SHERIDAN SMITH has won rave reviews for her role playing a real-life mother who overturned an 800- year-old law to finally bring her daughter’s killer to justice.
In tonight’s final episode of I Fought The Law, millions of viewers will see murderer Billy Dunlop jailed for life for strangling young mum Julie Hogg and hiding her body under the bath in her home.
BackGridAnn Ming has devoted her life since daughter Julie’s death to making sure killer Billy Dunlop is in prison[/caption]
check copyrightJulie was 22 when she was killed by neighbour Dunlop in 1989[/caption]
NNPDunlop being led away from Newcastle Crown Court in 1991 during the first of two murder trials which ended in his acquittal[/caption]
Thanks to a relentless campaign by Julie’s mum, Ann Ming, Dunlop has spent the past 19 years behind bars after earlier believing he had twice got away with murder.
Dunlop, now 61, is believed to still be in HMP Frankland, the Co Durham jail dubbed Monster Mansion and home to notorious killers Ian Huntley, Levi Bellfield and Wayne Couzens.
But many viewers who have been watching the four-part drama on ITV will be unaware that Ann’s fight is far from over.
The Sun can reveal Dunlop is trying to get himself moved to a cushy open prison and is due to apply again for parole next year.
From prison, he has told how he came to hate Ann over her campaign to overturn the double-jeopardy law which led to him being locked up.
Decomposing body
Using a video link Dunlop admitted: “She was the bane of my life. I used to hate her. I won’t deny it.”
He was speaking at a parole hearing where he claimed to now be a changed man.
And he even admitted that being in prison for murder may have saved the lives of others because, had he been released, he could not have ruled out killing again.
Dunlop said Julie’s murder still flashes into his head every day.
In the TV drama which began just over a week ago, viewers saw how, in November 1989, 22-year-old Julie disappeared after a late shift at the pizza takeaway in Billingham, Co Durham, where she worked.
Her three-year-old son Kevin was staying with his grandma Ann, who became concerned that something had happened to her daughter when she did not arrive to pick him up.
Police, who at first dismissed Ann’s fears, belatedly searched Julie’s home and, incredibly, failed to find her decomposing body which had been concealed under the bath.
Once her body was finally found, by a distraught Ann, 80 days after the murder, detectives quickly arrested Dunlop, a neighbour with a terrifying reputation for violence.
He was cleared after two juries in the early Nineties were unable to reach verdicts — partly because police blunders meant her corpse was so decayed it was impossible to establish a cause of death.
Once acquitted of murder, Dunlop knew that the antiquated double-jeopardy law meant he could never be tried again for the same offence.
The killer then tortured Julie’s family by freely admitting around the pubs in Billingham that he had got away with the murder.
A man like him is a danger to everyone. Life should mean life. The only way he should leave is when he’s dead
Ann Ming
Tonight’s final episode of I Fought The Law shows how Ann met the then Home Secretary Jack Straw and gave a stirring off-the-cuff speech to a committee of law lords in her quest to overturn double jeopardy.
In 2006 at the Old Bailey, Dunlop was finally jailed for Julie’s murder — but Ann and Julie’s son Kevin, now 39, will never give up their fight to keep him in prison.
Last December, they made the 260-mile journey to London to oppose Dunlop’s latest attempt to be switched from his high-security jail to an open prison.
He appeared before a parole panel who were sitting in the jail, while Ann and Kevin had to watch the proceedings on a video link in a court room in London.
It was on this link that Dunlop announced that he had hated Ann in the past. He added: “When she started the campaign I just thought, ‘Will she just leave me alone’. I was trying to get on but she wouldn’t stop.”
Ann knew Dunlop was a violent monster who had wreaked havoc in Billingham, and she feared he would kill again.
PASheridan Smith as heartbroken mum Ann in I Fought The Law[/caption]
ITVThe actress has received rave reviews for her role as Ann[/caption]
On the night he murdered Julie, Dunlop had beaten another man so badly at the local club that his victim had to be taken to hospital.
The killer had been watching strippers that night and, despite being injured in the fight, visited Julie’s home planning to have sex.
When Julie spurned his advances, he strangled and sexually defiled her before hiding the body in the bathroom. He then spent hours cleaning and tidying her house before leaving.
Despite initially getting away with Julie’s murder, Dunlop did not change his ways. One former partner claimed he had tried to strangle her during their short relationship.
She was so afraid of him that she moved to Manchester, but he tracked her down to her new address and went to confront her.
Dunlop received a short prison term for harassment.
In 1987, he had started seeing Donna Williams but she ended their relationship and found someone else, Shaun Fairweather — who Dunlop knocked unconscious with a baseball bat and continued to beat until he was unrecognisable.
Jack James Ryan plays Dunlop in the drama
A source said: ‘Ann believes he will always be a danger to women and she will never accept he is a changed man’North News and Pictures
Dunlop also stabbed pregnant Donna with a carving fork, causing her lung to collapse. The couple only survived their catastrophic injuries because Donna’s brother and friends came round and stopped the attack.
Dunlop also admitted that he might have killed again if Ann had failed to get him locked up.
‘Destroyed so many lives’
He told the hearing: “That is a possibility. I could not rule that out.
“I would have been another car crash waiting to happen.
“If things had not gone my way, things would have built up.
“Violence, from an early age, is what I knew best. My anger has destroyed so many lives.”
SplashSheridan with Ann at a press launch[/caption]
Dunlop told Ann and Kevin how, more than 35 years later, Julie’s murder still haunts him.
He said: “I think about it most days. Something will be on the telly and it will just pop into my head.
“It would be impossible to turn back the clock. I wish I had never created all those victims but I did.”
In a bid to impress the parole panel, he praised Ann for her campaign: “To give her her due, she carried it on and got the result.
“When you look back, every parent would have done that, which is why I don’t have animosity towards her or Julie’s son or any other family members. They have conducted themselves impeccably throughout while I have been something you’d find on the bottom of your shoe.”
Ann was unconvinced Dunlop would not escape from an open prison.
Ann has devoted her life since Julie’s death to making sure Dunlop is in prison, because she believes he will always be a danger to women and she will never accept he is a changed man
Sun source
She said: “A man like him is a danger to everyone. Life should mean life. The only way he should leave is when he’s dead.”
Despite this, the parole board was convinced by Dunlop’s argument that he is no longer a danger and they granted his wish to be moved to open conditions.
But former Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood intervened in April this year and blocked the move.
It was a repeat of Dunlop’s first bid, two years earlier, when the parole board again agreed he could live in open prison — but then- Tory Justice Secretary Brandon Lewis overturned that ruling.
Dunlop is, however, undaunted and likely to force Ann and Kevin to endure more parole hearings, which are expected next year.
He will again try to convince the justice system he is a reformed character but Ann is already preparing to give evidence opposing his release.
A source close to the case said: “Ann has devoted her life since Julie’s death to making sure Dunlop is in prison, because she believes he will always be a danger to women and she will never accept he is a changed man.
“She’s now approaching her 80th birthday and still she has to continue fighting to keep him in a secure prison.
“It’s exhausting but she and her family will never give up this fight and Dunlop knows that.
“They are aware that he’ll try to use anything, including the TV series, to his advantage.”
I Fought The Law is on ITV at 9pm today. A new documentary, The Ann Ming Story, is on ITV at 9pm on Thursday and on ITVX.
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