Olwen Dudgeon, Legal Correspondent
A BREAKTHROUGH in DNA profiling put a murderer behind bars for life yesterday 23 years after he strangled a mother to death on a towpath in Yorkshire.
Van driver Ian Richard Lowther, 47, was caught when detectives hunting the killer of Mary Gregson were finally able to link him to the 1977 attack thanks to advances in science.
Mrs Gregson, 38, was brutally beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled as she walked to work along the towpath of the Leeds-Liverpool canal. Her body was dumped in the nearby River Aire, where it was found the next day.
Yesterday, at Sheffield Crown Court, scientists who initially developed DNA methods and those who improved the profiling techniques since were praised by a judge as Lowther, of Derwent Avenue, Baildon, Bradford, pleaded guilty to murdering Mrs Gregson in August 1977.
Jailing him for life, Judge Michael Mettyear told him: "Twenty-three years ago you robbed an innocent woman of her life. You robbed parents of a child, a husband of a wife and a son of his mother.
"You took one life but ruined many others, some of them tragically have not survived to see you brought to justice."
Mrs Gregson had tried to fight off her attacker but was overpowered.
"It was a wicked and brutal murder accompanied by an indecent assault. All this loss and tragedy to satisfy a few minutes’ lust.
"Thank goodness for the advances in DNA profiling, thank goodness for the determination of the police, thank goodness that the arm of the law is long."
Commending the police and forensic scientists for their "wonderful work" in catching Lowther, the judge said it was possible those initially responsible for developing DNA profiling had never got the full recognition they deserved.
He said it was a comfort to know the police had returned to the case again and again in the hope of finding evidence to bring the killer to justice.
Mrs Gregson’s sister Judith Sykes, in court to see Lowther jailed, said afterwards she had never given up hope the killer would be caught.
"I think about her daily and I always knew the police would find who was responsible in the end. They have given me fantastic support. DNA is a wonderful thing."
Paul Worsley, QC, prosecuting told the court that, although extensive police inquiries into the brutal killing of Mrs Gregson were in vain in 1977, the file on an unsolved murder was never closed.
There had been regular reviews of the evidence since and the tenacity of the officers involved was eventually rewarded.
Advances in DNA profiling meant forensic scientist Dr Jonathan Whitaker was able to obtain a full profile from semen left on Mrs Gregson’s clothing which had been retained.
Officers began taking mouth swabs from men seen during the initial investigation and scientists found a match with the 532nd person seen earlier this year the sample from Ian Lowther.
Mr Worsley said: "It is now possible to say the likelihood of it coming from anyone other than the defendant is one in a billion."
He said unfortunately Mrs Gregson’s parents and husband had died since the murder without ever knowing the killer would one day be caught.
Mrs Gregson, who lived with her husband and 11-year-old son in a cottage at Jane Hills, Saltaire, had left home on the canal towpath about 5.15pm on August 30, 1977 to walk the 600 yards to her cleaning job at Salts Mill.
She had left tea ready for her husband and waved goodbye to her son but failed to meet up with a friend on her route.
Instead, Mr Worsley said Mrs Gregson was the victim of a brutal attack during which she was slapped and punched. Her head was struck on the ground and she was sexually assaulted. Finally she was strangled and her body dumped in the River Aire.
Lowther, 24 at the time and living with his young wife and daughter at Central Avenue, Baildon, was a labourer on a nearby construction site.
Like many of his fellow employees, he was interviewed. Initially he claimed to have been at work that afternoon but later he admitted drinking in a pub, saying he had not wanted to get in trouble at work.
He was able to convince officers there was nothing unusual in his movements before he walked to his mother-in-law’s to pick up his daughter.
Mr Worsley said the police had not excluded the defendant from their investigations but like many people nothing had begun to point to him as being responsible either.
Earlier attempts to carry out tests on Mrs Gregson’s clothing proved unsuccessful but improvements in DNA techniques led to the case being re-opened and Lowther was seen in February this year as officers began tracing the thousands of men interviewed at the time. He had no criminal history.
Simon Lawler, QC, representing Lowther said he had realised when the police called what would happen but had given a swab willingly and it was a relief when he was finally arrested.
Lowther had an inaccurate memory of the day concerned. He had drunk far more than usual and took a walk along the canal to reduce the effects before collecting his daughter.
It was a chance meeting with Mrs Gregson and he still could not explain his actions in approaching her and his reactions when rebuffed. "It was 10 minutes or so of total and it has to be said, brutal madness." He said Lowther kept quiet about the killing for the sake of his own wife and child.
Det Chief Supt Brian Taylor, who was a detective sergeant in 1977, and led the re-opened inquiry said he was very pleased with the result for Mrs Gregson’s family.
Mary Gregson was a loving, caring, decent, gentle Yorkshire woman. Her family never came to terms with her brutal murder and are still searching for a reason why. Maggie Stratton reports.
