THE Criminal Cases Review Commission has referred Gordon Park’s murder conviction to the Court of Appeal.

Gordon Park was convicted in January 2005 at Manchester Crown Court for the murder of his wife, Carol Park, 29 years after she went missing in the summer of 1976. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Carol Park’s body was found by amateur divers in Coniston Water in 1997 and the case became known as the Lady in the Lake murder.

Mr Park appealed against his conviction but the appeal was dismissed in November 2008. Little over a year later, on January 25 2010, he committed suicide in his cell at HMP Garth in Lancashire. In November 2010 members of Mr Park’s family applied on his behalf to the CCRC.

Following an exhaustive investigation, the CCRC has decided to refer Mr Park’s murder conviction for a fresh hearing at the Court of Appeal.

The Commission is referring the case because it considers there is a real possibility that the court will quash the conviction in light of new evidence. In the Commission’s view that real possibility arises from the cumulative effect of a number of matters including:

• The non-disclosure of expert opinion undermining the consistent implication by the prosecution that Gordon Park’s climbing axe could be the murder weapon.

• The non-disclosure of information undermining the reliability of a prosecution witness who gave evidence of a prison confession.

• New scientific evidence showing that Gordon Park was not a contributor to DNA preserved within knots of the rope used to bind Carol Park’s body.

• Renewed relevance of expert evidence, presented for the appellant at the first appeal, that a rock found in the lake near Mrs Park’s remains could not specifically be linked to rocks at Bluestones (the Parks’ home).

A commission statement said the detailed review has considered numerous issues and lines of inquiry and involved several visits to Cumbria, interviews with multiple witnesses old and new, the use of cutting edge DNA testing and the investigation of multiple potential alternative suspects.

"During the review we have used our section 17[1] powers dozens of times to obtain material from the Forensic Archive, seven individual police forces, the courts, the Crown Prosecution Service, prison authorities, the Probation Service, and a number of other government agencies and public bodies," said the statement.