Today’s story starts in Didcot, which is about seventy miles west of London and around halfway between Reading and Oxford. All Saints Church has been in Didcot since about 1160 and there has been a church of some sort on the site since before the Norman Conquest back in 1066. The solemn building has witnessed many changes and happy times. But of course, many funerals and sad times too. But it is hard to believe it had seen any sadder occasions than on the 18 December 2013, when a body was discovered in an established grave in the graveyard which had recently been disturbed. That body was soon confirmed as being missing seventeen-year-old Jayden Parkinson.
How had Jayden’s life been cut so short? Let’s go right back to Jayden’s earliest days where she grew up in Folkstone before moving to Oxford, where her parents split up – nothing unusual there, many children experience their parents breaking up. But it was a very bitter parting, and the courts were involved as her parents fought a two-year custody battle, before she moved to Manchester to stay with her dad. But when she was thirteen, Jayden took the decision to move to Oxford to live with her mum. Jayden struggled as a teenager and her behaviour deteriorated. Her mum Samantha said, “She was forever being excluded, one year she had twenty-two different exclusions” When she wasn’t excluded, she often bunked off from school and ran away from home leaving her mum worried about what she was doing and with whom.
When she was fifteen, she met twenty-year-old Ben Blakely through a mutual friend. It was a year later that they started dating and friends said she was besotted with him. Quite why is hard to understand. He used to be a bin-man, who was known as a drug user and petty criminal with a history of assault; including his previous girlfriends, pushing one down the stairs. In fact, Blakeley was a serial abuser of all his girlfriends, including Jayden. He was a weak, inadequate man who always wanted to control them, not allowing them to socialise with anyone else either male or female and confiscated their phones. He also punched, kicked and bit them. A real catch, huh, but for the vulnerable Jayden, well, she was indeed besotted.
But as we have heard so many times on this podcast, there are signs of this controlling behaviour. One of Jayden’s friends later said that soon after the pair started dating Jayden’s appearance changed, with Jayden wearing less make-up and starting to cover up her body, saying: “Everything started changing, to see her then with him it was the trackies, the covering up, not doing her hair and make-up, so to see her like that I was shocked. I didn’t hear from her, I saw her walking past and she blanked me, I thought, “okay leave it for a couple more weeks and talk to her again”.
Another friend of Jayden’s spoke of the fuss Blakeley made when she and Jayden had attended her grandma’s funeral together: “She just wasn’t herself in any way shape or form,” said the friend: “It was really, really sad to see. He was constantly ringing her phone; every five minutes it was ridiculous. She was on the phone to him, he was telling her she was lying, that she wasn’t where she said she was and I got on the phone and I said “Leave her alone she’s at a funeral” and he said “Don’t you think I’ve hurt women before? You’d just be another one.” He was vile. He was so vile. I was so shocked she took the phone back and he continued to give her abuse, she was frightened even though she wasn’t there, it was like someone had sucked the life out of her.”
When Jayden turned seventeen, social services stepped in the local area got properly involved and with their help, Jayden moved to the One Foot Forward hostel in Oxford. Staff there were shocked at the levels of control Blakely had over Jayden. She remained in her room and refused to use the toilet or shower, because her boyfriend told her not to – having to go to the toilet in milk bottles in her room. But with the support of her family, friends and workers at the hostel Jayden managed to find the strength to finish her relationship with Blakely – we can’t underestimate just how difficult this was for her to do. Jayden’s key worker at the hostel spoke about how badly Jayden’s relationship with Ben had damaged her. She told how Jayden said over time she had lost all her friends, both male and female, and had been left with no friends. She said that Ben had been the cause of her falling out with all her friends. And when the relationship ended on November 21, 2013, Jayden’s mood completely changed. She was back to the old Jayden and was just really happy, playing around with the others and having fun.
