GUILTY UK - Helen Bailey, 51, Royston, 11 April 2016 #6

JudgeJudi said:

I was just reading this link and something immediately jumped out:

"I have shunned them: ignored their endless calls, left their emails and letters unanswered, declined their invitations and hidden behind the front door when they have called round in an attempt to contact me, even clamping The Hound’s muzzle shut for fear he would bark and give the game away".

Helen's mum testified,

"What worried her most was that Ian's parents had come round and she was concerned about what they would think about her being asleep in bed. "I said that didn't matter, but I would have expected Boris to bark. Ian said Boris didn't bark."

His lies are a never-ending story.

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Tortoise said:

It is really very striking. Because he had no need to say it, it serves no purpose to his defence. So it jumps up and says 'look at me!'

Statement Analysis (SA) looks at what people say, and just as importantly, what they don't say when it is expected of them.

The other day I pointed out that we can tell there was no note simply because he said "my partner has been missing since Monday" Now we have the benefit of hearing him say he made up the note, but assuming this was a case with less evidence, it confirms how SA can be used.

Saying 'we were planning to get married' and then self-correcting to 'we are planning', should have told police straight away that he was involved. Maybe it did.

I was reviewing the 101 call again after watching the video I talked about yesterday, and I noticed that apart from when he was asked to give her name, he referred to Helen by name just once, and it's chilling to see where he used it, where he chose the appropriate moment to use it. (I'll also use this section of the call to highlight a few other points.)




1. He places Helen's name next to the word abuse. We place words in a sentence to show how closely or otherwise we link them. For example I might say 'I went to the park with Fred' if I don't particularly like him or want to be associated with him, or 'Fred and I went to the park' if we're close. In this case it was an odd thing to say anyway 'be very hard to abuse Helen', I would expect him to say no and leave it at that, or if he wanted to expand on that, he could have said 'Helen wasn't a victim of abuse that I know about'.

2. This becomes even more sensitive because straight away (micro seconds) he links the question in his head to something entirely irrelevant. Helen lost her husband. He draws the operator to possibly entertain the idea that there could be a link between her husband and Helen being a victim of abuse. He's inserting someone else into the answer, to give himself distance from abuse.

3. Then he goes on to talk about the circumstances of how he was bereaved and met Helen, and to talk about himself. His life history is really not relevant to this call, it shows his priority on this call about Helen, and how he gets the operator to think about him. He knows it's completely irrelevant to her question and that's why he sheepishly says 'I don't know if that's relevant.' He creates a big big diversion so it is a very sensitive question, and he gives away that Helen was abused, by him. He's linked her with it and used her name.

4.Quite often asking someone to repeat the question is a ploy to give them thinking time before answering. It could also be that he didn't hear the question.

5. It's pretty self-explanatory eh? - except he hasn't given Boris' name once! Another clue to distancing and hence bringing another victim of his in to the spotlight. Admittedly the operator didn't ask his name but it would be the first thing I'd think of and it could help in the search, if I thought Boris was wearing his collar and tag.

6. 'Her telephone number' - it would have been appropriate here to have used Helen's name and said 'Helen's telephone number'. He doesn't use her name, which is unexpected and clear distancing, in a relationship with no problems between people in love and planning to get married.

And I'll also highlight another red flag for interest



I left her here. The word 'left' is unexpected and illogical language. You leave things behind that generally aren't alive, like keys or objects or things that can't move. 'Left' when it is used illogically, generally indicates there is information that has purposely been omitted. Such as why he would have 'left her here'..because she was dead.

Think about going out and leaving people or someone in the house - if you've said you were leaving them there it begs the question why you said that, there's an explanation missing, like you left them behind inadvertently. Left indicates possession or control. She was dead, and he obviously wouldn't want the operator to know that but his nanosecond choice of word is leakage. He should have said 'she was here'.

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mrjitty said:

A bit more on the Recovery Dogs

These are obviously very highly trained dogs who specifically investigate crime scenes and look for bodies

The are not SAR dogs who follow scent, look for lost people etc.

Recovery dogs are trained to find specific things. So the blood dog looks specifically for forensic evidence. The Cadaver dog can find where a corpse has been present, from as little as 30mins from death. Cadaver dog often does not find forensic evidence. He tells us a story about the case.

Contrary to the belief of Gerry McCann, Cadaver dog does not hit on old fish, meat, a dead mouse etc.

Cadaver dogs specifically hits on dead human.

I know many have had the experience of a false hit at the airport - but this is not relevant

The first thing you have to understand is many of those dogs, especially in places like NZ and Australia, are food dogs not drug dogs, and these dogs are nowhere near as specialised as Recovery dogs. IIRC in NZ the food dogs outnumber the drug dogs by 4-1 Also, frequently the dog is indeed correct - so for example on my most recent trip a dog hit on my daughters backpack which contained no food. But it had contained an apple 2 days before. But all in all your airport experience is not analogous to Recovery dogs.

As in this case, the Recovery dog may not find the body or smoking gun forensics, but instead the dog tells us a story of the case.

Unfortunately the dog seemed to create a total mystery. i.e. a body was there but now it is not.

And if it is not at the Royston address, then it must have been taken away - but then why no hit on the car?

But the more I have looked in to the recovery dogs, the more I side with the handlers.

These dogs are exceptionally good at what they do.

But sometimes humans have trouble assimilating what the dog tells us into the overall case, because of a faulty assumption

So with Helen, Tia, Suzanne Pilley etc the clever dog is giving us the an insight into the story - but fallible humans still have to puzzle out what that means!

