Legal history was made in Cardiff Crown Court today. Mark Grommek, 50, became the first person in the world to be held accountable by a jury for his role in causing a miscarriage of justice, despite both prosecution and defence lawyers agreeing that he had told the truth for eight months and only made a false statement after being threatened with violence and false imprisonment by police officers investigating the savage murder of twenty-year-old Lynette White. Mr Grommek admitted that he had given perjured evidence against Yusef Abdullahi and Ronnie Actie on three occasions, although he had previously denied the charges, claiming that he acted under duress. The jury heard extracts read out from twenty interviews Mr Grommek had with police between 2002 and 2006.

He made eight statements to police in the three months after the murder, which happened in the early hours of St Valentine's Day 1988. Mr Grommek maintained that he had seen and heard nothing significant. He stuck to that account until November 22nd 1988 when he broke down in the second interview that day, which was recorded by contemporaneous note in the absence of a solicitor. No contact with Mr Grommek had been tape-recorded during that inquiry. The jury heard extracts from taped interviews with Stephen Miller, 42, and Mr Abdullahi. The interviews with Mr Miller had 'horrified' the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1992. The interviews with Mr Abdullahi were equally shocking. The court heard Detective Inspector Graham Mouncher describe Mr Abdullahi as “a vicious, evil, wicked man...” Mr Abdullahi had been working on the MV Coral Sea in Barry Dock – nearly ten miles away – throughout the night of the murder. The court heard him refer to it directly or indirectly over a hundred times.

 They also heard Mr Miller deny being at the flat where Lynette was murdered or being involved in her murder more than a hundred times. In twenty tape-recorded interviews Mr Abdullahi mentioned the Coral Sea 545 times and Mr Miller denied being involved in the murder or being present at the crime scene 303 times. The jury heard Mr Mouncher call Yusef Abdullahi “a disgrace to the human race,” when Mr Abdullahi had the temerity to tell him that he was an innocent man whom they were persecuting. The wrongful convictions of Mr Abdullahi, Mr Miller and Anthony Paris were quashed largely due to the prejudicial effect of Mr Miller's interviews. They did not receive an apology then. They had to wait another eleven years and for the conviction of the real murderer before that was delivered by the former Chief Constable of South Wales Police, Sir Anthony Burdon.


The jury had a flavour of the methods used by officers during the Lynette White Inquiry. They heard Mr Grommek's claims that Detective Inspector Richard Powell had thrown a chair during an interview and threatened him with a blanket job – putting a blanket over him and beating him up so marks would not show. He also claimed that he was threatened with false imprisonment if he maintained his account that he had seen and heard nothing. The jury heard Mr Grommek's account that he believed that he had no choice but to stick to his perjured testimony once he had made the false statement in November 1988. “There was nothing I could do,” Mr Grommek told police investigating what had happened. “I still felt under incredible pressure. I knew I couldn't change statements.” Nicholas Dean QC, prosecuting, accepted that Mr Grommek's allegations of police malpractice were true, but insisted that he had opportunities to tell the truth. “The real victims are Stephen Miller, John and Ronnie Actie, Yusef Abdullahi, Anthony Paris [the Cardiff Five] – and of course Lynette White, not Mark Grommek,” said Mr Dean.


Mr Grommek first admitted that his evidence had been false in 2002. A year later the real murderer, Jeffrey Gafoor, 43, admitted that he alone had killed Ms White and that he did not know the Cardiff Five. The cousins – John and Ronnie Actie - were acquitted after the longest murder trial in British history in November 1990.


Mr Grommek claimed that he had suffered harassment from the police and was told that if he didn't tell them what they wanted to hear he would be prosecuted. He claimed that the threats and intimidation overbore his will. “I really think I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” Mr Grommek told police investigating one of the worst miscarriages of justice in Welsh history. He claimed that he had acted under duress and that after he had given them what they wanted they were 'sweetness.' Nevertheless, he was forcefully reminded to keep to the false story. Mr Grommek accepted that he had been weak and put himself first, but insists that he had no choice but to stick to the false statement as it would come back on him if he retracted them. He told police investigating what had gone wrong that DI Powell told him what would happen if he didn't stick to the version that falsely implicated Yusef Abdullahi and Ronnie Actie. “We'll be in shit and you'll be in bigger shit. We'll put you away.” Mr Grommek claimed that he was coached on what to say and was given copies of his statements and depositions to learn by Detective Constable Wayne Pugh, whom he regarded as friendly. He memorised the story well.


