My latest book Trials and Tribulations – Innocence Matters is available to order through FIP. Our next publication will be Bad Form – How Tariffs Protect the Guilty and Punish the Innocent. It will detail the issues I discuss in the video in greater detail.

https://www.facebook.com/satish.sekar.3/videos/1376131822491496/

We will be publising Bad Form – How Tariffs Protect the Guilty and Punish the Innocent early next year. It will reveal important new facts on how the tariff on Gafoor is an even bigger travesty than had been previously thought.

Here’s a taster: https://www.facebook.com/satish.sekar.3/videos/1374091852695493/

Richard Horwell QC has completed his report and it has been considered by the Home Secretary, who scraped back into Parliament by the skin of her teeth. Amber Rudd has welcomed it – no surprise there. Horwell thinks the failures were due to human error. That contributed to it, but it was at best a lacklustre prosecution. It refused to utilise important evidence that unequivocally proved the Cardiff were innocent, and did so before they stood trial in 1989 and again in 1990. High quality evidence proving this was conspicuous by its absence in the prosecution case in 2011 and even in rebuttal of the outrageous defence. Adding insult to injury the sham processes culminating in the Horwell Report have not even acknowledged that this evidence existed, let alone deal with its exclusion. Rudd welcomes the sham and hopes that this is the end of the story. It is not. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. In this case, despite the clearest vindication possible, justice has been seen to be denied. It still is. Horwell had an opportunity – albeit limited – to redress a gross wrong. He has failed to do so.

It should now be clear that the approach favoured by South Wales Police and others of aiding the three sham inquiries and refusing to comment on the shameful miscarriage of justice that befell the Cardiff Five and affected the community that had a right to expect the highest standards that it did not receive, has achieved its intent. Whether that force (its highest ranks shared that intent or not) the deliberate prevention of learning the lessons of an utterly shameful miscarriage of justice has occurred because of these processes that had no ability to deliver justice, or intent – their aim was altogether more sinister. The sham processes served their purpose of taking the case off the agenda long enough for it to be forgotten about and the damage that it was perceived that it could cause, limited. The dismal failures of this approach and failed processes have not been addressed. The pathetic platitudes about innocence and miscarriage of justice are risible – contemptible in fact.

All three sham processes the HMCPSI, IPCC and now Horwell achieved their purpose of delaying and ultimately thwarting justice. They were and are the pathetic sham I knew they would be. It was obvious what they would be. The Terms of Reference of all three made that clear. They were a gross waste of public funds and the politicians responsible should be surcharged.

South Wales Police’s PSD stole my work and published it to others in flagrant breach of my copyright, and knowing that I not only did not support these sham processes, but that I viewed them with total contempt. The justification provided for that theft was a year after the fact and demonstrably wrong in law – it is astonishing that Police Complaints Commission (it has to demonstrate independence in practice for me to call it Independent) failed to notice that. The fact that South Wales Police see nothing wrong with the department complained of investigating itself and expect me to provide paperwork their officers failed to provide, despite it being made clear that was required, demonstrates bad faith. It is amazing that the so-called complaints procedure and senior ranks who discussed it accept the shoddy note-keeping etc when it suits them, but ignore the fact no note exists of the terms of my cooperation at all. How convenient for them. If that is not properly redressed I reserve the right to take whatever action is necessary regarding it. South Wales Police stole my cooperation for processes they knew I had concluded were designed to cheat justice. They even had the very officer complained about investigating himself!

All three of these shams ignored the original miscarriage of justice and its causes and effects. All three ignored the disgraceful abuse of justice that jailed three vulnerable people (the bullied witnesses I refer to as the New Cardiff Three) that the court accepted had been subjected to conduct that was ‘unacceptable in a civilised society’. The archaic demands of the law on duress was conspicuous by its absence in all three shams. All three failed to notice that the 2011 farce was set up to fail – disclosure providing a neat smokescreen to hide inexplicably crass prosecutorial decisions. An illuminating light will be shone on those decisions in my forthcoming book Trials and Tribulations – Innocence Matters?

I have already detailed some of these failings in my previous books Fitted In: The Cardiff 3 and the Lynette White Inquiry and The Cardiff Five: Innocent Beyond Any Doubt. Criticisms raised in them of the investigative and judicial processes that led to the notorious miscarriage of justice and maintained it even after vindication, are conspicuous by their absence in the three shams. The failure to use compelling scientific evidence even after a deplorable and utterly false defence was advanced in 2011 trial is disgraceful. Where was the analysis of that in the three sham processes?

