Not Worthy

Neil Sayers’ case was one of those that were not deemed worthy of further investigation by the CCRC. The disgraced forensic pathologist Dr Michael Heath was the Crown’s expert against him. Despite their conclusions there are important causes for concern over Heath’s involvement in Sayers’ case that the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) did not consider in David Jessel’s review.

In April 1999 Sayers was convicted with Graham Wallis of the May 1998 murder of his friend Russell Crookes. Wallis pleaded guilty, but blamed Sayers for the murder. Leading solicitor Steven Bird represents Sayers now and the CCRC informed him that the review of Heath’s cases had special regard for cases in which medical evidence was critical to the conviction, which did not apply to Sayers’ case and that Sayers’ previous application to the CCRC only argued that there was no forensic evidence linking him to the crime itself and that consequently the CCRC thought that any challenge to Heath’s evidence in Sayers’ case would be incorrect.

Disputed

“My son is innocent,” said Richard Sayers, “but he has remained in prison for almost nine years, maintaining his innocence throughout that time. The CCRC has said that they had special regard for cases where medical evidence was critical to the conviction. Neil’s case does not fit that criterion, but there are still issues that deserve to be investigated.”

Dr Heath took maggot samples from the body, but those maggots were not examined for five years. It remains unclear if Heath even advised police to consult an experienced forensic entomologist. The maggots represented the best possibility of establishing when death occurred – a vital issue in the case. Dr Heath also implied that the partial burning of the body was the result of an intense fire. Intense compared to what? There is considerable evidence to suggest that this was not an intense fire and that Heath’s conclusions led to errors in the interpretation of fire-related evidence, which was another issue of vital importance in this case. Heath’s role in these aspects of Sayers’ case was never considered in the review.

Sayers’ mother Angela shared her husband’s concerns. “We strongly believe that more extensive investigation of the pathology-related issues could discredit Wallis’ claims,” says Mrs Sayers. “By not looking into all of those issues in my son’s case, the CCRC are causing innocent people like my Neil, to remain behind bars when thorough investigation of these issues could prove his innocence and this may have happened in other cases as well.”

A previous application to the CCRC by solicitors who no longer act for Sayers failed to highlight scientific issues that legal experts say are at the heart of Sayers’ case. “It has been explained to us by experts that the scientific issues in Neil Sayers’ case have not been investigated as they could and should have been,” said Trevor Vallens, Vice-Chair of Kent Against Injustice (KAI), a campaigning group that supports the families of prisoners protesting their innocence.

Interest

His case has also attracted the interest of Dr Michael Naughton, a lecturer at Bristol University who founded the Innocence Network UK and the first innocence project in the UK. “If the complaints made by Neil Sayers’ parents are correct, it seems that the CCRC may have been premature in its decision not to investigate Dr Heath’s involvement in Sayers’ case more fully,” said Dr Naughton. “If the CCRC truly wanted to act in the interests of justice, a wider interrogation of other available scientific evidence would have been appropriate before reaching its conclusions.”

KAI has supported Sayers’ family for several years. “As a result of what the experts have told us, we believe that Dr Heath’s conduct effectively prevented Neil from proving his innocence, because it prevented adequate use of other scientific techniques that may have provided vital evidence for him,” said Mr Vallens, but Sayers’ case is not the only case involving Heath that KAI campaigns about.

It also supports Michael Stone who was convicted of the 1996 murders of Lyn and Megan Russell and the attempted murder of Josie Russell. Stone has always protested his innocence. His case arrived at the CCRC just as the Heath investigation was winding down. It was wrongly reported in some media that it would be one of the cases to be investigated further.

“The case against Mick has collapsed,” said Stone’s sister, Barbara, “but even if the CCRC had considered his case in their review of Heath, it would have been rejected because Heath’s evidence against him was not critical. However, if it can be relied on that would support our belief that his DNA should have been found on the bootlace if he was guilty.”

Stone’s DNA has not been found on any items from the crime scene and nor have his fingerprints, yet both DNA profiles and fingerprints have been discovered on vital samples from the crime scene, which remain to be identified.