Mr Dean accepted that Mr Grommek's allegations of police malpractice were true, but that they did not amount to duress. David Aubrey QC, defending, disagreed. He maintained that the threat of false imprisonment was capable of amounting to duress. There was no legal authority to support his argument and the judge rejected his claim that Mr Dean had to prove that it didn't apply. Mr Dean argued that there was no threat of violence capable of amounting to serious injury – the minimum standard required for a defence of duress. The judge didn't have to decide on whether the threat of the blanket job could amount to evidence of duress as the defence of duress could not be put to the jury, because of the strict limits applied to it. The law demands that the defendant must believe that the threat will be carried out immediately, or at least, imminently.


Mr Justice Maddison decided that there was no threat of 'immediate or imminent violence' when Mr Grommek gave evidence on three separate occasions, because the threats had been made months earlier and had not been repeated after he gave the police what they wanted. He emphasised that the criminal conduct was not making the lying statement in November 1988, but the false evidence that Grommek gave on three subsequent occasions in 1989 and 1990.


The law on duress is tightly defined and threats of false imprisonment do not constitute duress. The judge concluded that Mr Grommek had opportunities to tell the truth before he gave false evidence, because there had been no further threats of violence. Consequently, the threats of violence were not imminent or immediate when he gave evidence. Maddison therefore ruled that the law on duress was clear and that the circumstances of Mr Grommek's case did not meet the legal requirements of a defence of duress, so it could not be left to the jury. This meant that Mr Grommek no longer had a defence.


*****


Mr Grommek was given time to consider his position before the indictments were put to him again. He pleaded guilty to perjuring himself at the committal hearing in February 1989 and both trials – November 1989 and June 1990 – and was formally found guilty by the jury on all three counts. Grommek is the first person in the world to have been found guilty of a criminal offence over a miscarriage of justice, when everyone agrees that he would never have perjured himself if he had not been subjected to police malpractice that included threats of violence and false imprisonment. He will be sentenced within six weeks along with Learnne Vilday, 40, and Angela Psaila, 43, who pleaded guilty to one count of perjury – the second trial, which resulted in the wrongful convictions of Abdullahi, Miller and Paris. Ms Vilday and Ms Psaila were the crucial prosecution witnesses at the trial of the Cardiff Five. After many months and several statements where they too insisted that they had heard and seen nothing of significance they were persuaded by police pressure and threats that included false imprisonment to perjure themselves.


They had also claimed that they had acted under duress, but chose to plead guilty to one count of perjury earlier this month. The judge has not ruled out any options on sentencing, but told the jury that Mr Grommek's treatment by police could be taken into account during sentencing. Ms Vilday and Ms Psaila await sentencing too. Reports will be prepared on all three.


This case was also the first time that a miscarriage of justice had been resolved by the conviction of the truly guilty in Britain and the ground-breaking investigation into what went wrong in one of Britain's most shameful miscarriages of justice continues. Thirty-four people have been arrested and interviewed under caution. Fifteen remain on bail – twelve of whom are either serving or retired police officers. The others are an expert witness and two civilian witnesses. Further prosecutions have not been ruled out, including of an officer who is not currently on bail.


Nogah Ofer represents Yusef Abdullahi, Anthony Paris, John Actie and the family of the late Ronnie Actie. She issued a statement on their behalf. “As victims of the miscarriage of justice we are deeply frustrated by the slowness of the criminal investigation and we wish to see any officers responsible for our prosecution brought to justice.”


Despite other cases of vindication occurring in Britain and in other jurisdictions, this is the only investigation of how a miscarriage of justice was allowed to occur anywhere in the world. Five years after Jeffrey Gafoor became the first British murderer to be correctly convicted after a miscarriage of justice, the Cardiff Five have yet to receive any assistance to rebuild their lives. Despite an official scheme to assist victims of miscarriages of justice, shamefully they have been left to fend for themselves as they do not qualify. It is already too late for Ronnie Actie who died last September aged just forty-nine. There is no scheme to provide any help for their families who bore the brunt of caring for them during a thoroughly unjustifiable whispering campaign that took over a decade to silence. Meanwhile, the damage that this case has done to all of its victims has yet to be addressed – a disgraceful way to treat people whose only crime was to be to innocent of what was then the most brutal murder of its type in Welsh history.

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (October 27th 2008)