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.

Openness and Thoroughness
Investigations of why the trial collapsed under the auspices of the IPCC and Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) are nowhere near good enough, especially as both South Wales Police and the CPS refuse to comment on substantive issues in that case. Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said, “It is important that the public can have confidence in the way the CPS conducts its cases and the Inspectorate will examine the issues with the utmost thoroughness.”

We first asked the CPS to explain why it prosecuted the Cardiff 5 in spite of its own Code for Crown Prosecutors' Sufficiency of Evidence Criteria. 10 out of 13 suggested that the case should never have been prosecuted in the first place – the other three did not apply. At first it tried to blame the then Crown Prosecutor, Hywel Hughes, pointing out that he had left the organisation. So what? When asked whether it took any institutional responsibility for the appalling prosecution, it decided to hide behind the trial process that recently collapsed. When that excuse no longer applied it promised full answers within a week. That again proved a hollow promise as now it hides behind the current investigations, which do not include the original prosecution.

While some express concern over the cost of the recent investigation into what went wrong, what about the original investigation and prosecution that made it necessary in the first place? It is clear that Mr Justice Sweeney was wrong in his conclusions that the trial had become 'irredeemably unfair' over the way disclosure had been handled. He allowed the trial to collapse on an allegation that we now know was without foundation. Had it been known that the documents had not been shredded and that the accusations against Coutts were baseless, would the trial have collapsed? If not the CPS must not only account for its numerous failures over two decades in this case, but appeal against Sweeney's decision. It should also consider whether the remaining officers who were scheduled to face trial should be brought before the courts.

In The Name of God, Go!
It is now clear that Mr Justice Sweeney's decision to collapse the trial in December was wrong. In the name of God, Sir Nigel should go! The CPS refuses to take responsibility for its multiple failings in this case. As its head, the DPP should have ordered an investigation into its handling of the whole case, not just the recent trial and it can't be trusted to get to the bottom of what went wrong. The CPS did not have to throw the towel in, but did so. In the name of God, Keir Starmer should take responsibility and go! The evidence plainly had not been shredded. Whoever was responsible for failing to find that evidence when it was needed should be located and go. Whoever was responsible for supervising that person should also go! Those demanding Coutts' head and prosecution should also go. In short, anyone associated with this abysmal failure knows what should happen. In the name of God, they should all go!