A Wimbledon man has pleaded not guilty to murdering a man whose body was later discovered inside a suitcase dumped in Kent woodland.
Jamie Cooper, 27, of Kingfisher Court, Wimbledon, appeared at the Old Bailey via video link on Wednesday, where he entered a not guilty plea to the murder of Dale Mundell, of Islington. Cooper is accused of killing Mr Mundell on July 8.
He was not asked to enter a plea to a separate charge of perverting the course of justice.
Co-defendant also appears
During the same hearing, Joshua Miller, 33, of the same Wimbledon address, also appeared by video link. He was not asked to enter a plea to murder or to perverting the course of justice.
Both men are due back at the Old Bailey on October 23.
The alleged timeline
At a previous hearing at Medway Magistrates’ Court, the prosecution said a body had been found in a suitcase in Borstal, Kent.
The Metropolitan Police said officers received a report of a possible murder at Kingfisher Court, off Queensmere Road, at around 10.55pm on July 9. When officers searched the property, no one was found inside — but police believed someone had “come to harm” at the address and launched an investigation.
The following day, July 10, the body of a man was discovered in a wooded area of Borstal.
The investigation so far
The case began with a late-night call. At around 10.55pm on July 9, officers were sent to Kingfisher Court, off Queensmere Road in Wimbledon, over a report of a possible murder. The address was searched, but no one was there.
What the officers found — or did not find — was evidently enough to convince them that someone had “come to harm” at the property. That kind of assessment is the trigger for a full investigation: forensic teams, door-to-door enquiries, and checks of CCTV and phone records typically follow, as detectives try to establish who was last at the address and where they went.
The following day, July 10, a man’s body was discovered in a wooded area of Borstal — a village on the edge of Rochester in Kent, around 30 miles from Wimbledon. The prosecution told Medway Magistrates’ Court that the body had been found inside a suitcase.
How investigators connected the Wimbledon address to the Kent woodland has not been detailed in open court, and much of that evidence will only emerge at trial.
What a plea hearing means
Wednesday’s hearing was a plea hearing — the stage in a Crown Court case where the defendant is formally asked how they plead to each charge. A not guilty plea to murder means the case will now head towards a full trial, where a jury will hear the evidence and decide the verdict.
The perverting the course of justice charge against Cooper, and both charges against Miller, were left unpleaded for now. That is common at this stage: pleas to secondary charges are often taken later, sometimes on the day of trial, and the court will set a timetable for the prosecution and defence to prepare.
The Old Bailey, formally the Central Criminal Court, deals with the most serious criminal cases in London and the South East. Murder cases from across the capital routinely end up before its judges.
What happens next
With the not guilty plea entered, the court will now fix a trial date at the October hearing. Between now and then, both sides will exchange evidence, agree which facts are disputed, and deal with any legal arguments about what the jury should be allowed to hear.
Murder trials at the Old Bailey typically last several weeks once they get under way, depending on the complexity of the evidence. Until a jury delivers its verdict, Cooper remains an accused man — innocent in the eyes of the law.
Earlier this week, a man was jailed for life at the Old Bailey over a separate London murder case dating back to a 2006 attack.