The processes that South Wales Police and others supported have failed miserably. Rather than reward mediocrity and gross injustice, if any truly care about justice they will not only join me in demanding a Truth and Justice Commission into the whole case, but campaign actively until that Commission is established. Justice and integrity demand nothing less!

Presumed Guilty

“I don’t care about the money,” is a frequent refrain of the innocent. “I want my name back and an apology.” Usually they get neither, because miscarriage of justice organisations and campaigners still don’t get it. Quashing a conviction is no more than half the job. The criminal justice system does not care about guilt or innocence; it never did.

An acquittal at trial is nothing more than an admission that the prosecutor could not prove the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt. It is not a declaration of innocence. Appeal is no better. If a conviction is quashed, it meant that the conviction was found to be unsafe. That is not the same as a finding of innocence. Occasionally judges make sure that there is no doubt, by saying that they are not finding the appellant innocent. There is no verdict of innocence, yet that is demanded now in compensation claims.

Exoneration

Annette Hewins, Sion Jenkins, Barry George and Andrew Adams are part of a growing trend. Their convictions were quashed on appeal, yet none of them have received a penny in compensation because the Assessor decided that they had not been exonerated. The fact that there is no verdict at trial or appeal in British law that guarantees exoneration seems to have escaped politicians, eager to save pennies at the expense of those wronged by society.

The former Unionist MP, Lord John Laird, sought clarification. Laird asked the government to “issue a practice direction to criminal courts ensuring judges declare any defendant acquitted at trial, or appellant whose conviction has been quashed as unsafe on appeal, as innocent at the close of the court proceedings.”

He also asked the government “whether they will ensure that appropriate compensation and aftercare is provided to such persons?” His question and the subsequent answer from Lord Tom McNally, a Minister of State at the Ministry of justice were ignored by media expressing an interest now the Supreme Court is considering these issues.

Practice

“Practice directions in the criminal courts are a matter for the Lord Chief Justice, not the Government,” said McNally. “It has long been an important feature of our criminal justice system that a person charged with an offence is presumed to be innocent until proved guilty. A person found not guilty is to be treated as innocent, as too is a person whose conviction has been quashed on appeal.”

But the practice is different. Exoneration is required for compensation now. “A person whose conviction is quashed on appeal may apply for compensation under Section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. Entitlement to compensation under that provision will be considered shortly by the Supreme Court in the case of Adams.”

Actually they can’t. The abolition of the Discretionary Scheme means that any person whose conviction is quashed in an in time first appeal will not qualify under Section 133. Even if there is no doubt about innocence whatsoever, they are not entitled to anything and the government not only knows it, but refused to right the wrong. The very same minister Lord McNally said as much previously when asked to restore the Discretionary Scheme by Lord Laird.

“The discretionary compensation scheme was abolished on 19 April 2006 by the then Home Secretary and the coalition Government have no plans to reintroduce it,” said McNally. “We will continue to consider applications for compensation under the statutory scheme, Section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which fully meets our international obligations.”

It also excludes anyone who had the temerity to be acquitted or have their convictions quashed on a first appeal even if they are proved innocent later by the conviction of the real perpetrator.

Anniversary

Thirteen years ago today Jeffrey Gafoor made history. Gafoor pleaded guilty to the murder of Lynette White. She was the victim of what was then (February 14th 1988) the most brutal murder of its type in Welsh history. Faced with overwhelming evidence Gafoor admitted that he had murdered Lynette. He had provided samples for DNA testing before attempting to take his own life in February 2003. Police officers from the Lynette White Inquiry Phase II saved his life.

Phase II was one of the best investigations ever. Led by Detective Chief Superintendent Kevin O’Neill, these officers and the forensic scientists, did a fantastic job. They knew that finding the real killer would come at a huge price to the force. No British police force had ever resolved a miscarriage of justice by convicting the real killer in the DNA age. Any force that did so knew that it would unleash a can of worms, the like of which British policing had never faced before. But still, they investigated doggedly and continued until they made history by bringing Gafoor to justice.

A Colossal Error

And then that storm was unleashed. Phase III investigated what went wrong – who was responsible for one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice ever. Thirty-four people were arrested and interviewed under caution on suspicion of offences including conspiring to pervert the course of justice and perjury. Twenty of them were police officers and 13 were told that they would face trial, along with two civilian witnesses.

But before they faced trial three of the alleged eye-witnesses were tried for perjury and conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Mr Justice (Sir David) Maddison ruled that they could not claim duress, as the law demanded that they must retract immediately, but to whom – police officers, the courts? Who? How could they be expected the courts or police after what they had gone through?

