Law-Forums.org

[croslea]

I was at the old bailey for the trail of a woman ( Melanie Cole ) who was accused of the murder of a 91 year old man. The trail was just under one week. I can't help myself but feel that she had no chance of a fair trail , the media from day one made her to be guilty . During the trail we herd the accused be cross examined by the defense and the prosecution. The Jury were not mixed , they were all white , no mixture in race at all. I personal feel Miss cole was miss guided by her defense team, she was softly spoken and very polite in the trail unlike the media reports from the trail stated she was swearing during cross examination . That was not the case. She was emotional and stated to the prosecution ' I did not kill bill , I truly wish he did not die because he would tell you it was not me'. basically she relapsed from her drink addiction and had been clean and happy for over a year , but in late November 2010 she started drinking and drinking moved to the use of cocaine and on that night she was on a binge , taking money out of her bank account and spending it on crack. On the day of the murder , she went to visit of of her two children as she normally does ( at this point she was not drunk or high ) she then left her dads house and went with her brother and sister in law to go have a few drinks with them at his house , the brother and sister in law went to the corner shop and cole decided to go to the guys house to wish them a early happy new year and to rekindle the friendship between her and the son of the man that was killed . The guy she was seeing was not home but william ( thie victim ) let her in and he had a carer with him , who left after ten mins of cole arriving . This woman later made a statement in court that cole was acting strange and smelt heavy of alcohol however this woman decided to up and leave this old man with someone in this state ? I found that to be an odd thing to do . She claimed that she later returned to the house 10 mins later but there was no answer , why did she not call Williams son's ? Miss cole claimed she left shortly after the other woman had left and that William was sitting on his chair watching tv . There was never any CCTV of her apart from CCTV of her walking down the street towards willaims house. When she left his house she went towards the busy highstreet cause it was lighter and more people around. I found it odd that there was no cctv from a busy high road and cctv from a small street. It was reported there was huge amounts of blood in the bedroom where the attack had been , so why did no one notice her a woman with blood over her. I personally feel she was not guilty of this crime and i felt there was alot more to be told. It was easy for the prosecution to get the jury to say guilty , after all no one likes a crack / drink addict . Miss Cole in my eyes was miss-leaded by her defense team. Its a shame cause she never had a chance. At the end the judge did inform the jury ( after the verdict ) that she was in fact tried for another murder in 2005 but was found not guilty by two Jury's but honestly with all drug related trails this stuff happens . With the 2005 trail people where not aware that the guy killed was allowing lots of people to come in and out of his house , people using drugs and drinks.

I feel for cole and her family as much as i feel for the victim and i hope she appeals her sentencing and does what she can to prove her innocents.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024168/Melanie-Cole-49-befriended-William-Reilly-91-beat-death-wine-bottle.html