In The Name of God, Go!

“You have sat too long here for for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say and let us have done with you. In the Name of God, Go!” Leo Amery MP, quoting Oliver Cromwell's famous speech to the Rump Parliament, when demanding that appeasing Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resign.

Scandalous
The largest ever corruption trial of police officers over a miscarriage of justice collapsed last December amid accusations that the head of the inquiry into what went wrong in the Lynette White Inquiry, Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Coutts, had personally ordered documents shredded. There were even demands for Coutts to be prosecuted.

The trial had been bogged down by disclosure demands that finally resulted in the collapse of the trial. Copies of documents relating to an unrelated complaint made by John Actie – one of the five men who wrongly originally stood trial for Lynette's murder – could not be found. It was claimed that they had been shredded. Even if this was true, which it now turns out was not, the originals not only still existed, but had been disclosed.

There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the missing copies had any significance whatsoever. Nevertheless, the CPS threw in the towel – an action that should bring it into utter disrepute. There was no guarantee that the documents had ever been shredded, let alone on Coutts' orders. Mr Justice Sweeney recorded not guilty verdicts after the CPS decided to offer no evidence.

A Farcical Disgrace
Last Thursday the allegedly shredded documents were found in the original box that they were sent in in South Wales' Police's property. This is a major embarrassment for the force, which had failed to find them in the first place and also for its treatment of Coutts and his team. Referring the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission does nothing to redress the lasting harm that has been done.

Eight former police officers have been acquitted on what is now known to be spurious grounds. Gregory Bull QC claimed that their acquittal was not on a technicality at the time and that his client Thomas Page's innocence had been firmly established. No it hadn't. There was a rush to acquit. There was no reason why the trial could not have been halted and a new one ordered. That would have given time for the allegedly shredded documents to be found – and there was a precedent. A trial last year was halted because the CPS could not get assurances from defence counsel that they had had full disclosure. The defendants in that trial were not acquitted. A retrial was ordered and disclosure obligations were carried out to the letter. That is what should have happened here.

We have to ask if this had not been a high profile miscarriage of justice with police officers on trial over it, would this process have been allowed to degenerate into last week's farce.

It is now crystal clear that justice has been cynically betrayed. A jury should have been allowed to decide upon the guilt or innocence of the former police officers Page, Graham Mouncher, Richard Powell, John Seaford, Mike Daniels, Peter Greenwood, Paul Jennings, Paul Stephen and the witnesses Ian Massey and Violet Perriam.

“I write what I like,” Assassinated anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko

Abysmal
There are no saving graces over the collapse of the biggest ever trial over a miscarriage of justice. If you cannot prosecute public officials over a miscarriage of justice where there there is no credible doubt about innocence, then forget it – it will never happen. For the last 20 years we have championed not only the innocence of the Cardiff Five, but its potential to change the criminal justice system.

The collapse of the case against Graham Mouncher, Thomas Page, Richard Powell, Peter Greenwood, John Seaford, Michael Daniels, Paul Jennings, Paul Stephen sounds the death knell not just of police accountability, but the criminal justice system too, once and for all. It has become all but impossible to ever hold police officers responsible for their roles in securing miscarriages of justice and this was no ordinary one. It was unique.

Gregory Bull QC said that his client's innocence has been 'firmly established.' Er no it hasn't. Page is entitled to be presumed innocent because no jury was allowed to decide on his guilt or innocence, but there are some in this case who have been proved innocent. They are the Cardiff Five – the truly innocent victims of a shameful travesty of justice.

The late Yusef Abdullahi, John Actie, Ronnie Actie Stephen Miller and Tony Paris have been vindicated by the conviction of Jeffrey Gafoor. Instead of acknowledging their innocence, the defendants absurdly claimed that the Cardiff Five had committed the murder along with Gafoor. That mendacious accusation disgraces the criminal justice system. This was not a defence; it was character assassination.

There is not one scrap of evidence that proves any of the Cardiff Five knew or socialised with Gafoor, let alone committed that murder together. Furthermore, the forensic science proved them innocent and did so from the beginning. The jury in Swansea did not hear from an expert who reviewed the scientific evidence. He said that the blood distribution evidence clearly established that six men did not commit that murder together – one did. There never was any credible evidence suggesting otherwise. The science proved the Cardiff innocent. They are the only defendants in this wretched case to have been proven innocent.

Disgraceful
The second trial of the remaining officers charged, Stephen Hicks, Wayne Pugh John Bryan Gillard and John Murray – Rachel O'Brien was found unfit to stand trial – will not take place because copies of a complaint by one of the Cardiff Five had not been disclosed. It had been destroyed and no note of the destruction recorded. Apparently this meant that the defence could not be confident that everything had been disclosed. When the Cardiff Five stood trial twice these same officers knew of a ore credible case against a white paedophile – Mouncher's prime suspect.

No doubt the champions of disclosure rights ensured that this was made available to the defence – er no. It emerged by accident because defence found it in undisclosed material. The Cardiff Five lost 16 yeas of their lives. This is the travesty not the time these officers awaited trial. Make no mistake, they have not been vindicated.

RIP
Please be upstanding and observe a minute's silence for British justice which died in Swansea on December 1st 2011. The failure of this prosecution almost certainly means there will never be an investigation of the numerous failures of the rest of the criminal justice system, especially the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in allowing the original travesty of justice to be prosecuted in spite of the absence of credible evidence either. It can rejoice as its Jo Moore moment has arrived.

The Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer has said that he is “extremely concerned.” Where is the apology for the repeated failings of an atrocious original prosecution and numerous institutional failings that plagued this case – flaws which occur in many other cases too, especially. The chance to learn lessons has not been lost, it was thrown away and it will continue to leave a trail of devastated lives and cost a King's Ransom.

Appalling
I have no confidence in the criminal justice system to put this right. It has betrayed the memory of Lynette White (the victim of the horrific murder), her family, especially her mother, the late Peggy Pesticcio, the entirely innocent Cardiff Five, their families and society too. We all deserved better – far better. We have all been robbed of justice. 

As a result of this decision, there are no consequences for shocking policing and honest officers will be tarred with the brush of a frankly disgraceful investigation that wrongly convicted the late Mr Abdullahi, Mr Miller and Mr Paris. That is an injustice too, especially as while the original Lynette White Inquiry, headed by Detective Chief Superintendent John Williams was an utter disgrace, the second, led by Detective Superintendent Kevin O'Neill, which found the real killer, Jeffrey Gafoor was a fantastic model of modern investigative policing. O'Neill and his team did a superb job and despite the failure of this prosecution that should not be forgotten. I will tell that story in Beyond Doubt soon.

8 years ago the Cardiff Five became the first miscarriage of justice victims in the DNA age to be vindicated in Britain –  resolved by the conviction of the real murderer. It meant that there was no doubt that they were undoubtedly innocent and that the alleged eyewitnesses, Learnne Vilday, Angela Psaila, Mark Grommek and Paul Atkins had perjured themselves when they said they saw the Cardiff Five at the scene or committing the murder. Atkins escaped prosecution, but Vilday, Psaila and Gromek pleaded guilty to perjury in 2008, after duress failed as a defence. At that trial defence, judge and prosecution all agreed that the police had forced them to lie. How on earth can these verdicts be reconciled with this failed prosecution?

For the last 8 years this case – one that should have led demands for justice throughout the criminal justice system – has been hijacked by silence and apathy and yes that includes media, who ignored not just this scandal but others too. Mr Abdullahi died young, shamefully betrayed by a callous system that ignored his plight. He was denied help despite a scheme existing to help victims of miscarriages of justice.

Despite being proved innocent, no national media highlighted this scandal even after his death. It could and should have led the way for others to secure justice and society a criminal justice system that is both efficient and fair. Instead we are to get another inquiry to be conducted by agents of the same system that has failed miserably at every turn to deliver justice. Enough. It is time for a fully independent public inquiry into the functioning of the whole criminal justice in South Wales. Nothing less will do. They have proved that they cannot be trusted to put their house in order. The government must act now if it cares about restoring public confidence.

Rarely has there been a more disgraceful travesty of justice than this. There was no credible evidence whatsoever that proved the Cardiff Five guilty. Reams of evidence was never disclosed to their defence. The irregularities were legion, but they were never commented on, let alone acknowledged. Funny how that never mattered and they were left to rot in jail for a barbaric crime they did not commit. The prosecution of the Cardiff Five resulted in disgraceful convictions. The scientific evidence proved the Cardiff 5 innocent and did so before they stood trial.

Ms White's murder was at the time the most brutal murder of its type in Welsh history. There was no scientific evidence against any of the five men who stood trial twice in 1989 and 1990 and it was clearly saying even then that there was only one killer, whom we now know was Gafoor acting on his own. The Cardiff Five did not know him; he did not even occur as a suspect originally. How could they have failed to prove any link between them over 23 years if they knew each other well enough to commit this murder together? How could five of them have not left so much as a single cell of DNA at the scene or on the victim or have any trace of her blood on them, while Gafoor shed plenty at the scene? Such a scenario would be rejected as utterly implausible even on television.

Abdullahi had a very strong alibi that he was working on a ship throughout the night of February 13th-14th 1988. Yet again justice has been denied by not only refusing to acknowledge the obvious, but by insisting that the wronged and entirely innocent Cardiff Five were in fact guilty. They were not. They, unlike the 10 defendants whose case collapsed yesterday, really have been proven innocent. Gafoor said so and more importantly so did irrefutable forensic science. To accuse them again disgraces every concept of justice and those prepared to do so, because the evidence proved those claims false.

Stephen Miller's conviction was quashed in 1992 because he was bullied and hectored shamelessly by police despite the presence of a solicitor. The Lord Chief Justice at the time, Lord Taylor, said he never wanted to hear interviewing like that again, but even then a clear pattern emerged. The criminal justice system was to be protected at all costs. The appeal judges exonerated the second trial judge the late Mr Justice Leonard because the bullying had not been played to him by Miller's thoroughly inefficient QC, the late Roger Frisby, while failing to point out that the very same bullying that 'horrified' them had been heard and ignored by the first trial judge, the late Mr Justice McNeill.

The Crown Prosecution Service ignored its own Sufficiency of Evidence criteria to prosecute an appalling case. Requests for an explanation of their decision to prosecute in spite of the lack of credible evidence have been stone-walled by the CPS for the best part of 15 years. The police had blood that had been shed by the real murderer all along. It was later identified by DNA techniques not available in the 1980s as belonging to Gafoor. It proved that he and him alone had murdered Lynette White. Jeffrey Gafoor murdered Lynette White, Sadly every concept of justice was slaughtered afterwards. I for one, not only want a refund for the public, but those responsible to be surcharged and an independent public inquiry into the appalling performance of the criminal justice system in this case and others. Anything less is the final betrayal of justice.

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