Oxford-educated chief constable proudest of locking up OAP killer

A police officer for 27 years – many of them as a murder squad detective in Hampshire – Jason Hogg studied Theology at the University of Oxford.

Brought up on a council estate, where his mother was stabbed to death in front of him, it was an ‘inspirational’ philosophy teacher who persuaded him to apply to Oxford.

He won a place at Christ Church after smashing the entrance exams.

Always a better talker than writer, it was only after ‘spectacularly’ failing his Chief Officer exams that – at the age of 41 – he was diagnosed with dyslexia.

“I got the grade which was don’t come back again,” he told the Oxford Mail last week.

“I worked with a professional coach and she said within an hour of talking to me ‘you’re really dyslexic, you need to get a test’. I said of course I’m not - and of course I was.

“It makes sense when you look back why I always found writing difficult.

“I remember writing my essays at Oxford - overnight, usually - and very often I never finished them.”

Thanks to the practice of Oxford dons getting their undergraduates to read out their essays during tutorials it never proved an issue for the Theology student.

“I would pretend [the essay was complete] and I’d ad lib at the end,” Mr Hogg said.

It was a chance conversation with a Thames Valley constable called to The Gatehouse Project, where undergraduate Jason volunteered with the homeless, that persuaded him to apply to join the police.

Unlike Inspector Morse, the fictional Oxford detective, Mr Hogg completed his degree at Oxford before joining Cleveland Police as part of the Home Office accelerated promotion scheme in the 1990s.

He did six years in his hometown Hartlepool then transferred to Hampshire as a detective sergeant.

Mr Hogg rose through the ranks; unlike many chief constables he has served at every single detective rank, conducting child exploitation investigations and solving murders as part of major crime teams. 

His last big case as a murder detective was the brutal murder of Georgina Edmonds in her riverside cottage near Eastleigh in 2008.

The 77-year-old was beaten to death with a rolling pin and stabbed multiple times. Prosecutors hypothesised that the knife wounds were inflicted in a ‘sadistic’ attempt to make Mrs Edmonds reveal the PIN code for her bank card, which was stolen.

Georgina Edmonds Picture: Daily Echo/Newsquest

It was Mr Hogg’s boss and mentor’s last case before he retired. “He wasn’t able to solve it. I stepped in with a fresh pair of eyes and developed a new approach to how we would use DNA evidence differently.”

Through DNA evidence, the then detective chief inspector’s team identified Matthew Hamlen as the culprit.

The case they built against him was based largely on circumstantial evidence – and in 2012 he was acquitted of Mrs Edmonds’ murder.

“That was a career-turning moment for me. It was the only time in my 27 years I nearly left the police. I felt, you know, usually when cases go to court usually justice is done certainly for serious cases. I lost a bit of faith,” Mr Hogg said.

Over the next few years, the DCI and his crime scene manager worked on the case in secret.

“We kept on submitting bits of clothing and we got a lucky hit of a full profile of the offender,” he said. Hamlen’s DNA was found on his victim’s blouse.

Matthew Hamlen during his trial Picture: Daily Echo/Newsquest

Hamlen was re-arrested and, thanks to a change in ‘double jeopardy’ laws, faced a second trial. This time, the electrician was convicted by the jury.

Jailing Hamlen for life with a minimum term of 30 years behind bars, Mr Justice Saunders described the police investigation as ‘very extensive and very thorough’.