Public hearing date set for murderer whose conviction made legal history

A date has been set for a public parole hearing for a murderer who was brought to justice after his victim’s mother campaigned for a key change in the double jeopardy law.

William Dunlop, who murdered pizza delivery woman Julie Hogg in 1989, will attend a parole hearing in public on June 25, the Parole Board for England and Wales has confirmed.

He will not attend the Royal Courts of Justice in person, but the hearing will be streamed at the RCJ from prison. Part of the case will be heard in private.

Dunlop strangled Miss Hogg in Billingham, County Durham, and hid her mutilated body behind a bath panel where it lay undiscovered for more than two months.

The killer subjected the 22-year-old, who had a three-year-old son, to a violent sexual assault after she rejected him, in what prosecutors called a “premeditated and truly horrendous” attack.

He was tried twice for the murder but both juries failed to reach a verdict.

Three years later, while in jail for another crime, Dunlop confessed and admitted lying in court, boasting there was nothing anyone could do about it because of the double jeopardy rule in place at the time.

Miss Hogg’s mother, Ann Ming, campaigned for 15 years to get the 800-year-old law changed so that he could be charged with the same crime twice, and in 2006 he became the first person to be tried under the new rules.

He was convicted of murder and jailed for life.

In 2022, the Justice Secretary blocked a bid to move Dunlop, known as Billy, to an open prison, in the interests of public protection, despite a parole panel recommending the plan.