Grommek Vilday and Psaila pleaded guilty to perjury in October. There is no doubt that those witnesses perjured themselves, as they have admitted it and the conviction of Gafoor proved it, but such cases are rare and this is unique in terms of it being accepted that they were mistreated by police. Grommek was subjected to threats of violence by a then Detective Inspector Richard Powell, before he gave accounts that falsely implicated Abdullahi and Ronnie Actie, but will they be only witnesses to face trial over a miscarriage of justice case in such circumstances? Vilday was also put under intolerable pressure as was Psaila who believed that her blood had been found in the room was murdered until told differently in 2004. She reacted with shock at the news.

*****

There is no shortage of miscarriage of justice cases, but none of the major cases have resulted in such an investigation let alone convictions. The closest is the case of former Greater Manchester police officer Ged Corley, who was accused of a series of armed robberies. After it became clear that he was on duty at the time some offences occurred, several of Manchester's criminal fraternity were allowed to change their accounts and accuse him of master-minding the robberies instead. After his convictions were quashed in March 1990 an investigation resulted in perjury convictions. Another is Kevin Sarbutts whose false evidence resulted in the wrongful conviction of Alban Turner, who was freed in March 1990. Despite perjury convictions, the accusations of police malpractice were not accepted. In the Corley case the only convictions that were obtained of police officers were because they pleaded guilty to lesser offences, but not perjury or conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

There is another case that involves lying witnesses and proven malpractice by police, but nobody is being investigated over it. Gary Mills and Tony Poole were freed after 14 years wrongful imprisonment in June 2003.Last April the Independent Police Complaints Commission announced that after an 'investigation' lasting over four years, no police officers would be charged or disciplined over the case of Mills and Poole, despite a libel trial, the then Lord Chief Justice, appeal judges and Law Lords reaching different conclusions. Even the 1996 appeal judges strongly criticised the police's conduct towards a crucial witness Paul White, who claimed to have seen a fist make a downward movement and heard a man shout “No Tony, no!” above the sound of a blaring sound system. Nobody else inside the flat heard that and if White had seen what he claims then he had to be at least ten feet tall, as the flat is on incline to street level.

Detective Constables Brian Paine and Mark Cheminais also allowed White to lie in his witness statement by saying he had gone there on his own when he had previously said that he had gone there with the late Andrew Neal. White was facing arson charges at the time, which were not prosecuted subsequently. He was described at trial as an important witness, but Lord Justice Otton as he then was dismissed his evidence as incapable of belief. Despite overwhelming evidence that White lied, he has never been investigated for perjury and perverting the course of justice. Why not?

Less than a month after the convictions of Mills and Poole were quashed, Jeffrey Gafoor pleaded guilty and the process that would result in perjurers being convicted over a miscarriage of justice began. Do Mills and Poole have to wait for similar resolution of their case before White's lies are even investigated? There is strong evidence of police malpractice in this case that has yet to be adequately investigated too.

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (December 24th 2008)

Same Old StoryThe extraordinary case of Gary Mills and Tony Poole is in the news again. After fourteen years of wrongful imprisonment, they were freed in June 2003 – the last seven because senior judges did not know or ignored the law. The main reason for the quashing of their convictions was the cumulative effect of the lack of integrity of the inquiry. More than four years ago they lodged a complaint with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) alleging criminal conduct by police. They claimed that the number two in the inquiry, former Detective Inspector Trevor Gladding, had perverted the course of justice and perjured himself. Allegations of serious malpractice were made against other officers as well. Two different sets of appeal judges: a high court jury and a former Lord Chief Justice were far from impressed with Gladding’s conduct. Eventually, the Criminal Cases Review Commission also declared itself dissatisfied with the the effect that several instances of police malpractice could have had on the safety of the convictions and referred it back to the Court of Criminal Appeal, which heard it in 2003.

The CPS referred their complaint for investigation, which was picked up by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in April 2004 and would become a major test of the independence of the new body. Nearly four years later it issued a provisional report dismissing the complaint. “The investigation report belongs to Gloucestershire Constabulary and it is for them to decide what can be released into the public domain,” said IPCC spokesperson David Nicholson. I raised eleven questions with them. He responded with: “It is for Gloucestershire to decide whether and how they answer.” To date, the IPCC, CPS and Gloucestershire Police have not answered the queries.

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Their complaint was a legacy case, meaning it was investigated under the old rules, so which meant that independent investigators were not used and there was no requirement of disclosure of the report. “The matter has now been concluded and the complaints were unsubstantiated,” said Nicholson. This finding contradicts all previous inquiries including the much criticised investigation for the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) conducted by George Hedges in the early 1990s. The IPCC was established to counter the culture of secrecy surrounding complaints against police. The Commissioner in charge of this complaint was Rebecca Marsh. She wrote: “On the evidence available, the IPCC is not satisfied that there is a realistic prospect that the conduct of the officers complained of fell below the required standard. We are therefore minded to conclude that misconduct proceedings cannot be justified.” And this in the case that the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf said: “Almost every aspect of this prosecution is tarnished.”

Nevertheless, we now know that perjury and perverting the course of justice do not constitute an abuse of due process of law1 and that such conduct does not fall below the required standard of conduct from police officers,2 but that it is not libellous to say that Trevor Gladding perverted the course of justice and perjured himself.3

“We agree that this has taken a very long time to resolve,” said Mr Nicholson. “The setting up of the IPCC was because of frustrations with the ‘previous system’ and the length of time that cases took to resolve.” The average IPCC investigation in the relevant region takes 166 days. This investigation took almost four years to reach incredible conclusions at great expense in a report that will almost certainly never see the light of day. The name has changed, but judging by this decision not much else.

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (April 10th 2008)