A LEADING detective today said he has new hope Karen Hales' killer may finally be caught. Detective superintendent Roy Lambert was speaking as details of the £50,000 reward were unveiled.

Mark Bulstrode

A LEADING detective today said he has new hope Karen Hales' killer may finally be caught.

Detective superintendent Roy Lambert was speaking as details of the £50,000 reward were unveiled.

He said: “Someone out there knows something about this terrible offence. We hope this money will encourage people to come forward and give us the evidence that will allow us to find the offender and place them before a court.

“Sometimes with offences like this the offender will have told someone, who may be part of their alibi for instance. But it's also possible they haven't told anybody because it is such a terrible crime.”

Det supt Lambert has led a team of around six officers who have reviewed the case in recent years in a bid to find new clues.

But despite advances in technology, this has not resulted in any major leads.

He said: “We looked at the original investigation. One of the objectives was to make sure anything obvious hadn't been missed. Unfortunately our reviews haven't found anything to take the investigation forward.

“What we've also done is to go back and see people again where there may have been some ambiguities in their evidence or if their personal situations may have changed.

“We also looked at the exhibits to see if we could apply today's science to what we didn't have then. Unfortunately that hasn't helped.

“However, technology is advancing so quickly and in so many areas that it may that at some point in the future we may be able to find new evidence.”

Det supt Lambert said no new suspects have emerged since the initial probe around the time of the murder.

He said: “There were a number of people that interested us at the time and they were seen and interviewed. But there hasn't been anymore come to the fore since the original investigation.

“The response from the public was quite good at the time. There were reports of people being seen in the area at the time.

”Someone may be with holding information through a misguided loyalty. What we really need is the one phone call with the right information.”