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The Fitted In Journal

06

May
Blueprint PDF Print E-mail
Written by Satish Sekar   

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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22

Dec
Natural Injustice (Part One) PDF Print E-mail
Written by Satish Sekar   
Mean Spirited:
Over four years ago the then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, decided that New Labour should get tough on those wronged by the state. The victims of injustice were to be punished further than just losing their liberty unjustly. In 1986 the former Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, introduced a scheme that compensated people who did not qualify for compensation under the Statutory Scheme.

The Discretionary Scheme, as it came to be known, allowed people who had been wrongly convicted to receive compensation for their ordeal even if they had won their freedom quickly. People who won their freedom by having convictions quashed at a first appeal were not entitled to compensation as a right, because the system was said to be working well if it corrected a wrongful conviction at the first attempt. Hurd's policy allowed such people to be compensated, which in many cases was the closest the wrongly accused came to receiving an apology for what they had been through.

Abolished:
On April 19th 2006 Clarke abolished that scheme without consultation. Several lawyers, appalled by the mean-spirited decision, supported victims of miscarriages of justice who had lost out without knowing that the scheme would be abolished in challenging the decision in court. Shamefully, the former government won that challenge in 2007. It meant that the wrongfully convicted had little choice but to sue the police.

This meant spiralling legal fees – well actually it didn't. Attacks on legal aid made challenges difficult. Lawyers had to take a risk – no win, no fee. Few would do it, so in the midst of a financial catastrophe that governments made worse, some money was clawed back by punishing the innocent further. They could fend for themselves and suffer further hardship. In effect, how dare they fight against a wrongful conviction and win their freedom quickly and expect to be compensated for their troubles!
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09

May
Abysmal Practices PDF Print E-mail
Written by Satish Sekar   
Worst Practice
The disgraced pathologist Michael Heath collected some maggots from the body of Russell Crookes where it was discovered in a wood, run by Hadlow Agricultural College, in May 1998. Crookes had been missing for almost a fortnight. Despite standard practice that Heath should have known, he didn't bother to sample extensively for maggots from different areas of the body or record the environmental conditions adequately, even though forensic entomology was obviously the best hope to establish a post-mortem-interval.

Heath made matters worse. Not only had he failed to sample the maggots extensively, as should have been done, but he failed to obtain the obvious data that was required to help calculate the post-mortem-interval. The point of sampling from different areas is that different species could be discovered and that would enable a more accurate post-mortem-interval to be calculated.

After ensuring that the maggots have been sampled correctly, fixed and live samples are handed over, environmental conditions, including the temperature in the maggot-mass, ambient temperature and under the body too must be established and recorded properly too. Then the maggots have to be  reared to optimum standards in order to establish the various species, activity and hence the most accurate post-mortem-interval. None of that occurred in this inquiry.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 18 May 2011 17:29
 

03

May
The Reliable Liar? PDF Print E-mail
Written by Satish Sekar   
Unfair
The late Mr Justice (Sir David) Poole was responsible for ensuring that Michael Stone received a fair trial for the July 1996 attempted murder of the courageous Josie Russell and murders of her mother Dr Lin Russell and younger sister Megan at the second attempt. The prosecution depended on the credibility of a prison informer, Damien Daley, who claimed that Stone had confessed to him in Canterbury Prison in September 1997. The conversation according to Daley occurred through the heating pipe between the adjoining cells in the segregation block.

“The evidence of the main prosecution witness Damien Daley should not be dismissed just because he is a self-confessed liar,” Poole told the jury. They didn't. On October 4th 2001 Stone was convicted for the second time. Leave to appeal was granted two and a half years later by Mr Justice (Sir Colman) Treacy on the grounds that Daley's inherent unreliability deprived Stone of a fair trial.

However, in January 2005 Stone's appeal was rejected by the Court of Appeal, headed by the then Vice-President of the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice (Sir Christopher) Rose. Mr Justices (Sir Alan) Moses and (Sir Robert) Walker agreed with Rose, but the judgement was absurd as there were numerous indicators that Daley could not be relied on; either the jury was wrong, or new evidence showed that he was even more unreliable than they had heard, or both. None of that mattered to those appeal judges.
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10

May
A Lack of Care PDF Print E-mail
Written by Satish Sekar   
Hope
Two months ago Yusef Abdullahi passed away, aged just 49. It could and should have been different. Eight years ago I helped to arrange care that he desperately needed. Abdullahi was in a terrible state. He was by his own admission, addicted to heroin and had an alcohol problem too. It was a sadly familiar story and those just didn’t tend to end well. Tony Paris wasn't in as bad a state, but he needed help as well and Stephen Miller was on their doorstep. It came as no surprise that he required help as well.

The Miscarriages of Justice Project (MJP) had been established in 2003 to provide advice and assistance to victims of miscarriages of justice to help them rebuild their lives, but there was a problem. The scheme excluded the Cardiff Three totally and many others too. Only people whose convictions had been quashed after an out of time appeal or a reference back by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) qualified for help. This had not been the original intent of Parliament, so they were approached to help anyway.

The MJP agreed that it was the perfect opportunity for them and for Abdullahi to illustrate the absurdity of a policy that forced them not to help even in a clear cut miscarriage of justice just because they had the temerity to win their first appeal, but its then Deputy Director Amarjit Kaur pulled the plug. She claimed that if they even went to see them and assessed their needs, they could lose their funding and not be able to help others, so why had her staff agreed to the visit in the first place. “It’s outrageous,” said miscarriage of justice victim John Kamara. “He was a victim of a miscarriage of justice and clearly needed help. They should have given it to him. What use are they if won’t help people like Yusef when he needed it?”

Michael O’Brien, himself a victim of one of Wales’ most notorious miscarriages of justice, raised the issue of people like the Cardiff Three being excluded with the MJP. He even asked, years later, why Abdullahi was not helped when it was promised. He was told that Abdullahi was offered counselling and turned it down. This is not true. Who says so? Abdullahi for one. Others, including his QC, Roger Backhouse, who helped fill the void created by the lack of care for him, can attest to it. “Yusef was very appreciative of the help that I gave him,” Backhouse said. “He acknowledged and thanked everyone who had taken the trouble to help him.” The MJP was not on that list; he confirmed that he had never received any help from the MJP or offers of help.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 May 2011 17:00
 
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