It was firmly established that the green jersey that was found newly washed by David in the washing machine was worn by the killer.  The link between the jersey and the killer is provided by the fact that fibres taken from under Stephen’s fingernails matched those from the green jersey.

David initially told the police the jersey belonged to Arawa. He confirmed that to be the case in his second statement.

But at the first trial (at which point it must have been clear to him that evidence linked the jersey to the killer), and for the first time, David said the jersey belonged to Robin, although Arawa wore it on occasions around the house.

At trial David also claimed, again for the first time, that Robin had been wearing the jersey over the weekend. There was no evidence, other than David’s assertions, linking the jersey to either Robin or Arawa.

This information from Davids statements etc concerning the green jersey comes from the court of appeal of 2003 the link to this is Here

It was normal practice to hand wash woollen jerseys.

David says he turned on the washing machine after his paper run, and says he sorted the clothes, whites from colours, but he didn’t leave out the hand-knitted jerseys. The family practice was for those to be hand-washed. Margaret was very particular about the care of these, as was David who, while on remand, had all his jerseys hand-washed, because he didn’t want them to be spoilt by the prison laundry. There would have to have been a very unusual occurrence for him to machine wash the green jersey on the morning of the murders.

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