Simon Hall spent the Saturday night and early Sunday morning hours of the 15th and 16th December 2001 frequenting a couple of pubs in Ipswich and then went on to a nightclub called Liquid.

He left Liquid nightclub at around 2am with Jamie Barker, who was then the assistant manager of The Old Rep public house.

Both men spent around 3 hours together in Ipswich town centre, before walking to the Woolpack public house, ran by Scott Doughty, where Simon had been earlier in the night and left his car keys.

After getting his car keys from Scott Doughty, Simon Hall drove Jamie Barker home to Jamie Barker’s mother Angela Barker’s house in Myrtle Road, Ipswich, arriving at around 5.30am.

Simon Hall then drove to his adoptive parents Phil and Lynne Hall‘s house in Capel St Mary.

It would have taken Simon Hall approximately 20 minutes to drive back to Capel St Mary from Angela Barker’s house in Ipswich, as can be seen from the google maps image below;

The 2011 court of appeal judgment, which can be read here, wrongly stated at paragraph 4 that Simon Hall’s drive back from Jamie Barker’s address in Ipswich to Capel St Mary was “a journey of some 5 minutes”.

It was not and it is not known how or why the court of appeal judges got these crucial timings so wrong.

After parking his car in Snowcroft, Capel St Mary, Simon Hall walked to Joan Albert’s home. 

Killer Simon Hall made claim he put his socks over his hands to use as gloves, which is something the prosecution had indicated he may have done during his trial, as can be seen from an excerpt from prosecutor Graham Parkin’s closing speech;

Our submission to you is that it’s obvious one.

That this as I’ve described in careful burglar had covered his hands.

Whether with gloves, socks, you remember Mr Swann hesitated a moment before agreeing to that.

It may be he’s been out of the police force a very long time, but he accepted, yes he understands that sometimes socks are used.

Any piece of material, pull down your cuffs if it goes long enough, will do (sic)

Graham Parkin QC (Page 13, B)

Killer Simon Hall then claimed he used a long metal pole to smash Joan Albert’s ground floor kitchen window, located at the back of her property.

Pieces of glass were removed from the window frame and placed on the grass near a large frog ornament, as can be seen in the above crime scene photograph.

Simon Hall said he was able to climb through the window with ease as the black leather jacket he was wearing over his black larey or loud shirt with red splashes over it “protected’ him.

Once inside he said he looked for a “big looking” knife in Joan Albert’s kitchen drawer to “scare her” with, but it appears the noise of the breaking glass may have already disturbed Joan Albert.

Killer Simon Hall went on to allege that when he turned from having taken the knife from the kitchen drawer, Joan Albert was standing there and allegedly said to him “What are you doing”?

There was further evidence at the crime scene suggesting Joan Albert may have awoken after hearing her kitchen window being smashed and went down stairs to investigate, as her large yellow torch was found in her hallway, laying on the floor near her feet.

One of Joan Albert’s feet still had a slipper on but the other slipper was off, presumably from when she was attacked and fell, or was pushed to the floor, or during some other event caused by killer Simon Hall.

A second torch was found laying on its side behind a silver framed photo of Joan Albert’s husband Cyril, on her hall table close by to where Joan Albert’s body was found.

Lynne Hall told Suffolk police two months after her “friend” Joan Albert was murdered;

Joan also had either a yellow or orange torch, it was quite substantial because we actually joked about her hitting someone with it.

Joan bought the torch in the summer of 2001 when she was having the trouble with the kids.

The torch was beneficial as she let the dog out into the garden several times per night

Excerpt from Lynne Hall’s police witness statement dated 14th February 2002

Killer Simon Hall claimed he did not stab Joan Albert in the back, as was suggested by the pathologist Dr Michael Heath and presented during his trial.

He alleged he had stabbed Joan Albert from the front and the knife had penetrated “all the way through” her slim frame. 

Diagrams indicating the position of some of Joan Albert’s injuries can be viewed here

The crime scene suggested evidence of a disturbance on Joan Albert’s stair landing, where ornaments had been knocked over.

It’s possible Joan Albert may have knocked these over on her way down the stairs, or possibly when she made an attempt to go upstairs, in order to flee from Simon Hall.

A scene of crime officer stated;

The premises are a three-bedroom link detached house in a small cul-de-sac road.

The from garden is an open plan garden with a path to the front door and a drive to the garage door.

The rear garden is enclosed with scrubs and a 6-foot wooden panelled fence.

The garden is surrounded by gardens from other premises. Entry to the rear garden is by a secure door between the garage and the main house.

The house has a main entrance door at the front, which leads into the hall, with doors off to the lounge, downstairs toilet and kitchen and stairway to the first floor.

The lounge leads through to the dining room, which leads through to the kitchen.

The kitchen leads back to a hallway and the rear door.

The stairs lead to a landing, which has doors leading to the three bedrooms, the bathroom and the airing cupboard

we carried out a visual examination of the outside of the premises, the footpath that runs down the side of 17 Boydlands and side of 3 Vine Walk and the garden of 3 Vine Walk.

On the outside of the wooden fence to 3 Vine Walk were two indented shoe impressions in the grass.

Inside the garden of 3 Vine Walk next to the fence was another shoe impression in the flowerbed.

