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.

Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (June 1st 2011)

Discretion and Valour

Of the seven vindication cases in Britain four of them are no longer eligible for compensation or after-care and it is too late to help a fifth, who would have qualified.[2] The abolition of the Discretionary Scheme for compensation in 2006 denies anyone whose conviction is quashed too soon eligibility for compensation. The current government endorsed that shameful decision.[3]

“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,” Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, Lord (Thomas) McNally replied to a written question from Lord (John) Laird earlier this year.[4]

“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.”

Scandalous

That means that some people who have been vindicated would be excluded if their cases were to happen now, but compensation is only part of the problem. There is an even bigger scandal over the provision of care or restoration.
A ludicrous error passed unnoticed nearly a decade ago. The Home Office recognised that victims of miscarriages of justice required and deserved assistance to rebuild their lives. It established a Working Group to consider the issue and establish such a scheme. It was given terms of reference and so was Peter Shore (not the former MP of that name), the Consultant that it hired to conduct a scoping study.
Shore failed to execute those terms of reference adequately and recommended a scheme that excluded the vast majority of victims of miscarriages of justice. Only Sean Hodgson is alive and eligible for the scheme operated by the MJSS, which begs the question, what use is it if it excludes the demonstrably innocent?[5]

To its shame and disgrace it failed to highlight the obvious injustice of its remit excluding among others Colin Stagg. There is plenty of shame and disgrace to go round over this and that includes mainstream media.

Plain Wrong

The term injustice is grossly inadequate to describe the suffering that Stagg and others like him went through. If he is not the victim of a miscarriage of a justice, the term has no meaning. Stagg is entitled to more than just compensation for what happened to him.
He did not ask for what happened to him to occur and is in no way responsible for the incompetence and unethical practices that ruined his life. He will always be identifiable as the suspect in the Rachel Nickell case regardless of his proven innocence.
At last he has now received apologies for what he went through, but the state has an obligation to restore him to the life that he should have had if that miscarriage of justice had not happened to him. That has not happened and the coalition government has no intention of ensuring that it does. In fact, its ministers donʼt even know its own policy.
“The Ministry of Justice funds the Miscarriage of Justice Support Service (MJSS) to help those who have had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal,” McNally replied to Laird. “The MJSS provides help with issues such as healthcare, accommodation, finance and relationships. The MJSSʼ 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.”

Disgraceful

First of all, the MJSS does not provide help to those who have had their convictions quashed on appeal – it only provides that limited assistance to a tiny minority of such people. It shamefully reneged on a commitment to help Tony Paris and Yusef Abdullahi eight years ago to protect its funding, which included their wages.
The fact remains that there are several victims of miscarriages of justice who receive no help at all from the MJSS. If McNally is unaware of this, he ought to be ashamed of himself. The MJSS had the opportunity to help and improve the so-called service it provides eight years ago. It chose to sacrifice the interests of the undeniably innocent to protect its wages, claiming it was to protect its funding.
That disgraceful decision helped to cost lives. At least three vindicated people died without living to fifty without receiving any help whatsoever from the MJSS or the Ministry of Justice. Neither can ever make amends.

Exclusion Ordered

The original defendants in the Damilola Taylor case are at least still alive, but they receive no help from the MJSS. They were children when it happened; they had criminal records and were far from angels. So what!
They did not kill Taylor and they did not ask to be wrongly accused of a crime that shocked the nation. They have been compensated now after a long and hard battle and even that is resented. Why?
Where is the anger at the shoddy investigation that secured abysmal evidence from the child witness referred to as ʻBromleyʼ? Where is the anger at the utter incompetence of Sian Hedges that resulted in the wrongful release of the Preddie brothers (Ricky and Danny)?
The outrage at the size of the award given to two brothers (not the Preddies) is totally misplaced. They deserve compensation – at least that amount, but the size of the award given to Taylorʼs family is insulting. That should be addressed by increasing the award made to Taylorʼs family, not by attacking the award made to boys who stood trial when they should not have.

Motes and Specks

Meanwhile, we allow the undeniably innocent to be treated in a fashion that shames each and every one of us. That mainstream media ignores this scandal disgraces them too. That governments of both political hues refuse to act to end this outrage betrays every concept of justice.
They go to war in foreign fields to defend human rights, yet these hypocrites tolerate and ignore the human rights abuses that they allow to occur right here in Britain. By what right do they dare to lecture others when this is how they allow people they know to be innocent beyond doubt to be treated? It appears they need considerable assistance to remove the enormous mote from their own eyes, while tackling specks in the eyes of others.