He and Mary had shared 20 happy years of marriage, and after her murder he went each day to the spot where she died, to feed birds.
He never lived to see justice done.
Four years after the murder, as he visited the scene once more, he collapsed and died of a heart attack. He was 54.
The couple’s only son Michael was just 11 when she was killed. Now grown-up, with his own family and living in Riddlesden, near Keighley, he is still unable to talk publicly about the loss of his beloved mother.
It is clear Mary Gregson was a happy, caring mother and wife.
John Domaille, the detective who led the 1977 investigation, described her as "a decent, respectable, housewife as good as gold".
Neither 23 years ago nor today could anyone think of any reason why someone would want to attack and cold-bloodedly kill her and then dump her body in the river.
After her murder Bill Gregson said: "There hasn’t been a day since she died when I haven’t had a cry, but usually I do it alone.
"I want to see her murderer caught and punished but most of all I want to know his reason for snuffing out the life of a lovely wife and mother who never harmed a soul.
"Many people pass by my cottage throughout the day and I often wonder If I have rubbed shoulders with Mary’s killer.
"I had a Methodist upbringing and though not particularly religious, I gain comfort from my walk every morning to the spot where she was killed. I know it sounds daft but I can feel her spirit there. There we are close again..."
In the years after Mrs Gregson’s death retired detective inspector Chris Wilson often visited Mr Gregson and Michael.
He recalled: "Whenever I went to the door I would look through as Bill came to answer. I could see his face, I could see it in his eyes that he thought I was going to tell him we had caught the fellow. When you told him you were just calling in, his face just sank.
"He was in torment. Not just in the first few weeks of the inquiry but in the years after."
Michael Gregson was one of the last people to see his mother alive.
As she left the pretty 180-year-old canalside cottage the family shared at 9, Jane Hills, Shipley, to walk the half mile to Salts Mill, where she worked as a cleaner, she had turned and waved saying "ta-ra" to her son.
It was an evening job which Mrs Gregson had taken as a favour to a friend who had broken her ankle. Before she left home she had put tea in the oven for her husband for when he returned from his job at a Bingley plastics firm.
It was 5.20pm and the sun was shining. She was due to meet a workmate on the bridge at the bottom of Victoria Road, near to Salts Mill, but never arrived.
Her concerned friend went to Mrs Gregson’s home after finishing her shift at 7.30pm where her husband, growing increasingly anxious, checked with relatives and friends before contacting police.
Her body was found in the River Aire which runs alongside the canal the next morning. She had been attacked and strangled. Her blue shoulder bag was recovered.
Mrs Gregson was one of three daughters of Shipley couple Edith and William Leeming. She had lived all her life in and around the West Yorkshire town, attending Baker Street Infant School, St Paul’s Church of England School and Salts Grammar.
After leaving school she worked in local shops. She was 17 and working for a chemist in Saltaire when Bill Gregson wrote her a note confessing shyly that his affection for her was the reason he popped in so frequently to buy razor blades.
Their first date was at the Prince’s Hall Cinema. The couple were married on October 11, 1957, and had a reception at Shipley Liberal Club. They lived in Thackley before moving to Bingley..
Bill Gregson died before his wife’s killer was brought to justice but at least the conviction of Ian Lowther may bring some peace of mind to their son.
HE must have passed the spot hundreds of times.
For 23 years, van driver Ian Lowther lived a lie in the same neighbourhood where he killed defenceless housewife Mary Gregson.
Whatever his memories of that fateful day, they never drove him to move far away from the scene, and for years he continued to work only yards from the grassy bank where he strangled the life out of his victim.
During the two decades following the murder, neither his character nor his behaviour aroused suspicions. No one suspected his deadly secret not his wife, his daughter or his friends and neighbours.
He was questioned twice by police during the 1970s investigations, and despite officers discovering an original account of his movements that afternoon was false, he escaped becoming a major suspect.
In August 1977 he was 24 and working as a labourer at the Inland Revenue building site next to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal.
Like all the builders he was questioned after Mrs Gregson’s body was dragged from the River Aire nearby.
His original statement that he was at work at the time of the murder was found to be untrue. But detectives accepted his explanation that he was trying to cover-up for skiving from work. Many other builders on the site had done the same.
So Ian Lowther was allowed to return to his young wife Carol and daughter Carmen, and continue his job.
The 47-year-old’s family have never spoken publicly, but it is clear they had never raised any concerns about his character.
Neighbours described him as a quiet man. But they were happy that he was a good man.
One neighbour who regularly asked him to babysit her children said: "He was quiet, but a belting man once you got to know him."
Shelves of books in his home revealed his love of walking in the Dales. His love of solitude was, his wife later told police, partly the cause of their recent marriage break-up
Lowther was born on October 29, 1952, in Harrogate, where he went to Pannal Primary and then to Wheatlands Secondary Modern.
He left with no qualifications and started an apprentice course at Harrogate Technical College.