This shoe mark corresponded to the other shoe marks on the other side of the fence.

At the bottom of the garden next to the fence which backs onto the garden of 15 Boydland’s of 3 Vine Walk is black plastic compost converter, which had traces of dirt smeared across the too edge of it.

In the garden of 15 Boydland’s on the other side of the fence, which corresponds to the black plastic compost converter was a shoe mark impression in the flowerbed.

We then carried out a visual examination of the house.

The rear kitchen casement window had been smashed, with most of the glass out of the frame, some of the glass lay on the lawn and some lay on the worktop inside the window.

On the grass outside was a white coloured concrete frog, which appeared to have been moved from its original position on the lawn.

Inside the hallway lay the deceased occupant of the house, Mrs Joan Albert.

She lay on her back with her head up against the downstairs cloakroom door.

She was dressed in a white coloured nightdress and a red coloured dressing gown.

The dressing gown was open exposing the nightdress.

There was blood staining to the nightdress around the abdomen and chest area.

Ornaments and a flower arrangement had been knocked off a small shelf at the bottom of the stairs.

An eight and a half inch kitchen knife lay on the kitchen floor.

The cutlery drawer in the kitchen was open and a similar kitchen knife to that on the floor was half sticking out of the drawer.

The only other disturbance in the house was the plant pots on the inside of the kitchen windowsill had been knocked off into the sink and draining board

Excerpts from police scene of crime officer witness statement dated 21st January 2002

After carrying out his “brutal” and violent knife attack, and when Joan Albert was finally laying down on the floor of her downstairs hallway, killer Simon Hall claimed he had masturbated whilst standing over Joan Albert’s body. 

It was presumably also around this time Simon Hall had lifted up Joan Albert’s night gown. 

Killer Simon Hall claimed he had put his hand into his under pants whilst he was still fully clothed, apparently to ensure he did not leave any traces of his semen, bodily fluids or incriminating dna behind.

Killer Simon Hall also made the claim he had defecated in Joan Albert’s garden after he had committed his murder.

It is not known if this incident did occur, although police forensics did remove faeces from Joan Albert’s garden as part of their crime scene forensic examinations.

The faeces was bagged and labelled as “dog excrement”, which is what it may well have been.

A police forensic document stated;

The body of Joan Albert was found in the hallway of her home when neighbours failed to make contact with her by telephone early on Sunday morning, 16/12/01.

A spare key was used to gain entry to the premises, whereupon they found her laid on the floor, wearing her nightdress, dressing gown and slippers.

The deceased’s legs were slightly parted and her clothing was up by her chest, leaving her naked below the waist.

Whilst the front and rear doors were believed to be locked securely, it was observed that a rear kitchen window had been smashed and pieces of glass picked out of the frame, creating a hole large enough to be used as a point of entry and exit.

The deceased had received multiple stab wounds and a knife of the appropriate size/length was found on the kitchen carpet.

Amongst the injuries noted during the post mortem examination of the deceased were some knife cuts which appear to have been made some time after death

Excerpt from Operation Magdala police forensic document

During the initial stages of the crime scene examination, blood staining was observed in the hallway where the altercation appears to have taken place.

It was noted a yellow torch bore smeared blood and there was a single drop of blood on the hall table.

A knife, believed to be the murder weapon, was found on the kitchen floor, and although not obviously blood stained, it appears to have fatty smears on the blade.

An examination of the rear garden of the premises and the likely exit route over the fence of the adjourning property, 3 Vine Walk, revealed footwear impression.

These impressions appear to have been made by a plain soled shoe with a heel (the heel bearing a fine mesh pattern)

Excerpt from Operation Magdala police forensic document

Joan Albert’s body and clothing were tested for “any evidence of direct sexual activity”. None were reported to be found.

The long metal pole Simon Hall claimed he used to break the downstairs kitchen window was found by forensic officers in a neighbours garden.

It was labelled as exhibit AMB3 and Judith Cunnison, a forensic expert stated in her witness statement;

The fibres recovered from the metal pole (AMB3) differ from the constituent fibres of the dressing gown (MH8) and the flock fibres from 15 Boydlands

Excerpt from Judith Cunnison’s 12th of December 2002 police witness statement

Below are extracts taken from a 2013 forensic psychologists report;

..he was driving home in his newly acquired car in the early hours of the morning.

He stated that he became, and persisted in being, preoccupied with the ’idea of raping someone’.

This notion, he said, persisted and he drove directly to the house of the victim, with the intention of raping her in her house – he could give no coherent account as to why this elderly lady was the focus for his sexual or violent preoccupations

At around 6 a.m. he broke into her house via a kitchen window.

He was confronted by Mrs Albert who asked him what he was doing.

He took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her in the chest (he did not refer to stabbing her in the back).

The elderly lady fell to the floor (he maintained he attacked her in the kitchen, but her body was found by the neighbour in the hall at the foot of the stairs).

Excerpts from page 10 of William Long’s November 2013 psychology report

It is not known if killer Simon Hall confided in, or confessed to Joan Albert’s murder, in the early hours or days of the police investigations to any of his immediate family members, or others.

But it became clear they had their suspicions (Whether conscience or sub-conscience) based on their lies, deceptions, concoctions, smears and other telling and manipulative behaviours.

Link to Part 7 here