Mark Grommek, Angela Psaila and Learnne Vilday (the New Cardiff Three) were convicted – rightly as the law said, but wrongly according to justice and conscience. The court accepted that they had told the lies they were forced to tell and then they were prosecuted for telling them. They were each sentenced to 18 months in prison. This was and remains a huge injustice – the law could not have acted more inappropriately, but worse would soon follow.

Travesty

With 13 police officers and two witnesses due to face trial it was decided that eight former officers, including Graham Mouncher and Richard Powell and the witnesses Ian Massey and Violet Perriam would face trial first. The trial began in 2011. I was due to be a witness against Massey. Nicholas Dean QC and his prosecution team ensured that I would miss virtually all the trial for no good reason – actually there was a very good reason.

We were not meant to see what was unfolding. It would take a very long time to unravel, but unravel it would. The trial collapsed on largely spurious grounds. Disclosure was not what it should have been – that is unarguable, but whose fault is that? The straw that broke the camel’s back was the failure to disclose some documents – copies actually. The originals had been retained, and copies were taken.

The copies were meaningless. It was believed that they had been destroyed – evidence to that effect was given, but it was not true. A month after the sensational collapse of the trial the supposedly destroyed documents were discovered in the very boxes that they had been sent to police by the IPCC.

Unlawful

I had been kept out of the trial until it was far too late – we believe that was their intention all along. South Wales Police chose to cooperate with HMCPSI and the IPCC, both of whom were investigating aspects of the collapse of the trial. The terms of reference established that neither process was worth cooperating with as they would not establish why a notorious miscarriage of justice had been allowed to occur.

I chose not to cooperate and demanded the return of my work product, which was mine alone, as was the copyright on it. The Professional Standards Department unlawfully seized my work and distributed to others against my wishes in flagrant disregard of my rights and copyright.

The justification supplied a year late did not apply to me. Naturally the IPCC – itself an interested party and therefore not an impartial arbiter upheld the ludicrous justification – one that applied to criminal suspects not cooperating witnesses. Both HMCPSI and the IPCC failed miserably to explain why this appalling miscarriage of justice had occurred – inevitable really – as neither was concerned with that and nor was the Home Secretary, Theresa May. Her concern was to avoid a public inquiry.

Squaring the Circle

As early as the first week of the 2011 Police Corruption Trial it became obvious that the prosecution was lacklustre – notwithstanding that the prosecution team could talk a good talk. The defence case was a tried and tested method in such cases – deny that there had ever been a miscarriage of justice. The Cardiff Five were guilty, they claimed. But what about the DNA? What about Gafoor’s guilty plea? What about his insistence that he had acted alone?

Simple. None of that mattered. All that counted were his inconsistent accounts. He could only remember inflicting ten or twelve stab wounds and not the throat ones. So what? Well that meant it was possible that there was more than one attack. “Technically”, Angela Gallup said – the scientific equivalent of ‘and I can’t rule out the possibility that pigs could fly either!’

There was forensic pathology evidence and blood distribution pattern evidence that had an important story to tell. Lynette’s murder was never consistent with five killers and two witnesses charging around the crime-scene in darkness without leaving any trace of themselves or interfering with any of the evidence in the flat.

It simply flew in the face of any notion of logic.

The Final Insults

It served well in 2011 – so well that it was trotted out again in the compensation case in 2015. And as in 2015 the witnesses that could demolish this outrageous hypothesis were never called. We will be publishing Trials and Tribulations – Innocence Matters? soon. The aim is to reassert the truth – the Cardiff Five are, as they always were, totally innocent of any involvement in the murder of Lynette White, even though it is too late to matter to Yusef Abdullahi and Ronnie Actie.

Meanwhile, Gafoor had received a very lenient tariff in 2005 – just 12 years and 8 months, 13 years in reality once remand was taken into account. Consequently, Gafoor is now eligible to apply for release on parole. We will be publishing Bad Form – How Tariffs Protect the Guilty and Punish the Innocent soon to illustrate the grave flaws with the tariff system – one that sees no problem with treating the truly guilty more leniently than the innocent for the same crime. As Lloyd Paris – Tony’s brother – said, “Things are back to front!”

The Eleventh Hour

In two days time Mr Justice (Sir Wyn) Williams will deliver his long-awaited judgement at 11. It’s expected to be a long document, detailing a sorry tale of one of Britain’s most notorious miscarriages of justice. It is expected to determine whether the Cardiff Five suffered a miscarriage of justice at all.

