Excellent post.
We can appreciate the pressure the police were under but more importantly the PF who, although he had refused to give permission for the police to charge Luke in November, gave it in April the next year even though nothing substantive had been added to the case file since the November before. This suggests the pressure to charge someone, anyone, was building.
Far from it -------
The infamous bleat - They had nothing, the case kept getting knocked back, no it did not. They were working together, QC, PF and the investigating officer. Why? Because of reform. Part of the reform also, those changes in techniques around information gathering strategies, lapses of time between each. Sound familiar?
Reform, audio on to video recording of interviews - You bleat on repeat the infamous couple of minutes of the "interrogation" but leave as usual to the side, the vast majority of the interviews being around Information gathering techniques, with them all.
Two people given alibi to the third - A clever and effective reform where SM was concerned, also seeing those changes, the lapses in memory of what one had said from one to the next. You are told they were consistent, far from it.
The winging it parts from the beginning, believing fully for some that it had worked, in again, more information gathering and bang. The time lapses of relaxing and fully believing that no arrest would come - Bang.
So yes, they did not have forensic evidence to use in conjunction with the murder, it had been destroyed, they knew this. They had three people interlinked with the alibi again knowing it was false. They had methodology in place around new techniques, putting that case carefully together in conjunction with each other. Having the suspect and those backing him, believing there was nothing and no arrest would come.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/I+GOT+R+RIGHT+KILLER%3b+PROSECUTOR+IN+JODI+TRIAL+SPEAKS+OUT+FOR+FIRST...-a0128589047?fbclid=IwAR3DBaATW-XnXm[Name removed]jQhCrAEkR4drf6DcmX5h_rwGrm_DuKZRy_5Xi22T_RM