Is this sub-postmaster making an attempt to leap on the bandwagon?

Nestled between the busy A1 and the sprawling great thing about the Yorkshire Dales National Park is the sleepy village of Melsonby.

Stone-built cottages encompass a reasonably inexperienced, and 750 residents are served by a well-liked pub, a tiny major faculty and a weekly put up workplace ‘outreach’ service that runs (normally alongside a espresso morning) from the church.

The pop-up put up workplace offers a significant service for a lot of residents, nevertheless it’s additionally a reminder of tragic occasions that shattered this close-knit North Yorkshire neighborhood.

For 14 years in the past Melsonby had a bustling village store and put up workplace, with a standard purple and yellow painted signal hanging exterior and an apparently comfortable couple, Diana and Robin Garbutt, put in behind the counter.

But one morning in March 2010, Diana was discovered bludgeoned to demise in her mattress of their flat above the store.

Her husband claimed she was the sufferer of an armed theft by which he had been pressured to empty the contents of the secure (some £16,000) at gunpoint. Two weeks later, villagers – already grieving the homicide of a well-liked member of their neighborhood – had been surprised when Robin, softly-spoken and outwardly-charming, was arrested and charged along with her homicide.

The sheer brutality of the crime was surprising, however so too was the likelihood that Garbutt was the perpetrator. The consensus from villagers was that it might be exhausting to discover a extra respectable man.

There was no bodily proof to hyperlink him to the crime, however the case towards him was compelling. Found responsible and jailed for 20 years, he has now spent the final 12 behind bars.

Why then, you would possibly surprise, is there a resurgence of curiosity within the homicide now?

That is as a result of Garbutt, now 57, has at all times protested his innocence; a protest that has grown in quantity this yr.

Garbutt claims that he, too, is a casualty of the Post Office scandal, that noticed greater than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses wrongly convicted after the defective Horizon IT system made it appear as if cash was lacking from their branches.

In quick, his declare is that the discredited software program was used to border him for homicide as a result of shortfalls in his personal department would give him a motive to kill his spouse to cowl up the fraud.

In the wake of the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, Rishi Sunak, in whose constituency Melsonby sits, introduced new laws vowing that these whose lives had been destroyed be swiftly ‘exonerated and compensated’.

But does that stretch to Garbutt? Is he the scandal’s most egregious sufferer – or nothing greater than a cold-blooded opportunist?

In Melsonby, opinion is break up with reviews suggesting that some villagers go to him in jail, nonetheless unable to imagine he carried out the brutal homicide.

Unsurprisingly, many others – not least his sufferer’s household – have accused Garbutt of leaping on the Horizon bandwagon.

Diana’s mom, Agnes Gaylor, 73, thinks he’s exploiting it.

‘He uses any opportunity to keep pleading his innocence and now he’s making an attempt to make use of the Horizon scandal to his benefit,’ she says. In a macabre twist, Agnes now lives within the property the place her daughter was murdered.

‘The appeal court has already ruled that Horizon played no part in Diana’s homicide, however he’s ready to strive something to maintain this factor going. He has nothing new to supply, no new proof and this marketing campaign of his goes nowhere.’

For his half, Garbutt, who was moved from most safety HMP Frankland to Category C HMP Wealstun 18 months in the past, has lengthy insisted that the Post Office’s proof towards him – particularly that he was stealing Post Office money to fund an extravagant way of life – was faulty and deceptive.

Indeed, Garbutt first contested the monetary proof earlier than the Court of Appeal in 2012 and has since taken his case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) thrice in an try and pressure a retrial.

Yet, thrice Garbutt’s utility has been dismissed, most not too long ago in November when it concluded ‘figures from the Horizon system were not essential to his conviction for murder’.

Now Garbutt’s authorized crew and supporters are making ready to resume their battle as soon as extra.

So what do we all know of Robin and Diana Garbutt and the horrible occasions in Melsonby on March 23 2010?

Garbutt, who grew up close to York, was working as supervisor for an auto-electronics firm when he met Diana Kiefer, who had served within the Army earlier than turning into a courtroom safety officer in 1999.

They moved to Melsonby in 2003 and married the identical yr – working the put up workplace and marking the beginning of a brand new life collectively.

Both had been much-loved villagers: Diana helped arrange a e-book membership, she beloved artwork and was a proficient prepare dinner who hoped to start out her personal catering enterprise. Outwardly, they appeared the contented life and soul of village life.

And then got here the homicide.

Garbutt’s account of that morning drew scrutiny from the start.

Up at 4am, leaving his spouse in mattress, he claimed he was serving prospects from 5am; Melsonby put up workplace was a hive of exercise from daybreak.

Garbutt has at all times insisted that when the timed lock of the put up workplace secure bleeped at 8.35am to point it could possibly be opened, he was serving a buyer.

When the shopper left the store, he heard a noise and was confronted by a masked man, who pressured him handy over money from the secure claiming ‘we’ve obtained your spouse’.

Garbutt mentioned he ran upstairs as quickly because the robber left, solely to seek out Diana lifeless of their mattress.

But there have been a mess of query marks round his account.

The story of armed robbers hanging and escaping unnoticed on a busy morning appeared implausible.

Garbutt served round 60 prospects after opening up at 4.30am, then there have been the deliveries, to not point out native youngsters making their strategy to faculty.

The robber or robbers would have needed to silently break into the property via the again door whereas Garbutt was within the store.

They should have then gone straight upstairs and battered Diana to demise with out alerting her husband on the ground under and escaped – the put up workplace is on the coronary heart of the village, on a crossroads – with out anybody noticing something suspicious.

There was additionally the slender timeframe – lower than 80 seconds – between the earliest time the secure could possibly be opened and Garbutt making the 999 name.

