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

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (June 1st 2011)

Lectures

If we intend to keep handing out lectures on human rights to other governments, then we have to address our own failings. There are seven vindication cases in Britain in the DNA age. Two of them occurred in London, one in Hampshire, another in West Yorkshire, one near the border between Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire and the other two were in Wales.

For legal reasons the Welsh ones could not be detailed[2] – there were trials in progress in both cases. John Pope had won an appeal, which led to a retrial in Newport before Mr Justice Roderick Evans. I covered that trial. The other trial was the Lynette White Inquiry Police Corruption Trial.

Both Phillip Skipper and the Cardiff Five had been vindicated, but were still facing unwarranted accusations. Nevertheless, the effects still need to be addressed in all vindication cases.

Shameful

Stefan Kiszko is dead and so is his remarkable mother, Charlotte. Both went to their graves without receiving assistance to rebuild their lives or even compensation. By todayʼs provisions, Kiszko was entitled to both, but he was long dead.

He lost over sixteen years of his life for a crime he did not commit and it was patently obvious early in the Lesley Molseed Inquiry that Kiszko was innocent. He could not produce semen, but that was on her clothing and was therefore an early and important clue.

The late Jack Dibb was charged over the Kiszko case as was his then subordinate Dick Holland and a forensic scientist Ronald Outteridge. The charges were dropped by a magistrate after Dibbʼs death. Years later a hit on the National DNA Database resulted in the identification of Ronald Castree as the prime suspect.

Thirty-two years after Molseed was murdered Castree was convicted. He still protests his innocence, but the real victim of the miscarriage of justice is Kiszko. He was wrongly labelled a pervert for exposing himself to school-girls. It later emerged that this was the justification for suspecting him in the first place, but that accusation was false too.

Years later, with Kiszkoʼs life ruined, the girls admitted that they had lied about him for a laugh! This illustrates the dangers of relying on the uncorroborated claims of immature people. The wheels of justice began turning at break-neck speed as a result of that and the subsequent obsession with Kiszko.

Appalling

Kiszko was failed disgracefully by the criminal justice system. His defence layers knew about the semen issue, but failed to present evidence at his trial that would have cleared him beyond doubt. The consequences were dreadful. He was attacked in prison and damaged irreparably by his ordeal. He never recovered and never saw Castree brought to justice.

While his defence lawyers at trial must take the lionʼs share of the blame and deservedly too, the rest of the criminal justice is not blameless either. The evidence against Kiszko was hopeless.

He was a vulnerable man coerced by inadequate interviewing methods into confessing to a crime he did not commit. Progress has been made in this respect. Confessions, especially from such vulnerable people, are not treated as the Holy Grail they once were.

Such advances are signs of an integrated approach to evidence having been developed, but too late for Kiszko. If the scientific evidence had been handled in a competent manner, the truth could have emerged in time to prevent that tragedy occurring.

Sadly it is too late to do anything for Kiszko or his mother, but his experiences must be recalled with disgust and a determination to learn from them. Nothing resembling this must ever be allowed to happen again.

Investigative methods must be fully integrated with advances in science and also current forensic science techniques. Rules of evidence must be adapted too. For evidence of innocence to be available early in this process, yet take sixteen years to emerge, while an innocent manʼs life was destroyed, is utterly unacceptable.

Post-Conviction Relief

Sean Hodgson, at least is still alive and eligible for both compensation and the inadequate after-care provided by the government through the Miscarriages of Justice Support Service (MJSS),[3] a misnomer if ever there was one. Hodgson served nearly three decades in prison for the rape and murder of Teresa di Simone. David Lace was the real perpetrator. His post-conviction confession was found to be unreliable, yet discrepancies in Hodgsonʼs account and the lack of scientific evidence were discounted. His new lawyers were told that samples to test no longer existed, but eventually testable material was located and Hodgson was cleared. Vindication followed soon, as Laceʼs confession was tested against scientific evidence. His guilt was proved, but Lace was long dead. Hodgson qualifies for assistance from the MJSS and is eligible for compensation too. Of seven vindication cases in Britain, Hodgson alone is eligible for both and alive to claim it.

Britainʼs Supreme Court recently produced a definition of a miscarriage of justice with reference to a compensation claim by Andrew Adams, but regardless of it, many victims of miscarriages of justice including the vindicated remain excluded from eligibility for compensation and after-care too.[4] There is no doubt that Colin Stagg is and always was completely innocent of any involvement in the murder of Rachel Nickell. It is hard to find a more blinkered investigation than that one. The honey-trap was more in keeping with Cold War intrigue than legitimate investigation of crime, yet it was attempted. It was quite rightly thrown out by Mr Justice (Sir Harry) Ognall in 1994 after Stagg had been in prison on remand for the best part of a year.