It's interesting that in the Pilley case, as in McCann, the dog tells the story of a body being moved with a hit on a vehicle.

In Helen's case the dog was telling us the body is under our proverbial noses.

I suspect the police were remiss in not realising the full significance of that - so they thought they'd watch and wait to see if IS would reveal where he dumped it.

Police can play a long game - but in hindsight they should have ripped that house apart.

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Squamous said:

This is another entry with lots of GGHW in (fairly unusual for the blog as it's mostly about Helen and her grief). Reading it through our new lens makes it so painful:

http://planetgrief.com/2012/09/28/postcard-from-the-edge/

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Florrie said:

As for the relationship coach I can't comment much expect to say she was probably as taken in as Helen. I would think she must wonder every day what red flags she might have missed but the answer is that there possibly weren't any. Look how difficult it has been for the Press to find anyone with a bad thing to say about him. On the contrary people are falling over themselves to say what a lovely man he is.... it least his in laws.


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Alyce said:

I remember when I read that ( I read the book while Helen was * missing * ) I thought it sounded a bit odd...

It was only later when I had done a bit more lookin around ( as I call it, some might say research ! ) and I saw ISs FB page and thought, he does not look or sound like the kind of person who *checks in on Facebook* every five minutes.
So it was done quite deliberately at a point when Helen was having a lovely time and he catches her off guard in a happy, reckless moment.
He knows she will never blame him afterwards, even if she suffers for it -because of course he asked her permission didnt he.
It's like the nurse and the police all over again, asking them if he should go on holiday. Nothing is ever his fault.

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Rayemonde said:

:yeahthat:

It's not as though there aren't plenty of things to criticise or mock him for, without resorting to shallow or childish comments about his looks...

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ZaZara said:

RSBM


A similar thing happened to a friend of mine, though I always had my doubts and suspected that she used her therapist as an excuse. She was in the middle of a toxic divorce when her therapist - allegedly - encouraged her to contact the man who had been a lot of trouble in her marriage years before.
She still thought the world of him - and got into bigger problems with him than with the entire divorce.
It took her another therapist to tell her some home truths about her dream-turned-nightmare man.

IMHO the rule of thumb is not to start a new relationship too soon. That is the basic red flag and no therapist should ignore it. Meet people if you feel like it, but keep all things relationship out of it.

Nowadays hardly anyone goes into official mourning anymore, but such period, (including staying away from the internet) has certain merits.

Telling a vulnerable person who has just lost her husband that she stands to lose another man is bad counselling IMHO.
If IS had been The One, he would have allowed her time.

Prosecutor Trimmer has a better eye for red flags:

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/helen-bailey-murder-trial-ian-12578906

13.00

Trimmer: “You knew there was all sorts of advice given on those websites about how widowers meet people.”

Stewart: “Yes, anyone could go and have a look.”

Trimmer: “How would people take advantage in this situation?”

Stewart: “Widowers are very vulnerable at that time in their lives. They could be confused”

Trimmer: “Widowers with a lot of money, might they be a target?”

Stewart: “Yes. It is suggested people are to be careful and just get to know people.”

Trimmer: “When was it from your first conversation with Helen Bailey and when you were intimate with her?

Stewart: “A month or so.”

Trimmer: “Were you surprised it was so quick?”

Stewart: “No”.

Trimmer: “It wasn’t long before financial conversations were contemplated, moving house and so on.”

Stewart: “Yes”

Trimmer: “You tell us you never fell out with her at all, ever, and you always thought this would end in a wedding.”

Stewart: “Not when we first met.”

Trimmer: “You tell us it all went very well.”

Stewart: “Extremely well.”

BBM & Red


Again, IMHO, a cousellor should be aware of this too ~ but we do not know what was said, only what HB told.

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JudgeJudi said:

I was just reading this link and something immediately jumped out:

"I have shunned them: ignored their endless calls, left their emails and letters unanswered, declined their invitations and hidden behind the front door when they have called round in an attempt to contact me, even clamping The Hound’s muzzle shut for fear he would bark and give the game away".

Helen's mum testified,

"What worried her most was that Ian's parents had come round and she was concerned about what they would think about her being asleep in bed. "I said that didn't matter, but I would have expected Boris to bark. Ian said Boris didn't bark."

His lies are a never-ending story.

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Cherwell said:

I didn't read that as saying Boris never barked, just that he didn't on that occasion. The Stewarts were probably quite regular visitors and dogs often only bark at people and things they don't recognise, so I wouldn't read anything into that.

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cottonweaver said:

TBH Annad, I hadn't noticed anyone saying "fat" or criticising his weight - just been up and down 3 pages trying to find such a ref.

I didn't realise that slob meant fat. I assumed it just meant lazy.


ETA oops cross post with squamous.

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Florrie said:

Thank you ZaZara as that's helpful, yes Trimmer did indeed raise the red flags didn't he...and not only that but he got IS to acknowledge them.


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JudgeJudi said:

I didn't mean to imply that Boris never ever barked. However it is normal for dogs to bark if someone rings the doorbell and the front door is closed. Once the door has opened and they recognise the visitors, that's a different story.

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Cherwell said:

It's often that way, but dogs do pick up on minute things that we can't detect, and often know who is there.

To give an odd example with my own dog - her previous owner was an old man who died, and she still favours old men. When an elderly chap of my acquaintance went past the garden, completely invisible behind the fence, she followed him silently to the gate at the end, tail wagging furiously, even though she hadn't met him before. Other people get barked at, but not everybody.

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