Concerns

The Attorney General recently declined to investigate all of Heath’s cases as he thought the CCRC’s investigation would suffice. Only cases where medical evidence was critical to the conviction were given special regard in determining which cases should be looked into further. Why?

“If the complaints made by the families of Michael Stone and Neil Sayers are justified, then the CCRC’s review appears to be extremely limited,” said Dr Naughton. “There is other evidence in both cases, but there are also good reasons to question the truthfulness of that evidence as well. This may have happened in other cases too and the CCRC could be responsible for leaving potentially innocent people in prison.”

There are other reasons to examine Heath’s involvement in these cases as well. “We had hoped that the CCRC’s review of Dr Heath’s conduct would help to prove the innocence of Michael and Neil,” said Mr Vallens. “There were two previous cases in Kent where courts rejected Heath’s evidence, yet the CCRC will not confirm if they considered the impact of those cases on Neil and Michael’s cases. Why not?”

Track Record

Two of the eight proven cases were ones that had been referred back for appeal by the CCRC. In his book Trial and Error, Jessel strongly criticised the standard of Heath’s work in Sheila Bowler’s case. Mrs Bowler was subsequently acquitted after a retrial. The murder convictions of Victor Boreman, Malcolm Byrne and Michael Byrne were quashed as Heath’s tribunal opened due to the poor quality of Heath’s work. It had been referred back for appeal by the CCRC for that reason. “All of Heath’s cases should be investigated thoroughly,” said Boreman. “I cannot understand why the CCRC will not confirm if their investigation of Heath looked at the facts of my case and how similar they might have been to other cases when considering which cases should be looked into further.

Meanwhile, there has been no investigation of whether the facts of the other proven cases could have provided grounds of appeal in the forty-six cases that were not deemed worthy of further investigation as a result of the CCRC’s review of Heath’s involvement in those cases.

“If true, it is alarming that eight proven cases which go beyond professional disagreement were not looked into by the CCRC,” said Dr Naughton. “It is at least possible that of the cases that the CCRC, allegedly, decided did not require further examination at least one of them has similar facts to one or more of the eight proven cases, rather than to Fraser or Puaca. As such, it is possible that potentially innocent people are languishing in prison because the CCRC’s investigation did not consider the impact of those cases. If they have considered them specifically, they should simply say so. We had to set up the Innocence Network UK because the CCRC does not investigate the possibility of innocence properly. The way they are claimed to have handled the Heath investigation shows why Innocence Projects are necessary. No stone should be left unturned in the pursuit of justice.”

Disgraced

Disgraced expert witness Dr Michael Heath resigned as a Home Office pathologist two years ago. This followed a finding against him at the first Home Office Advisory Board tribunal into the competence of an experienced forensic pathologist, which led to a review of his involvement in several cases. But the then Attorney General chose not to conduct a thorough investigation of his previous cases and left it to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

This was unsatisfactory for a number of reasons: the review was conducted by a journalist who had become a Commissioner of the CCRC, David Jessel, rather than an experienced forensic pathologist or even a panel of such qualified experts and it did not look into cases that may have been wrongly classified by Heath as not being homicides.

This was the only examination of Heath’s work despite the finding against him, which includes by media. We find this disturbing because the full extent and consequences of errors made by Heath have not been subjected to adequate scrutiny – the tribunal only dealt with two cases: Kenneth Fraser and Steven Puaca – and Jessel’s review did not look into other proven examples of the poor quality of Heath’s work, claiming that it started from the belief that Heath was thoroughly discredited.

Unacceptable Standards

Although there is no doubt that Heath’s work was of an unacceptably low standard, such reviews do not and cannot redress the balance, because they ignore the possibility of similar fact errors that resemble other proven cases rather than Fraser or Puaca. It also completely ignored forensic pathology-related issues that could have helped to prove the innocence of people seeking to appeal. Such factors were not considered during the review or subsequently, and the failure to consider them could cause further delays in proving innocence.

