“DCI Ben Lavender’s team have gone back to the very beginning of the investigation and examined all the evidence through the modern lens and using artificial intelligence”
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How the Melanie Hall murder mystery can be solved 30 years on
Having spent time with DCI Ben Lavender and his team it is clear they are approaching Melanie’s case in a thoughtful and methodical way.
It is also apparent that Ben’s bosses at Avon and Somerset Police have backed him with the resources needed to carry out meaningful work when so many cold case teams around the country are being starved of resources.
The savage cuts to policing that came in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis has meant forces are increasingly compelled to concentrate on frontline policing, sometimes to the detriment of families who have been deprived of justice.
By going back to the very beginning of the investigation, to the first witness statement and first “action” of his former colleagues, Ben can look at what was known in 1996 through the lens of what he knows now about the potential suspects.
He has brought together all the paper files and put them on computer systems so his officers can carry out word searches and cross reference quickly.
This could throw up all sorts of interesting possible new clues that may not have been spotted at the time.
For example, when Melanie went missing in 1996 Christopher Halliwell did not come into the investigation at all because he only had spent convictions for burglary.
It was not until 2011 that Hallwell was finally caught. Though he was considered as a possible suspect then, Ben can now bring together everything that is known about him in 2026 to compare to the original evidence.
Could it be the case that a vehicle linked to him was caught on CCTV in Bath during the relevant period?
Ben is keen to emphasise that Halliwell is not a strong line of enquiry for him at the moment but the same process will be carried out for the other persons of interest in the case.
Each one has been logged on a database so specialist officers can methodically check if any of them show up in the evidence. It will be these hard yards that are most likely to produce a possible nugget that could lead officers to the answers they are looking for.
And the development of artificial intelligence will undoubtedly provide a huge boost to cold cases like Melanie’s in the coming years.
Avon and Somerset Police began trialling technology a couple of years ago which can identify potential leads that may not have been found during a manual trawl of the evidence.
The Soze tool can analyse video footage, financial transactions, social media, emails and other documents simultaneously.
Gavin Stephens, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said at the time that the technology could be used to help close some of the country’s most notorious unsolved cases.
“I could imagine this sort of thing being really useful for cold case reviews,” he told reporters.
In recent years it has often been a forensic breakthrough that has solved historical unsolved cases.
But a reliance on forensics can sometimes overshadow the merits of good detective work.
In Melanie’s case it could be that a couple of seconds of CCTV may be enough to build a case with other circumstantial evidence.
For the sake of Melanie’s parents, Steve and Pat and her sister Dominique, let us hope that the hard work of Ben and his team pays off.
Call 101 and ask for Avon and Somerset Constabulary and say you have information relating to Operation Denmark, or provide information through the dedicated appeal on the Major Incident Public Portal here: Public Portal
Crimestoppers can also be contacted on 0800 555111 or online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org
