I don't believe that the unsubstantiated claim made by Julie Mugford, that J had told her that he had hired a hitman to kill his family for a £2000 fee, prevented J and his legal team from taking 'that' approach during the trial. I don't believe J had paid anyone to kill his family at all. The idea of introducing the hitman theory came about because 'Stan' Jones told Mugford that cops had seen an unidentified male inside the farmhouse soon after their arrival there. Jones reiterated to Mugford that cops knew that the person who was seen in the bedroom had not been one of the five victims, because about an hour later the same cops saw the man in question outside the farmhouse in the grounds walking away from the farmhouse. Armed with this information, and answers given to her by J during the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, Mugford knew about the sighting of the figure in the bedroom, by two of the cops and J himself, because J had told her on a couple of occasions about the person they had seen moving around in the bedroom. Mugford knew that whoever that person was, it could not have been J himself because J was outside in the grounds with the cops when all three of them had been observing this person via the bedroom window. 'Stan' had gone out of his way to persuade Mugford that by the time of 'that' sighting that all five victims were already dead, so it was 'obvious' that she must know the true identity of that ' unidentified male', person. From that point on, the only person Mugford could think might have been that person, was Mathew MacDonald...