He attended day release courses at Shipley College and went to live in a council flat in Denby Drive, Baildon with Carol. Three years later they moved with their young daughter to a council house in Central Avenue, Baildon.
By this time Lowther had left his apprenticeship uncompleted and started a labouring job at Shipley abattoir.
Mr and Mrs Lowther were divorced in 1999. They both left the family home and Lowther moved to a small terraced house in Derwent Avenue, Baildon, even closer to the towpath spot where he murdered Mary Gregson.
His new neighbours noted frequent visits from his daughter and four grandchildren who spent hours playing with Lowther in his small, well-kept back garden.
Lowther drifted in and out of manual jobs. From gardening he moved to Shipley abattoir, then he worked as a labourer and a textile worker. After being made redundant in 1991 he became a van driver for the Bradford firm Tri-Print.
When initially interviewed by police in 1977 Lowther said he had heard about the murder of Mary Gregson because he had seen it on TV.
He said he did not recognise her.
Judith Sykes: Relieved, sad and bewildered.
SHE had waited for this moment for years.
Finally watching across a courtroom as her beloved sister’s murderer was jailed for life, 23 years after he cruelly shattered so many hopes and dreams.
But while relief was uppermost in Judith Sykes’s mind as she saw justice catch up with Ian Lowther other mixed emotions quickly followed.
Sadness that her parents and brother-in-law Bill were no longer alive to see Mary’s killer caught, but above all a sense of bewilderment about why an otherwise quiet family man should suddenly kill a complete stranger and then carry on a normal life afterwards as though nothing had happened.
"He was not what I expected. I suppose you get this sort of image in your mind and when I first saw Lowther in court I just couldn’t believe it.
"He looks like an ordinary man and from what I learned about him it just doesn’t make any sense at all.
"I just don’t understand why he did it. All right it is easy to say he went out and had been drinking but a lot of people go out and have drinks and they don’t do this."
Mrs Sykes said she was amazed to discover Lowther had never moved from the area where he killed her sister and she did feel hatred towards him.
"Mary was a lovely person. Because he lived a lie for 23 years he has seen his daughter grow up. Mary was never given that chance."
"She was not able to see her son Michael grow up and marry or see her three granddaughters. That was taken away from her and they would have loved her because she was such a special person."
Mrs Sykes said she never lost faith that Mary’s killer would be caught. After her sister’s murder their parents started to suffer from heart problems and the stress and tension was incredible. "It just changed our lives altogether. I remember for a long time not feeling in total control, just going through the motions."
She said her parents always hoped the killer would be traced one day. "Unfortunately they ran out of time. I just wish they and Bill could have been here today to at least have put a face to her killer."
She said her other sister, Sylvia Hilton, who lives in Wiltshire, had also expressed relief at the outcome. "Mary can finally be laid to rest knowing that her killer has been caught and we can get on with our lives."
SINCE Mary Gregson’s body was pulled from the river, police had been certain they had evidence which one day would lead them to her killer.
They just had to wait for scientists to show them the way.
Yesterday Sheffield Crown Court heard how that faith had been justified, with advances in DNA profiling helping finally to bring Ian Lowther to justice. The dirty river water meant precious evidence had been contaminated, but on Mrs Gregson’s underwear a small amount of her murderer’s semen was found and preserved.
Over the years police had kept a watchful eye on scientific advances. To those involved, the case was never, ever closed.
Det Insp Chris Wilson, who was involved with the case until he retired in 1998, said: "As time went by we just got the feeling that eventually the scientists would find the right way to abstract DNA from her old clothing."
Even when scientists made the initial breakthrough with DNA police had to wait until the process was accepted by British courts.
Earlier this year a profile was built up by research scientist Dr Jonathan Whitaker, and the net began to close around the killer.
The new technique means a DNA profile can be drawn from minute, degraded, dried-up evidence such as blood and semen where other techniques had previously failed.
It is far more sensitive and more powerful than previously existing methods, narrowing the chances of someone sharing the same DNA profile as the suspect to less than one in a billion. And Dr Whitaker said DNA technology was continually improving.
Once the profile was produced a check was made against the national DNA database. No match was found among the existing 750,000 profiles, so police had to begin from scratch and devise a testing programme to lead them to the killer.
Det Chief Supt Brian Taylor was in charge of the investigation when it was reopened last September.
A nationwide appeal was launched for information and a criminal psychologist was brought in to produce a profile of the killer.
Film crews were brought in to reconstruct Mrs Gregson’s last known steps and the final moments of her life were shown on BBC’s Crimewatch.
Mr Taylor and his small team were certain they were looking for a man who was local to the area in 1977. Police began contacting all men questioned during the original inquiry.
Lowther was the 532th person to be asked to provide a "buccal swab" a swab rubbed on the inside of the cheek. He did so.
Sixty-seven men were tested after Lowther and 2,000 more were on the list, but when his results came back from the labs, officers needed to make no more inquiries.