Progress

The Fitted-In Project led the way in highlighting the treatment of these victims and in one of the cases we helped fill the void caused by the betrayal of the innocent with the assistance of a remarkable advocate and champion of restorative justice, Roger Backhouse QC. He led the delivery of after-care in practice to his former client, Yusef Abdullahi, without which, shorn of help and hope, the prospect of recovery was bleak.
While Backhouse and others provided the assistance required to an undoubtedly innocent man, the government and MJSS ignored that manʼs needs and those of the majority of victims of miscarriages of justice.[6]

Even now eight years later, the government has no plans to right the wrong that allowed this shameful injustice to occur. Instead it will consult with the very organisation that betrayed the innocent to protect its funding – shameful!

The Effects of Vindication

Instead of consulting people that played no part in catering for the needs of the vindicated, even at the cost of consigning them to early graves, we call for meaningful research that will boost our understanding of a shamefully neglected group of victims of miscarriages of justice.
The psychological effects of vindication remain a mystery. The vindicated are no more innocent now than they always were. The difference is that now they are believed by all but those who refuse to see. But what about the effects on vindication? Has the very thing they craved actually damaged them?
For many years they suffered whispering campaigns, including among so-called friends and developed paranoid reactions to their own communities, wondering who believed them and who didnʼt. Friendships and other relationships broke down under the strain of the certainty they now have against their knowledge that they should have been believed and supported to the hilt earlier.

Justice Betrayed

Feeling hurt – betrayed even – by people they trusted, but whose support was not strong enough, the vindicated may need extra support, or at least understanding. That requires research and it must include the psychological effects of tariff abuse.
Some vindicated people have seen the truly guilty receive more lenient tariffs than they did. How can this be justified and what effect does it have on the mental well-being of the vindicated? There is not so much a dearth of research on this – it is virtually non-existent.
Tariff Reform and after-care, especially in relation to the vindicated, are the flagship projects of The Fitted-In Project. They even involve sport as a means to aid their recovery.
We believe that research is essential on both topics and we are conducting it, but there are areas that we cannot cover as efficiently as we would like, so we call on the Clinical Forensic and Legal Medicine Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, other organisations and individuals to join us in facilitating understanding of the psychological effects of vindication in terms of after-care needs and also tariff abuse through research. We hope that its members will research these issues, or facilitate research projects with us on these issues.
It is through knowledge that their needs can be addressed, but first they need to be understood – that is a task to be led by professionals in the field through rigorous research. It is in our opinion an essential tenet of another integrated approach – one that integrates the vindicated back into society and the life they should have had.

[1] An indication of the importance of an integrated approach can be seen in Equality of Arms, at http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=690  for more on this case and others too.

[2]  Subsequently, a sixth who plainly was eligible has died, so it is too late for him too.

[3]  The current government has extended the attack on compensation to demand a standard that appears to demand that the wrongfully convicted must be exonerated – a standard that can prove impossible to meet unless the real perpetrator is brought to justice. Few independent observers believe that Barry George had anything to do with the murder of former gymnast and later television presenter, Jill Dando, but he has been denied compensation on the grounds of exoneration. This is grossly unfair as the criminal justice system rarely makes findings of innocence. A not guilty verdict includes both the innocent and also defendants who have not been proved guilty. The distinction is moot. Similarly convictions are quashed on appeal because they are unsafe. That includes both the innocent and appellants whose convictions were faulty. Again the distinction is moot as neither the trial nor appeal gives a finding of innocence, so how does a wrongfully accused prove that they have been exonerated and are therefore entitled to compensation?

[4] Please note that this was in 2011.

[5] That was correct when this presentation was given to a conference of medical practitioners, which included distinguished forensic pathologists.

[6]    See how we exposed this scandal in A Lack of Care at http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=709 and Who Cared? at http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=707

Radio Cardiff

Part Four with Georgina Sammut

Satish Sekar explains the very lenient tariff that the real murderer Jeffrey Gafoor received for atrocious murder of Lynette White. He details the deficiencies in the tariff system, how they came about and the problems of innocence in such a system. Sekar explains the setting of the tariff for the murder of Lynette and how the judge made mistakes determining the tariff and in the balancing of aggravating circumstances against mitigation. Sekar explains his motivation in continuing to fight for justice. He then explains the damage done to the victims of injustice and the failure to provide after-care. Sekar argues for a Truth and Justice Commission rather than a Public Inquiry. He explains the failure of Royal Commissions to address the problems as governments can pick and chose, which bits they want to adopt.

