In April 1996 a justifiably incandescent with rage David Jessel, the then presenter of Channel Four's sadly defunct Trial And Error, addressed the media brandishing a copy of Sir Phillip Otton's judgment. "This is yet another shoddy judgment in a shoddy case," fumed Jessel. It would take another seven years for the truth of just how shoddy the then Lord Justice Otton's judgment was to see the light of day. Gary Mills and Tony Poole had been convicted of the murder of Hensley Wiltshire in January 1990, after a year on remand, but it would take more than six years for the appeal to be heard and that judgment would be more than controversial – it was cravenly dishonest. Otton quoted a passage of an interview with Mills, arguing that it dispelled the prejudice of the refusal to disclose the statements of an eyewitness, Ian (Neville) Juke as the passage referred to claims allegedly made by Juke. Otton said, "Moreover, it was an accurate summary of the substance of Juke's second statement." But it wasn't. A fact that would be acknowledged by both police officers who conducted that interview in a libel trial two years later and many others too. Either Otton (sitting with Mr Justices Keene and Ian Kennedy as they then were) had not read Juke's statements and that passage of interview, or he had delivered a judgment that he must have known was untrue.

"I was on the Coral Sea," sneered David Elfer QC at Yusef Abdullahi's lawyers eighteen years ago, after a jury in Swansea Guildhall returned a guilty verdict against the weight of the evidence. "I am innocent," Abdullahi told the jury, "you have taken my life away from me." Some members of the jury started crying – perhaps because they even believed him and realised that maybe, just maybe, they had just made a terrible mistake that would have devastating consequences. Such protestations of innocence are not unheard of, although most prosecutors conduct themselves with dignity – far more than Elfer showed, especially to fellow lawyers, who tend to show friendliness and even respect to each other. None of this was on display towards Elfer during the trial of the Cardiff Five – Yusef Abdullahi, John and Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris – and there was good reason.