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Sep

Too Little Too Late

Written by Satish Sekar

A shameful error that denied innocent people the help they needed to assist them to cope with the trauma of wrongful imprisonment has finally been corrected, almost a decade later. Sadly it is too late for Yusef Abdullahi, one of the Cardiff Three, who died in January, aged just 49. Eight years ago the Miscarriages of Justice Project (MJP), which is now known as the Miscarriages of Justice Support Service, (MJSS) was established, but its remit wrongly excluded anyone who had been freed on a first appeal. Despite the conviction of real killer, Jeffrey Gafoor, the Cardiff Five (John and Ronnie Actie were acquitted of the 1988 murder of Lynette White in 1990, while Abdullahi, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris were wrongfully convicted), did not qualify for help to rebuild their lives.

We can now reveal that they were excluded, along with the vast majority of victims because the consultant hired by the Home Office Working Group (HOWG), Peter Shore, (not the former MP) to scope the service required, did not follow his terms of reference and the HOWG did not notice when it delivered its report in April 2002. Shore was asked to investigate whether those who had been in prison longer (people referred back by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, or had appealed out of time) should be priority users of the service. He only looked at the needs of those appellants and never considered if others who had been in prison for shorter periods had needs too.

The MJP’s remit reflected Shore‘s errors, but when they were established in 2003 they agreed to visit Abdullahi and Paris to establish their needs. “I will never forget that Yusef campaigned for me at a time when few others did,” said miscarriage of justice survivor Michael O'Brien. “I wanted to help him and think it outrageous that he never received help. I took it up with the Miscarriages of Justice Project before.” But O'Brien's pleas fell on deaf ears. It was absurd that they could not help in such a case, but despite a commitment to do that, its then Deputy Director, Amarjit Kaur, reneged, claiming that it would cause them to lose their funding and that they would not be able to help others.

This shameful betrayal of the very people they could and should have helped, meant that Abdullahi and others like him were left to fend for themselves, despite problems that were not adequately researched. Their needs were never scoped by Shore or considered by the Working Group, despite their terms of reference. Worse still the MJP never voiced its concern that the refusal to let it help abandoned innocent people ? the vast majority of them ? to their fate. Like many others in this situation, Abdullahi had to rely on friends and family, especially his QC Roger Backhouse, who paid to help him. His then solicitor Nick Lloyd did so as well. “The state has a duty to restore him to the life that he would have had if the miscarriage of justice had not happened,” said Backhouse. “He could have gone to university. He was that intelligent. Yusef is the only person that I would do this for.”

Backhouse was part of a team that filled the void for Abdullahi caused by that error. He was helped with Social Security, finding a doctor after previous difficulties and in tackling addictions. The state had not only abdicated its responsibility due to an error made by Shore, but he was commended for the job that he did – a job that denied desperately needed care to victims of the criminal justice system. Limiting the scope of the service cost a fortune as those in need had no option but to get whatever help they could, which wasted resources and was utterly inefficient. Their needs had never been investigated and consequently the scope of the service that they required was not established. Even now over a decade after the then government decided that something had to be done, the needs of the overwhelming majority of victims of miscarriages of justice still have not been researched.

Abdullahi’s last years gave him and his family some solace. He overcame some of his problems and rebuilt some of the fractured relationships with his family – a job that the MJSS could and should have assisted with. Abdullahi's early death disgraces the system that let him and others like him down. Six months ago the Ministry of Justice revealed that it was considering correcting the error that contributed to Abdullahi's early death.

“The Ministry of Justice funds the Miscarriage of Justice Support Service (MJSS). The MJSS provides help with issues such as healthcare, accommodation, finance and relationships. The MJSS' funding has recently been extended for a further year to March 2012 and the Ministry of Justice is working with it to improve the support they provide. The remit and funding agreement with the MJSS does not currently cover the provision of assistance to those who have convictions quashed at in-time appeals. However, we are looking at the funding agreement and talking to the MJSS to see if their remit should be extended to cover some in-time appeal cases.”

The unattributed statement provided by the MoJ has subsequently resulted in an extension of the service that the MJSS is allowed to provide, but it remains too late for Abdullahi and his family and has been established without scoping the needs of people who won a first appeal. Despite being vindicated of the murder of Rachel Nickell – Robert Napper admitted in court that he killed Nickell – Colin Stagg does not qualify for assistance from the MJSS and nor do first time appellants unless they were convicted at Crown Court, even if they have been vindicated by the conviction of the real killer or killers.

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