Part Five with Georgina Sammut

Satish Sekar explains the work of The Fitted-In Project, highlighting the extent of vindication throughout the world. He argues that vindication has the power to change criminal justice systems. The FIP is working with organisations in the USA. He details the problems with the Grand Jury system, illustrated by the recent case of Michael Brown. Sekar argues for Truth and Justice Commissions over all the issues in different jurisdictions. He also explains how they would work, be constituted and what he hopes it would achieve.

Part Six with Georgina Sammut

Satish Sekar explains the projects of The Fitted-In Project. He explains that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Attorney General failed to appeal against the leniency of the tariff imposed on Gafoor. He then details the lack of after-care and how the provisions of the government scheme excluded the vast majority of victims. Sekar highlights the benefits of sport to assist in the after-care of victims of miscarriages of justice. Michael O’Brien has benefited from it. Sekar also mentions the Dylan O’Brien Foundation.

Real Friends

Yusef Abdullahi is the first of the Cardiff Three to die. His recent death has re-opened the debate on the provision of after-care to victims of miscarriages of justice. Abdullahi was just 49 and died without having received any assistance to rebuild his life from the Miscarriages of Justice Support Service (MJSS).

“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 Abdullahi’s QC and champion Roger Backhouse. “He could have gone to university. He was that intelligent. Yusef is the only person that I would do this for”.

Backhouse used his own resources to try to help Abdullahi. Despite his own failing health Backhouse came and saw Abdullahi, arranged medical assistance for him, helped him fill in social security forms and much more besides. He even contributed to an as yet unbroadcast documentary on the subject.

There were others too. Despite being the victim of one of Wales’ most notorious miscarriages of justice and needing help himself Michael O’Brien helped Abdullahi too. “I will never forget that Yusef campaigned for me at a time when few others did”, he said. “I wanted to help him and think it outrageous that he never received help. I took it up with the Miscarriages of Justice Project [MJP] before”. It is now called the Miscarriages of Justice Support Service.

Salvation and Curse

O’Brien welcomed Abdullahi into his home and advised him on some pitfalls and offered help. Winston Silcott rarely gets any credit, but he played a pivotal role in helping Abdullahi both inside and outside of prison. Abdullahi tried to credit him, as Silcott’s assistance gave Abdullahi a purpose to help him cope in prison. Silcott inspired him again when Abdullahi most needed it to get his life back on track outside.

Abdullahi came out of prison in 1992 in a blaze of publicity and embarked on a punishing schedule to highlight the plight of other victims of miscarriages of justice. Within a year he was thoroughly exhausted. It had been both his salvation and curse. Campaigning for others gave him a sense of purpose again and deprived him of time to focus on his problems – they could wait – but the schedule wore him out and down. He needed a break – he’d earned it – but it came at a very high price.

Deprived of the benefit of his cause he sank into the problems that others in his situation had faced before and since. I’d fallen out of touch with him – I had other things on my mind. The outlook for him was bleak and steadily got worse. He turned back to alcohol and drugs and as his demons took over, he slid into depression and an ever downward spiral. So-called friends did little or nothing to help. He was horribly let down, but his story is sadly too common.

Fateful Meeting

It had been the best part of ten years since I’d seen him last. The phone calls and visits had dried up from both of us. He didn’t call me and I didn’t call him. We both had other things going on. The same applied to many others. I still heard about him occasionally if not from him and I didn’t like what I was hearing, but it was his life and he had to be ready to change it, or so I thought then. I was wrong. He needed help desperately, but offering it was not enough.

When I saw him again for the first time in ten years I was shocked. The confident affable young man I’d known and remembered was gone – replaced by a man who looked at least ten years older than he was. He had been worn down by life’s outrages. He turned up to a court hearing in which Jeffrey Gafoor, the man who committed the crime that wrecked Abdullahi’s life, was sent to jail, not having finished his breakfast – a can of Tenants.