Stagg emerged to a vitriolic whispering campaign, fuelled among others by disgruntled police officers who felt aggrieved that the evidence they had gathered was not accepted. The honey-trap officer, referred to as Lizzie James, was compensated before Stagg after it affected her career – she left the police and country too over it. There never was any credible evidence against Stagg; it had to be generated through those unethical methods. It also helped to end the career of Paul Britton; he deserved nothing less. Despite his efforts to distance himself from the scandal, he is not a victim in this and nor are the officers who allowed that honey-trap to proceed and nor is the CPS either.

An integrated approach to crime investigation could have prevented the whole fiasco from happening. Stagg was not a likely killer. There was nothing in his criminal record or character traits that justified suspecting him at all and there was no scientific evidence against him either. Meanwhile, the real killer, Robert Napper, should have emerged as a suspect far earlier and at least two lives could have been saved if a rape allegation had been investigated competently. DNA testing eventually resolved the case beyond doubt by conclusively linking Napper to Nickellʼs murder, but this was a catalogue of errors in both investigations and that continued after resolution too.

Stagg has been paid substantial compensation and rightly so, but were the same thing to happen now, he would not be eligible. That is shameful, but it is in some ways worse that he does not qualify for assistance to rebuild his life. Any definition of a miscarriage of justice that does not include Colin Stagg, is an affront to common sense and justice too and any scheme to assist victims of miscarriages of justice to recover from their ordeal that does not help him is a disgrace. But it does not stop there.

In 2006 four young men should have received an apology from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. A crass error by forensic scientist Sian Hedges was discovered during a review of the Damilola Taylor Inquiry. Original suspects Ricky and Danny Preddie had been eliminated due in part to the absence of blood evidence on their property. It later emerged that a training shoe belonging to Danny had clear traces of blood on it – the photograph proved it.[5] The blood was DNA tested and found to have been shed by Taylor. Fibre evidence also linked them to the 10 year-oldʼs death. The Preddie brothers changed their account of their movements as a result, but were convicted of manslaughter in August 2006.

Four years earlier four boys were acquitted by judge or jury. The case against them was a travesty. A witness referred to in court as Bromley was utterly unreliable to put it mildly, but there were other signs that something was badly wrong as well. A trawl of Feltham Young Offenders Institute produced so called evidence, some of which came from witnesses of the lowest possible order. Instead of helping those boys to rebuild their lives – one of them has been deported as a crime risk – they have been left to fend for themselves and are denied even an expression of regret, let alone apology. The effect the wrongful accusation of murdering Damilola has had on his life and subsequent conduct has not been considered on that decision or on the future. He is an adult now, living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that is far from stable and to which he has little or no connection to any more, as he left it aged nine.

[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] This article was part of a presentation made at a conference to medical practitioners, which included forensic    pathologists, in 2011. At the time two trials were taking place – the Lynette White Police Inquiry Police Corruption Trial and the retrial of John Pope for the murder of Karen Skipper. Both of these re vindication cases and ones that FIP has taken an interest in. Pope was subsequently convicted. The Police Corruption Trial was halted on the orders of the judge, following serious failures by the prosecution. This is ironic as the CPS imposed conditions on others, especially myself and Fitted-In while displaying extremely shoddy standards itself, which should have led to serious consequences for it. This is one of the reasons we still demand a Truth and Justice Commission into the whole of this case, rather than the deeply flawed processes that have occurred so far.

[3] Hodgson died in October 2012, aged 61.

[4] The sadly defunct Fitted-In Journal covered this issue in A Deafening Silence. Regrettably other media, including the Guardian and New Statesman, insist on ignoring this scandal, while claiming that it is the type of story that is important to them. We will republish it soon.

[5] See The Partial Truth Truth – Errors of Judgement at http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=743 for our coverage of this issue.

Impact

The law allows the families of victims the right to give victim statements about how the murder of their loved one has affected them to judges before the tariff – the minimum that must be served before an offender is eligible to apply for release on parole – is set. This gives victims a say, but what about other victims?

Lynette White’s family did so before Mr Justice Royce imposed the tariff on Jeffrey Gafoor. Royce referred to them in his explanation of the tariff and described them as powerful, but Lynetteʼs family were not the only victims of Jeffrey Gafoorʼs hideous crimes. Despite being adversely affected by Gafoorʼs crimes for the rest of their lives the criminal justice system and criminal actions during the investigation, the Cardiff Five (Yusef Abullahi, John and Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) were given no input at all.

Surely they deserved that small courtesy that could have assisted in understanding the full effect of Gafoor’s crimes, especially as it is not even a criminal offence to knowingly allow innocent people to suffer wrongful imprisonment for his crime, but shouldn’t it be?

Support?

More than five years after they were proved innocent beyond any doubt they will probably never recover from their ordeal. Depriving them of the opportunity to detail how they too were victimised by Gafoor’s actions adds to it by denying the fact that they suffered greatly at his hands too.

Allowing them to give victim statements demonstrates in practice that they have indeed been victimised by his actions and shows that the criminal justice system takes its responsibilities seriously. It is an area that has shamefully neglected until now. There have been other vindication cases since the Cardiff Five made history and there will be more to come.