It has become a saga that even Eugène Ionseco the master of Absurdist theatre would have struggled to comprehend. White became black – literally – and now history may not only be rewritten, but obliterated. If Williams rules in favour of the former officers suing South Wales Police, it will turn history on its head and deter attempts to investigate alleged police malpractice in miscarriage of justice cases.

The question of why South Wales Police were allowed to investigate themselves and why the institutions and politicians that they are supposedly accountable to permitted it to happen will be shuffled off into an archive, never to be answered. But it will answer some pertinent questions, not least of which is do we have the police and criminal justice system we deserve?

Pertinent Queries

If we tolerate this, the answer is yes. The Lynette White Inquiry began over 28 years ago. It has seen five innocent men wrongly accused of her murder – three were wrongfully convicted. John and Ronnie Actie were acquitted in 1990. Two years later the convictions of the Cardiff Three (Yusef Abdullahi, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) were quashed on appeal.

The case was reinvestigated by Phil Jones, the former Head of South Wales Police CID. Jones was later jailed for corruption. His investigation fizzled out after an absurd insistence that police should be allowed to use up all the DNA if they wanted to. They were stopped from doing so and within six months an improved DNA testing system was announced by the now defunct Forensic Science Service. That system was crucial in resolving the Lynette White Inquiry.

A new investigation (Phase II) took four years to complete, but it made history. It became the first miscarriage of justice case in Britain to be resolved by the conviction of the real murderer. Jeffrey Gafoor’s guilt was proved by overwhelming evidence, especially the combination of forensic science and crime-scene evidence. It was in reality a simple tale, which suffered so many twists and turns that it became complicated.

The truth about Lynette’s murder was plain and obvious – don’t take my word for it, the evidence that cannot lie proves it, but in a trial allegedly necessary to put right what had gone wrong, the most compelling evidence of the innocence of the Cardiff Five never saw the light of day.

The Final Insult

Instead, a ‘scientifically ludicrous’ scenario was put forward. Angela Gallop said that it was ‘technically’ possible that there had been two attacks on Lynette. She never came close to saying that is what happened and with good reason. It flew in the face of logic. Gafoor could only remember inflicting 10-12 wounds. He accepted that there were more than fifty, including a vicious slitting of her throat.

The crime-scene evidence was never consistent with two attacks. It was known that the killer had cut himself. His cast-off blood had been located as early as 1988. The inquiry rightly proceeded on the basis that they were looking for a solitary killer – sexually motivated homicides almost always are committed by one person.

It was claimed that there had been two attacks – one by Gafoor and the other by the Cardiff Five, but if this had happened, why was there no trace of any of the Cardiff Five in that flat. The murder happened in the dead of night – there was no lighting. How could five men and at least two ‘witnesses’ have committed that murder and got out without leaving any trace of themselves or interfering with the plethora of evidence tying the real killer to his crime?

How could Gafoor alone have cut himself while inflicting comparatively minor injuries and the others had not? This defied belief, yet it has been repeated in the compensation case too. And yet again rather than call the scientific evidence that demolished this scientifically ludicrous scenario, it is allowed to pass unchallenged. History is being obliterated and the public is expected to foot the bill again without anyone or any institution taking responsibility.

Lessons

The criminal justice system has never listened to Lloyd Paris – its loss. Lloyd shows dignity and decency even though those qualities are sadly lacking in the treatment he has received from it. His brother Tony was one of the victims of a now notorious miscarriage of justice. On Saint Valentine’s Day 1988 20-year-old Lynette White was murdered. It was a knife crime of exceptional brutality – a sexually motivated homicide. The case against his brother and four co-accused depended on a case scenario that Professor Dave Barclay described as “scientifically ludicrous”.

There were dire consequences for the Cardiff Five and their wider families. John and the late Ronnie Actie were acquitted in November 1990. Two years later Stephen Miller, the late Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris were freed on appeal, but the whispering campaign against them and subsequent damage continued for years. It ended, or should have in July 2003 when the Cardiff Five were vindicated by the conviction of Lynette White’s real killer.

Bad Form

There were many victims of this terrible case and further insults would occur. The Cardiff Five had lost a total of sixteen years between them for a crime Gafoor admitted he had committed on his own. More importantly, the crime-scene evidence, forensic pathology, forensic psychology, blood distribution patterns and DNA proved that Lynette had indeed been murdered by one person acting on their own and that man was Jeffrey Gafoor. Despite the serious aggravating circumstances, Gafoor receives a tariff – the minimum that he must serve before he becomes eligible to apply for parole – of just thirteen years. Amazingly, both Tony Paris and Yusef Abdullahi had received harsher tariffs for the same crime.