I’d seen enough. Something had to be done. Someone had to intervene. If they didn’t he was on borrowed time and not much of it. I approached the MJP and professionals and representatives too, outlining my concern that if he wasn’t helped soon he would not survive long.

We developed a package of after-care just for him. Society had wronged him and others like him. Now it could put it right by helping to rebuild his life. It wasn’t ideal as he had specific care needs, but the MJP was there to help. It had been set up that very year precisely to help victims of miscarriages of justice. Surely it would intervene. It simply had to.

A Shameful Betrayal

Abdullahi had issues requiring medical intervention. He needed help to conquer his addictions, but that required medical permission. All it needed was an approach to his doctor to recommend the course of treatment and help required, but not just for him. There was no point helping him give up hard and addictive drugs if he was going to be sent back into the same circumstances that he found so intolerable that he needed heroin to block out his woes in the first place.

With others using around him it was inevitable that he would relapse – it was when, not if. Miraculously a solution was found. They would all be helped at the same time. All it required was his doctor’s recommendation, but who could get through to him? Why should he trust the so-called friends who hadn’t been there for ten years when he needed it – and yes I’m as responsible as the rest over this.

I approached the MJP. I stressed the urgency of the situation – it was the summer of 2003. They were asked to go and see them and develop a plan to help. Even the limited service that they offered was enough to get things started. They agreed to go to Cardiff to see him and Tony Paris. It should have been the start of the rest of his life. Instead he was let down.

The then Deputy Director of the MJP, Amarjit Kaur, reneged on the agreement to go and see them. She claimed that it would affect their funding and mean that they could not help other victims of miscarriages of justice.

Nearly eight years later Abdullahi is dead and the disgraceful situation that denied him help has not been resolved. The MJSS was set up to provide assistance to victims of miscarriages of justice rebuild their lives, so why was Abdullahi left out when he badly needed help?

Misinterpreted

Yusef Abdullahi was wrongly convicted in 1990 of the Valentine’s Day 1988 murder of Lynette White along with Stephen Miller and Tony Paris. John Actie and his cousin the late Ronnie Actie were acquitted. All five were vindicated in 2003 when Jeffrey Gafoor pleaded guilty to Lynette’s murder. It was the first time that this had happened in Britain through DNA testing.

The Miscarriages of Justice Project (MJP) was established that year after a Home Office Working Group had considered the issue, but their consultant misinterpreted his terms of reference and excluded anyone whose conviction was quashed on a first appeal. And if, like Colin Stagg, they had never been convicted at all, they were not even considered for help by the Working Group. The scheme – a limited advice service – was restricted to those referred back for appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, or an out of time appeal.

Untruths

“The Ministry of Justice funds the Miscarriage of Justice Support Service (MJSS) to help those who have had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal,” said the Minister of State at Ministry of Justice, Baron (Tom) McNally in a written response to Baron (John) Laird’s query.

“The MJSS provides help with issues such as healthcare, accommodation, finance and relationships”, McNally wrote. “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”.

There is a slight problem with this response; it is not true. The remit and funding agreement of the MJSS does not allow it to help anyone whose conviction was quashed on an in-time first appeal and never had. It is restricted in who it helps and actually excludes the overwhelming ajority of victims of miscarriages of justice.

Fend for Themselves

Almost eight years ago I asked the Miscarriages of Justice Project as it was called then to go and visit Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris in Cardiff. They agreed, but reneged on the agreement, claiming that it would affect their funding and therefore ability to help others. It was an uncaring response from people whose job it was to provide care.

Abdullahi in particular really needed help then. It was the least he deserved, but instead he was left to fend for himself. The MJP decided that it could not help him, because he did not come under their remit, which has not been changed. They did not even point out the absurdity of not being permitted to provide help to demonstrably innocent people. They even had the cheek to ask me to recommend their service to others.

Disgraceful

If he had asked for their help, he would have been referred to his local Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB) and they would have been advised that he would call and what to do, rather than receive help from those who had experience of these issues. What use is that? Abdullahi deserved the care he needed – nothing less.

Lord McNally really ought to have known this and the government should right this wrong without further delay. It is already too late for Abdullahi – he died last month aged just 49. Despite being vindicated Abdullahi had been excluded from receiving assistance from the MJSS. The same applies to Ronnie Actie and Phillip Skipper, neither of whom was convicted. They have other things in common. They were vindicated and died without reaching 50. They didn’t qualify for help either. Nor did Colin Stagg. What kind of system is this? What kind of way is this for society to treat its victims?