In this case it has already been proved that they were the victims of crime as well, as perjured testimony contributed to their wrongful convictions, but where is the support for them? As victims of crime are they not entitled to the assistance provided to others by organisations such as Victim Support? And if not, why not?

To date they have never received any and were not referred to Victim Support by the police. Nor did Victim Support make any effort to contact them despite the high profile nature of this case. They are clearly victims as well and should be treated as such, so the criminal justice system should acknowledge this and allow the victims of such miscarriages of justice the right to be heard and receive whatever.

Vindication

The law can be amended easily to allow vindicated victims like the Cardiff Five to give victim statements as well. It is surely not too much to ask that they be given the same courtesy that is afforded to the family of the victim of the murder. Other miscarriages of justice have been resolved in this manner now.

However, tariffs or sentences have been imposed without acknowledging the status of those who suffered the miscarriage of justice as victims deserving the right to voice their concerns. It was already too late for Stefan Kiszko who died without seeing Ronald Castree convicted of the murder of Lesley Molseed, but not for others.

Colin Stagg and the original defendants in the Damilola Taylor Inquiry were and alive when Robert Napper was brought to account for the killing of Rachel Nickell and the four boys who originally stood trial for the murder of Damilola Taylor when the Preddie brothers (Ricky and Danny) were finally brought to justice. There will be others.

The Right to be Heard

It is difficult to imagine a more disgraceful way to treat all of the victims of such cases and it is inevitable that there will be others that are resolved in this manner in the future. Without all the victims of these cases being given a voice further injustice will occur. The families of the victims of homicides have their say when tariffs are considered, but the victims of these miscarriages of justice are excluded by the system that has wronged them.

Why should the victims of such miscarriages of justice be denied the right to make victim statements? If victims are to be truly put at the heart of the criminal justice system then all the victims of cases such as this must be given a voice. It cannot roll back the years or spare them the ordeal that they have suffered, but acknowledging that they too are victims would be a start – albeit a small step, but long overdue.

The Review

The review of the error made by forensic scientist Sian Hedges, then of the Forensic Science Service (FSS), in the Damilola Taylor Inquiry after the conviction of the Preddie brothers (Ricky and Danny) for the manslaughter of Taylor served a purpose – a log and dishonourable one. It took the previous miscarriage of justice off the agenda for a while at least.

It was conducted by emeritus professor in forensic science at Strathclyde University Brian Caddy and Alan Rawley QC. Both were appointed by the Home Office because Hedges missed crucial blood-staining that originated from Taylor on clothing and footwear of the Preddie brothers during the original inquiry.

Terms of Reference

The terms of reference of the review were: to conduct a review of the forensic examination of evidence conducted by the FSS during the Damilola Taylor Inquiry; to establish an agreed set of facts and time-line of the FSS examination of this evidence and to make recommendations to the Home Secretary on whether re-examination of forensic evidence in other comparable cases is required.

It was also tasked to make recommendations to both the Home Secretary and board of the FSS on whether changes are required to its examination procedures, recruitment, training and management of forensic scientists by the FSS. Finally, it had the power to make whatever recommendations it deems necessary on the future role of the Forensic Regulator in overseeing applicable standards to all suppliers of forensic services to the criminal justice system within the UK.

ʻIndependentʼ

However, the ʻindependentʼ review did not specifically 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. It is also unsatisfactory as it does not view the case as an integrated whole.

The Sentamu Inquiry, which was chaired by the Archbishop of York John Sentamu, looked at the treatment of vulnerable witnesses in isolation and this did the same regarding the scientific evidence.

The review did not consider how the Damilola Taylor Inquiry was mishandled in the first place. Hedges’ error does not explain how the original defendants were allowed to stand trial in 2002. Despite being obliged to deliver best value, neither the Metropolitan Police, nor its police authority have any plans for an inquiry into what went wrong – errors that almost derailed justice permanently.

We should be told how relying on a clearly unreliable witness (Bromley) without testing how such a witness would stand up to cross-examination delivers best value to the public, rather than placing an inexcusable drain on public resources that could have been put to far better use. The role of the CPS needs to be scrutinised thoroughly.

Lack of Interest

There seems to be no interest to establish what went wrong in the original investigation beyond the scientific evidence. That will not suffice. Had wrongful convictions been obtained in the original trial through highly dubious methods there would have been no cold case review which discovered Hedges’ error and the truly guilty Preddie brothers would never have been brought to justice.

The original inquiry was riddled with errors and questionable conduct which included sending a round robin invitation to inmates at Feltham Young Offenders Institution to make incriminating remarks about the original defendants that might be used to convict them. There was a review into the use of child witnesses, but the original defendants were not invited to participate. They have never been given the opportunity to participate in these inquiries, let alone one that looks at the whole case in the light of knowledge that is now available.

]]> https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?feed=rss2&p=749 0 https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=743 https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=743#comments Fri, 21 Nov 2014 00:18:04 +0000 http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=743 Read more]]> by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar January 11^th 2006

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.