A Court was told how bullying and persuasion by ‘dreadful police officers’ caused Stephen Miller, now 42, to confess to the brutal murder of his then girlfriend Lynette White – a crime he definitely did not commit. Mr Miller was giving evidence at the trial of Mark Grommek, 50, who faces three perjury charges over his evidence in that case. Ms White, 20, was a ‘working girl’ said Nicholas Dean QC, prosecuting, who was killed by a client, Jeffrey Gafoor, 43, acting on his own in the early hours of Valentines Day 1988. Police were originally looking for a white man with a cut hand. Ten months later five wholly innocent black men, Yusef Abdullahi, John and Ronnie Actie, Tony Paris and Mr Miller were arrested and charged with her brutal murder, partly because of statements given by Mr Grommek and others.

The court was told that Mr Grommek had made eight statements by May 1988, which said that he had seen or heard nothing of interest. In a few weeks in November and December 1988 he implicated Mr Abdullahi and Ronnie Actie in the murder. He was called as a defence witness at the committal hearing in February 1989 and again in the two trials in 1989 and 1990. He stuck to the incriminating account.

“The prosecution in this case fully accept that Mr Grommek was indeed persuaded to accept a version of events, that he was cajoled into signing statements he knew to be an absolute tissue of lies,” said Mr Dean. “To berate and browbeat witnesses is at best wholly improper and to suggest to the witness what to say is profoundly wrong – indeed it is itself criminal behaviour,”

Mr Dean told the jury that Mr Grommek: “didn’t think or care about the consequences for the people he lied about,” said Mr Dean. “The police behaved very badly. Grommek was weak and selfish. Grommek put his head in the sand and hoped it would all go away, but it didn’t. The fact that it was easier for him to continue to lie may explain his behaviour, but it does not excuse his behaviour nor provide any defence to the charges of perjury he now faces.”

The court was told that John and Ronnie Actie were acquitted after the second trial in 1990 and two years later the Cardiff Three as they came to be known were released on appeal. In 1999 the case was looked at again and advances in forensic science helped the police to identify Mr Gafoor as Ms White’s killer in 2003. An investigation began into one of Britain’s notorious miscarriages of justice.

Mr Grommek’s interviews were not tape-recorded in 1988, so the jury will hear extracts from those of Mr Miller and Mr Abdullahi to give the jury a flavour of how they were treated and demonstrate how Mr Grommek was treated. “Mark Grommek had a choice and, difficult though that choice may have been, he chose to give lying evidence and he implicated innocent men in an horrific murder. Those five men had no choice but to face a charge they were wholly innocent of. The real victims are Stephen Miller, John and Ronnie Actie, Yusef Abdullahi and Anthony Paris – and of course Lynette White, not Mark Grommek,” said Mr Dean.

Stephen Miller was called to give evidence about the way he was treated by police twenty years ago. “They treated me pretty shocking,” he said about contact with police in December 1988. He told the jury that officers made it clear that they were not prepared to listen to his innocence and eventually he was led into admitting that he had been there and participated in the murder of his girlfriend – a crime he did not commit. The court was told that he had looked for Lynette unsuccessfully and given police a contact number and address when he returned to London in May 1988. He also verified that he had told police everything that he knew and did all he could to help the inquiry.

David Aubrey QC, defending, asked him about an interview without a solicitor being present that was conducted by a senior officer, whom Mr Aubrey described as ‘a dreadful police officer.’ Mr Miller agreed. “I was treated appallingly,” he said before agreeing that the other officers who interviewed him were dreadful as well. Mr Miller said that another senior officer should not be forgotten either.

He accepted that while a couple of officers were nicer they weren’t interested in hearing what he had to say either. When asked if the experience had been terrifying, Mr Miller replied, “Even stronger.” He agreed with Mr Aubrey that his solicitor did not intervene much and was ignored when he tried. Mr Miller’s will was overborne because of his treatment in those interviews and he confessed to a crime that he was entirely innocent of. “I couldn’t take any more,” said Mr Miller. “I just couldn’t take any more. They stripped me bare. I still have nightmares about it.” Mr Grommek denies the charges and the trial continues.

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (October 19^th 2008)