Cambridgeshire Murders by Alison Bruce Page B

distinctive gait; the fabrication of Slade’s alibi; and the statement from Heddings.
    Sergeant Storks testified that he had noticed blood on Slade’s clothes when he had first interviewed the prisoner on Thursday 12 July, nine days after the killing. He stated:
    I was struck with the appearance of his trousers down the front. He wore slop fustian trousers and jacket, of a dirty brown colour, and a blue cravat; the front of his trousers, I noticed, had a dark greasy shining appearance. It struck me, but not at that moment, that it was blood and dirt rubbed together . . .
    I examined his jacket on the Sunday following, and his shoes three days ago; I found a large stain of blood on the inner side of the covering of the skirt of his jacket, and also a stain on the inner side of the left shoulder; the right thigh of the trousers appeared to me to have been washed, or some liquid put upon it to take out the stain.
    Living as part of the Slade family was a man named Thomas Sykes, who owned a woodman’s bill which he stored in a cupboard within the house. Sykes testified that the last time he had used the bill was in the spring when he had cleaned it and put it away. This became one of two possible murder weapons, the other being the clasp knife found in Slade’s possession while he was awaiting trial. About this Storks stated:
    I examined the bill with a magnifying glass and could discover grey-coloured human hair and blood, and dirt appeared to have been put on afterwards. I knew Mr. Waterhouse – he was an old man, and had grey hair, and the hair on the bill corresponded. There were several cuts on the tub; they must have been given with great violence, and, in my opinion, with a bill.
    The next witness to take the stand was W. Francis who had been at the Swan public house with Slade on the evening before the murder. He testified that, at somewhere between one and two in the morning, they had left the pub. The last that Francis had seen of Slade was as his drinking companion headed in the direction of both the church and his home.
    On the following Monday, Francis and another man named Woods had taken one of the prisoner’s shoes and gone to Mr Waterhouse’s field across a stile and a ditch where, in the bank, they had found an imprint of a shoe. Comparing this to the one they carried they found it a perfect match.
    When Peter Sabey took the stand his identification of Joshua Slade had become far more specific than it had been when he had made his earlier statement and included the following remark:
    The man lobbed a little in his gait, and appeared to be a young man, about five feet six inches in height. My opinion was, that it was the prisoner Slade; but I did not see his features, and could not swear it was him.
    The fifth point made by the prosecution, and potentially one of the most damning for Slade, was the proof that he had fabricated his alibi and therefore had demonstrated himself to be a liar. The constable, John Richardson, took the stand and made a short but thorough statement undoing every part of Slade’s original story. Joshua Slade’s defence argued that as he was disliked in the village he had felt the need to protect himself from malicious gossip with the invention of an alibi.
    The final evidence from the prosecution was Heddings’ testimony. Despite Heddings’s bad reputation his statement was the single most important element of the prosecution’s case.
    Heddings repeated his previous statement virtually word for word, recounting everything that Joshua Slade had purportedly told him as they walked towards the Swan public house. The judge asked Slade whether he wished to question the witness. Slade replied, ‘He has told a false story, my Lord.’
    When cross-examined by the defence Heddings was asked whether he thought he would be shown mercy in return for making his statement and Heddings admitted ‘I hope so.’
    The defence was keen to