Judge Drake made a number of misleading comments in his summing up:
154. In dealing with the second question, whether Sheila Caffell may have killed the others and then committed suicide, the judge made clear that answering this question involved a number of different considerations. He suggested that one was "clearly of paramount importance", namely whether the second and fatal shot to Sheila Caffell was fired with the silencer on. If it was, she could not have fired that shot. He made clear that there were other considerations and the jury could come to the conclusion that Sheila Caffell did not carry out the killings "even without reference to the sound moderator". He added that the evidence relating to the sound moderator could, however, "on its own" lead them to conclude that the appellant was guilty.
"Then another point is that when she was found, there was no blood marks on her feet – on the soles of her feet. Well, you may think that is a matter of considerable importance because she had been involved in the fighting with her father as well as killing her mother, surely it is inconceivable that her feet would have been clean in the way that they were found to be, and in the way you see them to be clean from the photograph. What is suggested on behalf of the Defence is that after killing, at any rate, the father and the mother, she went and washed; and tied up with that piece of evidence is the fact that there were no marks of lead on her hands."
"As to the suggestion that she may have washed, well it is a matter to which I am sure you will give thought because it may be an important part of the evidence in this case that her hands and feet did not bear upon them either blood on her feet, or marks from the bullets on the hands, that one might have been expecting."
"there were no blood marks on the soles of her feet. Well, you may think that is a matter of considerable importance, because if she had been involved in the fighting with her father as well as killing her mother, surely it is inconceivable that her feet would have been clean"
"In considering whether her past dishonesty affects your assessment of her as a witness in this case, no doubt you will bear one or two things in mind, namely that she volunteered her past offences to the bank who had lost the money when she went to them about a month after she had made her statement to the police in this case, and volunteered to them that if they look back they would find frauds for which she was responsible. She told you that she went there voluntarily and re-paid the money that had obtained, and it seems, does it not, that without her voluntary revelation of her own part in those offences, she would never have been caught for them. They would have never come to light, and it was in those circumstances that she was not in fact prosecuted for them. She received a police caution."