“The Commission is considering the implications of the recent finding by the Home Office Advisory Board against Dr Michael Heath,” said Boris Worral, then Head of Communications at the CCRC. “This involves looking at the small number of current cases under review by the Commission as well as revisiting a number of previous applications in which Dr Heath features. A Commissioner, David Jessel, is co-ordinating the Commission’s response to this issue.”

In October 2006 the CCRC confirmed that eight cases – three under review at the time, and five previous cases – would be looked at again ‘in the light of the Home Office decision on Heath.’ However, the failure to stop Heath earlier is disturbing, as evidence of his shoddy work had been available and ignored for years.

Proven

Dr Heath took years to achieve membership of the Royal College of Pathologists because he repeatedly failed his exams. His work has been criticised by pathologists, lawyers or judges in at least eight cases other than those of Fraser and Puaca – the two that featured in the tribunal. Inquest verdicts were overturned: convictions were quashed and acquittals secured because courts could not have believed Heath’s evidence.

Some of these cases occurred over a decade ago, including that of Craig Kerwin. In 1997 Kerwin was acquitted of the March 1996 ‘murder’ of 73-year-old Jocelyn Strutt in Southborough, Kent – a ‘crime’ that two forensic pathologists and the trial judge insist did not occur. Forensic pathologists Nat Cary and Vesna Djurović strongly disputed Heath’s view that a blow had caused a myocardial infarct to rupture. Djurović’s opinion stated that “there was no pathological evidence whatsoever, to suggest that Mrs Strutt suffered a ‘heavy’ blunt impact to the chest.” Dr Cary agreed with Djurović’s findings.

Obfuscation

“The assumption that Dr Heath was assessed only on his actions in the Fraser and Puaca cases is untrue,” said Fiona Hickman the CCRC’s Corporate Affairs and Complaints Manager. “The CCRC is in a position to assess very many of Dr Heath’s cases, and it has done so on the very wide basis that his professional judgment has been called into question. It would be wrong, however to assume that every case in which Dr Heath had played any part – either as defence or prosecution expert – was for that reason unsafe.” But nobody had suggested that.

The CCRC was asked to clarify specifically whether the facts of these eight proven cases, which we named specifically, had been considered when deciding which of the fifty-four cases at the CCRC that Heath was involved in should be looked at again.

“We cannot make it any plainer that we reviewed all the Heath cases on the grounds that his expertise could not be relied on,” said Ms Hickman. “It would matter not if he had been found derelict in ten, twenty or a thousand cases. His expertise would still be equally unreliable. We are still at a loss to understand what point you are trying to make.”

We are at a loss to understand how they could miss the obvious point that we made so thoroughly and persistently. It should not have been difficult to understand and it should not have been difficult to confirm or deny that the review had considered those cases, but it steadfastly refused to do that and still hasn’t. If the CCRC had not looked into the specific facts of the eight proven cases that we mentioned, how could it possibly know whether the facts of applications that it was considering bore similarity to one of those eight cases rather than Fraser or Puaca and consequently, how could it be sure that a jury, properly directed, would have reached the same verdict if they had known that Heath had said the same thing previously and not been believed?

The CCRC should be aware that similar fact is a validated legal principle that can affect the credibility of a witness, but that discrediting a witness in another case means nothing if it cannot be shown that it affects a similar issue in the case under consideration. In other words the starting point of believing that Heath was thoroughly discredited means nothing if the complaint relates to an issue that he has not been discredited over in a proven case.

It cannot be plainer and it is not the first time that the CCRC has chosen to ignore the point that was being made in order to answer one that had not been. David Jessel’s review of the fifty-four cases involving Heath that had applied to the CCRC did not consider pathology-related issues. We are concerned by this and will demonstrate the flaws in this approach with reference to the case of Neil Sayers – a young man who has spent all of his twenties in prison for a crime that adequately conducted forensic pathology may have helped to prove he did not commit.

Review?

