson said: "We haven't had official notification from the CCRC yet, they are now examining some additional submissions from his solicitors, but if this is the case, Nick has nowhere else to go.
"That's the bottom line. There are no other means of lodging an appeal and short of seeing Charlotte walk through the door, there's nothing more he can do.
"But hopefully, once he has been told officially that there is no case for an appeal, he must have a serious re-think about his position, because if he doesn't, he's going to be in there for a very long time.
"He's in the high category Wakefield Prison for 20 years, but he can make a significant difference to that time."
He said that if Rose co-operated with police, there was a possibility he could be moved to a lower category prison.
"He could re-skill and re-train for his release, because he will still be a relatively young man. And while it's a way off yet, people do come out on parole."
In a Facebook message, Rose wrote: "We got some bad news from the CCRC, which was saying that they have looked over our appeal points and provisionally said there is not enough grounds of appeal.
"This has come as a shock to me and I'm really hurting right now.
"I always knew it weren't going to be easy and we were in a fight which weren't in our favour, but I suppose I just believed that the CCRC would see the case against me stinked and many mistakes were made, to send an innocent man to prison."
74 Comments
View all
by tye1963
Friday, December 02 2011, 7:38PM
“He did it , He will do his full sentence cause not got the Balls to admit it ,prob a spur of moment thing prob would been manslaughter if he had of owned up ,dont blame his parents for trying to defend him any parent would given his story , just hope Bob and Sara get closure one day cause they are really nice people”
by Silvia, Barnstaple
Wednesday, January 13 2010, 2:30PM
“Oh dear, It appears this site has become yet another place for Kay Rose to incite speculation about her son's case.
At the end of the day, an impartial jury convicted him of murder. The fact that Charlottes body has not been found tells me that the evidence must have been overwhemingly against him for the conviction to have taken place.
People will always gossip. And it seems to me that Kay Rose will never face up to the fact that her son is responsible. But whether he was a volunteer at a kids football club or you liked him at school, does this mean that he is not capable of murder? (or do killers walk around with a tattoo on their forehead?)”
by Kay Rose, London
Wednesday, December 09 2009, 8:46PM
“In answer to Ilf local, I agree with you on the subject of police incompetence on this case, further to your comment I would like to add a few things concerning the police not acting very professional, one of the things which we thought was really bad, was we were told by a couple of prosecution witnesses that as they were going in to give evidence the police were telling them that Nick was definitely guilty of murder, so how many others did they say this to!!!
Another thing was the car Nick had been driving, as far as they were concerned this was the crime scene, but they allowed the person who had been driving it the following weekend to remove items from the boot, it was bad enough that they did not get the car for 9 days, so talk about contamination of a crime scene!!
The C.I.D officers were driving impressionable young women prosecution witnesses around in a convertable!!!
Lastly when Nick was in the stand giving evidence there were a couple of officers in the public gallery sniggering and saying he was thick, we did make a complaint about this at the time.
I used to have respect for the police but not any more, it seems they just have to get a result no matter how many people they hurt along the way!
The witnesses you mentioned, were they the ones used in court???
If they were different ones i would like to have their names to give to our solicitor.
We hope justice is done very soon....”
by Ilf local, ilfracombe
Thursday, December 03 2009, 7:24PM
“As someone who has lived in Ilfracombe for 30 odd years, i knew Nick a little he volunteered to run one of the kids football teams when i was involved with Lantern youth football. After the awful circumstances my wife was asked by the police to be a witness as on the Saturday morning she took our dog dor a walk past the 2 resevoirs and back again and our dog behaved strangely at a certain point in the walk which the police thought was significant and she was asked to do the walk again. While the police were waiting to take my wife for the walk an officer admitted to me that the police searching the site were clueless and were burying things rather than unearthing them and how he was convinced it was Nick who was responsible. I followed the case briefly without having a judgement in my head either way being a father of a daughter I could not imagine the anguish the Pinkney family must have gone through and still are. I later found out that if Charlotte was seen on the Saturday then this would put Nick in the clear. One night when I was out and the case was being discussed i was told that 2 people who I knew very well had seen Charlotte on the Saturday morning, I discussed this with 1 of them who confirmed that he and the other person had seen Charlotte on the Saturday morning, apparently this evidence was dismissed, having spoke to both of these people both will swear they knew Charlotte and seen her on the Saturday. After further talks in and around Ilfracombe it has become more and more likely that there has been a miscarriage of justice and a lot of people know a lot more than is publicly known and a lot of it has been suppressed. I just hope for both families Justice is done.”
by Kara, Ilfracombe
Thursday, October 15 2009, 11:11AM
“Even if Nick took a lie detector test and it came back he was telling the truth he would not be able to use it in court so whats the point?”