Radio Cardiff

Part One Satish Sekar with Georgina Sammut and Shawty

Satish Sekar discusses the foundation of The Fitted-In Project and why it was re-established on this Community Radio programme. He explains why the vindication of the Cardiff Five was necessary. Sekar details the methods used to secure convictions and consequences of it. He comments on why he holds the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) more responsible than the police for the wrongful prosecutions of the Cardiff Five. Sekar credits the work of Professor Dave Barclay in the eventual vindication of the Cardiff Five and also South Wales Police in correctly solving the murder of Lynette White. He details how they detected Gafoor.

Part Two Satish Sekar with Georgina Sammut and Shawty

Sekar explains the arrest of Jeffey Gafoor and the significance of vindication. There are currently seven such cases in Britain. He explains that there are more victims of these cases and that there has to be processes to explain how justice miscarried. Sekar details the trial of the core witnesses. He calls them the New Cardiff Three, He explains the role of the CPS in another vindication case, that of Phillip Skipper, for the murder of his estranged wife, Karen. It gifted a defence to the real murderer, John Pope, who repeatedly accused Skipper of being the murderer after Skipper had been acquitted and had sadly died. Sekar details how Barclay demolishes the prosecution scenario in the Lynette White Inquiry and why he should have been a witness in the collapsed trial, before explaining why Sekar was prevented from attending the Police Corruption Trial and its consequences. He explains his controversial view that the CPS, rather than South Wales Police are more responsible for the miscarriages of justice and how they have evaded taking responsibility for any of it. Sekar also calls for fiscal responsibility. He says both the IPCC and HMCPSI processes were inadequate.

Part Three Satish Sekar with Georgina Sammut and Shawty

In the third part of these interviews Sekar explains the process of trying to secure accountability from the CPS over the whole case. The CPS refused to answer his complaint – a process that has been ongoing since 1993! He explains how its own Code for Crown Prosecutors proves the Cardiff Five should never have been prosecuted. Sekar details why the CPS has to be held responsible and that Alun Michael has asked questions of the CPS as well. He then explains some projects that The Fitted-In Project conducts and the scandalous treatment that all the victims of vindication cases have been subjected to. Sekar then makes his case for fiscal accountability.

Downfall

The downfall of British judge Constance Briscoe has been long overdue. Briscoe claimed to have hauled herself up from adversity to sit on the Bench – a role model for aspiring black lawyers? She now contemplates her spectacular fall from grace from a prison cell – sentenced to 16 months for her part in the perversion of justice committed by former Minister Chris Huhne and former wife, the economist wife Vicky Pryce.

Briscoe crimes have been well reported, but should it have ever come to this. Fifteen years ago the Bar Council failed to investigate whether she was fit to practice over several very serious allegations, including forging signatures. The astonishing thing was the complainant was Briscoe’s mother whom she sued for libel. Her allegations are now being investigated.

An Ass

“Perjury strikes at the heart of the criminal justice system”, Mr Justice (Sir David) Maddison said when he jailed three witnesses who had lied in a notorious miscarriage of justice. Unlike Briscoe, Mark Grommek, Angela Psaila and Learnne Vilday had an excuse – a good one. They had browbeaten into telling the lies the police demanded of them.

Unlike Briscoe they had no real choice. Unlike Briscoe they had mitigation. The judge, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and even the police that investigated their perjury admitted that they had been bullied. They were subjected to conduct that was in Maddison’s words: “unacceptable in a civilised society”. They were denied a defence by an ass of a law that found this conduct unacceptable, but not duress. They perverted the course of justice, but unlike Briscoe only because justice had been perverted to force them to commit crimes against justice. The law that forced their convictions is archaic and unjust. In their situation virtually all of us would have done as they did, but unlike them Constance Briscoe freely chose her path

The New Cardiff Three were sent to jail for 18 months – two more than Briscoe who had no excuse and a year more than Huhne and Pryce – all of whom had privileged lives and no excuse. The New Cardiff Three really had rotten lives and were vulnerable to the abuse by the criminal justice system that overcame them. Briscoe claims she overcame serious adversity in her childhood – her family tell a different story. Years after the allegations of her being a fantasist and worse first surfaced, they are finally being investigated seriously. Briscoe may yet face further trials.

Unfit for Purpose

The CPS has had over a quarter of a century to overcome teething problems. But it remains unfit for purpose. It botched the prosecution of police officers over a notorious miscarriage of justice through utter incompetence. It refuses to take responsibility for an appalling job throughout the notorious Lynette White Inquiry – far from the only botched prosecution it has been responsible for. The sorry tale of that investigation and  trial is detailed in Satish Sekar’s book (see below).