And when she did end their relationship, and Blakely heard that she had been intimate with another man, his response was typically abhorrent. He threatened to post of naked pictures and videos of Jayden online – seemingly in the hope that this made her take her own life. Jayden reported this to police and set about building her new life and slowly the old Jayden came back – someone who giggled a lot. But then she made the discovery that she was pregnant with his child. She contacted him to let him know but he didn’t believe her. Against the advice of staff at the hostel, in order to persuade him that she was pregnant, and he was the father, Jayden arranged to meet him on 3 December. Due to his jealousy and controlling nature he had taken away her phone, so she rang him from the hostel landline. Jayden was seen leaving the One Foot Forward hostel at 3.41pm to meet him to let him know the news and the pair were seen going through the turnstiles at Oxford railway stain at 4.06pm, then arriving at Didcot. Later that evening, Blakeley was seen returning to Didcot train station, but this time alone. And that appearance at the turnstiles of Oxford railway station was the last time Jayden was ever seen alive.
Jayden’s mum was desperately worried as although she had gone away before she had always returned in a day or so. It was unlike her to lose all contact. She reported her daughter to the police as missing. Unfortunately, due to her chaotic lifestyle the police didn’t take her disappearance as seriously as they might at first – which must have been incredibly upsetting for her family and friends – but when there was still no sign a week after Jayden’s last contact, the Oxfordshire Major Crime Unit became involved in the investigation.
DCI Chris Ward from the investigation explains what happened next:
“I looked back over the circumstances of her disappearance and the fact she had been no contact whatsoever with her family, which was unusual.
On the other occasions she had gone missing, within twenty-four to forty-eight hours she had made some form of contact, either on social media or she’d called her mother.
I asked the police officers on the investigation to start going through the proof of life checklist, things such as financial records, use of social media, use of technology, mobile phone use. This checklist derives from the fact it is virtually impossible for an adult to go missing without leaving any trace of their existence if they are alive.”
But with the CCTV showing that Jayden didn’t return from her last trip with Blakely, detectives strongly believed she had been murdered. Blakely was arrested on suspicion of murder and during his police interviews Blakely was his usual arrogant and frankly, vile self. At one point the charming Blakely said: “This is fucking crazy. Like she’s my ex-chick. She’s not even my girl anymore. I’m talking to a new girl, she’s not even my girl this has fuck all to do with me.”
Jayden’s mum Samantha told of what happened once detectives were actively working on Jayden’s disappearance, saying: “The officers came round and said you are going to hear on the news that we arrested him on suspicion of murder without a body. And they explained to me how the first twenty-four hours is the most important time to find somebody, and after that they don’t hold out too much hope. They told me I was to prepare myself for finding a body.”
The investigation really picked up pace as hours later, detectives received a phone call from a local taxi driver. DSI Ward again:
“The taxi driver said he had collected a man from a dirt track in Didcot at about one o’clock in the morning. That person had a large blue suitcase which was described as being covered in mud, and it was very, very heavy. That taxi was booked in a false name, but we were able to do some very quick telephone work, and we established very quickly that that call had been made from Ben Blakeley’s mobile phone.”
And the taxi driver told them that the man, who matched Blakeley’s description, had told him that he was stranded on the dirt track as his girlfriend had kicked him out of her house and the suitcase contained everything he owned. The taxi driver thought this was odd as it was a country road in the middle of nowhere with no houses around but hey, he was paid to pick up a fare. He also said that the suitcase was so heavy that he had to help Blakely lift it into the car. Detectives were certain that the suitcase contained Jayden’s body, but they needed to find out what Blakely had done next – and he wasn’t telling.
There was a deserted agricultural barn near where Blakely had been picked up by the taxi and officers and sniffer dogs searched the scene. As hoped, they found the scent of a body in the barn and on a serviette found in a field close by.
We hear a lot about DNA and other amazing ways that technology helps investigations. But sometimes, it is just good old-fashioned police work which turns up the leads needed, and so it was in this case as officers carried out door to door enquiries in the Didcot area.
