Cooper had always maintained that he was innocent of the robbery but I was of the view that this was more to do with saving face with members of his family who still believed him. His tactics were to suggest that his son might well be responsible for some of his crimes but he always stopped short of directly accusing Adrian. What we knew was that Adrian was petrified of his father and feared for his own life. Curiously Adrian had also indicated to the police that he was changing his name by deed poll to Andrew Cooper. I have never been able to work this out. I could understand if he changed his surname but why just his Christian name? In interviews he had given us a harrowing account of life at home with his father. I had asked the interview team to compare it with statements he had made during Huntsman and they were pretty consistent. He had also provided additional information, but I put that down to the skill of the interviewer. It was also clear that although the rest of his family had little time for Adrian and questioned his account they actually corroborated the vast majority of what he said. At different times they had all witnessed Cooper’s violent behaviour towards his son so we were happy that he was telling the truth. Adrian himself doubted our ability to prove anything against his father.
Cooper’s wife Pat wanted nothing to do with the police. She had made very damning statements against him in the Huntsman investigation, detailing a life of physical and mental abuse, but had gone back on those statements during the trial – she obviously feared her husband more than she did the police. Teresa, his daughter, was consistent throughout. She had little time for her father but had a balanced view of the investigation. If he was guilty he deserved everything that was coming to him. If not, he should go free. I have never met Teresa, but I came to respect the way she dealt with the whole matter.
The telephone rang in the Ammanford CID office. “He’s arrived!” said the voice at the other end. I had a sudden rush of adrenaline and looked at Lynne Harries, “Come on Lynne, let’s see him get booked in.” The rest of the custody area was empty; it was large, cold and unwelcoming even though it was relatively new. I have been in many custody suites over the years and some of them are very daunting places to be, particularly when you have a formidable sergeant looking down from an elevated position behind the booking in desk. Ammanford was no different. We could see Cooper through the safety glass in the door leading to the custody area. This was the first time I had seen him in the flesh. He was dressed in casual clothes; his hair was short and snow white. As he walked in he visibly tensed his body as if saying to himself, “Okay, I am here now and it’s time for business”. He looked fit and strong, his eyes were dark and cold as he walked up to the custody desk and stood staring at the sergeant. The officer played it by the book and was very polite and professional. Cooper took time to read the documentation before him, perching his glasses on the end of his nose. The glasses were interesting; he had made a big deal about needing them during the Huntsman interviews, clearly using them as a distraction. This time nothing had been left to chance. The Ottawa team had sourced identical glasses and although he didn’t know it we had a number of spare pairs should he need them.
Just before he was placed in the cell the sergeant asked him what he wanted to eat so arrangements could be made to get food. For a second Cooper hesitated. I think he sensed that he was being treated differently to the last time he was in police custody. Cooper disappeared into the cells and contact was made with his solicitor who was asked to come as soon as possible for interviews. After several hours on the road from Nottingham his legal representative, Mrs Suzanne Jovanovic, arrived at the police station and was greeted by DS Colin Clarke, who gave her a written disclosure. It contained details of the partial DNA profile from the rope used to secure Peter Dixon’s hands. I wanted to ensure that we did not over state its value and it was important that the document was accurate.
All of the interviews were subject to downstream monitoring. This meant that we could hear the interview live in a separate location where a speed typist would make briefing notes for us to consider before feeding back pertinent points for clarification to the interview team. Gareth Rees, Nigel Jones and Louise Harries were fantastic; they had a game plan and they stuck to it. Cooper performed exactly according to the psychological assessments of him by psychologist Dr Jenny Bunton for his parole hearings. He appeared calm, wanted to be constantly in control, and when he was made to feel comfortable he was happy to talk about himself, which was exactly what we wanted him to do. If he was asked a difficult question however, he would lead the interviewer away from the subject, to give himself thinking time, before returning to the question to offer an overly detailed response.
I have been present in many interview rooms over the years opposite some dangerous criminals, but it was a strange experience to be sitting in a room away from the action with the interview being transmitted to me. With a less qualified team I might have been tempted to demand that certain questions be asked, but this team knew exactly what they were doing, exactly what they wanted to ask and when they wanted to ask it. In the early stages they deliberately used an interviewing technique that didn’t challenge Cooper. It made him more confident in the knowledge that he had a free run at saying what he wanted and painting his own picture of himself. He loved talking; the results were fascinating and as the week went on came the realisation that he was playing right into our hands.
Cooper was interviewed thirteen times over a four-day period from Wednesday 2 July to Saturday 5 July. The interview strategy consisted of eleven ‘account’ interviews on a number of different topics. The account interview is where a suspect gives their version of events. This is followed by a ‘challenge’ interview during which inconsistencies and anomalies are highlighted, giving them an opportunity to respond. The final interview was purely on the bad character evidence that had been drawn from the previous Huntsman conviction together with statements and interviews with his family and other witnesses.
