Snared by texts meant to throw police off scent

10:28am Thursday 21st February 2008

PIONEERING analysis of text message writing style helped snare Jenny Nicholl's killer.

Detectives said yesterday that text messages sent from Jenny's mobile phone after she vanished formed a crucial part of the lengthy police investigation into her disappearance.

Detective Superintendent Sue Cross, the investigation leader, said the linguistic evidence - used for the first time in a murder trial in the region - had been crucial.

She said: "This is a new type of linguistic analysis that's taking place, looking at text messages and how they can be used, because everyone has their own individual style.

Police were still treating the case as a missing-from-home inquiry when contact was made with friends Jennifer Whelan and Nicola Gosnold, nine days after Jenny was last seen.

Five days later, two texts were sent to the teenager's father, Brian, from the Scottish Borders, which said: "I aint coming back and the pigs won't find me. I'm happy living up here."

The messages to Mr Nicholl also included: "Why do you hate me. I know mum does.

Told her I was going text you couple of weeks. Tell pigs I'm nearly 20. Aint coming back.

They can shite of."

Jenny never texted again.

Her mobile phone was switched on and immediately off after the messages were sent, and has never been used since or found.

The prosecution claimed the messages were sent by Hodgson, and supported their theory by showing he had hired cars on each of the days the texts were received.

It was claimed he had driven to Brampton, in Cumbria, to send the first series of messages to Jenny's friends on July 9, and travelled to Jedburgh on July 14 to contact his lover's father.

Language expert Malcolm Coulthard was called in by North Yorkshire Police to examine abbreviations, spellings and the use of certain words in what were called the "suspect" texts.

Mr Coulthard told the murder trial jury that the messages could have been written by Hodgson in an attempt to convince police and Jenny's family that she was alive.

Mr Coulthard compared the language to that used in texts sent by Jenny to friends before her disappearance and those recovered from Hodgson's mobile.

He told the court there were many matches between Hodgson's style and the messages sent from Jenny's phone - and "significant differences" between Jenny's usual language and the "suspect" texts.

Mr Coulthard said that Hodgson was one of a number of possible authors, but some of the unusual shared characteristics between his style and the July texts meant the number of suspects was reduced.

Jenny's mother, Ann, also told the court that words and phrases such as "pigs" and "shite of" were not those usually used by her daughter.

Police were so confident the messages were hoaxes designed to divert the inquiry that they made Hodgson carry out several writing exercises during one of his interviews.

They also looked at the suicide note he left his wife, Alison, after his arrest for perverting the course of justice, and texts he had sent before his questioning.

Mr Coulthard told the jury of six men and six women that Hodgson did not use abbreviations in the tests, but his historic messages contained words such as "aint".

The mis-spelling of the word "off" with a single "f" also featured in the suicide note and the texts which were sent from Jenny's phone.

Det Supt Cross, added: "We never believed those texts had been sent by Jenny Nicholl, and that evidence was put very fairly before the jury and clearly they believed the same thing."