‘Dr Jones’ takes secrets of his wife’s brutal murder to the grave

A womanising doctor who was suspected of battering to death his wife in one of Britain’s most infamous unsolved murder cases has died and taken the secrets of the killing to his grave – after apparently escaping justice for nearly 40 years. 

Dr Robert Jones, who was never charged with the murder of his wife Diane, 35, passed away at the age of 80 several weeks ago in France where he had lived for many years.

Friends of former social worker Mrs Jones told MailOnline how they always believed he had killed her, but he had cheated justice due to a lack of evidence.

One who asked not to be named said: ‘It looks like he has taken the secret to his grave. It seems so wrong that he lived as a free man for 40 years. He got away with murder.’

Mrs Jones had a tempestuous relationship with her GP husband before she disappeared on the night of July 23, in 1983, from their farmhouse home in Coggeshall, Essex.

Diane Jones, 35, was found murdered next to a road at Martlesham, Suffolk, on 22 October 1983 – three months after she was last seen

Dr Robert Jones, seen leaving his home. Diane, who was two months pregnant, was found in undergrowth at Brightwell, near Martlesham

Dr Robert Jones’ farm house at Coggeshall in Essex, where Diane disappeared on the night of July 23, in 1983

He was at the centre of a media storm after it was revealed that they had a public row earlier in the evening at the town’s 15th century Woolpack pub.

Mrs Jones drunkenly fell off a bar stool, and was heard telling Dr Jones that she did not want to go home with him as she feared he would beat her up.

Witnesses told how he carried her out of the pub and put her in the car before driving her nearly a mile back to their historic home Lees Farm on the outskirts of Coggeshall.

Dr Jones claimed he last saw his wife when she got out of the car at their gate to walk the short distance to the front door while he parked the vehicle in their garage.

But he raised eyebrows by waiting nine days before he reported her missing, telling Essex Police that she had a drink problem and had gone missing previously.

Police immediately treated her disappearance as suspicious, and searched 16th century Lees Farm as well as its garden and outbuildings in a hunt for clues.

The couple who had been married for little more than a year were said to have regularly rowed and were on the verge of splitting up when she vanished.

Mrs Jones who had been married once before and was the doctor’s third wife was reported to have had a string of lovers. It was also reported that her young daughter had been taken into care.

Further suspicions about Dr Jones were raised after it was revealed he had sold his blue Peugeot estate car seven days after she went missing and two days before he called police.

Dr Robert Jones, with Det Insp. Greg Moss. Dr Jones was arrested and questioned for 55 hours along with his ex-wife Sue Smith and Paul Barnes 

Diane Jones went missing from her Essex home after spending the evening in the Woolpack Inn, Coggeshall, with her husband

Friends of former social worker Mrs Jones told MailOnline how they always believed he had killed her, but he had cheated justice due to a lack of evidence

He claimed that he could not remember who had bought the car, but it was traced by police to a buyer in Chelmsford and was found to still contain his wife’s handbag.

Police were also told that Mrs Jones had previously revealed to friends that she had been a victim of domestic violence at the hands of the doctor.

As national press and TV descended on Coggeshall to report on the case, Dr Jones defiantly carried on working at the town’s surgery where his second wife Sue Smith was his receptionist.

There were more headlines when police took away his garden gate for forensic examination amid reports that it had been repainted soon after his wife’s disappearance.

Dr Jones tried to escape the furore by joining friends on holiday in Queensland, Australia, as police continued the search.

The badly decomposed body of his wife was found by beaters on a shoot nearly three months later on October 22, 1983, hidden in undergrowth in a copse next to a roadside layby at Brightwell near Ipswich, Suffolk, around 30 miles away from Coggeshall.

It meant that the missing persons inquiry conducted by Essex Police became a murder investigation led by Suffolk Police.

A post mortem revealed that Mrs Jones’ skull had been fractured in four places by a weapon, believed to be similar to a roofer’s hammer with a spike on one side and a blunt surface in the other.

Dr Jones who was away in Wales when his wife’s body was found was arrested on suspicion of her murder on November 14, 1983, and quizzed for 55 hours before being released on police bail.

Just a month later, he was in court for drink-driving and given a 12 month driving ban and a £100 fine.