“Well it’s bad form to tell you the truth”, Lloyd Paris said. “You know the type of thing that man done, he should have done a lot more jail. I don’t know what the system’s coming to. They say it takes time for things to go round that slow, but it’s too slow. Everything is going too slow. It took all this time to get the police in court. It took the police all that time to get Gafoor. It’s silly. It really is silly”.

Max Hilll QC, then Vice President of Bar Association agreed that it would look odd to the public. “[Y]ou identify a need for precision in sentencing in miscarriage cases”, Hill said. “I’m happy to discuss that because clearly from a distance if as you tell me in the Lynette White case there was a sentence that was applied to those wrongly convicted, which was heavier than the person ultimately rightly convicted, to many people that would appear wrong and the question behind that may be, do you need to do something about tariff sentencing to ensure that doesn’t happen?”

(We will be answering this question in our forthcoming report Just Tariffs, and highlighting the problem in further articles).

The Western Mail’s Chief Reporter, Martin Shipton, believes that changes are required. “Well it suggests that there is something seriously wrong with the way in which tariffs are arrived at”, he said. “Now whether that is because there is insufficient guidance available to judges, whether the policy has changed over the intervening years, I’m not sure”. But Shipton is clear that there can be no excuses for innocent people receiving harsher tariffs than the innocent for the same crime, differences in when legal proceedings occurred, notwithstanding.

“Well it seems ludicrous that the tariff for the real killer is actually – ultimately – even when we are told that the fact that he allowed innocent people to go jail is taken into account is actually lower than the total amount of time that was spent in prison by the innocent people” [my emphasis].

Significance

Today, the real and sole murderer of 20-year-old Lynette White, becomes eligible to apply for parole. Jeffrey Gafoor admits that he alone is responsible. In the early hours of Saint Valentine’s Day 1988, Lynette was stabbed over fifty times. Her throat was slit. Still Gafoor continued his vicious attack. He stabbed her breasts and chest repeatedly – at least half of the offensive injuries were to that area of her body. The attack continued after she was dead or dying. The brutality obviously went far beyond what was required to kill her. It was cruel and in my view torture. Gafoor has never explained why Lynette suffered this horrific fate. And he has not explained why he stayed silent while five innocent men stood trial for a crime he admits he committed on his own.

The Cardiff Five ((Yusef Abdullahi, John and Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) were charged with Lynette’s murder in December 1988. Almost two years later the Actie cousins were acquitted and the Cardiff Three were wrongfully convicted. It is now acknowledged to be one of Britain’s most notorious miscarriages of justice. It was quite obviously a sexually motivated homicide, even if that was not the label in use in the 1980s and ’90s.

Professor Dave Barclay conducted a review of the scientific evidence, which led t the vindication of the Cardiff Five and a measure of actual justice for the memory of Lynette White. He explains the significance of the crime being a sexually motivated homicide. “All but a very few are on the breasts, but sheʼs had her neck cut as well and wrists and so on”, he said. “Thereʼs a slash across the face. Itʼs a sexually motivated homicide – full stop. [I]tʼs a sexually motivated homicide and donʼt forget those stab wounds are through the puffa jacket and clothing and yet theyʼre still, theyʼre all concentrated on the breasts. Itʼs a single male sexually motivated homicide” [my emphasis].

So why the emphasis? Sexually motivated homicides are almost always committed by one man acting on his own, like Gafoor. Sometimes two vicious people combine and encourage each other to commit such crimes. Barclay and others cannot provide a single example in all the annals of crime where a murder like this was committed by five men, who made accomplices of two other sex workers, but let them live after committing such an evil crime. And all of this was allegedly done without leaving any trace, tying them to the scene or victim in total darkness. Sadly, Barclay has never given evidence about all this and more. So what would he have said if he had been given the chance? “Interestingly I give evidence more in Holland and places like that where they seem quite happy to have people give an overview”, he said. “I would have said whereʼs the evidence for any of that bullshit? I might even have said that in court”.

Evidence-led

Barclay demonstrated that the crime-scene evidence, forensic pathology, forensic psychology and blood distribution pattern was only consistent with one explanation. Lynette was murdered by one person acting on his own. That person, by his own admission and guilty plea – and evidence – was Jeffrey Charles Gafoor. For at least nine months the investigation followed the credible evidence – the crime-scene and forensic science wasn’t lying, but the original investigation took a diversion. It derailed the inquiry.

