Investigating Miscarriages of Justice Thoroughly – Part Eight
Crossing the Rubicon:
The then Chief Constable of South Wales Police, Sir Anthony Burdon knew that the public expected and demanded answers on how innocent men had stood trial over the brutal St. Valentine’s Day 1988 murder of Lynette White. He chose not to make the mistakes that had afflicted previous investigations of police conduct in miscarriage of justice cases.
Burdon ordered an investigation with sweeping powers. Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Coutts was invited to assemble a team of officers. It started with twenty-six, later reduced by six. In August 2004 the Independent Police Complaints Commission was invited to supervise and the Special Crimes Division of the Crown Prosecution Service reviewed the evidence gathered by Coutts’ team.
From the moment that Burdon ordered the investigation – the widest ranging ever of a miscarriage of justice – South Wales Police had a stark choice. They could either attempt to sweep any wrongdoing under the carpet, or they could prove their critics wrong by pursuing the truth fearlessly come what may. There was no turning back. Like Julius Cæsar two millenniums ago, they had crossed their Rubicon.
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Investigating Miscarriages of Justice Thoroughly – Part Seven
Adverse Publicity:
Other notorious miscarriages of justice didn’t even get as far as trials. The Birmingham Six (Hugh Callaghan, Paddy Hill, Gerry Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, Billy Power and Johnny Walker) were the victims of an appalling miscarriage of justice. They had been brutally treated in the aftermath of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings by thugs in uniform. Some confessed. Shoddy science contributed to their wrongful convictions as well.
The crimes were appalling. More than twenty people died in the bombings and well over a hundred were injured – some seriously. The public wanted results – demanded it even. The six lost over a decade and a half for crimes they did not commit, yet no police officers stood trial, despite clear evidence of assault – a criminal offence – and other evidence of malpractice too. Officers were charged after the convictions were quashed and then Home Secretary Kenneth Baker ordered a Royal Commission.
The prosecutions were halted on the grounds that adverse publicity meant they could not get a fair trial – somewhat ironic given the media circus that helped to convict the Birmingham Six in the first place.
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Investigating Miscarriages of Justice Thoroughly – Part Six
Favours:
Police officers had faced trial over miscarriage of justice cases before, but the likelihood of securing convictions was slim – impossible even unless juries believed that the original defendants really were innocent, but prosecuting lawyers and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) did not see the need to establish this first in such cases. It contributed to a trail off failed proosecutions – wasting huge resources in the process.
But these prosecutions depended on the evidence gathered and that raised other issues. Could the police be trusted to investigate allegations of criminal conduct by their colleagues? The quality of evidence gathered and presented at the trials referred to in Part Five suggested that the was a problem in the evidence gathering phase of the process. The presentation of evidence by lawyers suggested another problem.
If conclusions can be drawn from the prosecution of Vernon Attwell, John Donaldson and Thomas Style over the Guildford Four’s case, they were losing jurors in the presentation of the evidence and helped to do the job of defence barristers. The former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was called by the Crown at the request of defence barristers. Why?
They could have called their own witnesses. They took the Right to Silence and their strategy was to attack Patrick Armstrong in particular for not giving evidence. That was not his fault. The Crown did not call him. The same happened to Winston Silcott. They drummed it into jurors that Armstrong – the man who should have been chafing at the bit to give evidence of how he had been treated by police – wasn’t there.
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Investigating Miscarriages of Justice Thoroughly – Part Five
Too Late:
On July 7th 2003 the then Chief Constable of South Wales Police Sir Anthony Burdon apologised to the Cardiff Five for their ordeal and to Lynette’s family too. For some it was already too late. Tony Paris’ father died just before the then Lord Justice, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, quashed his conviction in 1992. His sister Esther also passed away without seeing him vindicated.
Yusef Abdullahi’s elder brother Rashid took his own life in prison and Terry White, who opposed the investigation being reopened in 1999, died never knowing that he had been wrong. He could have spent his final years serving a life sentence for the murder of an innocent man. Enraged that John Actie was free and Lynette dead, White confronted him with gun.
He could have fired it and killed Actie. Had he done so, he would have thrown his life away and for what? Actie was an innocent man. These wrongs cannot be redressed. They are victims of this case who died without knowing that Jeffrey Gafoor cheated them all – content to allow innocent men to pay for his crime, laughing in the face of society, whose criminal justice system treated him more leniently than the innocent men whose lives he ruined.
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Investigating Miscarriages of Justice Thoroughly – Part Four
Predictions:
It had been predicted without exception that Lynette’s killer was a vicious thug with a history of brutality, probably starting with cruelty to animals that graduated to violence against humans, culminating in what was then the most savage murder of its type in Welsh history. This would not be a killer that would just stop once he had developed the blood lust required to commit such a heinous crime.
Surely there would be more to follow and a trail of previous offences. This was certainly what conventional wisdom suggested, but Jeffrey Gafoor was a totally different type of killer – frighteningly unique. Gafoor was impossible to predict. He was shocked by what he did and coped by blotting it out. He also shut out friends and family – prefering to limit human interaction to the absolute minimum needed to exist. He was determined to prevent repetition by preventing the opportunity for social contact.
After one conviction for assault in 1992, Gafoor severed contacts – preferring to drive three miles to post his rent rather than drop it in to his landlord, who was also a neighbour. He lived as a virtual recluse, limiting human interaction to the bare minimum. This made him very hard to detect.
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Investigating Miscarriages of Justice Thoroughly – Part Two
Hostilities Cease:
There had been no love lost between Yusef Abdullahi and South Wales Police. He didn’t like Lynette White, believing that she had grassed on him previously, but he didn’t hate her. And as for his opinions of South Wales Police, they were unprintable, but like everyone else he was appalled by her murder, particularly the manner of it. He was prepared to forget that antagonism while Lynette’s murderer was on the loose and tried to help as best he could.
Stephen Miller tried even harder. He didn’t like police either, but this was different – vastly so. John and Ronnie Actie were no fans of South Wales Police either. All four had been in their sights for different reasons previously, but this crime was beyond the pale. Everyone was outraged by it and wanted the murderer brought to justice. Mutual hostilities with the police could resume after the crime was solved. Sadly nobody had useful information and police refused to believe it.
Tony Paris just did not fit. His inclusion was absurd. He was a shoplifter who fainted at the sight of blood. The Cardiff Five knew each other, but didn’t socialise. They were later united by a bond each would prefer had never happened – victims of one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in British history.
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Accountability
