In June 1981, fourteen-year old Marion Crofts was

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...

d and

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

ed in

Aldershot Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Alders ...

, England. The case is notable for the 21 year delay in justice before former soldier Tony Jasinskyj was found guilty as a result of advances in DNA testing and sentenced to life in prison.DNA link traps girl's killer after 21 years
- ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', 11 May 2002 He is up for

parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...

in 2022, despite him never having admitted his guilt and the DNA evidence proving that the chances of the perpetrator being anyone other than Jasinskyj were 1 in a billion. Marion was the youngest of three daughters of Trevor and Anne Crofts. On Saturday 6 June 1981 she was cycling the four miles from her home at Basingbourne Close in

Fleet, Hampshire Fleet is a town and civil parish in the Hart District Hart is a local government district in Hampshire, England, named after the River Hart. Its council is based in Fleet. It was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 197 ...

to attend a

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

lesson at

The Wavell School The Wavell School is a coeducational community secondary school, located in Farnborough in the English county of Hampshire. The school serves the civilian and military communities of North Camp, Farnborough and Aldershot, and is administere ...

in Farnborough. Ordinarily her father drove her there but on this occasion he was playing in a cricket match. Her route took her along Laffans Road in Aldershot alongside the

Basingstoke Canal The Basingstoke Canal is an English canal, completed in 1794, built to connect Basingstoke with the River Thames at Weybridge via the Wey Navigation. From Basingstoke, the canal passes through or near Greywell, North Warnborough, Odiham, Dogm ...

. Here between 9.30 and 10.00 am she was attacked and beaten into unconsciousness, leaving her with severe bruising and a bleed on the brain. After being dragged into the wooded area by the side of the road she was raped and murdered. The attacker left traces of his DNA in and on her body as well as on her jeans and her left sock. Her body was then hidden in the undergrowth where it was found later that day by a police dog handler.Charlotte Greig
''Criminal Cold Cases''
Arcturus (2012) - Google Books Her clarinet case was flung into the nearby Basingstoke Canal where it was later retrieved. Tony Jasinskyj was a lance corporal in the

Army Catering Corps The Army Catering Corps (ACC) was a corps of the British Army, responsible for the feeding of all Army units. It was formed in 1941 and amalgamated into the Royal Logistic Corps in 1993. History In 1938 Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Secretary of ...

based in Aldershot and was living in army married quarters about a mile and a half away from the murder scene with his pregnant wife Lynn Gowans, whom he had married in 1976. He was among hundreds of men questioned as to their whereabouts at the time of the murder. Following the murder DNA evidence was deliberately withheld in the expectation that testing techniques would advance in the future which would find a match. In the meantime the DNA samples from her body and clothing were carefully sealed to avoid cross contamination and documented in detail. The case was shown in a reconstruction at Laffans Road on the

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

's ''

Crimewatch ''Crimewatch'' (formerly ''Crimewatch UK'') is a British television programme produced by the BBC, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving the case. The programme was or ...

'' on 22 February 2000. Laffans Road Aldershot 2020

The murder remained a

cold case A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or re ...

until in 1999 a DNA profile was obtained from the withheld material using the new

Low copy number Low Copy Number (LCN) is a DNA profiling technique developed by the UK Forensic Science Service (FSS) which has been in use since 1999. In the United Kingdom use of the technique was suspended between 21 December 2007 and 14 January 2008 while t ...

(LCN) testing technique. This was continually checked against the

UK National DNA Database The United Kingdom National DNA Database (NDNAD; officially the ''UK National Criminal Intelligence DNA Database'') is a national DNA Database that was set up in 1995. In 2005 it had 3.1 million profiles and in 2020 it had 6.6 million profiles ...

for the next two years until a match was eventually found for Tony Jasinskyj, who by then had been discharged from the Army Catering Corps and was working as a security guard in Leicester where he was living at Kegworth Avenue with his second wife, Michelle, having been divorced from his first wife since 1984. On being arrested for assaulting his wife police took a routine DNA sample and fed details into a databank. On finding a match Jasinskyj was arrested in April 2001 and charged with the rape and murder of Marion Crofts in 1981. He denied the charges. At his trial at

Winchester Crown Court The Winchester Law Courts is a judicial facility just off the High Street in Winchester, Hampshire, England. As well as accommodating the Crown Court, which deals with criminal cases, the complex also accommodates the County Court and the Winche ...

experts pointed out that DNA material from Crofts was present in the sample taken from her body and the clothing she had been wearing. The jury were told that the DNA match to Jasinskyj was one in a billion. After a four week trial the jury deliberated for three hours before finding Jasinskyj guilty of both charges. He was sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

for the murder and to 10 years for the rape, to run concurrently.Ex-chef jailed for schoolgirl murder
- ''

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'', 11 May 2002 In sentencing him Judge Michael Brodrick told Jasinskyj that he had committed a "cruel and callous murder" and had given Croft's family 21 years of suffering as they thought of "the final, dreadful, brutal moments of her life". In 2014 Jasinskyj appealed his life sentence, arguing before Lady Justice Macur QC, Lord Justice Phillips and Judge Neil Ford QC at the

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

in London that the DNA evidence produced at his 2002 trial was 'flawed' as it contained material from the victim suggesting that the murderer had a chromosome disorder - meaning he had been wrongfully convicted. The Appeal Judge Lord Justice Phillips said the original verdict was "entirely safe" and dismissed Jasinskyj's claim as "fanciful", stating that his "fixation on an anomaly" could not outweigh the one in a billion probability that Jasinskyj had committed the rape and murder.Marion Crofts murder: Tony Jasinskyj's appeal refused
-

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

, 2 July 2014 Whilst in prison Jasinskyj has regularly had letters and poems published in the national prisoners' newspaper '' Inside Time'', in which he has complained about prison life, and in 2017 he described himself as "yet another victim". In 2018 he said he was a "traumatised hater". In November 2019 he complained that he did not have a TV in his cell because he maintained his innocence. In September 2021, however, he claimed he felt 'remorse'. Jasinskyj has been imprisoned at

HM Prison Littlehey HM Prison Littlehey is a Category C male prison in the village of Perry near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, England. Littlehey Prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. The Prison only holds those that have been convicted of a sexual o ...

since 2017. In April 2022 the

parole board A parole board is a panel of people who decide whether an offender should be released from prison on parole after serving at least a minimum portion of their sentence as prescribed by the sentencing judge. Parole boards are used in many jurisdiction ...

revealed that they would be considering his case for release and that he could be released within weeks. Jasinskyj previously complained in 2019 that his prison was a 200-mile round trip to

, which he described as being his home, indicating that he will likely move back to Aldershot (the location of the murder of Crofts) if released.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crofts, Marion Aldershot 1980s in Hampshire 2000s trials 1981 murders in the United Kingdom Genetics in the United Kingdom Murder trials June 1981 events in the United Kingdom Murder in Hampshire Trials in England Child murder in England Incidents of violence against girls Female murder victims

See also

References