Bodies-in-canal accused, John Sweeney, claims police doctored his note saying ‘Poor Melissa... chopped up... to feed fish’
Lottery scratch card ‘confession’ was photographed and jumbled up, murder trial told
Published: 24th March, 2011
JAMIE WELHAM
A CARPENTER on trial for murdering two former girlfriends by sawing up their bodies and dumping them in canals has accused police of tampering with evidence to frame him.
John Sweeney, 54, told an Old Bailey jury that police had “jumbled up” words scrawled on the back of an old Lottery scratch card to make him look like a murderer.
In the witness box for the first time on Tuesday, Mr Sweeney told the court he did not write the sentence: “Poor old Melissa / Chopped up in bits / Food to feed fish / Amsterdam was the pits.”
The prosecution alleges the rhyme is a confession of the murder of 33-year-old American model Melissa Halstead, whose body was dredged from a canal in Rotterdam in May 1990.
Sweeney – a father-of -two who had addresses in Kentish Town and Finsbury Park – also denies the murder of another lover, Paula Fields, 31.
She lived in Highbury and worked as a prostitute before her dismembered body was found in six duffle bags in the Regent’s Canal, Camden Town, in 2001. The heads, hands and feet of both women have never been found.
Referring to the note on the card seized by police from his mother’s house in Lancashire, Mr Sweeney told the court: “Something stinks about it. It’s been doctored. It doesn’t look like my handwriting.
“It’s been photographed by the police and jumbled up.”
He also told the court police had been “grooming” witnesses to keep him in prison.
The court heard that Mr Sweeney had a violent and tempestuous relationship with Miss Halstead after first meeting the model in London in 1986.
He told the jury she was a drunk and would regularly beat him up while they were in a relationship until 1990.
He denied allegations that he had stalked her to Europe after she was deported, adding: “I bought the air ticket and we travelled together.”
Jurors heard that he was arrested in Vienna for hitting her over the head with a hammer in 1988.
When asked by defence QC Michael Wood why they stayed together, Mr Sweeney said: “I suppose I loved her.”
The jury was shown a photograph of the pair taken in Easter 1990.
Prosecutor Brian Altman, QC, said: “Two weeks after taking these photos she was dead, dismembered in an Army hold-all floating in the Westersingel canal. Any idea how it happened?”
Mr Sweeney replied: “No idea, nothing to do with me.”
Giving evidence about his artwork found in various locations, including his flat and his mother’s home, which prosecutors have described as “autobiographical” and “demonic” for their graphic depictions of violence, Mr Sweeney said they were “nonsense… bullshit… drunken trash”.
Among them was one titled “the scalp hunter”, showing a dismembered body of a woman, with an axe above it dripping with blood.
Mr Sweeney told the court they did not represent anything “sinister” and were a result of him taking the drug LSD at the time.
Another referring to Ms Halstead’s place of birth showed a woman being fished from a canal by a man bearing a resemblance to Mr Sweeney, with the caption: “Ohio, Ohio, it’s off to work I go”, the court was told.
A further drawing showed a headless and handless corpse of a woman positioned in the way Ms Halstead’s body was found, the jury heard.
Also among the evidence was a number of other paintings, including pictures of Margaret Thatcher, The Beatles and Marilyn Monroe, which were found among Mr Sweeney’s possession.
When questioned directly by Mr Wood and Mr Altman as to whether he had killed either woman, Mr Sweeney replied: “No.”
The trial continues.
‘Hacksaw found in killer’s kitbag’
JURORS have heard evidence from the prosecution that John Sweeney confessed to the murder of Melissa Halstead to a later girlfriend, Kentish Town nurse Delia Balmer, and another friend from the area, Kevin Pratt.
In a statement read out in court, Ms Balmer said Mr Sweeney had admitted chopping off Ms Halstead’s head, hands and feet and dumping her body in a Dutch canal. Asked about the “confession”, Mr Sweeney told the court Ms Balmer invented it out of jealousy.
He said he had met Ms Balmer in the Hawley Arms pub in Camden Town, shortly after returning from Europe in 1991. He described their relationship as “sour”, saying he was “out of touch with reality” when he attacked her with an axe before going on the run from police.
Mr Sweeney told the court he “erased” his identity after the event, living under the alias Joe Carroll. He said: “John Sweeney died in 1994.”
When asked how Ms Balmer would have known the details of Ms Halstead’s death 14 years before her body was identified, Mr Sweeney said she had a “vivid imagination” and must have “guessed it”.
The court heard that Ms Balmer told police about the confession before she was violently attacked. Under cross-examination Mr Sweeney said her “grassing” to police was not the motive for the attack and he did it out of “spite”.
The jury heard that surgical gloves and a hacksaw were found in a bag the prosecution dubbed a “killer’s kitbag”.