Fed up of the failure to get justice or even an adequate review of the conduct of a disgraced pathologist, a prisoner maintaining his innocence, has demanded a review of his own. Neil Sayers was just a teenager when his friend Russell Crookes was repeatedly stabbed to death in a field near Hadlow College in Kent in May 1998. A year later Sayers was found guilty of the murder along with fellow student Graham Wallis, whose evidence sent Sayers to jail. Sayers has maintained his innocence ever since. His case was one of the cases reviewed by David Jessel for the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), but Heath’s conduct was unusual in this case. His opinion that there was extensive fire-damage was contradicted by his own post-mortem examination.

After hearing that Heath was recently let off by the General Medical Council (GMC) Sayers has had enough. He is the first prisoner protesting his innocence to instruct his solicitor Steven Bird to apply for legal aid to instruct a forensic pathologist to review the pathology-related issues, including those that Jessel did not consider, regardless of the conclusions of the CCRC.

Bird hopes to instruct a forensic pathologist with experience of Heath’s work in the new year to review Heath’s conduct and the impact it had on the conclusions of other experts, particularly fire-related aspects of the case. Sayers maintains that it happened days after the prosecution claim it did and there is considerable evidence that was not heard by the jury to support his opinion. For example, there were statements of witnesses who did not see the scorch pattern and associated debris on three different searches of the area days after the Crown say the fire occurred. These statements languished in the unused material. Some of those witnesses gave evidence, but were not asked about the lack of scorch-pattern their visits. It was noticed on May 24th 1998 – two days before the body was discovered in nearby woods, but these statements were not disclosed for Sayers’ trial.

Sayers was also let down by his then lawyers from the firm of Berry and Berry. Just a year earlier they had represented burglar Craig Kerwin when he was charged over the death of pensioner Jocelyn Strutt at her home in Southborough, Kent. Only Heath maintained that Strutt had been murdered by being hit with a heavy instrument that fractured her ribs – actually she suffered from brittle bones and her ribs probably broke when she fell.

Two other forensic pathologists (Nat Cary and Vesna Djurović) disagreed with Heath and proved that Strutt’s death was of natural causes – the result of a myocardial infarct that ruptured and her ribs broke in the fall that followed that event. Despite this Sayers’ lawyers failed to investigate Heath’s conduct in other cases, which would have provided important material on Heath’s credibility. Over a decade later, Sayers wants that review and Bird will try to ensure that he gets that right after the CCRC’s review of Heath – the only review of the shamed expert’s cases since his spectacular fall from grace – failed to discover this material and how it could have affected Sayers’ case.

The Fall of the Disgraced Pathologist

Meanwhile, the disgraced pathologist continues to perform post-mortem examinations for coroners despite being forced to resign from the Register of Home Office Pathologists after a disciplinary tribunal found that he had slipped below the required standard over the deaths of Jacqueline Tindsley and Mary Ann Moore. Tindsley was found dead in her bed after her partner Steven Puaca raised the alarm in March 2002. Heath insisted that Puaca had smothered her, resulting in Puaca’s conviction later that year. He was cleared on appeal in 2005 after five forensic pathologists disagreed with Heath’s conclusions.

Moore was found dead at the bottom of the stairs of the house she shared with her partner Kenneth Fraser in May 2001. Heath wrongly insisted that her injuries were consistent with murder. Fraser was acquitted the following year. The evidence, as Heath now accepts, was consistent with an accidental fall down the stairs. Ironically, another Home Office forensic pathologist, Dr Peter Acland, was suspended in April by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) for making the opposite mistake.

Acland ruled the death of pensioner Mervin Fletcher at his home near Walsall in 2004 was due to head injuries caused by a fall induced by diabetes. He was wrong. Mustafa Abdullah was convicted of Fletcher’s murder in 2007 after using the victim’s cards to withdraw money from his account. The NPIA upheld nineteen of twenty-one charges against Dr Acland over his conduct in that case and suspended him from working for the police again. Heath no longer works as a forensic pathologist either, as he was forced to resign from the Register of Home Office Pathologists.