DSI Ward again takes up the story:
“One of the houses they knocked on was the grandmother of Ben and his brother Jake. She said that Ben had come into her house a few days before, very agitated, saying he needed a suitcase. He took her suitcase, after having emptied the contents onto her floor. He came back a few hours later and dumped that suitcase in her shed, and it was covered in mud.”
At Blakeley’s grandma’s house, they found the large blue suitcase he had taken along with two spades – all covered in the same thick mud which was clay-like.
Then another call came into the incident room, this time about Blakeley’s brother Jake. Jake had been staying with the caller and he had told her how he had discarded items of clothing for his brother. Again, how many times do we hear that people involved in crime just can’t resist sharing information with people. It seemed likely that Jake had helped his brother bury Jayden’s body so he was arrested. But like his brother, he wouldn’t answer any questions.
So, detectives did something incredibly creative that I have never heard of before, I wonder if you have? They commissioned the RAF to carry out aerial photography which was then forwarded to a forensic archaeologist.
DSI Ward explains their thinking: “What we were looking for were any areas of disturbed soil. They identified ten areas, and the forensic archaeologist looked through each of them. Significantly, one of those areas was All Saints church in the cemetery, where there were some foot patterns around one of the graves.”
And that grave was where a man called Alan Blakely was buried. Alan was the late uncle of Ben Blakely.
It was a very unpleasant act that needed to happen next, as the graveyard was sealed off on 17 December as the experts got to work. Forensic archaeologist Dr Karl Harrison, who led the operation takes up the story:
“You’d expect a grave that had been occupied for some years to be grassed over, but in this instance, it had clod of soils on the top as if it had been recently excavated.
“There were green leaves that were mixed in with the fill, which gave us confidence that it had been disturbed recently. Anything green that had fallen in there when the uncle was buried would have long decomposed.
There were also tool marks present in the side of the grave, extremely crisp and fresh, extremely deep and which looked like they’d been delivered with high energy.
At a depth of around 40cm the fill of the soil became looser and then we could see the skin of Jayden’s body visible.”
Jayden’s mum Samantha clearly recalled the day Jayden was found, saying:
“I remember collapsing in my house, and that was it, my body and my head just switched off. I remember going to see the church and there were lots of flowers outside, I got to the gate of the church, and I remember going to the policemen and they took their hats off to me. They said it was their pride to be able to stand overlooking after her. I could see in their eyes they were hurt and upset. I will never forget how grateful I am to them, how they gave her in her death more respect than he ever showed her in her life, and even in her death.”
The post-mortem showed that Jayden’s cause of death was “consistent to pressure to the neck.” She had been strangled.
When police arrested Ben Blakeley again, he told them he was evil. Blakeley could no longer stay silent and told detectives that he was responsible for Jayden’s death, but he had not meant to kill her. He said that he and Jayden had their last argument on a footbridge at a disused railway that runs from Didcot to Upton. He said he did what he had done “a million times before” and grabbed her around the throat with both hands. And when she fell to the ground, he thought she was “joking”. He said that he tried to resuscitate her and used his mobile screen to check if she was breathing. When he realised, she was dead he initially dug one shallow grave in the countryside near where he killed Jayden and left to catch a train from Didcot back to his home in Reading.
He said how returned a few days later, when he put Jayden’s body in a suitcase and got a taxi to the All Saints cemetery, where he buried her in his uncle’s grave.
A Youth Worker who had known Blakeley when he was thirteen came forward to say that she overheard him say if he ever had to get rid of a body he would put it in a family member’s grave. “The DNA of two bodies would get mixed up,” he said, “and besides, “no one would bother looking there.”
