Conviction of teacher for 'lady in the lake' murder upheld by Court of Appeal

The son of the 'lady in the lake' killer has lost his appeal to clear his father's name following a posthumous challenge.

Gordon Park was jailed for life in 2005 after he battered estranged wife Carol to death with an ice pick in 1976 and dumped her body in Coniston Water in the Lake District.

When her body was found by amateur divers 21 years later in 1997, schoolteacher Park said: "Oh dear."

In 2005 he was tried and convicted of murder at Manchester Crown Court and jailed for life with a minimum term of 15 years.

On his 66th birthday in 2010, two years after his first appeal against his conviction failed, Park hanged himself at HMP Garth in Lancashire.

Carol Park was battered to death with an ice pick in 1976 (PA)

His son Jeremy continued to protest his father's innocence, claiming he had unearthed fresh evidence which undermined the prosecution case.

But on Friday the Court of Appeal ruled the conviction was safe and threw out his appeal.

Giving his judgement, Mr Justice Sweeney said: "We have no doubt as to the safety of the conviction therefore the appeal is dismissed."

Henry Blaxland, QC, who represent the son, argued expert witnesses who claimed some of the injuries caused to Mrs Park could not have been inflicted by an ice axe were excluded from the trial.

The posthumous appeal was referred to the court by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) which investigates possible miscarriages of justice.

CCRC lawyers told a hearing in November last year that failures by prosecution lawyers to share evidence with the defence at Park's 2005 trial casts doubt on the safety of his conviction.

Mrs Parks body was found dumped in Coniston Water in the Lake District (TV Grab)

But, dismissing the appeal in a ruling on Friday, three leading judges said the evidence in the case was "very strong".

Mrs Park, also a teacher, went missing in Leece, near Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, in July 1976, and Park claimed she had gone to live with another man.

But the mother-of-three's body was found by amateur divers in Coniston Water in 1997.

Park took his own life in prison as he continued to insist he was innocent (Press Association)

Park was arrested and charged with her murder, and spent two weeks in prison on remand, but the case against him was dropped in 1998 on the grounds there was not enough evidence available to prosecute.

Detectives later uncovered fresh forensic and geological evidence said to link him to the murder and he was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court in 2005, bringing to an end one of Britain's most notorious unsolved murder investigations.

A challenge by Park against his conviction was rejected by the Court of Appeal in 2008.

Following his death at HMP Garth in Lancashire, his family continued to campaign for his conviction to be overturned and applied to the CCRC.