Murder of Alison Shaughnessy

Shaughnessy was born Alison Blackmore in London in 1969, She spent a large amount of time going to Piltown, County Kilkenny, Ireland as a child. In 1986, she was working as a clerk at a Barclays bank in London, and met her future husband, John Shaughnessy. Among the guests at the wedding was Michelle Taylor, a work friend of John Shaughnessy, recorded on video being kissed by him on the cheek. Michelle and John lived in the same staff accommodation at the Churchill Clinic, two rooms apart from each other. After their wedding, Alison moved into her husband's staff accommodation. John and Michelle spent more and more time together after the wedding and this started to be noticed by others. In January 1991, John and Alison Shaughnessy moved to 41 Vardens Road in Battersea (about 400 metres/440 yards from Clapham Junction station). ==Murder==

On 3 June 1991, Alison finished work at 5:00 p.m. as usual, and made her way home to Vardens Road. She was dead and had been stabbed 54 times. ==Murder inquiry==

Initial investigations .|229x229px It was immediately clear that Alison had been the victim of a frenzied attack. The attack would not have taken any longer than 2–3 minutes. Had an intruder climbed the drainpipe or climbed onto the flat roof they almost certainly would have left fingerprints, shoemarks or scuffing by hands or feet, but experts found no such evidence. Alison had not been aware of the affair, although she strongly disliked Michelle. However, fingerprints from Michelle and her 18-year-old sister Lisa were found on the inside of the front door. This was despite the fact Lisa claimed to have never been to the flat, which further incriminated the sisters, who had supposedly been together all that afternoon. The sighting was significant evidence as police believed that this was the time Alison was murdered. Police believed that the Taylor sisters had left the Churchill Clinic at 4:00 p.m., before driving to Vardens Road and waiting for Alison to return home. They then claimed they had to collect something from the flat for John, and Alison obligingly let them in. After picking up the mail on the doormat, she would have been followed by the sisters upstairs before they attacked her. As they ran out, they were seen by Dr Unsworth-White. They then sped off in their car, driving the 10 or 11-minute journey back to the Churchill Clinic, where they were sighted arriving at 6:00 p.m. ==Trial==

in central London, where the trial was held Michelle and Lisa Taylor were brought to trial at the Old Bailey in 1992. The rarity of two young sisters being tried for the murder of a love rival brought the case huge public attention, and the trial was subject to heavy, and sensational, coverage in the press. It was pointed out in court that, when the Taylor sisters claimed to Tapp to have been waiting for her there since "just after five" that they were already creating an alibi for themselves before the murder had even been discovered at 8:30 p.m., and they were already trying to cover their tracks for the period around 5-6 p.m. when it was not yet known that was when Shaughnessy died. Michelle Taylor, who claimed to police previously that she and her sister had never been to the Vardens Road flat, suddenly claimed at trial that the reason her and Lisa's fingerprints were found on the back of the front door was because they had been to the flat two or three weeks before the murder to clean the windows. John and Alison's imminent move to Ireland, the Crown argued, meant that Michelle realised that she only had a short amount of time left to act to try and claim John for herself. John testified that Michelle had tried to resume their sexual relationship even after the murder, although Michelle claimed that John was the one who tried to resume the relationship. Evidence was also heard at the trial that the pair had an interest in violence: Lisa had once stabbed a dog to death in Southend-on-Sea, and Michelle had an interest in knives and other weapons which she slept by in her room at night. It was known that both took part in jujitsu, a martial art which teaches fighting with bare hands and knives. For the defence, Lady Mallalieu QC told the court that "Where evidence is thin or non-existent, as it is in this case, the temptation to guess or speculate is enormous but guesswork and speculation are not evidence and nor is suspicion.'' She said that it was more likely that Alison had been murdered by an intruder at her home; and that the frenzied nature of the attack and injuries Alison sustained were "characteristic of a cornered intruder", rather than the prosecution's assertion of the Taylor sisters carrying out a cold-blooded murder. ==Appeal==

Michelle Taylor was imprisoned at HM Prison Holloway, while Lisa Taylor was sent to a young offenders institute (being under 21 when sentenced). A number of journalists embarked on a campaign after the trial to try and free the Taylors, believing that the sisters' character showed they must be innocent. Woffinden said that the press coverage about Michelle being the lover of John was "outrageous". The mother of the Taylors, Anne Taylor, made an appeal to Ireland, where Alison's family were from and where she was buried, asking for Irish people to support the sisters and saying "I believe my daughters are victims of British Justice just as much as the Birmingham Six or the Guildford Four". The prosecution QC John Nutting was heavily criticised for his defence of the conviction at the appeal, after he declared that the fact that the document had not been discussed at the trial was unjustifiable and the investigating officers were very sorry. The Metropolitan Police officers who investigated the case said that this amounted to capitulation. The court had considered ordering a retrial, but decided against this, stating "we don't believe a fair trial could now take place". ==Aftermath==

Alison was buried in Piltown, in the cemetery of the church in which she and John Shaughnessy had married. She had been murdered three days before her first wedding anniversary. The sisters' defence team claimed that the media had resorted to 'O. J. Simpson-style reporting' by commenting on the case. However, the High Court judges disagreed, saying of the publishing of the image of Michelle and John kissing at the wedding headed 'Cheat's kiss': "It cannot be said to be an inappropriate description. She and Shaughnessy had undoubtedly cheated on Alison as that expression is commonly used in a sexual relationship". At that stage they were the only victims of a miscarriage of justice in the UK to have ever been denied any compensation. Interviewed about his affair in 1998, John said "I made a terrible mistake and I'm paying a terrible price. But show me a man who hasn't had an affair", while his new wife Caroline Kenneally said: "John made a mistake in the past. Show me anyone without a skeleton in their cupboard." In September 2000, the Metropolitan Police began an 18-month reinvestigation into Alison Shaughnessy's murder. No new evidence or suspects were found, and it was decided to no longer investigate the case as no more could be done. Alison's family never wavered from their view that the Taylors were guilty of the murder. O'Mahoney had originally been one of those who campaigned for the release of the Taylors, before having an affair with Michelle Taylor. He became suspicious of her obsessive behaviour and discovered a letter that indicated she was guilty of the murder. He confronted her and she broke down, confessing to her guilt. From then on O'Mahoney campaigned to have the Taylors re-convicted. The Blackmore family hoped that the Taylors could be re-tried for their daughter's murder, but the police informed them that this could not happen without any new evidence materialising. In 2011, after charges against serial killer Levi Bellfield were forced to be dropped after newspapers published prejudicial material during a trial, the Shaughnessy case again returned to the news, cited as a previous high-profile example of media intrusion causing a collapsed trial. Defence lawyers argued at the time that this case demonstrated how the collusion of the press and the prosecution lead to inaccurate, incomplete and sensationalist journalism. Headlines give prominence and weight to the Crown's case without question, but largely ignore or minimise the defence, they then disappear until the verdict, and then descend "like vultures". Many newspapers don't even attend the trials and merely regurgitate press releases. It was said that the media was as much to blame as the police in this leading to a miscarriage of justice. The newspapers stance was a defensive one, where they rebutted these claims. The Sun newspaper issued a statement in defence of their coverage of the Taylor sisters murder trial: "Lord Justice McCowan accuses us of sensational reporting. He overlooks the fact that this was a sensational case: a murder trial of two sisters that involved adultery and a hate-filled diary." ==In popular culture==

Bernard O'Mahoney and Mick McGovern's book about the case was published in 2001, and re-published in 2012. In 2003, an episode of the ITV documentary series Real Crime was shown that focused on the case. It featured interviews with most of those involved in the case. ==See also==