A DETECTIVE who went missing while charged with the murder of a
pregnant woman, has been found dead in his car in isolated woodland.
It is understood Detective Constable Vincent Hand's car was filled
with fumes and had a hosepipe connected to the exhaust.
Relatives of the dead woman believe he took his own life because he
could not live with guilt.
Mr Hand, 31, failed to answer bail at Bradford Magistrates Court in
West Yorkshire on Friday. He disappeared, leaving a note for the coroner
and another detailing his funeral arrangements.
He had been due to make his twelfth appearance before the court over
the murder of Miss Angela Jenkinson, 32, who was found strangled on
waste ground 100 yards from her home in Bradford on Good Friday.
She was seven months pregnant but surgeons failed to save her unborn
baby.
The hunt for Mr Hand, whose wife is a vice-squad officer in the city,
had concentrated on the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales.
He was found on Saturday night in his red Fiat Panda car in isolated
woods near the village of Melton Constable, outside Norwich.
Norfolk Police would not confirm how he had died but a spokesman said:
''We are not treating his death as suspicious.'' The coroner will
conduct an inquiry.
Mr Hand is understood to have left a note to his wife and her parents
when he disappeared on Wednesday, two days before his scheduled court
appearance.
He was held for 17 weeks but released on conditional bail by Mr
Justice Sachs on July 29. He was understood to have been staying in the
Norwich area.
The detective was accused of murdering Miss Jenkinson between March 30
and April 2. Her partly clothed body was found in Barkerend, Bradford --
the city in which Mr Hand and his wife both worked.
Miss Jenkinson was
a former supermarket check-out operator who lived alone with her
five-year-old daughter Nicola.
Her sister, Mrs June Kellett, 41, of Wakefield, said yesterday the
whole family was stunned by the news of Mr Hand's death.
''This is not what we expected, it has come as a complete shock to us.
Obviously, after the hearing on Friday, we were beginning to think he
may have killed himself but we also thought it might be a ruse.
''My mother Pat thinks it is an admission of his guilt and the fact he
could not live with what he had done.''
Mr Rodney Lester, the detective's solicitor, said yesterday: ''When I
first learned there was a six-page letter to the coroner, in which he
put his affairs in order and wrote to his family, I did have fears this
would be the outcome.''
''Police have the notes but, as far as I know, they contain no
confession.''
At an earlier court hearing, Mr Chris Foren, for the prosecution, told
the court that Mr Hand had known Miss Jenkinson for eight years. At
first, she was a police informant, but they became lovers in August
1993.
Mr Foren claimed Miss Jenkinson put pressure on Mr Hand to take care
of her and the baby when she became pregnant. The baby was later found
not to be his.
She was threatening to tell the Child Support Agency that he was the
unborn baby's father.
The night of her death, Mr Hand was keeping watch on a mill near her
home. Miss Jenkinson went out three times to try to meet him to give him
supper but did not return the third time. Her body was found at 7am the
following morning and Mr Hand was arrested nine hours later.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article