“[I]f you have two possibilities, you need very persuasive evidence to go for the least likely, so youʼve got a single male arguing with a prostitute over a deal and thatʼs what the scientist thought for nine months, or youʼve got this thing where Angela Psaila, [Mark] Grommek, at least and maybe somebody else and the five accused are all tearing round this room, sawing at peopleʼs necks and trying to cut their hands – stuff like this”, Barclay says.

“Angela Psailaʼs supposed to be asked to cut the neck or hands, I canʼt remember, or the wrist, so thatʼs so inherently improbable on every possible level: psychologically, practically and just they couldnʼt do it in that dark room without leaving footwear and finger-marks in blood and if you actually consider something I did after I totalled up the number of people that were supposed to have held the bloody knife”, he continues. “Thatʼs four people, so there are four people with blood on their hands and theyʼre going out without leaving finger-marks in blood or whatever, so I think that was a major thing. Occamʼs Razor is a thing that we use a lot in forensic science, ʻin all probability, the simplest explanation is the correct oneʼ, and you have to be really sure that the simplest explanation isnʼt correct and that was something that was not done either”.

The Cost of Silence

The methods that Barclay used in his review and subsequent work on this case were available in the 1980s and ’90s. There was no reason for this miscarriage of justice to be allowed to occur. Jeffrey Gafoor was the one person who knew for certain that not only were the Cardiff Five innocent, but that they were suffering a grave injustice for his crime. He chose to stay silent and let their lives be destroyed Ronnie Actie and Yusef Abdullahi both died before reaching fifty. John Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris still endure the unjustifiable whispering campaigns in a case that disgraces justice. Meanwhile, the real killer, becomes eligible to apply for parole today after completing a tariff that was incorrectly applied and failed miserably to reflect the crimes Gafoor committed.

There is no excuse for the lives of the Cardiff Five and their families to have been wrecked. There is no excuse for Lynette’s family to have been denied justice for so long. While Gafoor is not responsible for justice miscarrying, his cowardly decision to refuse to take any responsibility for his crime when it mattered destroyed several lives. Do the courses and rehabilitative exercises that he experiences in prison to prepare him for parole bear this in mind? If not, why not? The real and sole killer received an inappropriately lenient tariff that further insults all the victims of this tawdry injustice – one that simply won’t go away until justice is allowed to reign once and for all.

Important

“The science is important”, said Mark Evans QC in his closing argument on behalf of John Pope, in his retrial for the murder of a 34 year-old Karen Skipper. “That’s why you have the experts. It is important you understand the purpose of it and the limits of it. As far as science is concerned, you can take it from them. What deductions you make, is entirely for you. Where they and I part company is where they cease to talk about science and resort to amateur sleuthing”.

He criticised forensic scientist Michael Appleby in particular. Mr Evans said that Mr Appleby was emphatic that the blood-stain on Mrs Skipper’s knickers was wet and not dilute. “That’s important”, Mr Evans said, “as that is based on his observations. How could it not be diluted? We know that the clothes were damp from a heavy dew that night”.

Rehydrated

Mr Evans advised the jury to apply their common sense to all of the evidence. “When it comes to looking at dew and its effect on clothes, you know better than anyone”, he said. He pointed out that both the pocket of the jeans and the knickers which contained the blood-stains were exposed to the elements. “How could they not be dilute?” he asked before informing the court that the scientists said they were not.

Mr Evans conceded that the older the stains were the harder it is to rehydrate. He conceded that liquid would leach out. He questioned the size of both stains that had been reported. Every attempt to photograph the blood-stain on the knickers failed, but fluorescence would be obtained when exposed to different types of light. He suggested that there was fluorescence and that it was consistent with a smaller stain on the knickers that liquid (blood) had leached out from. This, he suggested, was evidence of rehydrated blood.

“The prosecution case is that it was deposited in attack, but in all probability it will be damp already”, Mr Evans said. He told the jury that the effects of leaching of fresh blood would have been noted and mentioned by the scientists. They did not. “Doesn’t it point to stain being much older?” Mr Evans asked. “Some diluting effect was inescapable [but] they will not accept it; did not see it”.

As Good as Any Other

Mr Evans told the jury that when Mr Pope was interviewed by police in 2007 he was told there was forensic evidence linking him to the murder of Karen Skipper, but nothing specific. That Mr Evans said, meant that Mr Pope, a man of limited intelligence, had to guess correctly that it was blood and concoct an explanation of it on the spot.