All advanced disclosure information was given to his solicitor by means of a briefing package, including photographs. Further information was provided by means of a verbatim audio taped disclosure. In particular I wanted to ensure that any reference to the forensic findings was accurate and admissible. On Tuesday 1 July 2008, Mrs Jovanovic conferred with Cooper and briefed him on the disclosure material. No interviews were carried out on that evening and Cooper was allowed to rest and consider the information provided in the briefing. The first interview commenced at 9.47 a.m. on Wednesday 2 July.
In the main this interview dealt with Cooper’s background and personal life at the time leading up to the Scoveston Park murders in December 1985. Cooper stated that he learned of the murders of Richard and Helen Thomas from his late father-in-law, Percy Thompson. At that time Cooper was living at 34 St Marys Park and was also developing a smallholding known as The Beeches. On 21 October 1978, he had won £94,000 and a car on Spot the Ball. This was a significant amount of money and effectively made Cooper a wealthy man at that time. The remainder of the interview concerned Cooper’s financial situation, including business interests at Big House Farm and buying and selling property in the area. The research carried out by the Ottawa team showed that Cooper disposed of in excess of £125,000 during this period with little or nothing to show for it.
The next interview commenced at 14.51 on Wednesday 2 July. At the start Cooper stated that he had given some eight or nine thousand pounds of his winnings as gifts to his family. This was the first indication that Cooper was attempting to pre-empt, or second guess, what information we had. He was attempting to explain where some of his money had gone. He was further interviewed about his business dealings, his income, and buying and selling property, including vehicles. He alleged that he had been let down by solicitors on some of his financial dealings, that an estate-agent had tricked him out of money over the sale of a property called Valetta Villa, that the bank had over-charged him on interest rates and that his son Adrian had stolen between ten and twenty thousand pounds fro
m him over a period of time.
Cooper demonstrated when it came to money he had computer like memory for the cost of certain items. For example, he was able to recall that the price of air tickets to America, to see his wife’s sister Lorna in 1979, was £1,250. He also recalled the profit on selling a chicken or turkey was £1-£1.50, and the cost of stabling was £10 or £15 depending on the service provided. The cost of a bale of hay was 40 pence or 70 pence if he had to collect it from the field himself. He explained going to court with his books and his records because the tax office tried to charge him £1,200. What became clear at this point was that Cooper’s memory was highly selective, something that became more apparent when discussing issues more closely related to the murders.
The second part of the interview was concerned with probing Cooper about his gambling habits, the extent of which he had consistently played down. His position was strongly disputed by witness testimony from his family and other people. Cooper maintained he was spending just three or four pounds on a Saturday, particularly in the latter years before his imprisonment, which was probably what he had told his wife and his family. What is evident from witness testimony was that when Cooper had a lot of money, he gambled a lot of money. The evidence from local bookmakers showed that it was an addiction and we believed it was the key motive for his offending.
The next interview started at 18.55 on 2 July. The purpose of this interview was to ask Cooper about his knowledge of Scoveston Park, Richard and Helen Thomas, and the surrounding area, firearms, ammunition and ropes. He suggested that a local man called Terry Valestra had given him the shotgun and ammunition, found buried under his duck run. Valestra had already given evidence at the Huntsman trial to say this was not true. In addition, the ammunition under the duck run did not come from the same burglary as the shotgun. We, of course, believed that the ammunition box probably had Helen Thomas’ writing on it and had been stolen by from Scoveston Park during the murders. Was Cooper trying to anticipate what evidence we had in order to explain it away? Cooper was most insistent that he had handled the gun from under his duck run. More interestingly he went to great lengths to tell the officers that in court during the Huntsman trial he had handled the sawn off shot gun (PH/2) abandoned as the robber fled the scene of the Sardis robbery. He suggested it had been handed around the court. He was clearly thinking of DNA and the possibility that forensic science could now link it to him. In the unlikely event that he would ever be handed a gun in court, he was trying to give an innocent explanation for any DNA trace evidence belonging to him. The shotgun had been recovered from a hedgerow along with other items of property such as gloves, a fleece and the balaclava that contained Cooper’s head hair. Not at any time since the gun had been found had Cooper handled it, and he had never admitted this offence. In fact during the Huntsman trial he even suggested another local man was likely to be the robber.
Cooper was further questioned about ropes and knots. He stated that in the main he always had ropes to use on his boat or for farming. He said he often picked them up on beaches and just threw them in his shed He insisted the only knots he would tie were granny knots.
The next interview took place at 10.42 a.m. on Thursday 3 July 2008. Cooper was asked to clarify his previous comments and confirm he had handled the Sardis gun (PH/2) in court. He was vague and hedged his bets this time. “I might have, it was being handed about,” he told the officers before going on to suggest that the prosecuting barrister and police were trying to play tricks on him to get him to handle the gun. Why was he so concerned about a gun involved in a robbery for which he had served his sentence? Cooper was shown photographs of an old single barrel shotgun recovered from a hedge at his home address in 1998. He stated he did not recognise it.