Tribunals

Three years ago a tribunal of the Advisory Board for Forensic Pathologists upheld twenty complaints against Heath over his handling of the deaths of Moore and Tindsley, so Heath resigned from the Register. It was not the end of his problems. Any case that he was involved in that the CCRC had been asked to consider – apart from ones that had resulted in successful appeals – was reviewed by their Commissioner Jessel, but the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith refused demands for a full investigation of all Heath’s cases. This summer the General Medical Council held a tribunal to decide whether Heath was fit to continue as a doctor due to his conduct over the deaths of Moore and Tindsley. It concluded that his remorse was genuine and there was no need for further punishment.

“During your career as a pathologist you have undertaken some 10,000 forensic pathology cases, of which none had been criticised prior to the two cases related to these proceedings, and none had been criticised since,” the panel said. This was quite simply not true.

Serious concerns about Heath’s competence were raised over a decade ago including the death of Stuart Lubbock in the entertainer, Michael Barrymore’s pool in March 2001. He took eleven years to become a Member of the Royal College of Pathologists. The reason – he repeatedly failed his exams. That emerged during cross examination in an inquest into another of Heath’s controversial cases (Ibrahima Sey).

Heath’s evidence has been found wanting in several cases both before and since the two cases that ended his career as a forensic pathologist as well.

Options

In October 2006 Jessel decided that only eight of fifty-four cases that had applied to them which involved Heath should be looked at again. It didn’t include Sayers’ case and three years on not one of those cases were referred back to the Court of Appeal on the basis of Heath’s evidence. Only Simon Hall’s conviction for the December 2001 murder of Joan Albert will be considered by the appeal court. Hall was convicted in 2003, but the CCRC referred it back on the basis of fibre evidence rather than Heath’s conduct.

It leaves the wrongfully convicted little option but to try to instruct forensic pathologists themselves to review Heath’s work as Sayers has done. None of Acland’s cases have been reviewed either. In the absence of adequate reviews others will probably follow Sayers’ example. Despite the best efforts of the authorities this story will run and run.

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (November 14^th 2008)

Incandescent

In April 1996 David Jessel, the then presenter of Channel Fourʼs sadly defunct Trial And Error, was justifiably incandescent with rage. He addressed the media brandishing a copy of Lord Justice (Sir Phillip) Ottonʼs judgment. “This is yet another shoddy judgment in a shoddy case”, fumed Jessel. It would take another seven years for the truth of just how shoddy the then Lord Justice Ottonʼs judgment was to see the light of day.

Gary Mills and Tony Poole had been convicted of the murder of Hensley Wiltshire in January 1990, after a year on remand, but it would take more than six years for the appeal to be heard and that judgment would be more than controversial – it was either cravenly dishonest, or Otton had allowed himself to be misled in spite of the evidence, or he had not examined the evidence which he claimed to rely on.

At its most charitable, he was plainly wrong.

Otton quoted a passage of an interview with Mills, arguing that it dispelled the prejudice of the refusal to disclose the statements of an eyewitness, Ian (Neville) Juke as the passage referred to claims allegedly made by Juke. Otton said, “Moreover, it was an accurate summary of the substance of Jukeʼs second statement”.

But it wasnʼt. A fact that would be acknowledged by both police officers who conducted that interview in a libel trial two years later and many others too. Either Otton (sitting with Mr Justices Keene and Ian Kennedy as they then were) had not read Jukeʼs statements and that passage of interview, or he had delivered a judgment that they must have known was untrue.

Integrity Lacking

We[1] became involved in this case in 1991, because there were several causes for concern about the integrity of this inquiry that bore similarities to the case of the Cardiff Five, which is an acknowledged miscarriage of justice. However, this had unique aspects as well which deserved the publicʼs attention.

Detective Inspector (DI) Trevor Gladding (the number two in the inquiry) had not only perjured himself and perverted the course of justice, but there was a tape-recording that proved it, yet despite the defence having a copy of it, the jury never heard it.

The conduct of Gloucestershire Police, especially that of Gladding and its impact on the integrity of the investigation that convicted Mills and Poole, was deeply troubling. If ever there was an inquiry that not only had to be squeaky clean, but also it had to be seen to be of the highest standards of professionalism and integrity, this was it.