Blakeley grew up with his three brothers and younger sister in Didcot, until his mum could put up with his behaviour no longer and told him to leave, which is when he moved to sheltered accommodation. And people who had grown up in the local area with him painted a very unpleasant picture. One neighbour said that when Blakely was about twelve, he had “tormented” her son for being gay. She said when her daughter pushed Blakeley off his bike trying to defend her brother, he threatened her with a knife. Others had similar stories of how he threatened and intimidated people hanging out on the streets. Blakely said that he had a troubled upbringing and was violently abused by his Dad growing up, telling police: “I didn’t really grow up with my family, I grew up on my own.”
I think it is important that as well as those directly involved, we try to think about the family and friends of the victims of crime and also those who commit crime. Their lives too are changed forever and the pain and stress they go through is hard to comprehend. And this is never more the case than in this one where Jayden’s dad, forty-eight-year-old Paul Parkinson, travelled south from his home in Manchester to Folkestone days before the trial began in Oxford. But Paul didn’t make it to the trial as just days before, he died of a massive heart attack. His brother told the media that the stress of the upcoming trial contributed to his death.
At Oxford Crown Court, twenty-two-year-old Ben Blakeley, from Reading, admitted killing and burying Jayden but he denied murder. And during his trial, Blakeley came across about as well as you may expect. He couldn’t control his language, and his evidence was littered with swear words. And we saw an example of his over-riding need to be in control, even trying to take charge of the court proceedings at his sentencing by at one stage walking out of the dock, leading to a pause in the hearing.
Hi QC, Richard Benson, had a tough gig. Trying to portray Blakely as a half-decent human being despite all evidence to the contrary, he told how Blakely had written to the vicar of the church where he buried Jayden’s body to apologise for what he did.
It was up to the jury to decide, and eleven of the twelve members were very clear that Blakeley was guilty of murder.
Blakeley showed no emotion as the Judge passed the sentence of life in prison with a minimum of twenty years. The judge looked directly at Blakeley and told him how he had spun a “web of lies” to cover up the fact he had strangled her in a “jealous rage” after finding out Jayden had been intimate with another man. He added: “It required a heart of stone to keep up that pretence and a heart of stone to deal with her body in the way that you did.”
Talking about how Blakeley disposed of the body, the Judge said: “In your twisted mind you may possibly have thought that a graveyard was a better place for Jayden to be buried than a ditch in a field. There was no hint of respect of remorse in this hasty interment and I am convinced that your primary purpose was to prevent anyone else from ever knowing what had happened to Jayden Parkinson.”
Blakeley was also given eight years to be served concurrently for perverting the course of justice, a charge he admitted.
As Blakeley was taken down to the docks to begin his sentence, “see you in hell” was shouted from the public gallery.
Jayden’s family said in a statement: “We will never be able to find an ounce of forgiveness for the evil that murdered Jayden and then concealed her body in such a cold, calculated and callous manner.
For us as a family, today is not the final chapter in this tragedy.
We will never be able to celebrate birthdays, Easter or Christmas with Jayden, and we will never get to see Jayden grow up, get married and have children – this is our life sentence, it’s now time for Ben Blakeley to start his.”
They praised three of his previous girlfriends who gave evidence to the court and said he had a “sick and twisted mind”.
Blakeley’s eighteen-year-old brother Jake was later jailed for perverting the course of justice. He admitted lying to police during their enquiries into the murder of Jayden but somehow – just my view – he was acquitted of helping to hide her body after telling the court he believed he was burying dead animals. He told Oxford Crown Court he thought was burying weapons, a cat and a dog. The teenager said he was told they needed to tidy Alan Kennedy’s grave for Christmas. Talking of his instructions from his brother he told how Ben told him: “He said it was evil to dig in a graveyard, so we have to do it at night, and I didn’t know anything about that, so I went along with it. I thought we were digging about an inch and put down some new stones and the next day Ben was going to take me to Abingdon to get a headstone.”
He originally told police he knew nothing about where Jayden was, and didn’t come forward with the information about helping his brother to bury something. For this, he was sent to prison for three years.