Dr Jones arriving at court on drink driving charge. Dr Jones tried to escape the furore by joining friends on holiday in Queensland, Australia, as police continued the search

Privately, police made no secret about Dr Jones being the prime suspect for the murder of his wife

Officers quizzed him for another eight hours at Ipswich police station in February, 1984, but he continued to protest his innocence.

Suffolk Police announced nearly two months later in April 1984, that the Department of Public Prosecutions had found that ‘as matters stand there is not sufficient evidence to justify the sanctioning of proceedings against Dr Jones for the murder of his wife.’

The terse statement added: ‘Inquiries into the death of Diane Jones will continue.’

The GP’s solicitor David Church said at the time: ‘Dr Jones has maintained his innocence throughout this long and trying investigation and the decision by the DPP is consistent with that.’

Privately, police made no secret about Dr Jones being the prime suspect for the murder of his wife.

Mrs Jones grew up in Tealby near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, as the only child of builder Sid Walker and his wife Phyllis, a primary school headteacher.

Her friend Geoffrey Portlock who knew her when they were both teenagers said police had told him that they were convinced her GP husband had killed her.

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, he said: ‘I had great love and respect for her family. In the old days, she was like a tomboy. She used to like going into the woods and making treehouses.

‘She was a really lovely lass and grew into a beautiful woman. She was a smashing person and a lot more attractive than the old black and white picture put out by the police which made her look almost like Myra Hindley.

‘Her father used to play golf with my father. She started off hairdressing and her father altered part of the house so she could work from home. I think she later became a social worker.

‘But the reports about her disappearance made her out to be some kind of harlot. It was really sad because she was a lovely person.’

Dr Jones with girlfriend Heather Blackwood. Dr Jones who had a daughter from his first marriage and two sons from his second continued to lead a tangled love life after his wife’s murder

Dr Jones got married for a fourth time in 1988 when he wed divorcee Lorna Eaton in Lewes, East Sussex. Pictured above is Dr Jones with girlfriend Heather Blackwood

Retired project co-ordinator Mr Portlock, 76, who still lives in Tealby said: ‘She was married to someone else for a very short time. Then she married the doctor.

‘I was living away and was visiting my family home at Tealby when she was back seeing her dad. I spoke to her on the phone and she sounded flustered, and asked me to come over.

‘I found her really tearful. Her father and her husband were in another room. She told me how she was frightened of the doctor and had been beaten by him. I was trying to console her.

‘From that point, I began to speak to her quite regularly on the phone after she returned to Coggeshall. I was concerned for her. She was struggling and had begun drinking. I blame her husband for making her like that.

‘While I was away, the news came out that she had gone missing. Then her body was found.

‘During the investigation, I saw on the news that police wanted to speak to people who might feature in her address book, so I got in touch with them.

‘I was living in London at the time and a detective came to see me. He was clear about how he thought the doctor had done it. He said, “We know who did it. We will get him”. Unfortunately, they didn’t.’

Mrs Jones was buried at All Saints Church, Tealby, in May 1984 alongside the grave of her mother who had died suddenly four years previously.

Dr Jones attended the funeral and was largely ignored by Mr Walker and members of his family as they were pictured at the graveside.

Mr Portlock said: ‘Her death left her father devastated. It must have made it worse that nobody was brought to justice. He was already pretty wound up about losing his wife when he lost his daughter as well.

‘My father used to say that poor Sid was not in a good way and did not want to play golf any more.’

Mr Walker who died aged 83 in 1995 earlier told of his anger that Welsh-born Dr Jones had sold his story to the News of the World for a reported £40,000 in 1984.

He said: ‘I don’t know what kind of man he is to do this. He has only written to me since Diane disappeared and that was before her body was found.’

Mel Barrett, 56, who is the current manager of the Woolpack pub in Coggeshall, said: ‘Everyone around here believes that her husband murdered her – but a lot of people said he was a really good doctor and they liked him.

‘Back in the day, my Nan used to see him and he prescribed her diet pills which other doctors didn’t give to her.

His surgery at Coggeshall in Essex. Detectives came close to getting a piece of crucial evidence to charge him when it was revealed that a motorist had possibly seen the GP dumping his wife’s body

‘I don’t think she really cared if he had done it or not to be honest. He had a reputation for giving out pills which made him popular.’

Ms Barrett, the former landlady of the oak-beamed pub, said: ‘Locals still talk about it now.

People remember the barstool she fell off on the night she disappeared.

‘There was a bit of a row and the story was that her husband had to carry her out.

‘People remember the police being everywhere in the village while they were hunting for her and later when they were investigating her murder.

‘I know one man who got quite friendly with the cops. After the investigation was closed, this officer told him, “We know he has done it. We just haven’t got the evidence to charge him.”’

The discovery of Mrs Jones’ body ramped up pressure on Dr Jones and led to fresh police searches at his Grade Two listed home.

At one stage, he was pictured throwing a bucket of water over a reporter outside his house as his life came under the spotlight once again.

Detectives came close to getting a piece of crucial evidence to charge him when it was revealed that a motorist had possibly seen the GP dumping his wife’s body.

The motorist who was driving home from a dinner at the former Melton Grange Hotel in Woodbridge, Suffolk, had seen someone carry what looked like a rolled up carpet out of a car at Brightwell.

He was so concerned that he wrote down the number plate on a menu card from the hotel, and left it in his car.

The motorist only realised the significance of what he had seen and informed police after the body of Mrs Jones was found at the spot three months later, but by then he had lost the card with the number plate written on it.

Reports in 1985 suggested the man later recalled some details of the number plate which apparently matched the number of Dr Jones’ car when he underwent hypnosis.

But sources at the time suggested that his evidence would be ruled as inadmissible so it could not be used in any trial.

Chief Supt Eric Shields of Suffolk Police who led the investigation into the murder of Mrs Jones recalled the motorist’s claims and his frustration about the case being unsolved in an interview after his retirement and before he died aged 89 in 2019.

He told the East Anglian Daily Times: ‘The main frustration is that nobody was brought to justice. Everybody working on the case would have liked to have seen a conclusion to satisfy everybody.

‘It was disappointing for everybody that no action was taken against anybody. We had a lot of bad luck. Firstly, the body had been laying here for some three months. A lot of evidence had gone and there was no DNA in those days. That was all lost to us.

‘We were unlucky in that the guy who took the number plate of the car where the body was dumped and wrote in on a Melton Grange menu card unfortunately threw the card out before the body was found.

‘He knew the date when it was put there because they were going to Melton Grange to celebrate something, and I think it tied up with the weekend Mrs Jones went missing.’

A Major Crime Current Position Report obtained from Suffolk Police after a Freedom of Information request describes how Mrs Jones and her husband went to the pub at around 10.20pm on the night she disappeared.

Reports in 1985 suggested the man later recalled some details of the number plate which apparently matched the number of Dr Jones’ car when he underwent hypnosis

Dr Jones told reporters that he had left her at the gate to walk to the house so she did not have to walk a longer distance from the garage where he was parking his car

The report said: ‘In the Woolpack Diane was described by some witnesses as drunk. Soon after being seated at the bar Diane fell off a stool backwards and had to be helped up.

‘At closing time Diane refused to leave the public house and said to Dr Jones, “I’m not going home with you, you’ll beat me up”.

‘Dr Jones then put his dog, and Diane’s brown handbag, in his car and returned for Diane.

‘She refused to leave and had to be manhandled and carried to the door by Dr Jones. He then allegedly put her over his shoulder and carried her from the pub.

‘What happened after the couple left the Woolpack Public House remains in dispute.’

The report says that Dr Jones had reported driving his wife home and leaving her at the front gate.

It adds: ‘This was the last time she was seen alive. Dr Jones eventually reported his wife missing to the local police on August 1, 1983. Essex Police immediately treated her disappearance as suspicious.’

Dr Jones told reporters that he had left her at the gate to walk to the house so she did not have to walk a longer distance from the garage where he was parking his car.

He said: ‘She always liked to do that because the gravel damages ladies’ heels. I parked the car in the garage and was just a few minutes.’ But he added, that he had found her gone when he went back into the house.

Dr Jones who had a daughter from his first marriage and two sons from his second continued to lead a tangled love life after his wife’s murder.

He ended up in a relationship with Gina McFarlane, 22, who was the daughter of his housekeeper and became a father again when she gave birth to their baby son in October, 1984, just a year after his wife was found dead.

Dr Jones got married for a fourth time in 1988 when he wed divorcee Lorna Eaton in Lewes, East Sussex.

His life was said to be in ruins in July 1993 when he was found guilty of professional misconduct and struck off the General Medical Council register, meaning he could no longer practice after failing to examine a patient who later died.

He claimed after the hearing that his wife had left him two months earlier ‘because the money wasn’t coming in’ and that he faced having his house repossessed.

The doctor with girlfriend Heather Blackwood. Local residents in Coggeshall suggested that he was living with a French partner in France when he died

His 58-year-old asthmatic patient had complained of breathlessness which Dr Jones blamed on rape seed crops. But he turned out to have a pea lodged in his lung which caused a fatal infection.

The incident happened when Dr Jones was already suspended for failing to adequately examine another patient, although he had been allowed to continue to practice pending an unsuccessful appeal in the High Court.

Local residents in Coggeshall suggested that he was living with a French partner in France when he died.

The area of scrubland where Mrs Jones was found is yards away from what is now the A12 dual carriageway by-pass around Ipswich, and just a mile from the Suffolk Police headquarters at Martlesham Heath.

Former Suffolk Police sergeant Neil Boast, 61, recalled being a young ‘greenhorn’ constable when he guarded her body overnight after the grim discovery was made beside the old A1093 road which is now a cul-de-sac.

He told MailOnline: ‘The scene was preserved with police tape and there was a large tent around her remains with generators set up and lights.

‘I had to stay with her in the tent and log everyone going in and out. At that time, nobody had any idea that it was the body of Mrs Jones.

‘I remember a big fuss about a cigarette butt being found at the scene, and then a detective remembering that he might have accidentally dropped it.

‘Once she was identified, I was also part of the team which searched all the roadside verges down the A12 and the A120 from Brightwell down to Braintree.

‘We were told that we were searching for a slate hammer. They gave us some gardening kits, metal detectors and hatchets to clear vegetation. We did our best, but found nothing.

Dr Jones was re-arrested on suspicion of murder in June 1990 and quizzed for another 50 hours before being released without charge

‘In those days, there was more sharing of information between uniform officers and CID about the progress of a case.

‘The feeling was that the doctor was ice cool and they were never going to get a confession out of him. I personally felt that if she had been murdered by him, then the police would have a really hard job convicting him.

‘Things may well have been different if it happened today with all the advances in recovering DNA and forensic science.’

Retired maltings worker Brian Messenger who lives 100 yards from where the body was found, said: ‘I had been to a speedway meeting at Coventry and came home at 1am or 2am, and saw all the lights down the road with the police activity.

‘The police came to ask me if I had seen anything suspicious, but I had not. The area where she was found was just a piece of scrubland by a field entrance. It was huge news at the time.

‘I had friends who were police officers. They would say that they were not looking for anyone else. They were fairly certain that was the guy, but they could not pin anything on him.

‘The doctor was definitely in the frame. The fact that he reported her missing so long after she disappeared was very suspicious. He might have lived for another 40 years, but I bet he was wondering all his life whether there would be a knock on the door.’

Steve Potter, 52, who runs the Holeshot Café in a converted coach next to where the body was found, said: ‘I was a boy when the murder happened, but I remember the story.

‘I have had the café here for 13 years. People often talk about it being where the place where the body was found.

‘It must have been embarrassing for the police never solving the case when her body was dumped so close to their HQ.’

Dr Jones was re-arrested on suspicion of murder in June 1990 and quizzed for another 50 hours before being released without charge, following reported claims by market gardener Paul McGillivray that he had seen a woman in a country lane the night after Mrs Jones disappeared.

Mr McGillivray returned to the area and saw a parked car with a tarpaulin or plastic sheet on the rear seat and a woman’s leg sticking out. A man then approached him in a menacing manner and he drove away in his van, he claimed.

He told a newspaper that he recognised Mrs Jones as being the woman he had seen when he later saw her picture in a newspaper, and made an anonymous call to police about his sighting.

But he came forward again seven years later, saying he was prepared to be named and to be a witness.

McGillivray told reporters that he did not recognise the man when he saw him, but now realised who it was. Reports did not name the man he saw, but it is believed to have been Dr Jones.

A Suffolk Constabulary spokesman said: ‘The murder of Diane Jones remains an unsolved case and we are still keen to hear from anyone who may have information that can assist as to the circumstances to her death.’

Anyone with information should contact the Joint Norfolk and Suffolk Major Crime Review Team on 01953 423819 or email:unsolvedcasereviews@norfolk.pnn.police.uk.