Hindrance

Stephen Miller’s solicitor when arrested for the murder of Lynette White, Graham Dobson used a local solicitor Geraint Richards to represent Miller in the interviews. His presence was a hindrance as legally Miller had been represented. Richards failed to intervene while Miller was interviewed in a manner that breached the protections of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE).

Miller was represented ably at the first trial by Anthony Evans QC, who presented the same arguments on oppression that Michael Mansfield QC argued successfully on appeal in December 1992. Evans found Mr Justice McNeill, who died before the first trial ended, in intransigent mood.

Intransigence

Had McNeill ruled as he should have done this case would have been thrown out in 1989. Instead it continued without criticism of McNeill being made by the appeal judges. Why? Judges must understand the law regarding oppression. McNeill’s decision on the admissibility of Miller’s confession was quite simply wrong.

The Court of Appeal, headed by then Lord Chief Justice Lord Taylor, was horrified by the same interviews that McNeill found admissible. He had heard the worst bullying and concluded that it was acceptable. He was wrong and so was the Court of Appeal in failing to highlight his flawed judgement on that issue – one that contributed to making this miscarriage of justice all but inevitable.

Wretched Luck

Evans was unavailable for the second trial. That almost concluded Miller’s wretched luck. Roger Frisby QC failed to argue that Miller had been oppressed in a case that is now one of the standard texts on oppression in a police station. The ‘confession’ was in. Leonard could have used his discretion under Section 78 of PACE to exclude it, but the exercise of that discretion is rare and Leonard didn’t apply it.

The jury heard the confession, but were deprived of the context and understanding of what could induce an innocent man to sign away his future for the shortest of gains and the most paltry reward – an end to the interviewing. His confession, which he retracted had the terrible consequence of convicting his co-defendants Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris, despite compelling evidence of innocence.

Inadequate

But there was more. Miller’s lawyers missed the significance of evidence that all but proved him innocent and was available for his trial. Languishing in the unused material was statements by Debbie Actie and Robyn Reed. The young women had seen Miller playing pool shortly after the Crown say Lynette was murdered. Those claims were never retracted.

There were trainer-prints, hairs, finger-prints, fibres and plenty of blood-staining – both that of the killer and of course Lynette’s. This meant that if Miller was guilty he would have had to have removed all traces of the scientific evidence that tied him to the flat and victim without showing any attempt to interfere with it.

He would then have had to clean himself and his clothes so thoroughly that not a speck of blood remained, but without interfering with the dirt on the white parts of his stone-washed jeans. He then had to go across the road to a nightclub and play pool without a change in general demeanour. He had to achieve all this within 20 minutes of the murder and as his lawyers knew with the IQ of an eleven-year-old child.

The prosecution case against Miller should have been laughed out of court – literally – but it was never contradicted as vigorously as it should have been. The poor performance of Miller’s solicitors and Roger Frisby QC have never been investigated, let alone censured.

Failure

Ricky Preddie and his brother Danny were nineteen and eighteen years old respectively when they were convicted in August 2006 of the manslaughter of ten year old Damilola Taylor, which occurred in Peckham on November 27^th 2000.

Shortly after the verdicts were brought in the Home Office announced a review of the error that caused justice to be delayed. Sian Hedges, then working for the Forensic Science Service, missed crucial blood-staining that originated from Taylor on clothing and footwear of the Preddie brothers.

It did not investigate whether Hedges committed perjury in the trial earlier this year that resulted in the acquittal of Hassan Jihad on all charges and the Preddie brothers of murder and robbery regarding her work on the case, which resulted in a miscarriage of justice as four boys were wrongfully accused of the murder of Damilola Taylor.

In 2002 they were either acquitted by the jury or on the orders of the trial judge, a then Mr Justice (Sir Anthony) Hooper. The accusations against those four boys and that the truly guilty (Preddie brothers) evaded justice until now is a miscarriage of justice despite wrongful convictions not occurring.

No Answer

When originally confronted with her error, Hedges had no answer other than that she had missed it. She repeated this in evidence. When pressed by Orlando Pownall QC, Hedges said: “I’ve been thinking about it overnight and I think it’s unlikely that I wouldn’t have seen it.¹ My explanation is that I would have KM-tested² it and produced a negative result”.

This suggests that either the staining which was clearly visible to the naked eye was not there when she examined the trainer, or the presumptive test was negative. Both interpretations are fanciful at best. Original photographs show the stains clearly and if the KM-tests were negative, where are her laboratory notes of the tests that she claims she would have conducted and why did she fail to come up with this explanation earlier?

The question of how a presumptive test for possible blood-staining on a large area that was in fact blood could test negative also seems to have escaped her. Although false negatives can occur, they don’t in the circumstances of this case. It is a rare phenomenon that is unlikely to only be remembered as an afterthought years later.

Innocents

Four innocent boys stood trial for the same crime in 2002. That trial collapsed due to the unreliability of the key witness referred to as Bromley. John Sentamu, now Archbishop of York, headed an inquiry into police handling of vulnerable child witnesses like Bromley that resulted in recommendations.

The Home Office review focused on how the vital evidence that secured the convictions was missed in the first place. There was no investigation into how the Damilola Taylor Inquiry was mishandled in the first place. Hedges’ error does not explain how the innocent original defendants were allowed to stand trial years ago.

Neither the Metropolitan police, nor its police authority have announced any plans for an inquiry into what went wrong – errors that almost derailed justice permanently. Indeed, had wrongful convictions been obtained then through highly dubious methods, the Preddie brothers would never have been brought to justice.