It is sometimes the small details in stories that make you angry and in this one, Jake agreed to help his brother for the payment of an Xbox and £100. I know we weren’t in court so didn’t hear the evidence, but I find Jake’s story of what happened very hard to accept, don’t you?
Jayden’s mum said after this trial, “Time will never erase the evil that took Jayden from us. We can never forget or forgive the Blakeley brothers. Our nightmare will never end.”
Let’s return to where we started our story today. It was in August 2015 when Jayden’s mum, Samantha, returned to the churchyard, with a small number of friends and family as Reverend Karen Beck, of All Saints Church, read prayers. This was to mark the unveiling on a bench in a lovely, quiet spot in the graveyard in loving memory of Jayden.
I’m afraid that once again we have to criticise the authorities following reviews into how Jayden was looked after by the system. I know we have heard this so many times and it frustrates you as much as it does me, but let’s briefly look at the main failings. Essentially, the report said that the way police and councils responded to the disappearance of Jayden was fundamentally flawed. Jayden wasn’t adequately protected by Oxfordshire children’s social care in the months leading up to her death, and there was a “lack of information shared” about her killer by all involved agencies. The report continued that Jayden’s “needs and vulnerabilities as an adolescent were at times poorly understood, and agencies were often unable to help her access their services”.
The next line is particularly shocking but here goes. It said that a number of professionals involved with her were sometimes “actively unhelpful”, and “inadequate thought” was given to her relationship with them. “Too often she was seen as a “difficult young person and not recognised as a child in need of safeguarding”.
And there was criticism of the police investigation. Her mum Samantha spoke about how she was treated by police after reporting her daughter missing, claiming she was ‘treated like a neurotic mum that couldn’t keep her child in check’. This was backed up by the report which found the police response “failed to recognise the seriousness of the threat” made to Jayden by Blakeley and wasn’t responded to as a high risk which “significantly contributed to the family’s trauma”.
There is no guarantee of course that Jayden would still be here today if there hadn’t been all these issues with the authorities. And I appreciate that people are trying their best working with huge workloads in stressful environments where things aren’t joined up as they should be. And once again, it all sounds depressingly familiar doesn’t it.
So what do you make of this story?
Another shocking case and it is the first time in Britain that a murder victim has been buried in a pre-existing grave. Can you imagine the reality of doing this is a graveyard in the dark of the night. No, nor me. But then, nothing we have heard about Blakeley today makes him in any way relatable to you or me.
Maybe time in prison may lead him to reflect on how he lived his life and treated people – but I doubt it, don’t you. Even in his short life, it wasn’t just Jayden but the other girlfriends in his that he mistreated so badly. And even – if you believe their account – how he was happy to lie to his brother to do some of his dirty work too. You do wonder how he turned out like this, but it would only be speculation. Anyway, we have heard more than enough about him.
Poor Jayden. In case you were wondering, it was never said for certain if she was actually pregnant, which was the reason she met Blakeley that final fateful time. Just seventeen and just starting to get her life on track after a difficult start when all her hopes for the future were cut short. Once she had split from her abuser, she quickly returned to the bright, bubbly young woman she had been before he controlled her and her life. And if she was alive today, she would be, what twenty-eight – and no doubt living a very different life.
We have also heard today about the tragedy of how her dad died just before the trial at just forty-eight.
Just so sad.
And that is my overall thoughts when I reflect on what we have heard today – nobody wins, just sadness. Once again, as we finish our thoughts are with her mum Samantha and the rest of her family and friends.
This story was originally published as ‘Horror at the Graveyard’ – Episode 423 of the UK True Crime Podcast. The following sources were used:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-28484567
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-31819602
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-28250136
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-35643082
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/blunders-made-ex-who-murdered-14402978
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-28215829
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/world-news/jayden-parkinsons-killer-offered-teenager-3841473
https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/11344206.hostel-worker-saw-transformation-in-jayden-parkinson-after-split-with-blakeley-court-told/