Age: 84
Sex: female
Date: 28 Nov 1987
Place: Ferndale, Umborne, Shute Bottom, Honiton, Devon
Ivy Batten was killed in her home, Ferndale in Shute Bottom, Honiton, Devon on 26 November 1987.
A man was convicted of the murder, but he always claimed he was innocent and several reviews into his conviction were carried out and his conviction was described as having been controversial. He served 15 years and was released in 2003.
It was thought that the motive was robbery, with the murder being described as a robbery gone wrong.
Ivy Batten had lived in Shootbottom all her life and had moved into the small cottage in Shute Bottom with her brother in 1965. After her brother died in 1979 she stayed on alone. However, she came from a large family and had frequent visits from relatives.
A great niece, who was a regular visitor, visited her on Wednesday 25 November 1987, having stopped by because Ivy Batten had been unwell with a chill. When she left she arranged to pop back and see her the following Saturday, 28 November 1987.
She was next seen at 10.30am on Thursday 26 November 1987 by the postman and the paperboy. She was then thought to have spent most of Thursday after that working on her nativity basket, having made one for every Christmas for years.
Her house was on the main railway line from Waterloo to Exeter and it was said that she was known by many of the train drivers that passed. It was said that they would sound their horn when passing and that Ivy Batten would wave back. It was noted that a driver recalled passing her cottage at 4.13pm on 26 November 1987. The driver said that he blew his horn and saw Ivy Batten wave back at him from her kitchen window.
It was also heard that a train driver had visited her cottage about 2-4 weeks before her murder and that he had apparently made mention of the fact that the drivers had been making a collection to buy a Christmas present for her.
A neighbour that passed the bungalow at 5.20pm in their car said that when they passed it was in darkness.
However, another train driver said that he recalled that the kitchen light was on when he passed at 6.30pm, although there was no sign of Ivy Batten.
A great nephew of hers, a farmer, later drove past her bungalow at 7.30pm and said that when he passed he noticed that her front gate was ajar.
The following morning at 9am, Friday 27 November, her great niece and a friend walked past her cottage with a dog, and noticed that her curtains were still drawn, but assumed that she had been having a lie in because of her chill.
The following morning, Saturday, 28 November 1987, the milkman called at about 8.30am and the newspaper was then delivered about 9.30am. The postman then called at 10.30am and delivered some mail.
At about 10.35am her great niece and her two friends, who had been out walking a dog, noticed the curtains still drawn in the cottage and became really concerned and went to see and found Ivy Batten dead on the living room floor.
She had been beaten about the head and was thought to have died sometime after the attack on the Thursday evening.
After noticing the curtains were still drawn the great niece said:
My view was partially blocked by a chair just inside the window but I could see that her legs were away from the door pointing in the direction of the other window of that room. Her legs were slightly curled. I could see that she was wearing brown ankle slippers, a green or blue dress and brown stockings. The dress was up above her knees as I could see the tops of her stockings just above the knees. I could see a bruise on one of her thighs, I cannot say which one, the bruise being just a little bigger than a 10p piece.
I could see a lot of blood on the white door of that room and also on the carpet near the window about 1 foot from her feet. I did not see the top half of her body and in view of what I had already seen I did not want to see anymore at that time.
I'm sure I then went back to my car and asked my friends if they would come in with me. We went back to the same window I had looked through and I think we all looked through. The first thought was to try and telephone somebody and so we went via the pathway around the front of the house to the back porch. The outside door to the porch was about 6" open. That was unusual. I tried the handle to the door inside the porch, I cannot recall which way we went. I tried the front door handle and it was locked. I then thought of whether a window would be open and the first one I went to was the one to the spare bedroom, the one I mentioned earlier with the net curtain askew.
The window was of a casement type and I saw that it was smashed near to the catch. I think the other two were with me. I wanted to get to a telephone and I thought I could use the one in the bungalow. The window was shut so I put my hand in and opened the window by catching hold of the handle. I climbed in through the window to the spare bedroom, opened the internal door I think to the hall. In the hall I noticed that the broom cupboard door was wide open, this being unusual. Then I went into the kitchen/diner where the telephone is.
I believe the door from the hall to kitchen was open. The telephone is usually on a table in front of a window. I picked the handset up and went to dial and noticed that the wire appeared to have been cut. I put the handset down and went to the hall to the front door. I pulled the curtains back around the front door, unlocked the door and went outside.
My friends stayed outside all this time and were outside the front door when I went out. I said I was going to go to a telephone and they said they would stay at the bungalow. I went to my car and drove to the home of a woman at Little Umborne. I there used the telephone to call an ambulance and then the police.
When the police arrived they found that a window was broken and open in the front bedroom and that Ivy Batten's body was in the front lounge with her head against the door.
