Suzy Lamplugh murder suspect's desperate plea as he insists 'I have an alibi'

21 December 2023 , 23:08

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John Cannan said in his letter 'I was not involved in the disappearance of London estate agent, Suzy Lamplugh. I have an alibi.' (Image: Collect Unknown)

In his cell in a top security prison, John Cannan wrote to the Mirror insisting he did not kill Suzy Lamplugh and accusing police of prejudice against him.

Cannan, in jail for rape and murder, claimed to have an alibi for the day Suzy, 25, went missing in 1986, and said detectives on the case had pointed the finger at him in order to “divert public attention away from themselves”. Cannan, 69, sent the letter to the Mirror through his solicitor just weeks after the Parole Board had ruled that after 34 years in jail he was too dangerous for release. In his handwritten letter, Cannan says he wants to make a number of “points” in light of “recent publicity” about his parole. He begins by declaring: “I was not involved in the disappearance of London estate agent, Suzy Lamplugh. I have an alibi.” He claims that on July 28, 1986, the day Suzy disappeared, he had been in Birmingham “treating my mother to a spot of lunch”.

Estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, 25, went missing in 1986, and was officially declared dead, presumed murdered, in 1993 (REX/Shutterstock)

The letter John Cannan sent to the Daily Mirror

His mother Sheila suffered from dementia and it is unclear if she is still alive, but Cannan insists he told officers about the alibi in a recorded interview, which was conducted over three days in 2000 at Hammersmith police station. He writes: “So why do they insist upon blaming me?”

Cannan says: “I think it’s to divert public attention away from themselves. I have been deeply suspicious of them.” He accuses the police of “unfair and unjust” behaviour towards him. He writes: “They have generated such huge prejudice against me that it has caused me to lose faith in the world. The evil in prejudice lies... in the very nature of prejudice itself. It’s a horrible and divisive thing. I know, I’m living under it.”

Cannan rants that the “moral gods of our society” should “take note” of a biblical passage which reads: “There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth.” Signing off his letter J CANNAN, he writes: “In my view, the greatest evil of all is the evil done in the name of freedom and the public good.” In 1989, car salesman Cannan was handed a whole-life tariff, later reduced to a 35-year minimum, for murdering Shirley Banks, 29, in Bristol in October 1987. She was abducted and held at his flat before Cannan killed her by hitting her head with a rock. He dumped her naked body at Dead Women’s Ditch in the Quantock Hills in Somerset.

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John Cannan is serving three life sentences for the murder of Shirley Banks (Collect)

He was also convicted of the attempted kidnap of Julia Holman the night before he abducted Shirley, and the rape of a woman in Reading a year earlier. Six weeks before killing Shirley, Cannan joined a dating agency and filmed a video for prospective partners. Suzy went missing after going to meet “Mr Kipper”, according to her diary, to show him around a house in Shorrolds Road, Fulham.

She was officially declared dead, presumed murdered, in 1993, and in 2002 detectives publicly named Cannan as the prime suspect after it emerged he was nicknamed “Kipper” by people at a bail hostel where he lived at the time Suzy disappeared. But there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. Earlier this year, it emerged that Scotland Yard detectives had launched a forensic review of the case.

Cannan, who is being held at HMP Full Sutton, East Yorkshire, has never admitted his crimes. His solicitor, Dean Kingham,said: “Mr Cannan has long been linked to the disappearance of Ms Lamplugh by police. There is a distinct lack of evidence. to put before a court.”

Det Chief Insp Teresa Foster sent a new appeal for information. She said: “Whether you saw something that you thought was unconnected at the time, or felt under pressure to protect someone you knew – it is not too late. The passage of time has not weakened our determination to seek justice.”

Dan Warburton