Who is Mark Weston and where is he now?
MARK WESTON was the first person to face a murder retrial following the discovery of new forensic evidence.
The killer, who murdered a young mother in 1995, was jailed in 2010 after a change to the double jeopardy law allowed him to be tried for the crime again.
Who is Mark Weston and what did he do to Vikki Thompson?
Mark Weston was 35 when he was convicted of killing Vikki Thompson, 15 years after her death.
Vikki, who was just 30 when she died, was killed on August 12, 1995, while walking her dog Daisy in the village of Ascott-under-Wychwood, near Oxfordshire, England.
Weston was masturbating down a country lane when Vikki walked past.
He then bludgeoned her over the head with a rock, dragged her body across a field and placed it on the railway line in an attempt to make it look like she had been hit by a train.
When Vikki’s dog made her way home on her own, Vikki’s husband Jonathan and some of their neighbours, as well as their two young children, Matthew and Jenny, began looking for her.
Vikki was found over three hours after she had left home, and was still alive.
She was taken to hospital with severe skull fractures and a severe brain injury but, after six days, her brain stopped functioning and her life support machine was switched off.
Weston was arrested for Vikki’s murder but denied being at the scene of the crime on that day or knowing the victim.
He was acquitted in 1996 but, after police decided to reopen the investigation in 2008, they found specks of Vikki’s blood on Weston’s boots.
The shoes were re-examined by two scientists, using microscopes and halogen lamps that had not been available in 1995.
A damning text message Weston had sent to his ex-girlfriend was also discovered in the investigation.
The message read: “I killed her and I would do the same to you”.
Another piece of evidence that was put before the jury at Weston’s second trial was a plastic bag that police had found near the scene of Vikki’s killing.
The bag contained two bras stained with semen matching Weston’s DNA.
The evidence was not allowed by the judge in the first trial.
Police were initially unable to re-try Weston due to the double jeopardy law, which prevents a person from being tried again for the same crime.
That law changed in 2005, leading to Weston’s second trial.
Weston’s conviction was the first time that new forensic evidence had been used to secure a conviction using double jeopardy legislation.
Where is Mark Weston now?
As of 2023, Weston is serving his prison sentence for Vikki’s murder.
On December 13, 2010, he was jailed for life with a minimum of 13 years.
Vikki’s husband, Jonathan, said at the time that the change in the double jeopardy law had been “crucial in achieving justice”.
After Weston’s second trial it was revealed that he had allegedly tried to strangle the mother of his daughter in 2003.
Helen Rusher, who dated Weston when she was just 16, said that she reported him to the police, and told them that Weston had confessed to killing Vikki.
Weston was convicted of harassing two other local women in the years between his two trials.
He was given a conditional discharge in 1997 after harassing a neighbour.
Then, in 1999, he received a two-year probation order for harassing a police officer and his wife and children, making 50 silent phone calls to their home.