We knew that at the time of his arrest in 1998 Cooper had five hundred keys, a large number of which were recovered from his cesspit. This was a significant find and demonstrated the extent of the searches conducted at his property. Cooper became quite agitated during this part of the interview and gave a lengthy explanation of how he had innocently accumulated many keys over the years, in what he described as his ‘bucket of keys’. For the rest of the team and I, keys were obviously a significant feature in Cooper’s offending. It was what we described as his ‘thumb print’ over the offences. Cooper clearly stole keys. Only he knew the reason why, but I felt it was a control feature, and that the keys were also mementos from his offending. Perhaps he wanted his victims to feel threatened by the knowledge that he could return to terrorise them at any time. During his Huntsman interview he suggested his pet dog had knocked his bucket of keys into the cesspit. Now he changed his story. Instead of the dog, he suggested that it was in fact Adrian who was probably responsible for putting the keys into the cesspit. What emerged as the interviews progressed was Cooper’s determination, at any opportunity, to discredit his son. It appeared that Cooper was very concerned about any testimony which Adrian might have given to police and he wanted to get his retaliation in first.
One of the keys recovered from Cooper had been forensically matched to an internal door at Norton Farm. The Thomases owned the farm, and Richard had gone there on the afternoon of his murder. As a key is turned in a lock it comes into contact with the internal mechanisms and leaves unique scratches and marks. A forensic locksmith had examined these and found that the key discovered at Cooper’s home had marks on it that could only have been made by the lock at Norton Farm. This was interesting, but did not mean Cooper was the murderer. The key could have been stolen some time before the murders, but for me the forensic match coupled with Cooper’s habit of keeping keys from his crimes, was significant.
The interview then moved on to Cooper’s knowledge of the Thomases and Scoveston Park. Cooper insisted that he had only met Richard and Helen Thomas on about five or six occasions, and only in passing. He described Helen Thomas as a pushy woman, but offered little evidence to justify this observation. Two interesting issues emerged at this point. First, Cooper suggested that he had been in contact with Richard Thomas’ car. The car had been found at Scoveston after the murders with the doors open. Cooper suggested that every year Richard Thomas would visit a mutual friend called Flo Evans, who brewed her own beer and wine. Richard used to buy some of the beer from Flo and Cooper said he would help Richard load it into his car. He repeated this on more than one occasion. Cooper was trying to give us an innocent explanation for why we may have found forensic traces of him on Richard’s car. We didn’t have this evidence but Cooper didn’t know that. Cooper went to great lengths to confirm the make and colour of the Rover car; he was clearly concerned about it. Secondly, Cooper said that Flo Evans had mentioned to Richard about Cooper renting some land at Norton Farm, and that Richard had refused and driven off. He suggested that this was a typical response from Mr Thomas, directly contradicting his supposed limited knowledge of the man.
The following exchanges from the interview are very revealing. It’s important to keep in mind the fact that Cooper had been arrested for the murders in 1998 and had received a comprehensive briefing two days prior to the current interviews, giving him more than enough time to consider his responses:
POLICE: Tell me about times that you actually went to Scoveston Park.
COOPER: I can’t ever remember ever going to Scoveston Park. I’ve seen pictures of the place and I’ve seen in the papers and what have you. It’s such a long time ago, there would be no reason for me to go there and I can’t, I can’t ever recall. My wife may have to run Flo back and fore because she used to run Flo back and fore more than I did, but not that I can recall.
POLICE: You mentioned you don’t think you’ve ever been to Scoveston Park?
COOPER: No, not that I can remember.
POLICE: What about the land owned by Richard Thomas?
COOPER: No, the land that I farmed for Jordanston is the other side of the Gulf road. It doesn’t run to it, they are separate so when you’re working land like that you get to know cos
different fields got different names and usages, so the farming I did was the other side of the road.
POLICE: And have you ever farmed or assisted or helped Mr Thomas or worked his land?
COOPER: No, no, no. You couldn’t, he was a loner, one of life’s loners, you just respect it like, you know.
POLICE: And in relation to farming did Mike Richards or anybody else associated with you borrow any machinery or vehicles from Richard Thomas?
COOPER: No I wouldn’t have thought so, no. In my opinion and in Mike Richards’ opinion no he weren’t a person that you could ask for things.
POLICE: Okay, we’ve asked you whether you’ve ever been there. There are different parts and we have to give you the opportunity of answering… have you ever been inside the house there?
COOPER: I’ve already answered the question that have I never been to Scoveston. I can never recall going to Scoveston so that is my answer. I can never recall going to Scoveston.
POLICE: Outside then, the number of outbuildings, have you ever been to those outbuildings?
COOPER: Well I’ll go back to my previous answer. I can never recall going to Scoveston, never.
POLICE: And in relation to the fields forming part of the Scoveston estate?
COOPER: No, no.
POLICE: Have you ever been in those?
COOPER: No, not that I can recall. I didn’t do the farming up that end.
POLICE: Okay. Have you ever taken any vehicles there to refuel?
COOPER: No.
POLICE: Okay. Have you ever taken any ropes to the premises?
The Pembrokeshire Murders: Catching the Bullseye Killer Page 12