Jury convicts Carr's mother

Shirley Capp: intimidated witness
13 April 2012

The mother of Maxine Carr, was found guilty today at Sheffield Crown Court of threatening a witness in the Soham murder trial.

Shirley Capp, 61, made threats to Marion Westerman after she gave a statement to police investigating the disappearance and murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman at Soham, Cambridgeshire, in August 2002.

The jury, of six women and six men, took just over four hours at Sheffield Crown Court to find Capp guilty of one charge of intimidating a witness.

Judge John Reddihough delayed sentencing Capp for pre-sentence reports, but warned the 61-year-old he would consider "all the options", including a custodial sentence.

The jury was told that Capp threatened mother-of-three Ms Westerman during a confrontation at the defendant's home in Grimsby.

During a heated argument, Capp told her: "You are dead, watch your back."

The court was told that Capp blamed Ms Westerman for the fact that her daughter, Maxine Carr, had been remanded in custody in Holloway Prison following her arrest with boyfriend Ian Huntley.

Ms Westerman had told detectives she saw Carr and Huntley looking into the rear of a red car in Grimsby after the girls went missing.

She said Carr was sobbing and Huntley looked pale and thin. Her statement was used by the prosecution in the subsequent Old Bailey trial.

During the trial at Sheffield Crown Court, Ms Westerman told the jury that Capp had threatened her when she went round to the defendant's house to "smooth the waters" regarding a neighbourly dispute over a cat.

She said: "It was all my fault Maxine was in prison. She said I was a f*****g liar. She also said in my statement I said that the bodies were in the boot of the car, but I didn't."

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