In courtroom, the jury was offered with two motives for the abhorrent crime: the primary did revolve round Garbutt’s supposed pocketing of Post Office funds.

Overnight declarations of money saved on the department had been false, mentioned a Post Office investigator. He added, with phrases that resonate much more now, that this was a sample of declaration he had ‘seen replicated across many Post Office Limited fraud cases in the past’.

The prosecution case was that Garbutt feared discovery by his spouse and acted on these fears with murderous outcomes.

But cash wasn’t the one motive. It emerged the couple’s outwardly comfortable life collectively was not all it appeared.

The courtroom was informed Diana had shaped shut relationships with different males, had joined a web-based courting website and had been exchanging messages up till her demise. Was Garbutt a jealous husband who needed to punish his spouse for her infidelities?

The jury had been satisfied by the prosecution’s argument, and Garbutt was discovered responsible by a 10-2 majority.

However, he has been steadfast in his denials.

Edward Abel Smith, an creator researching a e-book in regards to the case, has had many conversations with Garbutt – on the telephone and in particular person – and is satisfied the case must be checked out once more.

‘I like to believe he is not guilty, but really, I just don’t know. But I do discover it very troublesome to imagine he might have accomplished this,’ he says.

‘A key part of the prosecution case – that the branch had been requesting unusually large amounts of cash in the run up to the murder – does appear to have crumbled.

Accounts documents, discovered after the trial, revealed audited records dating back some years previously, showing, say Garbutt’s authorized crew, there had been ‘nothing unusual’ in cashflow in any respect.

Key proof was additionally misplaced. A clump of hair photographed by police on the sufferer’s pillow, a distinct color to each Diana and Robin’s, disappeared earlier than it might beneath go forensic evaluation. Other proof, together with the metallic bar mentioned to have been the homicide weapon which was discovered on prime of a wall close to the scene, was contaminated.

The couple had been in a ‘large amount of debt’, it was mentioned. But was £108,000, together with a £62,000 mortgage on a property valued at £450,000, actually such an enormous quantity?

Friend Jane Metcalfe has spearheaded Garbutt’s marketing campaign to get his case again earlier than the Court of Appeal. She can not countenance the notion that the person she is aware of might ever hurt his spouse.

As she put in a letter to CCRC: ‘My friend Robin Garbutt was wrongfully convicted of brutally murdering his beloved wife, Diana, in 2011. He was convicted on purely circumstantial evidence: there was never any blood, fingerprints or any forensic evidence whatsoever linking Robin to this terrible event.

‘The jury were told by the Prosecution that Robin had invented the intruder and it was he who had fabricated the robbery, stolen the money and “in the dead of night” murdered Diana and crept out before he opened the shop and hid the murder weapon on a wall over 8.3 feet high across the road.

‘There is not enough money in the whole of the universe that could have made him harm anyone, never mind his beloved wife Diana. And more to the point, there is no actual hard evidence or motive to say he did do those terrible things.’

Last month, she visited Garbutt in jail together with his sister Sallie Wood. She insists that whereas Garbutt watched the ITV drama in his cell, he’s not leaping on any bandwagons.

‘All the drama has done is open people’s eyes, for anybody to say he’s leaping on the bandwagon… He’s been on this, forensically, since he was convicted.’

Garbutt, she says, works doing induction coaching for different prisoners and can also be a Samaritans-trained ‘listener’.

She provides: ‘He’s not asking them to open the door and let him residence, all he’s asking is: “Let me go back to Court of Appeal.” That’s all we would like them to do. Just refer his case.’

Whatever Garbutt’s crew argue, the CCRC, to this point, has been clear.

Rejecting Garbutt’s third bid for an attraction in November, it mentioned: ‘Much of Mr Garbutt’s utility to the CCRC targeted on the Post Office Horizon scandal, which has led to a variety of fraud and theft convictions of former Post Office employees being overturned, many after referral by the CCRC.

‘The CCRC decided that this argument could not assist Mr Garbutt, as figures from the Horizon system were not essential to his conviction for murder.’

Diana mom Agnes can also be resolute.

As she mentioned when Garbutt launched his final bid for attraction: ‘I attended every day of the trial and after listening to every word said and with great effort to put myself mentally in the jury box with an open mind, I am beyond confident that Mr Garbutt is in the right place.

‘I understand why his family and friends would love to see him freed, but all I hear is, “He’s such a pleasant man he couldn’t presumably have accomplished such a factor.” But good males, sadly, do.’

Explaining her choice to buy the property the place her daughter was murdered, Agnes mentioned final week: ‘The house was still unoccupied and it seemed the easiest thing for me to come and live here.

‘It can be strange living in a community where I know that a number of people believe that Robin Garbutt was not responsible for murdering my daughter. You see it sometimes in the looks you get in the village, but that’s simply one thing I’ve turn into used to.

‘I’ve accomplished various renovating however there are nonetheless rooms along with her issues in them. It’s exhausting not to consider what occurred.’

Others consider it, too.

Bill Nixon has lived in Melsonby all his life; now retired, he ran a storage enterprise throughout the highway from the Post Office. On the fateful morning he was exterior the Post Office coping with the sale of a van ‘15 minutes before and 15 minutes after’ the theft Garbutt alleged befell.

If a suspicious man had come out the entrance or again of the premises then he believes he or a neighbour, who was hanging up washing on the time, would have seen him. He noticed no-one and mentioned so in courtroom.

The theft story ‘didn’t appear proper from day one,’ he says, and his opinion hasn’t modified.

Of Garbutt, he readily admits that shopkeeper was a ‘smashing guy’.

‘He would do anything for you, nice natured, placid. He was very helpful, but even good people can be killers, can’t they?’