Rapist David Mulcahy demands 6,000 documents from police for his appeal

 
Appealing: killer and rapist David Mulcahy was given three life sentences at his trial in 2001
Paul Cheston31 March 2015
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A murderer known as the “Thriller Killer” is demanding Scotland Yard digs out more than 6,000 documents to help him appeal, 14 years after he was jailed for life.

David Mulcahy raped and murdered his way across London and the Home Counties with his former schoolfriend John Duffy in the Eighties. Duffy was jailed for 30 years in 1988 but refused to name his accomplice Mulcahy until 1997.

Mulcahy went on trial in 2001 and also received 30 years. But now Mulcahy has asked a judge to order the Met to release every single detail they have on their records about him, dating back 30 years.

His demand, which could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to meet, will horrify the families of his victims who had to endure two Old Bailey trials before the two men were sentenced.

Mulcahy was given three life sentences for the murders of Alison Day, 19, Dutch schoolgirl Maartje Tamboezer, 15, and newlywed Anne Lock, 29, and for four rapes.

At his trial it was said that he psyched himself up his crimes by listening to Michael Jackson’s song Thriller.

He has already sparked an outcry when he boasted last summer of winning £500 compensation after prison bosses had damaged a parcel sent to him.

Mulcahy, 55, formerly of Chalk Farm, says information contained on a police database of documents would be vital to proving his innocence.

But Scotland Yard is refusing to release the information, saying it could take weeks, and possibly months, of costly work to get it together. The force says it would be “disproportionate” to make such a huge effort which could include reading, copying and censoring more than 6,000 documents.

Met data protection officer John Potts told Central London county court that the documents, if piled on top of each other, would be more than 3ft high.

Just to work through the papers would take 23 full working days, but would likely lead to more documents that would take a similar amount of time.

Then there would have to be meetings with victims’ families, senior officers and others mentioned in the papers before they could be released, Mr Potts said.

Barrister Robin Hopkin, for Scotland Yard, said Mulcahy’s demand would mean “disproportionate levels of burden in terms of cost and time”.

But Mulcahy, appearing via a video link from Full Sutton prison in York, said the Met was obliged under the Data Protection Act to give him everything he wants.

“I should be entitled to all the documents that the police hold,” he told Judge Margaret Langley. “I am preparing an appeal and I need those documents for the appeal. I am fighting for liberty and life.”

The judge said a decision on his application would not be made until later this year.

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