Aggregated News

Sitting in the dock of a brightly lit courtroom, David Butler cocks his head to one side as he listens to the prosecution’s case against him.

A former taxi driver from Wavertree, in Liverpool, Butler is accused of murdering a local prostitute, Anne Marie Foy. At some point on the night of September 15 2005, the prosecution alleges, the 65-year-old picked Foy up in his car, took her to a secluded woodland and battered her to death with a branch from a tree. He then dumped her body in Liverpool city centre.

Looking at Butler today it seems unlikely. Gaunt and grey-haired, he is beset by breathing difficulties and sits in the dock with an oxygen bottle at his side. But the prosecution have what they say is conclusive evidence: traces of Butler’s DNA under the victim’s nails. There is, says Mr Nigel Power, the prosecuting QC, “a one billion-to-one chance” that the DNA belongs to anyone else. Foy must have torn at Butler’s skin as he attacked her, as she fought desperately to save her life.

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