Victoria Hall - unsolved murder 1999

Victoria Hall was 17 when she was abducted on her way home from a night out in Felixstowe, Suffolk, her body was found five days later in a ditch, the case remains unsolved

This unsolved murder investigation by Suffolk Police was re-opened on 9th September 2019, the twentieth anniversary of Victoria's disappearance.

The teenager had been on a night out with her friend Gemma Alger at the Bandbox Nightclub, in Bent Hill Felixstowe but never returned home. The two friends had left the club at around 0100 hours, made a stop at Bodrum Grill take away, then walked two miles back to their home area of Trimley St Mary. 

The pair had reached the junction of Faulkners Way and High Road at around 0220 and said "Goodnight" to one another just 300 yards from Victoria's home, but she is thought to have been snatched from the roadside before she reached her house. 

Victoria's body was found in Creeting St Peter, Stowmarket, which is some 25 miles from where she lived. Her body was found naked and in a deep water-filled ditch on 24th September 1999. Autopsy investigations were unable to clarify exactly how the A-level student teenager had met her death and could only confirm that she had suffered some level of asphyxiation 

Since re-opening the investigation in September 2019, police have reported that they have received over 50 calls from the public in relation to the case, but it's 21 years ago so things are never going to be straightforward. 

Suffolk police said that they cannot elaborate or give details yet but some good new lines of enquiry were generated from those calls and investigations are ongoing. They have said that the case was made 'live' again and was being fully re-investigated by a new team of officers after new information came to light. 

Victoria's father who still lives in Trimley St Mary near Felixstowe said "They are sifting through those calls and the information that was given but it's a painstaking process but it gives us hope"

As a part of the new investigation, Suffolk police released details of items that belonged to Victoria Hall that have so far never been recovered, along with some CCTV footage of people visiting the area where the body was dumped (pictures at the bottom of the page, courtesy of the BBC)

Parents of Victoria describe her as a vivacious, teetotal "Model daughter", a description that I am slightly confused by as she had been to a nightclub, but I guess not everyone has to consume alcohol to attend a club. The main thing is that as it sounds like Victoria would have been completely sober, so she must have been literally forced into a vehicle of some kind, rather than getting into a car with a person under the influence.

There are one or two points of interest that I am not clear on with this case; one, in particular, is her friend Gemma said that she remembered hearing a scream but "never really gave it a thought", hmm a little odd in my estimation. Two girls have just walked back from town together, just after parting company for the night one hears a scream but doesn't think "Oh hold on I just left my friend, maybe I ought to see if she is OK". 

Interestingly reports from local residents say that they also heard screams and a car with a heavy sounding exhaust roar off at around the same time that Victoria was thought to have been abducted but they also "Never really took much notice". Forgive me maybe I am just nosey but despite living in the suburbs surrounded by busy railway and not far from major road networks, if I was awake at that time of the morning and heard screams I would at the very least have a lookout and maybe even contact the police. Sorry I digress, I just thought I'd put it out there

Moving on . . .

CCTV clips released by police that are thought to be relevant show a van pulling up by the gates to the field where Victoria's body was found, The van reverses back then drove forward again to the field entrance. The driver is then seen leaving the van, entering the field and looking around on the ground close to the entrance as if looking for something. Did this man drop something on the night of Victoria's murder and return in hope that he would find the item perhaps?

A second clip shows a group of people with torches going into the field by the same entrance under the cover of darkness, I can't help but wonder what they were looking for, maybe considering moving the body or retrieving evidence. So far the people in the CCTV clips have not been identified or come forward for elimination as far as I can establish. 

The curious part of this case is that a man was arrested on December 18th 2000 and charged with Victoria's abduction and murder but was later acquitted at trial. It seems that the trial in November 2001 relied very much on geological soil samples a scientific argument went on between the prosecution and defence counsels which lead to a jury finding the suspect not guilty and he was acquitted. 

Adrian Bradshaw, the man charged with the murder of Victoria Hall was the owner of a local newspaper company The Felixstowe Flyer and said that he was relieved to have been rightly acquitted but he expressed his sympathy for the family that are left behind, grieving for their much-loved daughter.

During the two week trial at Norwich Crown Court, counsel for the prosecution said that Mr Bradshaw was seen near to Victoria Hall's home on the night that she disappeared. Evidence was submitted to the court that showed soil samples taken from Mr Bradshaw's Porsche car matched the soil from the area where Victoria's body was found. The court also heard how other witnesses from the local area said that they had heard "horrifying" screams, followed shortly after by a "throaty" exhaust sound which was alleged to have come from Mr Bradshaw's Porsche 944.

The accused did admit to drinking 10 pints of beer and several shots of Vodka at the same nightclub where Victoria ad Gemma had been drinking that night. Prosecution witnesses said that Mr Bradshaw had taken a taxi ride from the club and dropped off just a few hundred yards from the Hall family home.

There were no sightings of the Porsche at the time when it is thought Victoria was taken and it was argued by a "specialist witness" geologist that the soil traces found in the car could have come from other areas of East Anglia, despite the samples being almost absolute matches for the soil in the field where Victoria was found. A friend of Mr Bradshaw, a 27-year-old hairdresser, Peter Dugdale told the court that when the accused went out drinking, he was a 'happy drunk' and never had a malicious bone in his body. 

The jury took just 90 minutes to find Mr Bradshaw not guilty of abduction and murder which seems a little strange, after all the evidence was all there, but that is the difficult part of trials by jury, cases that seem really obvious can go completely the opposite way. 

Outside court Mr Bradshaw said, "Obviously my sympathies go out to Vicky Hall's family. A jury of 12 normal people have reached their verdict, I had confidence in myself. I did not commit this crime. I am innocent". 

I am quite struck by Mr Bradshaw's choice of words "I had confidence in myself", hmmm not really the words that I would have chosen if I believed myself to be an innocent man, but I cannot accuse the man, he was acquitted and that's that, I will just say "I don't necessarily agree with the jury's verdict in this case" particularly when a senior police officer Detective Superintendent Roy Lambert who lead the massive murder hunt at the time said, "I believe we have obtained as much evidence as we can. We have been investigating this case for over two years and I believe we have looked down every avenue for the person who did this offence".

Victoria's father Graham Hall said "We are numbed by the verdict, whether Adrian Bradshaw was found not guilty or not made very little difference to us. Unless someone owns up to their actions on that night and tells us exactly what happened, that is the only little bit of help we could have".

So readers, have I told you a story of an unsolved murder or has it been solved but the killer has escaped justice? Well, the jury said that justice was done and that the police got the wrong man, I will leave you to decide. Just bear in mind that with the case very much active again new evidence apparently came to life so if I get any updates I will, of course, bring the information to you but one thing that is almost certain Adrian Bradshaw can sleep easy in his bed as laws of double jeopardy will ensure that unless really exceptional circumstances arise he can never be re-tried for Victoria's murder. 

If you do have any information on this case then please do contact The Major Investigations Team at the incident room on 01473 613513 or contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 

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Clothing similar to that from Victoria Hall's case: