Sam Hallam is arrested

Sam Hallam was arrested by police at his Hoxton home on 20th October 2004. He told the officers that as a consequence of the encounter with PH and her friend, he knew why they had come but that he had not been involved. He said that on the night in question, he was playing football with a friend TH on a local recreation ground. He was taken to Belgravia Police Station for questioning. Somewhat disastrously for Sam Hallam, police took a statement from TH on 20th October prior to the commencement of Sam's own police interviews. TH denied that he had been with Sam on 11th October. He said that he could not have been with Sam Hallam at the relevant time as he had been working a night shift from 7 pm to 7 am. Curiously, he signed a second written statement later that same day in which he said he now remembered that he had not worked a night shift on 11th October and had left work at 6.30 pm (it would, of course, have been a straightforward exercise for police to prove the veracity of TH's first statement by reference to his employer's work records). He still denied, however, having met Sam Hallam that night.

 Acting on the advice of the duty solicitor (repeated some twenty times during the course of police interviews), Sam exercised his right not to answer questions put to him. Detectives confronted him with the fact that TH had failed to confirm his alibi. Again on the solicitor's advice, Sam provided police with a prepared written statement in which he said that if he was mistaken about playing football with TH, he was probably baby-sitting his younger sister for his mother while she was out playing bingo. An obvious response to the problems with Sam Hallam's initial answer about his whereabouts on 11th October is that following PH's accusations, he had a whole week in which - had he wanted or needed to - he could have concocted more plausible alibi evidence than putting forward the name of a friend who in the event did not support him.  

Along with seven others, Sam Hallam was charged with murder, conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm and violent disorder./next