He told the jury that hands go into pockets at an angle and that the position that it landed in was consistent with Mr Pope’s account. [Nigel] Hodge and [Gillian] Leak had, said Mr Evans, accepted that the two spots will have coincided, but could only have done so when the jeans are being worn and done up and therefore, if the two spots had coincided at same time, the “only possibility is through the pocket and that is exactly what Mr Pope says”.

Mr Evans told the jury that if a blood-stained hand had been inserted in the pocket, then it would be elsewhere, but we are talking about tiny amount of blood. He invited the jury not to reject Mr Pope’s explanation of the earlier encounter with Mrs Skipper and how his blood could have got onto her clothing. “We can’t say, ʻthis is what happened’, all we can do is point out the possibilities”. He invited the jury to put their hands in their pocket. “Why can’t it be done?” he asked. He suggested that a tissue is like a sponge that could absorb blood and expunge it if pressure was applied and then soak it up again. When that process is finished, Mr Evans argued, more blood would be on the outside than the inside. Mr Pope’s account was he submitted, therefore, a perfectly credible explanation.

“Mr Murphy [Ian Murphy QC – the prosecutor] is quite wrong when he submitted that consensus of scientists is that you can consider this as incredible”, said Mr Evans. If something can happen, he suggested then, sometimes, invariably it will. “If the potential is there, the possibility is clearly there. They [the prosecution] have to prove that it did not happen in this case”.

Mr Evans insisted that the reconstruction conducted by Mrs Leak showed that it was possible for the jeans and knickers to have touched each other, thereby accounting for both stains. “Anything’s possible”, said Mr Evans, who insisted that it was for the prosecution to prove that it did not happen. “The point I made was for that to have happened by pure accident, both garments, both spots had to touch each other”. He told the jury that the opportunity existed. The jeans and knickers had been packaged together while damp with the belt. They had been taken out to retrieve the belt, which had been taken out before they were repacked. This, Mr Evans suggested, provided ample opportunity contact and therefore transfer. “The odds of it happening in that way are, I suggest, pretty high”, said Mr Evans.

He then highlighted what he contended was a real problem with the direct contact theory. He told the court that the jury had been assured that both blood-stains were direct contact stains from a pin-prick of blood, but while one was a smear the other was not. That, he suggested, was a real problem. The stain on the knickers had been produced by a wiping action that left no blood on the ridge, but on the pocket-lining it was a smear. “Ask yourselves how can it be that there is a wiping action with smearing on knickers, but with pocket, the same action, but no smear?” said Mr Evans. “There is a basic inconsistency”. He pointed out that anyone depositing the stains in the way the scientists and Mr Murphy had claimed would have had to remove the shoes, belt and trousers before getting access to the knickers. “Where’s the rest of the blood?” Mr Evans asked. “[It’s] extraordinary that there is no blood, you may think”.

Other Possibilities

“There are other possibilities in this case which you have to take on board and for this reason: if Phillip Skipper was the killer, then the blood-stains on the clothing doesn’t matter, does it?” said Mr Evans. “If you think Phillip Skipper could have been the killer, then that’s the end of it”.

Mr Evans detailed the circumstantial case against Mr Skipper that included the apparent lack of interest he had shown in the whereabouts of Mrs Skipper after she went out with the dogs that night. “So where does all this point you?” asked Mr Evans. “The prosecution tell you John Pope’s story is lie after after lie, but could a man like Pope really have made all of that up on the spur of the moment? We suggest, not in a million years. At the end of the day, you have to be sure that all of the other explanations fail and it must have been John Pope. Can you possibly do that in this case?”

Dog’s Breakfast

“You don’t get a pin prick of blood from a dog-bite”, Mr Evans told the jury. “If that dog [Samson] had attacked, you would not get a pin prick of blood”. Mr Evans reminded the jury that there was plenty of evidence that Samson in particular was fiercely protective of Karen Skipper. Mr Skipper, he reminded them, had suggested that the killer must have been known to her [he had mentioned Jimmy Turner and the man known as Steve in that context] or that there had been two killers.

While the prosecution dismissed Mr Pope’s explanation of the blood-stains as a “complete fantasy”, Mr Evans said that it had “the ring of truth about it”. Mr Pope did not know what forensic evidence the police had linking him to the murder when he was questioned. It could have been anything, Mr Evans said, but he gives them an account that explained bloodstains being found. Mr Murphy had previously told the jury that Mr Pope knew that it was blood because he had attacked Karen Skipper and been bitten by one of her dogs. He had then transposed that event to an invented incident three weeks earlier.

