So all they had to do was find him. Because they knew that as soon as they got him into an ID parade, they’d have their man. Simple, right?
Wrong.
[DESMOND WHITE]
[JOCELYN]
That’s Des White. He was Gavin’s solicitor back then. Or rather he was the Legal Aid lawyer who happened to be next on the roster the night Gavin was arrested.
It was just after eleven on May 5th, three days after Paula had been attacked. But a lot had happened in those three days.
[DESMOND]
[JOCELYN]
As it turned out, none of the girls had seen what happened to Paula, though one of them did see a man in a dark hoodie running away about the time the attack took place. But that wasn’t much use on its own. The police needed more. And after a couple of days, they got it.
The CCTV trawl yielded footage of a white van accelerating away from the area. It was Gavin’s van, still registered at the time to his brother, Bobby. Though it didn’t take the police long to trace who’d really been driving it that night.
Armed with the van’s number plate, they started to piece together Gavin’s movements in the hours leading up to the assault. Soon they could not only place him at the scene, they also had footage of him filling up the van earlier that evening, at a petrol station two miles away.
He was wearing a dark hoodie.
[DESMOND]
[JOCELYN]
Gavin was taken to the Northampton Road station and questioned there for several hours, throughout which he steadfastly refused to answer any questions. But the police weren’t that concerned. They still thought they had their man. All they needed was Paula to identify him and the case would be closed.
Gavin was Number 3 in the identity parade. He remembers it vividly, because he’d always thought 3 was his lucky number. And perhaps he was right. Because when Paula was asked if she recognized anyone in the line-up, she answered immediately, and without hesitation.
No.
[DESMOND]
[JOCELYN]
And that really was the end of it. Or, at least, so Gavin thought.