It prosecuted innocent men in spite of its Code for Crown Prosecutors, even having the chutzpah to justify the decision to prosecute by having secured convictions – now recognised as it should have been back then as one of Britain’s most notorious miscarriages of justice. It ignored the law when failing to appeal the outrageous leniency of the real killer’s tariff. Its performance in that case – and others too – has been a litany of gross failure.

It failed to appoint a Disclosure Officer in a case where it knew that the defendants – former police officers would seek to exploit disclosure obligations to undermine the trial. It refuses to account for the millions of public resources it has shamefully wasted, but it can prosecute people it accepts were bullied by those police officers and punish them alone for all the flaws its rotten performance in this case exemplifies.

The New Cardiff Three perjured themselves and perverted the course of justice, but unlike Briscoe they had no choice and the trial of those accused of forcing them to lie collapsed on an absurd technicality. Our concern is the conduct of the CPS. Judges being jailed for perjury is a rare occurrence – thankfully. Surely now there can be no confidence in her conduct on the Bench and indeed as a barrister.

However, the CPS – venal as ever – will not investigate whether she has contributed to miscarriages of justice during her career at the Bar and on the Bench, which lasted almost three decades. The CPS has issued a statement: “We have no plans to review cases involving Constance Briscoe as counsel”. Why not?

Stalling Justice

The Police Corruption Trial of the Century had ended in the shambolic farce that some – not me – were always convinced it would be. Now for the first time I can say exactly what I think of the deeply flawed process.

Graham Mouncher, and seven former colleagues in South Wales Police, Michael Daniels, Peter Greenwood, Paul Jennings, Thomas Page, Richard Powell, John Seaford and Paul Stephen were acquitted on the orders of the judge, Mr Justice Sweeney last week. Ian Massey and Violet Perriam were also acquitted.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) threw the towel in without asking for time to try to locate the missing files. Yesterday the charges against the remaining defendants John Gillard, Stephen Hicks, John Murray and Wayne Pugh were dropped – Rachel OʼBrien had already been found unfit to stand trial for health reasons.

Explanation

Page demanded an inquiry into why he and his colleagues were subjected to the inquiry. That was obvious. An investigation carried out by South Wales Police under the auspices of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) had gathered evidence that serious crimes – conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perjury had been committed during the original Lynette White Inquiry (Phase I).

That evidence had been presented to the CPS which decided whether there was sufficient evidence to justify prosecutions. It concluded that those charged, including Page, had a case to answer. Consequently, they were committed for trial.¹ It was exactly the same process that anyone suspected of a serious criminal offence has to go through.

Unlike the Cardiff Five who were demonstrably innocent – they had been vindicated by the conviction of the real killer and the scientific evidence – Page and his co-defendants had retained their liberty while facing and standing trial.

They ran a sadly predictable defence – a despicable one, but one that had borne fruit previously. They blamed the victims of the proven miscarriage of justice (see Conspiracy of Malice – Predictable). But before the lives of the Cardiff Five could be trashed for nothing error after error had to occur.

Inadequate

Represented by a battery of lawyers at public expense the games began. It soon became clear that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was not up to the task if it ever has been. Despite knowing in advance that lawyers for the eight police officers scheduled to face trial first planned to use disclosure obligation to try to force the collapse of the trial before a single word had been given in evidence, the CPS failed to appoint a Disclosure Officer to ensure that the Phase III officers understood exactly what was required of them.

The CPS chose to sell out the interests of justice in the hope of cutting costs and corners. This wretched penny-pinching would have dire consequences later as Graham Mouncher and his colleagues would shamefully evade judgement by a jury of their peers. The responsibility for that rests squarely on the shoulders of the CPS. The Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General failed miserably to ensure that the bare minimum of standards were observed in this case.

It ought to have been impossible to botch this case. It was or should have been a slam dunk. The real killer had admitted his guilt. Jeffrey Gafoor had made it clear that he had acted on his own and that the original defendants the Cardiff Five (Yusef Abdullahi, John and Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) had nothing to do with the murder of 20 year-old Lynette White.

Gafoor had allegedly told a different story to his QC John Charles Rees. This ʻlegally privilegedʼ information was disclosed by a third party considering Reesʼ fees for representing Gafoor. But it should not have mattered a whit. Indisputable crime-scene evidence and forensic science proved beyond credible doubt that the Cardiff Five were completely innocent of the murder of Lynette White, that one person had killed her on his own and that this had been known before the Cardiff Five were tried.

The CPS and Dean failed miserably to present expert evidence of this despite having it available to them. This was and remains a wretched and miserably botched prosecution. Whether it was deliberately botched remains to be seen.