Claudia Lawrence and Christopher Halliwell

Why do some people (and many tabloid newspapers) continue to link Claudia Lawrence and Christopher Halliwell? The police have repeatedly stated that there is no link whatsoever.

Many, many people think there is a connection between Claudia Lawrence and Christopher Halliwell, a killer in prison for two murders and quite possibly responsible for others. However often the police deny any connection, the press keep recycling unhelpful stories. I look at a couple of the most persistent myths about Halliwell.

Did Halliwell’s Father Live Nearby? No

Let’s look at this from the Scottish Sun:

The cop who nailed him for killing Sian has also linked Halliwell to the disappearance of Claudia Lawrence in York — where his father lived close by — in 2009.

I added the bold: his father lived close by Claudia Lawrence? Rubbish. Former senior police officer Steve Fulcher said this, and it’s total rubbish too:

Claudia Lawrence disappeared from York seven years ago. Halliwell’s father lived a few streets away from where Claudia went missing.

We have many tabloid articles and a professional, senior police officer all believing that Halliwell’s father was a neighbour of Claudia Lawrence. This is factual rubbish. Let’s look at this map, showing the real location of Halliwell’s father:

Huddersfield is not close to York: hundreds of thousands of people live in Leeds, much closer

This is a distance, according to Google Maps, of 52 miles! Literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people live in the area covered by this map.

But that’s not the real kicker. The real kicker is that official police statements clearly show that Halliwell’s father died in 1992, over 15 years before Claudia disappeared.

Did that white van belong to Halliwell? No

Although many of us might be nervous about the sheer number of CCTV cameras in the UK, they often provide unexpected leads. The York buses, as elsewhere, have CCTV cameras to protect passengers and drivers. More than one bus picked up an image of a white van parked in Claudia’s road during her final day. The whole lead is a red herring.

The experts have analysed this van in detail and someone noticed that it was from Huddersfield. Sound familiar? By sheer coincidence (and coincidence is more common than most people would think) Huddersfield is where Christopher Halliwell’s father lived until his death in 1992. However the van is not parked outside Claudia’s house, and it is not opposite Claudia’s house as claimed in other sources. There is no established connection whatsoever between this van, Claudia Lawrence or Christopher Halliwell.

Growing Frustration

There are so many easy headlines on this topic. For example, here, here in The Sun (this one is completely false), and even here in The Guardian. It’s all total tabloid rubbish. These are the media outlets who rank highly on Google and they should behave better. The tone of this article is more hectoring than usual because I find these random attempts to connect missing people with known killers frustrating. John Cannan has zero connection with Suzy Lamplugh, yet the rumours not only persist, but eventually the police began to believe their own dreams. More on that next time.