The murder of Danielle Jones was a

child murder Pedicide, also known as child murder, child manslaughter or child homicide, is the homicide of an individual who is a Age of majority, minor. In many legal jurisdictions, it is considered an Aggravation (law), aggravated form of homicide. The a ...

case involving a 15-year-old schoolgirl who disappeared from

East Tilbury East Tilbury is a village and former civil parish in the unitary authority of Thurrock borough, Essex, England, and one of the traditional List of traditional (Church of England) parish churches in Thurrock, Church of England parishes in Thurro ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, England. There was a large and exhaustive search to find Jones' body and it was considered one of the biggest cases

Essex Police Essex Police is a territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Essex, in the East of England. Essex Police is responsible for a population of over 1.8 million people and an area of . The chief constable is Ben-Julian Harring ...

had to deal with at the time. Despite the police's best efforts, her body was never found. On 19 December 2002, Stuart Campbell, Jones' uncle, was

convicted In law, a conviction is the determination by a court of law that a defendant is guilty of a crime. A conviction may follow a guilty plea that is accepted by the court, a jury trial in which a verdict of guilty is delivered, or a trial by jud ...

of her abduction and murder. Campbell was sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...

for murder as well as 10 years for abduction. The conviction relied upon forensic authorship analysis of text messages sent on the victim's mobile phone. After the trial, controversy arose when it was revealed Campbell had prior convictions for indecent assault on other girls of similar ages. The use of forensic authorship analysis of text messages in the case provoked research into its use in other cases. Her disappearance made national headlines and the case received significant media coverage during Jones' disappearance and the subsequent trial. It is considered a high-profile case in Essex.

Disappearance and investigation

15-year-old Danielle Sarah Jones was last seen near her home in

, Essex, on the morning of 18 June 2001, while walking to a bus stop. Suspicion fell on Campbell almost immediately and he was first arrested on 23 June 2001, five days after Jones went missing.Danielle police question uncle

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

Detectives had delayed his arrest while weighing the possibility of endangering Jones's life, on the presumption she was still alive and being held against her will, against the possibility of Campbell leading the police to her. The investigation included several appeals to the public for information, including a reconstruction on the BBC television programme ''

Crimewatch ''Crimewatch'' (formerly ''Crimewatch UK'') is a British television programme produced by the BBC, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving the case. The programme was or ...

''. During the investigation, more than 900 police officers and support staff searched more than 1500 locations for Jones's body, as within two months of her disappearance police working on the case were convinced that she was dead. On 15 March 2002, a body was found in a cement works in an industrial area of

Northfleet Northfleet is a town in the borough of Gravesham in Kent, England. It is located immediately west of Gravesend, and on the border with the Borough of Dartford. Northfleet has its own railway station on the North Kent Line, just east of Ebbsf ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

. It had been speculated that the body was Jones, but it was identified as Hannah Williams, a schoolgirl from

Dartford Dartford is the principal town in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located south-east of Central London and is situated adjacent to the London Borough of Bexley to its west. To its north, across the Thames Estuary, is Thurrock in ...

Murder trial

On 17 August 2001, police re-arrested Campbell on suspicion of murder, after finding "significant evidence" that appeared to support their theory that Danielle Jones was now dead. A police superintendent said to the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

that Campbell "developed a relationship with Danielle that was certainly inappropriate and probably unlawful." Jones apparently tried to disengage, but Campbell resisted. By 14 November 2001, the

Crown Prosecution Service The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The main responsibilities of the CPS are to provide legal adv ...

decided that the police had enough evidence to

charge Charge or charged may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Charge, Zero Emissions/Maximum Speed'', a 2011 documentary Music * ''Charge'' (David Ford album) * ''Charge'' (Machel Montano album) * '' Charge!!'', an album by The Aqu ...

Campbell with murder – even though her body had not been found. On 14 October 2002, Campbell went on trial for abduction and murder before Mr Justice McKinnon and a jury, having spent 11 months on remand. The Crown's case rested upon several pieces of evidence. Jones had disappeared without contacting her parents and had been seen talking to a man in a blue

Ford Transit The Ford Transit is a family of light commercial vehicles manufactured by the Ford Motor Company since 1965, primarily as a panel van, cargo van, but also available in other configurations including a large passenger van (marketed as the Ford ...

van resembling Campbell's on the morning of her disappearance. The testing of blood-stained stockings discovered in the loft of Campbell's house found DNA matching both himself and his niece; lip gloss used by Jones was also found in Campbell's home. A diary kept by Campbell revealed an obsession with teenage girls, with testimonies that Campbell had manipulated young girls into posing for topless photographs.

