All He Ever Wanted

“All I ever wanted is justice”, says Michael O’Brien, one of the men wrongly convicted of the murder of Cardiff newspaper vendor Phillip Saunders, over 25 years ago. O’Brien has campaigned tirelessly to bring a former DCI (Stuart Lewis) and two witnesses to book for perjury.

“Helen Morris and Christopher Chick admitted perjuring themselves to the CCRC (Criminal cases Review Commission and in a Welsh TV documentary”, O’Brien continues. “They should be prosecuted”.

Despite this strong evidence the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided that there was not enough evidence to prosecute any of them. O’Brien plans to challenge the decision. He points to the one recent example where witnesses were prosecuted for perjury in a miscarriage of justice case – the Cardiff Five.

Precedent

“In that case they found the real killer”, he says. “So what? The evidence in my case is just as strong. It should not be necessary to find the real killer to investigate what went wrong in miscarriage of justice cases”.

Where there is the will it can and has been done, but that is needed. “The police have no intention of finding the real killer in my case”, O’Brien says. “There is plenty of evidence that I was a victim of perjured evidence. I am entitled to the same justice that the Cardiff Five got. Perjurers should be prosecuted – no excuses”.