Incomprehensible

The abolition of the Discretionary Scheme for compensation means that were a similar case to the Cardiff Five to occur now they would not be compensated unless they sue, despite being demonstrably innocent. They did not come under the Statutory Scheme. This is particularly egregious as many victims of miscarriages of justice receive no care unless it comes under their claim for compensation.

Thanks to a shocking error by the consultant hired by the Working Group, the vast majority of victims of miscarriages of justice received no help at all from the State that wronged them. Peter Shore (not to be confused with the former MP) was asked by the Working Group set up by the Home Office to consider the provision of after-care. His conclusions make it clear that he did not follow his terms of reference. As a result even the limited help provided is to be denied the victims of injustice who had the temerity to have their convictions quashed at a their first appeal..

The logic is that if a conviction is quashed on a first appeal it shows that the system is working as intended. It shows that a small area has been corrected, but still denies them even the limited after-care provided by the Miscarriages of Justice Project for victims of miscarriages of justice. Consequently, despite being proven innocent beyond doubt the Cardiff Five were denied any assistance rebuilding their lives.

Shameful

This is a shameful way to treat the victims of an easily preventable miscarriage of justice – one where there is no credible doubt about innocence. If this issue is not addressed it is inevitable that more victims will be created. And it does not end here. What about the way Lynette’s family have been treated. They were assured that the original defendants were guilty. Indeed the late Terry White reacted furiously towards the original defendants on various occasions.

Her family had to endure the certainty that the guilty were paying for their crime being taken away and then 11 years with nobody being punished for it only to find out that they had been badly misled and had hated the wrong people for years. They have yet to receive an apology for the failings of the investigation and the effect that it as had upon them. What assistance do they receive in coming to terms with what happened and the guilt of having hated the wrong people for so long?

They receive no compensation for the failings of the criminal justice system. Peggy Pesticcio in particular was forced not only to cope with the loss of her daughter, but she had to fight tenaciously to get justice for her daughter. She paid a very high price that has not been acknowledged or catered for.

Satish Sekar pioneered the concept of vindication. The FIP is proud to launch Vindication – The Last Hope of the Innocent today (September 5th). It aims to ensure that the lessons of cases where victims of miscarriages of justice have been proven innocent by the identification or even conviction of real killers are fully learned. There have been six cases of vindication in Britain in the DNA age, but only one had an investigation of what went wrong – a process that was ultimately betrayed. Vindication – The Last Hope of the Innocent is long overdue.

“This is the story of one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in British history told by Satish Sekar, whose unremitting efforts helped lead to the vindication of the Cardiff Five. They always were innocent, but their freedom was not enough. The memory of Lynette White and her family deserved justice too and that required the conviction of the real killer, Jeffrey Gafoor.This book shows how even a very difficult case can be solved if there is the will to investigate it thoroughly. It details how an awful miscarriage of justice was finally corrected by the conviction of the real killer. Satish’s work was pivotal to achieve this, and he is keen to continue the fight to ensure that the lessons of an extraordinary case are properly learned.”

Steven Bird (Solicitor and Treasurer of CALA)

“I wish Mr Sekar all the best in his work. His passion in ensuring that all available support is directed to those wrongly convicted and incarcerated is admirable.”

The Rt. Hon. Jack Straw (Former Home Secretary and Minister of Justice)

We are delighted to launch Proved Innocent – Vindication. We highlighted the inequity of a system that ignored some victims of miscarriages even though there is no doubt about their innocence. Eight years of refusing to allow the government to ignore an egregious injustice to be ignored resulted in a shameful error being corrected, but too late for Yusef Abdullahi. Despite his innocence being beyond question John Actie is still excluded from the scheme as is Colin Stagg, the original defendants in the Damilola Taylor Inquiry and the family of Phillip Skipper. Disgracefully, the family of victims of crime like Lynette White’s do not qualify either. Proved Innocent – Vindication highlights this affront to justice.

“As a victim of institutional racism I quickly saw the injustice of the case of the Cardiff Five and came to appreciate and admire the work that Satish Sekar put in on that case especially. He cared about all of the victims of that injustice and others too. Twenty years later he continues to fight for justice. His role in that case especially was pivotal – having worked not only to free the innocent, but to bring the guilty to justice. Even after making history in that respect he continues to fight on to bring the system that allowed so gross an injustice to book. There are forgotten or ignored victims of crime. My family has first-hand experience of that. I appreciated Satish’s often unseen efforts to help all of the victims. Sadly, the battle against injustice that brought us together remains to be won.”

