Convicted murderer writes to Journal from prison

NICK Rose — the man convicted of the murder of Ilfracombe teenager Charlotte Pinkney — has continued to protest his innocence in a direct letter from his prison cell to the Journal .

And he blamed the "inexperience" of investigating police for his current situation, serving 20 years at the maximum security Wakefield Prison.

Following huge web interest in the Journal's last story about Rose's final appeal, the man at the heart of one of North Devon's most debated cases put pen to paper and wrote to the newspaper.

Rose's final appeal was on the brink of collapsing last month, after the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) — set up to investigate possible miscarriages of justice — provisionally announced there were insufficient grounds for a new appeal.

But his mother Kay Rose said lawyers were still on the case and she remained "optimistic".

Police continued to appeal to Rose to admit culpability for the crime to give the Pinkney family some closure, but in his letter, Rose said: "The case against me is full of circumstantial evidence that was put together by a police force that had limited (if that) experience in murder cases.

"For God's sake, they turned it from a missing person to a murder investigation within three days and brought me in for questioning on the third day and that was with none of their circumstantial evidence and from that moment onwards they only had me in their sights."

And he launched a fiery attack on Detective Inspector Dave Atkinson, who was quoted as saying Rose could make a difference to his years behind bars if he confessed his guilt.

Rose wrote: "How dare this man offer me a lower security prison and make a difference to my time, this for me to admit to a crime I'm innocent of (when did he become God?).

"I would happily spend the rest of my living life in a dark hole knowing I'm innocent and if I'm guilty like he says why would he want to help me."

And it seems, he has no intention of giving up on appealing his innocence.

"There are many other means of lodging new appeals because in such of a case like mine fresh and new evidence is likely and then it would be back to the CCRC. I think it's clear to everyone there are people in Ilfracombe that know more than they said, maybe they might actually find they have a conscience or a heart."

Addressing the police he wrote: "...we might highlight one of your many mistakes because we know what they are we just have to prove them..."