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.

Silence is Golden:

They insisted that Armstrong should remember every detail, but nearly twenty years had passed by then. And there were other issues relating to the ability of Armstrong to give evidence. The law has moved on since then and vulnerable witnesses are allowed to give evidence in more suitable ways now – for example child witnesses. Vulnerable witnesses can even give evidence by video links now, but none of this was available to enable Armstrong to give evidence a decade and a half ago.

Instead, the judge Mr. Justice MacPherson allowed a relentless onslaught on Armstrong’s character. It succeeded. Having persuaded the jury that Armstrong had no excuse not to remember and give evidence, even though it was not his decision, they prevented cross-examination of the defendants. They did not give evidence either. It would not have been fair to expect them to remember the details of twenty years ago, their lawyers told the jury by way of explanation.

Really? Then why was it fair to expect Armstrong to remember chapter and verse? The defence was cynical. They knew full well long before the attack on Armstrong began that they would not call their clients and that the defence strategy of heaping abuse on Armstrong was therefore hypocritical at best, but it worked.

The criminal justice system should not have tolerated such abuse. It no longer does. Inferences can be drawn from silence and refusal to give evidence. Nevertheless, there was another trend in attempts to prosecute police officers that needs to be considered – the effect of adverse publicity.