I first met Yusef Abdullahi almost twenty years ago. I had never seen a case like it – still haven’t, but even after he was freed he was not allowed to live the life that he should have had. He died on January 20th, aged just 49. He was the victim of one of Britain’s most notorious miscarriages of justice. It is wrongly referred to as Wales’ first vindication case. That distinction belongs to Richard Lewis (Dic Penderyn) although the Cardiff Five was the first in the DNA age in Britain.  It made history several times.

It is easy to forget that there were many victims of this travesty of justice. The Cardiff Five were the most obvious, but they had families too. Lloyd Paris and Malik Abdullahi campaigned long and hard for them. They put their lives on hold to expose the injustice. Their families suffered too, losing the attention and time they were entitled to expect and demand from their fathers. Yusef never referred to himself as a victim. He said that he was a hostage – kidnapped and held hostage by his own government.  Unlike many who promise much, but deliver little, Abdullahi promised that he would campaign for those he left behind. Michael O’Brien was one who benefitted, as did Winston Silcott, Raphael Rowe and Gary Mills and Tony Poole. Abdullahi could spot injustices well and he was effective, as one by one the Court of Appeal was forced to grudgingly concede that he was right, as they quashed the convictions.

Eventually it took its toll. The campaigning for others was both his salvation and his problem. It gave him a cause to fight, but it left him exhausted and his health deteriorated. As he lost the benefit of his cause he was abandoned by many who should now carry the burden of shame. Long before it was fashionable, he called for the government to provide help for victims of miscarriages of justice and their families too, but also for the victims of crimes and their families, who had also been cheated of justice. Shamefully he was ignored in 1993. A society that treats its own hostages so shamefully has no right to lecture other countries.

Years later others made headway in the quest for restoration. The hostages were entitled to be restored to the lives they could and should have had. “It was no surprise to me when his acquittal on appeal was endorsed by the invincible evidence of the guilty plea of the real killer of Lynette White,” said his QC Roger Backhouse. “He was always innocent and his early death at 49 remains a tragedy as he has had an unfulfilled life. He remains a role model for his magnificent behaviour both before and after trial.  It is my ardent hope that more can be done in the future for those like Yusef who are the victims of such a monstrous and avoidable miscarriage of justice. That is what he would have wanted.”

But there is more to restoration than this. In 2003, I met him again. It had been too long. He needed help and despite a scheme set up by the last government, he did not qualify. The Miscarriages of Justice Project was forced by its remit to discriminate against victims of injustice who had the temerity to expose the injustice too early. Anyone who won a first appeal was excluded from receiving help and if a person had the audacity to be acquitted at trial, they would not even be acknowledged as a victim of a miscarriage of justice. Yusef was fortunate that he had the support of a rare and courageous advocate and friends who would not give up on him, just as he refused to let injustice triumph.

It took time for him to see that Dev Barrah, George Silcott, Winston Silcott, Michael O’Brien and especially Roger Backhouse would not give up on him. It took a long time, but they had the satisfaction of seeing him regain the fight – this time to rebuild his life. His last three years saw him rebuild relationships and conquer demons that had plagued his earlier years. It is a tragedy that he was taken so young; it also a national disgrace that our society tolerates the appalling treatment of victims of miscarriages of justice. His legacy must be an end to this scandal.