NO evidence existed that a teenage girl and her sister waited for bank
clerk Alison Shaughnessy to return home and then murdered her, a defence
lawyer told an Old Bailey jury yesterday.
''Where is the evidence they did this? There is none,'' said Lady
Mallalieu, QC, defending 19-year-old Lisa Taylor in the love triangle
killing case.
She said Miss Taylor was 17 at the time Mrs Shaughnessy was murdered
and had never been in trouble in her life.
''There is absolutely nothing heard in this court to suggest this
young girl is anything other than a perfectly normal teenager,'' said
Lady Mallalieu.
''There has been no evidence she is either mentally deficient or a
psychopath, but you may think she would have had to be one or another to
behave as the prosecution suggest she did.''
The allegation against her was ''patently absurd''.
Lisa Taylor and Michelle Taylor, her 21-year-old sister, of Forest
Hill, London, both deny murdering Mrs Shaughnessy on June 3 last year.
The court has heard that Michelle Taylor had an affair with Mrs
Shaughnessy's husband John and the prosecution alleges Mrs Shaughnessy
was stabbed 54 times in a jealous frenzy.
Lady Mallalieu said Mrs Shaughnessy's murder was more likely to have
been carried out by an intruder whom she disturbed at her home.
Her injuries suggested she was initially attacked on the front of her
body, suggesting she met her attacker in the flat as she came in.
Lady Mallalieu said the prosecution's claim that this was a
cold-blooded killing did not match what the pathologist had described as
a ''frenzied or panic'' attack during which 54 stab wounds were
inflicted.
''But it is characteristic of the cornered intruder,'' she said.
''It is our contention that there is no evidence that makes Lisa
Taylor guilty of murder. Where evidence is thin or non-existent, as it
is in this case, the temptation to guess or speculate is enormous but
guesswork and speculation are not evidence and nor is suspicion.''
The trial was adjourned until today.
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