Sadly, it fell far beneath those standards. The 1996 appeal revealed that the extent of police malpractice was greater than had previously been thought. Detective Constables Brian Paine and Mark Cheminais had allowed the witness Paul White to give information in his statement that they knew to be untrue. The appeal judges criticised their conduct, but decided that it would have made no difference because the jury would not have believed White anyway.

Incapable of Belief

There is no question that Whiteʼs evidence was false and should not have been relied on as he claimed to have seen and heard things from the street that beggared belief, but the jury had heard his evidence and they were not aware that he had been treated in a manner that undermined the integrity of the inquiry – an important aspect of this case.

Similarly, the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed Juke as incapable of belief, yet the glossed over inconsistencies in the account of crucial witness Kimberley Stadden and substituted their own judgment for that of the jury. However, in 1996 this practice was far from rare, even though the law demands that the determination of facts is solely a matter for juries to decide.

Far too often appeal judges usurped the function of the jury and the case of Mills and Poole graphically illustrated the dangers of such an approach. The decision of the Law Lords in the case of Donald Pendleton reiterated that determining facts is the sole domain of the jury and it would eventually prove to be a significant case for Mills and Poole, but usurping the role of the jury would not be the only point of law that these eminent jurists would interpret wrongly.

Tarnished

During their unsuccessful appeal in 1996 and their 1997 appeal to the House of Lords, it was acknowledged that there were three material irregularities, each of which related to police conduct.

There was further evidence that cast the integrity of this inquiry in a very poor light, but the judges and the Law Lords were not convinced that a miscarriage of justice had occurred. By then we were firmly convinced that it had and also that this inquiry fundamentally lacked integrity and the prosecution was severely tarnished at best.

ʻExceedingly Unwiseʼ

Mills and Pooleʼs defence had intended to call Juke as a witness for the committal hearing in order to discover what he had said in his statements to police that the prosecution used their discretion to withhold, but their aims were thwarted because Juke was kept away from it due to the improper interference by DI Gladding prior to the committal hearing.

However, the defence lawyers had a tape of Gladding threatening Juke with arrest if he attended that hearing, but inexplicably this was not played to the jury at the 1990 trial, even after Gladding had denied on oath that the conversation had taken place.

A formal complaint lodged after the convictions proved that Gladding had indeed threatened Juke with arrest and more if he attended the committal hearing, but the investigating officer George Hedges wrongly concluded that Gladding had been mistaken rather than lying in his evidence at the trial.

Tainted

Evidence relied on by the appeal judges to dismiss the 1996 appeal was itself tainted. The judges believed that a passage of interview with Mills was an accurate summary of Jukeʼs second statement and that it dispelled any prejudice from the non-disclosure of that statement, but it did not.

Both officers involved in that interview (a then Detective Sergeant John Jeynes who has since been promoted to Superintendent) and Gladding accepted in evidence that it wasnʼt an accurate summary. Consequently, it increased the prejudice done to Mills rather than dispelled it.

Despite this the CCRC initially refused to refer the case back to the appeal court. Mills and Poole judicially reviewed that decision in December 2001. The judges, Lord (Harry) Woolf (the then Lord Chief Justice) and Mr. Justice (Sir Duncan) Ousley, found that the CCRC had not acted unlawfully or irrationally, but took the extremely rare step of voicing their concern over the case. Lord Woolf said, “Almost every aspect of the prosecution is tarnished”.

Wasted Resources

The CCRC had previously refused to grasp the point that the police malpractice had to be looked at first individually in case any aspect was so outrageous that the convictions had to be quashed and if not, then cumulatively in case, taken together, they so undermined the integrity of the inquiry that the convictions could not be tolerated.

It had assigned the case to a caseworker who failed to see the point and commissioners who also could not grasp it and preferred to completely ignore the points that their solicitor, Raju Bhatt, had raised in order to answer spurious complaints that had not been made. Bhatt had to repeat the actual points he made before opting for judicial review.[2]

This was not a case that the CCRC can take any credit from as the failure of several members of its staff to consider the submissions that had been made adequately caused unnecessary delays in dispensing a measure of justice to Gary Mills and Tony Poole, which resulted in them suffering unnecessary damage.

