It was 6.30am on Wednesday, 19 May 2010. The sun had risen an hour earlier. The sky was mainly clear, apart from a thin dusting of snow-white cloud, which would soon be burned away. The weather forecasters predicted a near-perfect spring day.
A few residents were already on the move, mainly those who started work early, but most of the Charminster area had yet to stir.
A fleet of police vehicles, in the style of a funeral cortège, noiselessly cruised along Chatsworth Road in Bournemouth, stopping outside a substantial, red-brick, detached house.
It was Restivo’s new home since he had moved from Capstone Road, which ran parallel to Chatsworth.
Twelve detectives exited their vehicles, and car doors were closed gently. There was no overt urgency, no dawn-raid madness, no hype. If this was a defining moment, it was low-key, apart from the number of personnel involved. The handful of early risers in Chatsworth Road observed the activity in silence.
Det Supt Mark Cooper, who was now spearheading the Dorset end of the investigation, buttoned up the jacket of his grey, lightweight suit. He had a fresh, boyish face, light-brown hair and looked impossibly young for his senior rank, clearly a fast-tracker. Smartly dressed, he wore a white shirt with starched collar and a tie striped with pastel shades.
Supt Cooper silently signalled with a nod, then led the way towards Restivo’s front door. His team had been well briefed; they all knew their roles. The rehearsals were over. As Supt Cooper approached the house, other officers fanned out, covering the property’s rear and sides.
Not until everyone was in place did Supt Cooper rap on the front door and ring the bell. Restivo was inside, something the police already knew. Nothing had been left to chance. Restivo’s movements had been monitored meticulously. They knew when he went to the bathroom, when he sneezed, when he snored. Surveillance, including electronic, had been mounted day and night.
These early-morning raids always produced stereotypical exchanges through locked front doors: ‘Who is it? … What do you want? … Oh, wait a minute while I make myself decent … Hold your fire! I’m coming.’
Cooper went through the ritual of flashing his ID, before entering the house along with several other officers. There was no resistance after he informed Restivo that he was being arrested, yet again. But Restivo did protest that this was becoming ‘beyond a joke’ and that he considered himself a victim of police harassment.
When he emerged handcuffed, he was dressed in trainers, a grey, hooded fleece over his upper body and head, and a reddish towel covering his face. The operation was carefully choreographed, so as the car carrying Restivo away for questioning had only just swung out of Chatsworth Road, a fleet of other vehicles with the white, boiler-suited forensics team and other scene-of-crime investigators turned into the road from the other end. The occupants of all the vehicles were in constant contact by mobile, providing a running commentary.
Scaffolding was hastily erected around the house, while sheets of white tarpaulin were hoisted over the façade, up to the height of the roof, obscuring all views from the road of activity within the building. All areas of the garden were dug up and lorry-loads of materials were driven away during the next few days.
Shortly before these developments, Cooper had told Bournemouth’s Daily Echo newspaper, ‘All the focus and attention has been on Italy in the past two months, but there has been a huge amount of activity here in the UK. Things have been moving very fast as far as our own investigation is concerned and I believe we are very close to a breakthrough.’ He was not over-playing his hand.
Professional observers were divided over their prognosis of the outcome. After all, Restivo had already been arrested twice previously by Dorset Police and released without charge both times. In Italy, he had been interrogated endlessly and, although imprisoned for a while for perjury, he had not been arraigned for murder.
This time however, there was a big difference from the other arrests. The discovery of Elisa Claps’s remains and the hair in her hand had created a link between the two crimes which demanded further investigation.
One more thing – and known at that stage only to the investigators in Italy and Britain – some blood on Elisa’s clothing had matched Restivo’s DNA. The blood could not have come from a cut made when he claimed to have fallen on a building site in the afternoon because that would have been after the murder. How else could the blood could have been deposited, other than as a result of Elisa fighting for her life?
For a number of years, investigators in the UK and Italy were certain that Restivo was their man. But had they now sufficient evidence to make it stick? Had Elisa Claps’s skeletal remains made enough of a difference? And if yes, who held the stronger hand – the UK or Italy? There were sceptics in the international press corps and among veteran police officers who believed that, despite the mounting evidence, he’d manage to wriggle free, yet again.
They were wrong, of course, because they were not privy to the latest incriminating evidence.