“Where does all the scientific evidence take you?” asked Mr Evans. “You can’t be sure of very much at all, save it (bloodstains) was there. The prosecution has to prove Mr Pope’s explanation has to be wrong. It’s as good as any other”.

Consequences

He had previously said that there were no consequences for Phillip Skipper if the jury thought it might be him and that there were none for Richard Mead either, but it was a different story for Mr Pope. “Remember, the consequences are serious”, said Mr Evans. “He has already been through one trial and an appeal process. It is so important that you get this right. If you think the forensic evidence was flawed, then convicting him on that basis would be wrong”.

The Honourable Mr Justice (Sir Roderick) Evans KT is summing-up. The jury is expected to be asked to begin considering their verdict on Friday. John Pope denies murdering 34 year-old Karen Skipper, whose body was discovered submerged in the River Ely in the morning of March 10^th 1996.

Guarantees

The families of murder victim Karen Skipper and her estranged husband Phillip who stood trial wrongly for her murder want a guarantee from the Secretary of State (Minister) of Justice that in the absence of compelling new evidence such as DNA, acquittals must be respected. They claim that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) could never have charged Mr Skipper, if he had been alive, on such evidence as Mark Evans QC allowed to use, especially as there was DNA evidence implicating another man, Evans’ client, so why was the defence allowed to do it without requiring a proof of guilt?

The victms’ families are shocked and disappointed that the criminal justice system allowed them to be victimised again with such poor quality evidence. A prison informer, Paul James had claimed at Mr Skipper’s trial in 1997 that Skipper admitted accompanying Mrs Skipper to Birdies Field that fateful night, but James refused to co-operate when called by Pope’s defence.

“I know that he [Mr Skipper] is dead and can’t defend himself,” James said, before the defence abandoned the attempt to get evidence from him and relied on statements he had made previously, along with evidence from earlier trials.

Quality

The quality of evidence did not improve. Mr Skipper’s neighbour, Pauline Horton, came forward after 13 years, claiming that she saw Mr Skipper following his wife towards Birdies Field in Cardiff on her last walk. She insisted that she was afraid of the Hell’s Angels, but neither Mr Skipper nor his friend David Davies were Hell’s Angels.

Horton accepted that both Mr Davies and Skipper had been perfectly nice to her. At best, she was, as prosecuting counsel Ian Murphy QC, had suggested, mistaken, but she would not countenance her evidence being rejected. “Don’t you call me a liar!” she told Mr Murphy angrily, but her evidence did not stand up. Perhaps there was a more sinister explanation of her evidence than Murphy suggested.

Scientifically Ludicrous

DNA from blood-staining on intimate areas of Mrs Skipper’s clothing linked Mr Pope, not Mr Skipper, to the crime. Mr Evans had claimed that the blood-stains had rehydrated from dew overnight and given the impression of fresh blood despite four scientists agreeing that direct contact was the most likely explanation and that rehydrated blood appears different from fresh blood.

Mr Pope’s explanation that Mrs Skipper’s dog bit him three weeks earlier after he removed a thorn from its paw and that Mrs Skipper had given him a tissue and transferred the blood to her pocket was rejected by the jury. It was a fanciful explanation and one that was flatly contradicted by the science.

Obscene

Mr Skipper had been eliminated as the source of that blood on the jeans fifteen years ago. At the time the prosecution claimed that it was not important. They had little choice as the prosecution was dead in the water if that evidence was acknowledged for what it was – proof of innocence. The prosecution in 1997 chose to ignore or minimise the importance of that evidence, which was seized on by Mr Pope’s QC, Mark Evans.

But the blood-staining was on intimate parts of Mrs Skipper’s clothing and was therefore quite obviously significant. It was clearly very inconvenient in the prosecution of Phillip Skipper.

If the significance of those blood-stains had been fully appreciated during the original investigation in 1996 or during Mr Skipper’s trial in 1997, it would have been crystal clear that Mr Skipper was innocent. That in turn would have ended his ordeal promptly and prevented a deplorable defence from being gifted to an unscrupulous man.

Nevertheless, Mr Pope was allowed to ignore Mr Skipper’s acquittal and accuse him twice more without any standard of proof.

“It should not be allowed”, said miscarriage of justice survivor Michael O’Brien. “A similar thing happened to me after I won my appeal. Phillip Skipper was entitled to be presumed innocent after his acquittal. Only compelling new evidence like DNA should allow an accusation like that against a person who has been acquitted or had their conviction quashed”.

Mr Justice (Sir Nigel) Davis at least had the good grace to stress that it was owed to the memory of Phillip Skipper to acknowledge his innocence.