It wasted public resources that could have been put to better use. The CCRC acknowledges that it got this case wrong, but it has yet to implement procedures to prevent recurrence and formally apologise to them for prolonging their ordeal. We hope that it has improved its procedures to ensure that this never happens again.

[1] The Fitted-In Project did not formal exist then, but many of the people who established it and still participate, knew each other then and were working together. This was one of the cases that demonstrated both that and the need for us to organise formally to achieve our objectives.

[2] Before Bhatt took over the case, exactly the same point that Bhatt subsequently made was put to the CCRC by us. At the very least the CCRC should have answered the point being made, rather than an argument without merit that nobody had made. We hope they have learned that particular lesson.

Extraordinary

The extraordinary case of Gary Mills and Tony Poole is in the news again. After fourteen years of wrongful imprisonment, they were freed in June 2003 – the last seven because senior judges did not know the law or ignored it. The main reason for the quashing of their convictions was the cumulative effect of the lack of integrity of the inquiry into the controversial death while in police custody of Hensley Wiltshire in 1989.

More than four years ago they lodged a complaint with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) alleging criminal conduct by police. They claimed that the number two in the inquiry, former Detective Inspector Trevor Gladding, had perverted the course of justice and perjured himself. Allegations of serious malpractice were made against other officers as well.

Two different sets of appeal judges: a high court jury¹ and a former Lord Chief Justice were far from impressed with Gladding’s conduct. Eventually, the Criminal Cases Review Commission also declared itself dissatisfied with the effect that several instances of police malpractice could have had on the safety of the convictions and referred it back to the Court of Criminal Appeal, which heard it in 2003.

Inadequate

The CPS referred their complaint for investigation, which was picked up by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in April 2004 and would become a major test of the independence of the new body. Nearly four years later it issued a provisional report dismissing the complaint.

“The investigation report belongs to Gloucestershire Constabulary and it is for them to decide what can be released into the public domain,” said IPCC spokesperson David Nicholson.

I raised eleven questions with them. He responded with: “It is for Gloucestershire to decide whether and how they answer.” To date, the IPCC, CPS and Gloucestershire Police have not answered the queries. In other words, the IPCC and CPS think it is acceptable for the bodies complained about to exonerate themselves and decide what information should be allowed into to the public arena. So much for openness and integrity.

Legacy

Their complaint was a legacy case, meaning it was investigated under the old rules, which meant that independent investigators were not used and there was no requirement of disclosure of the report. The IPCC has done itself no favours at all.

“The matter has now been concluded and the complaints were unsubstantiated,” said Nicholson. Such a comment is quite frankly ludicrous and merely emphasises the unsatisfactory nature of the IPCC.

The IPCC’s finding contradicts all previous inquiries including the much criticised investigation for the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) conducted by former Chief Constable of Durham Police George Hedges in the early 1990s.

Culture of Secrecy

The IPCC was established to counter the culture of secrecy surrounding complaints against police. This shameful decision and refusal to make its full findings public will taint its claims of independence for years to come.

The Commissioner in charge of this complaint was Rebecca Marsh. She wrote: “On the evidence available, the IPCC is not satisfied that there is a realistic prospect that the conduct of the officers complained of fell below the required standard. We are therefore minded to conclude that misconduct proceedings cannot be justified.”

And this in the case that the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf said: “Almost every aspect of this prosecution is tarnished.”

Nevertheless, we now know that perjury and perverting the course of justice do not constitute an abuse of due process of law² and that such conduct does not fall below the required standard of conduct from police officers,³ but that it is not libellous to say that Trevor Gladding perverted the course of justice and perjured himself.⁴

“We agree that this has taken a very long time to resolve,” said Mr Nicholson. “The setting up of the IPCC was because of frustrations with the ‘previous system’ and the length of time that cases took to resolve.”

The average IPCC investigation in the relevant region takes 166 days. This investigation took almost four years to reach incredible conclusions at great expense in a report that will almost certainly never see the light of day. The name has changed, but judging by this decision not much else.