Richard Adams (Father of Rolan Adams)

Just Tariffs – Protecting The Innocent is another of our most important projects. We are honoured to launch it here today. It highlights the incredible situation where the truly guilty get treated more leniently than the undeniably innocent for the same crime. Astonishingly this happened after the criminal justice system claimed to have taken into account the fact that such a killer had allowed innocent people to go to prison for his crime. The Law Commission and Ministry of Justice, among others refuse to accept that there is a problem.

“The case of the Cardiff Three, as it is best known, was a miscarriage of justice written in the starkest language. This was the story of three young men convicted of the 1988 murder of Lynette White in Cardiff who were freed on appeal in 1992. It is of particular significance because the real perpetrator of the murder, Jeffrey Gafoor, was finally traced through developments in DNA and, after attempting suicide, confessed to his crime, a crime made worse by the fact that he had allowed others to, as it were, serve his sentence for him. Such vindication, as Sekar explains in this book, is rare. More often, a shadow of suspicion lurks over the innocent man or woman, with unsubtle hints that some of them have ‘got away with murder.’

The Cardiff Three – sometimes called the Cardiff Five, because five men were arrested and charged although only three convicted – was and will remain one of the most crucial cases in the history of criminal justice in the United Kingdom and is worthy of detailed examination. It is not only for what went wrong at the time but for the many other issues it has thrown up in its wake.No-one is better suited to the task of explaining and unravelling the complexities of the story than Satish Sekar whose pioneering work has played a large part in our understanding of the murder and its ramifications. He has ploughed an often lonely furrow in pursuit of the story long after it had slipped from the front pages of the national press. Investigating such cases is a time-consuming and sometimes dangerous occupation.”

Duncan Campbell (Former Crime Correspondent of the Guardian)

Injustice

Over a quarter of a century ago Michael OʼBrien was wrenched from his family. He suffered a grave miscarriage of justice that robbed him and his family of more than a decade of his life. He always knew that he was innocent of the robbery and murder of Cardiff newspaper vendor, Phillip Saunders – it should have been obvious to others too. During the dark days of his wrongful imprisonment – he was wrongfully convicted along with Ellis Sherwood and Darren Hall – OʼBrien needed an outlet.

He found it in football. He was a Cardiff City and Wales fan. For 90 minutes every weekend he could forget his woes and support his team. In his mind he was on the terraces willing his team on. It helped him cope. OʼBrien was one of the main inspirations for both the Fitted-In Project and Empower-Sport launching our project A Sporting Chance of After-care.

Inspiration

Football had given OʼBrien hope when he needed it most. He survived the miscarriage of justice and he fought tirelessly for others – he still does through the Dylan OʼBrien Foundation.¹ Victims of miscarriages of justice are largely forgotten about by society. The euphoria of their release, even in high profile cases quickly wears off. Support and assistance was hard to come by. Many retreat into their shells again unwilling to engage with people who do not and cannot understand.

But football had helped once. Perhaps it could again. Not only had it helped OʼBrien, but anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela and his comrades on the infamous Robben Island, too.

Football Unites

We decided that perhaps football could help again. We approached the Football Association of Wales to provide the practical support that our project needed. They readily agreed. It was fitting that OʼBrien was the first person to be helped under our scheme. Along with a trusted person – an essential part of the scheme – OʼBrien was provided with seats to support Wales against Cyprus. He enjoyed the experience greatly including the result as Wales beat Cyprus 2-1 to remain top of Group B. It helped him too

“Satish should be commended for setting up this project, which can benefit those who have suffered a miscarriage of justice”, OʼBrien said. “I thoroughly enjoyed the Wales v Cyprus game and I am extremely grateful to Satish and the FAW for taking part in this project and hope they continue to support this in the future”.

1 The Foundation was established in memory of OʼBrienʼs son whose death aged two could and should have been prevented. Together with his wife Claire, they campaign for greater awareness of the condition that Dylan suffered from and to help others. Dylan suffered from a rare, but tragically undiagnosed condition Mucopollysaccharidosis (see www.thedylanobrienfoundation.com for further information on the Dylan OʼBrien Foundation).