* * *
In the afternoon of the day following his latest arrest, Danilo Restivo was charged at Poole Police Station with the murder of Heather Barnett. The Dorset investigators had pre-empted the Italian bid for staging the first instalment of this epic.
Insiders were to say that he reacted with arrogant disbelief. ‘He was truly flabbergasted. He acted as if Cooper and other detectives were off their trolleys. Everything about his body language was derisive. His attitude was one of “we’ve been through all this before”.’
News of this dramatic development by the police was released outside the police station in Poole by Alastair Nisbet of the Crown Prosecution Service, accompanied by Supt Cooper.
‘After carefully considering all the evidence provided to me by Dorset Police, arising from their investigation into the murder of Heather Barnett in November 2002, I have decided that there is sufficient evidence to prosecute Danilo Restivo for her murder and that it would be in the public interest to do so,’ said Nisbet.
‘Accordingly, I have authorised the police to charge him with that offence and he will appear at Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court.
‘The family of Heather Barnett have been informed of my decision and I hope soon to be able to meet them to explain the trial process and answer any questions they have.’
Cooper, obviously on a high, also made a statement. ‘I would like to say a few words about bringing the Heather Barnett murder investigation to the critical point it has reached today.
‘Danilo Restivo has been in custody for the last 35 hours and has been interviewed at length. We have presented details of that interview, as well as evidence gathered over the past seven-and-a-half years, to the Crown Prosecution Service.
‘The progression of the investigation to this point today demonstrates the professionalism, commitment and tireless work of those Dorset Police officers involved in Heather’s case. You’ll appreciate we can’t go into any further detail.
‘We have been in close contact with members of Heather’s family throughout the course of this investigation, including speaking with them this morning to make them aware of the charges brought against Restivo.
‘This family has shown extraordinary strength and courage over the seven years since Heather’s death and our thoughts are still very much with them.
‘Heather’s case is now in the hands of our partners in the criminal justice system and we will continue to work closely with them.’
After appearing before Bournemouth magistrates the following day, Restivo was further remanded in custody until 24 September, when the case would be passed for review and assessment to Winchester Crown Court.
Although at this stage Restivo was already being legally represented by Tracey Watson, a solicitor with the Bournemouth firm Jacobs and Reeves, he boasted in prison that the world’s most celebrated lawyer would be taking up his case because they were blood brothers; by that, he meant they were both Italian. Of course, he was referring to Giovanni di Stefano, ‘The Devil’s Advocate’. Such a boast, ultimately, would only serve to undermine his claims of innocence and the ‘weakness’ of the allegations. Di Stefano, as we’ve seen, specialised in hopeless cases. So is that how Restivo really saw himself now – a hopeless case? Interesting. Even more interesting considering that di Stefano was already acting for Omar Benguit, who had been sentenced to life for the murder in Bournemouth of South Korean student Jang-Ok Shin (Oki). As far as self-publicity went, Restivo had possibly scored a spectacular own goal.
Meanwhile, in Salerno, Chief Prosecutor Franco Roberti and his deputy, Rosa Volpe, applied for a time-limited extradition of Restivo from the UK to enable them to question him in front of a judge and probably charge him with murdering Elisa Claps. The application was to be made through Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). However, now that Restivo had been charged in Britain and was officially part of the legal process, one that led inexorably towards trial, the UK prosecutors were adamant that the only journeys he’d be making in the near future would be the commute between prison and court in England.
On Monday, 8 November 2010, speaking in Italian through an interpreter, Restivo pleaded not guilty at Winchester Crown Court to the murder of Heather Barnett. The preliminary hearing, presided over by Judge Keith Cutler, lasted a mere 20 minutes. Restivo was dressed smartly in a grey suit and striped tie. His dark hair was receding at the front and sides, but was full and slightly curled at the back. He held himself ramrod straight with his chest puffed out. He coolly stared back at the judge through rimless glasses. His pink, plump cheeks and double chin were clean-shaven. Throughout his 20 minutes in court, he affected the air of a respectable and confident professional. His barrister, David Jeremy QC, made no application for bail.
The judge settled on 4 May 2011 for the start of the trial, putting aside at least two months for its duration. He said that it could have begun earlier, but would probably have been suspended for the Easter period and he was anxious to maintain as much continuity as possible for the jury in what was going to be a very complex case.
The stage was at last set for what the legal experts were predicting would be one of the most riveting murder trials in recent British legal history.