Balcony-death father could face trial again for murder after coroner ruling

As an inquest yesterday found that John Hogan "unlawfully killed" his son Liam in Crete, British police put in motion the legal moves that could see him face a retrial.

Officers have sent a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, where it will be reviewed to see if a case could be brought based on the testimony of previouslyunheard witnesses.

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One told the Bristol inquest into Liam's death she saw 33-year- old Hogan deliberately push his son from the hotel balcony 50ft up. The testimony was not heard at the Greek murder trial where Hogan was found not guilty after claiming to have been suffering from "an earthquake of insanity".

After the inquest Liam's mother Natasha Visser, who was Hogan's wife at the time her son died but who has since remarried, bitterly criticised the Greek legal system's failure to hold her former husband to account.

Shuddering with emotion, she described how she will remain haunted by the three hitherto-unknown British witnesses' descriptions of her son falling to his death.

Mrs Visser, 35, who claims that Hogan remains dangerous, added: "The Greek court made little attempt to establish the facts surrounding Liam's death and did not even call known eyewitnesses.

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"We understand that the decision about what happens next legally is in the hands of the English legal system.

"We can only trust that they will re- examine the evidence as a whole and make a decision that will protect John from himself and others."

She went on: "I cannot describe the pain I feel hearing that John had pushed his children off the balcony . . . walking away and then returning to push them.

"The image of the children looking like they were trying to reach out to each other will haunt me and my family for ever."

Hogan, from Bradley Stoke, near Bristol, turned killer during an argument with his then-wife on holiday in August 2006.

The former floor-tiler threw his two-year-old daughter Mia and Liam from the balcony before jumping himself. Mia survived.

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He told his trial he could not remember the incident. However Sarah Davidson, 38, who was on holiday in Crete, told the inquest: "I saw two children standing on the balcony on top of a wall. They were in front of the metal rail guard.

"The male came forward in between the two children and pushed them off."

At his trial, which lasted a day and a half, Hogan was declared to have been insane and legally incapable of being found guilty of murder or attempted murder.

Yesterday coroner Paul Forrest fell short of criticising the Greek verdict but said the trial did not have all the evidence in front of it.

He said Hogan's "incapability of understanding" was "irrelevant", adding: "The facts were abundantly clear in that the children were seen to be pushed off the balcony - objectively an unlawful act."

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The Crown Prosecution Service said if Hogan were re-tried in Britain, it would be the first time a British citizen has been tried for a second time when the original court case took place abroad.

The Daily Mail understands that any retrial is more likely to happen in Greece, where the supreme court has the power to declare the original a mistrial.

Hogan remains in a secure psychiatric hospital in Greece but could be allowed to return to Britain a free man within months. That could complicate efforts by Mrs Visser's supporters to force a Greek retrial.

Hogan's family said he had been acquitted in relation to Liam's death because at the time "he was suffering from a psychotic condition such that he neither knew nor understood the nature and consequences of his actions".