A twisted killer who escaped justice for almost 50 years has finally been jailed and it has emerged that he was initially given back a key piece of evidence by police - one that tied him to the crime. Dennis McGrory was 28 when he sexually assaulted, stabbed and strangled 15-year-old Jacqui Montgomery in her home in Islington, north London, in 1975.
But McGrory, now 75, was cleared of murder the following year on the directions of a judge and couldn't be tried again due to double jeopardy laws, where a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime. But the law was scrapped in 2005 and, armed with fresh DNA evidence, prosecutors pushed for a retrial.
Now, 48 years after the horrific crime, the sick pensioner, from Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, has been jailed at Huntingdon Crown Court - as swabs from Jacqui's body produced a one-in-a-billion DNA match.