Mobile Switching Centre Network switching subsystem (NSS) (or GSM core network) is the component of a GSM system that carries out call out and mobility management functions for mobile phones roaming on the network of base stations. It is owned and deployed by mobile ...

records demonstrated that Campbell's

alibi An alibi (, from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person under suspicion in a crime that they were in a different place when the offence was committed. During a police investigation, all suspects are usually a ...

of being at a D-I-Y store half an hour away in

Rayleigh Rayleigh may refer to: Science *Rayleigh scattering *Rayleigh–Jeans law *Rayleigh waves *Rayleigh (unit), a unit of photon flux named after the 4th Baron Rayleigh *Rayl, rayl or Rayleigh, two units of specific acoustic impedance and characte ...

was false and that Campbell's and Jones's mobile phones had been within the range of a single mobile phone mast at the time that a text message had allegedly been sent by Jones to Campbell. This, along with forensic authorship analysis, indicated that Campbell had written the message, not Jones, implying that Campbell had sent the message to himself using Jones's phone to make it appear that she was still alive. Campbell was found guilty of both charges on 19 December 2002 and sentenced by Mr Justice McKinnon to life imprisonment for murder to run concurrently with a 10-year sentence for abduction. The High Court later ruled that Campbell should serve a minimum of 20 years before being considered for parole, meaning that he would remain imprisoned until at least November 2022 at the age of 64. In January 2023, he was refused parole.

Aftermath of the trial

After his trial, it was revealed that in 1989, Campbell had received a 12-month

suspended sentence A suspended sentence is a sentence on conviction for a criminal offence, the serving of which the court orders to be deferred in order to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation. If the defendant does not break the law during that ...

for forcibly detaining a 14-year-old girl in his house and taking indecent photographs of her. The use of text-message evidence in the trial led a group of researchers at the

University of Leicester The University of Leicester ( ) is a public university, public research university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park, Leicester, Victoria Park. The university's predecessor, Univ ...

to begin studying text-messaging styles under the hypothesis that forensic research into the authorship analysis of such messages might help in future criminal cases. In 2004, Campbell was granted leave to appeal against his conviction on the grounds that evidence of his obsession with Jones, and of his interest in schoolgirls, should have been excluded at his trial and on the further grounds that one of the jurors, the next-door neighbour of a police officer involved in the case, should have been discharged. The appeal was dismissed in 2005 by the

Court of Appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...

. On 28 July 2005, an

inquest An inquest is a judicial inquiry in common law jurisdictions, particularly one held to determine the cause of a person's death. Conducted by a judge, jury, or government official, an inquest may or may not require an autopsy carried out by a cor ...

by the

coroner A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into the manner or cause of death. The official may also investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...

was held into Danielle Jones's disappearance, returning a verdict of

unlawful killing In English law, Irish law and Northern Irish law, unlawful killing is a verdict that can be returned by an inquest in England and Wales and Ireland when someone has been killed by one or more unknown persons. The verdict means that the killin ...

. Police interviews with Campbell in prison reported that Campbell had still refused to tell them where he had disposed of his victim's body. In May 2017,

and

Kent Police Kent Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the and approximately 1.8 million inhabitants of Kent, a county in South East England. History On 14 January 1857, a 222-strong 'Kent County Constabulary' was formed under C ...

forces began searching a garage block in

Stifford Clays Stifford Clays, historically also known as Flethall and Clay's Hall, is a housing estate and ward in the Stifford area of Grays in Thurrock, Essex, England. It is situated on a 660 acre site north of central Grays and borders North Stifford and ...

Thurrock Thurrock () is a unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Essex, England. It lies on the north bank of the River ...

, after receiving new information, and "did not rule out" looking for a body. It was reported that similar information regarding suspicious activity around the garages had been received at the time Danielle Jones disappeared, but had not been followed up in the initial investigation. A

spokesperson A spokesperson, spokesman, or spokeswoman is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others. Duties and function In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have receiv ...

for Essex Police said the force was "working to ascertain why these were not searched as part of the original investigation." It was subsequently announced that no discovery had been made. Campbell was denied parole in 2023.

Disappearance and investigation

Murder trial

Aftermath of the trial

See also

References

Further reading