By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (December 1^st 2025)

The Concession Greatest Run

On January 14^th 2000 I explained to Superintendent Jim Kerr, a colleague of his and forensic scientist C. Michael Jenkins why the evidence strongly suggested that the petrol used in the fire in the early hours of October 11^th 1995 that cost Diane Jones, 21, and her daughters, Shauna Hibberd, 2, and Sarah-Jane Hibberd, 1, their lives, was unleaded. Jenkins agreed that what I had said made sense when asked by Kerr. After the concession regarding the type of petrol used in the fire Annette Hewins was completely exonerated or should have been. That also had serious implications on the case against Donna Clarke as it meant that the petrol bought by Hewins was not the petrol used to set the fire that night. That also meant that if Clarke set the fire, she would have had to obtain it during the 15-minute window of opportunity given by the Crown’s case, so Clarke would have had to go and get the unleaded petrol herself (probably by siphoning it), go to Diane Jones’ home, prise the wooden door panel off enough to throw the petrol into the house without waking Diane, go back to her home in Clover Road, change her clothes and go back to the friend’s house.

Clarke had to achieve all that in just 15 minutes. The nearest garages – the only sure places where the necessary type of petrol could have been obtained – were the Esso Garage in Dowlais, which was the nearest, or Snow’s, which was the nearest to Hewins’ home. As time was of the essence, Clarke was most likely to try one of those garages.[1] This also demolishes the suggestion about the Lucozade bottle as there would have been no reason for Clarke to have put some of the petrol Hewins bought into it but not used it and gone off to get unleaded petrol instead. Why would an arsonist spurn leaded petrol and only use the more environmentally aware unleaded form?

Distances and Timings

By car

121 Clover Road to Esso Garage, Dowlais 1.9 miles – 3057.7536 metres (estimated time 5 minutes).

Esso Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 1.9 miles – 3057.7536 metres (estimated time 6 minutes).

By bicycle

121 Clover Road to Esso Garage, Dowlais 2.4 miles – 3862.4256 (estimated time 16 minutes)

Esso Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 2.1 miles – 3379.6224 (estimated time 15 minutes).

By foot

121 Clover Road to Esso Garage, Dowlais 1.9 miles – 3057.7536 metres (estimated walking time 44 minutes).

Esso Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 1.9 miles – 3057.7536 metres (estimated walking time 44 minutes).

The other possibility was Snow’s Garage (now known as Applegreen) – I am using the distances and estimated times listed on google.[2]

By car

121 Clover Road to Snow’s Garage, Lower High Street, Merthyr Tydfil 2.0 miles – 3379.6224 metres (estimated time 6 minutes).

Snow’s Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 2.7 miles – 4345.2288 metres (estimated time 10 minutes).

By bicycle

121 Clover Road to Snow’s Garage, Lower High Street, Merthyr Tydfil 2.0 miles – 3379.6224 (estimated time 16 minutes)

Snow’s Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 2.7 miles – 4345.2288 metres (estimated time 26 minutes).

By foot

121 Clover Road to Snow’s Garage, Lower High Street, Merthyr Tydfil 2.0 miles – 3379.6224 (estimated walking time 44 minutes)

Snow’s Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 2.7 miles – 4345.2288 metres (estimated walking time 54 minutes).   

She then had to go back from 62 Marigold Close to her home in Clover Road, a distance of 965.6064 metres and then from that address back to 121 Clover Road, which is a distance of 56.9976 metres. This means that the total distances that Donna Clarke would have had to travel[3] based on the lowest figures are as follows. If she obtained the petrol from the Esso Garage that meant a total distance of 7138.1112 metres. But if she went to Snow’s Garage instead the total distance would have been 7942.7842 metres.

Donna Makes History – Her Greatest Run

This means that she would have had to run at a pace of:

7.93123466667 metres/second – Dowlais.

8.82531577778 metres/second – Snow’s.[4]

On July 26^th 1983 Jarmila Kratochvilová, then representing Czechoslovakia, ran the 800 metres in a time of 1 minute 53.28 seconds (113.28 seconds) in the Olympic Stadium in Munich (München). Her average pace during that race – a world record that still stands over 42 years after she set it was 7.06214689266 metres/second, which was a slower pace than Donna Clarke had to have ran to either of the garages mentioned above. Only the former East German Marita Koch (400 metres), the late Florence Griffith-Joyner (100 and 200 metres) and the Russian, Irina Privalova (50 and 60 metres) had run their races at a faster pace, although Koch and Privalova ran their’s at a slower pace that Clarke would have had to have done on the Snow’s Garage route.[5]

Donna Clarke had to have been a very, very special athlete – Britain’s greatest ever.

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[1] There was no guarantee that if petrol was siphoned from a parked car, that it would have the right type of petrol. She would have had to go to a garage.

[2] There was a significant difference between the recorded distance between Snow’s Garage as it then was and 62 Marigold Close. It was originally recorded on google as the equivalent of 3540.5568 metres. Precise measurements are required – interestingly, neither prosecution, defence or media as ever done this. In the meantime, calculations will be performed using the lowest figures – it will of course, be obvious that the task Donna Clarke would have had to perform would have been significantly harder to accomplish if the distance was longer.

[3] She had no car and could not wait for transport, nor was a bicycle available. There is no evidence that she was given a lift or that she found and used a bicycle – no discarded bike was discovered or evidence given about a journey that had not been required to discuss until after that meeting. She had to run – she had no time to waste.

[4] It would be preferable to obtain precise figures of the distances involved so the pace that she would have had to maintain throughout could be established precisely. Her pace has been calculated allowing the full 15 minutes. It should be noted that the Crown QC’s case at trial gave her less time. That will be incorporated in a forthcoming article.

[5] This will be shown in Donna Clarke’s Greatest Run Part Three, which will be published in this magazine soon.