When the police searched the house for evidence, they found that the electricity had been turned off at the mains. When the power was restored, three lights and the television came on.
The telephone on a table in the rear kitchen/living room had been pulled from the wire.
It was noted that when Ivy Batten was found that she had been wearing clothes and not night attire.
Her post mortem examination found that her cause of death was cerebral contusion due to head injuries.
A week later, on 3 December 1987, in a field 800 yards away, two farm workers found a well-worn pair of purple and gold gloves and a hammer. It was noted that forensic tests confirmed that they had been used by Ivy Batten's murderer.
The gloves were labelled RJK6 in the exhibit list and the hammer RJK7. Ivy Batten's great niece said that she had never seen either of the items before.
It was noted that the woollen gloves were quite distinctive and that in particular, the gold band on the right hand was larger than that on the left hand. It was also noted that both gloves were worn and that they had each been repaired, probably at independent times, with different coloured threads. However, whilst it was noted that they could have been worn, it was also possible that whoever had worn them had wanted freedom for their thumbs through the gloves. They were described as having been hand knitted and hand repaired.
The hammer itself was described as being quite distinctive, being an old blocking hammer or planishing hammer, being used in a variety of trades and technical schools, including for metalwork and precious metalwork. In particular it was noted that the hammer had also been used for hitting a surface harder than its own. The police also noted that they had determined that the hammer had in fact been made between April 1974 and 31 December 1976. It was also noted for having had a split in the shaft.
It was also noted during the police investigation that a car had been seen very near the bridge close to Ivy Batten's home. It was thought to have been a white vehicle of some sort with a black roof. The car was seen under the bridge between 6.30pm and 7.30pm on Thursday 26 November 1987.
The man that was later convicted of her murder was convicted, it was said, mainly on the fibres being found in his coat and the glove compartment of his car that matched fibres from the gloves found.
He was convicted of the murder in 1988. However, the case proved controversial and three internal reviews were later carried out by Devon and Cornwall police into the conviction as well as a fourth external inquiry by Hampshire police that was highly critical of the original investigation.
During his appealed his lawyer alleged that the police might have planted crucial evidence to construct a false case against him. However, the court of appeal rejected the allegations that the fibres from the gloves had been planted in the glove compartment of his car and his coat pocket.
The man had been a friend of Ivy Batten and had been to her cottage some weeks before and had also reported to the police seeing a car near her house on the night of the murder, stating that it had been driving at speed and had almost forced him off the road.
It was heard that it was initially thought that Ivy Batten had been murdered on the Thursday night, based on the fact that British Telecom said that they had identified a fault on the line at that time, but that at the trial it was heard that the engineer and said that they had made a mistake and that it was not until the Friday that it was found to be defective. It was initially reported that the line was found to be dead at 6.23pm on the Thursday, but the engineer said that it was actually 6.23am on the Friday.
It was also noted that as luck would have had it that Ivy Batten's electric meter had been read on the Wednesday and that subsequent estimates indicated that it had been cut on the Friday morning and not the Thursday evening, as estimated by probable electrical use.
Further, there was evidence to show that Ivy Batten died on the Friday. A doctor had estimated, based on her body temperature, that she had died on the Friday, and a trauma consultant stated that based on a small patch of blood and the nature of her injuries, that he thought that she had died within 15 to 30 minutes of the assault, indicating again that the murder took place on the Friday.
As such, it was said that these facts hampered the case against the man tried, in particular because he had an alibi for the Friday morning as his parents said that he had been getting ready for work at 6.30am on the Friday.
However, it was noted that the forensic evidence from the gloves was still compelling evidence against the man.
However, it was noted that it was possible that the police had contaminated the evidence when taking them out of the bags.
It was also noted that whilst there was some evidence of fibres in the glove compartment and the coat, that they were small in number and indicated that the habitual wearer of the coat had not been the habitual wearer of the gloves.
It was further noted that there had also been errors in the transport of the gloves as exhibit items and pieces of evidence which could not be accounted for.
It was also noted that a man with the same name as the man that was convicted could have been a suspect as he had been a known burglar and would often burgle properties by cutting the electricity first. It was further noted that he had a habit of vomiting before committing the burglaries and that whilst the police denied that vomit had been found, other parties said that they had video evidence of vomit having been found somewhere near the scene.
The man appealed in 1998, but the appeal judges upheld the conviction, stating that the integrity of the evidence of finding fibres in the glove compartment of the man's car and the pocket of his brown coat was not undermined.
Following his release, it was noted that the conditions of his licence included that he be banned from visiting Devon for two years or speaking to the police, after which his solicitor said he was seeking an explanation from the Home Office about that.
see www.youtube.com
see National Archives - J 311/122
see The Argus
see Western Evening Herald - Thursday 08 December 1988
