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.

The Dream Witness that Became a Nightmare

Forensic pathology has endured a torrid five years. Paula Lannasʼ competence left much to be desired, but she fought off attempts to bring her before a tribunal through legal actions. Nevertheless, she was discretely removed from the Register of Home Office Pathologists anyway. The lessons were learned.

Michael Heathʼs tooth and nail fight to avoid the hearing failed. Consequently, in the summer of 2006 Heath faced the Home Office Pathology Advisory Board tribunal, chaired by John McGuinness QC. Heathʼs peers, Peter Ackerley, Dr Bob Bramley and Professor Thomas Krompecher completed the panel.

Heath was represented by Jean Ritchie QC, but the choice of counsel for the Home Office Pathology Delivery Board, which brought those proceedings, Charles Miskin QC, raised eyebrows. Why? Because another of Miskinʼs claims to fame was that he had relied on Heath as a credible expert witness in a murder case, but Heath had made a mess of the case, which helped to deny a young man on trial for his future a fair trial. Miskin had prosecuted Neil Sayers, who was a 19 year-old agriculture student at Hadlow College in Kent when his friend Russell Crookes met a grisly end.

Chastened

Miskin destroyed Heathʼs credibility during the tribunal, securing an important finding against him that he was inflexible once he had made up his mind even if the evidence said otherwise. He also paid no attention to the opinions of colleagues. Facing removal from the Register of Home Office Pathologists, Heath resigned after he had been found guilty.

A suitably chastened Heath faced another disciplinary hearing three years later. Heath was still able to practice as an expert, albeit not a forensic pathologist. He was no longer in the top league of British pathologists, but unlike his erstwhile colleague, Lannas, Heath remained a registered doctor, able to practice as an expert. The disciplinary hearing of the General Medical Council (GMC) reached its decision in June 2009. Heath remains registered by the GMC as an expert histopathologist.

A Kafkaesque Prosecution

Sayersʼ case is therefore very important. He has been in prison for over a decade, partly due to the poor quality pathology of the now disgraced Michael Heath, who had demonstrated a lack of professional courtesy by failing to provide information to Sayersʼ pathologist Peter Jerreat. Heathʼs work also adversely influenced other forensic scientistsʼ work.

Heathʼs conduct in this case left much to be desired, making a scientific and legal maze of the case that Sayers had no chance of resolving. He had to understand the ins and outs of forensic pathology, fire-damage and related issues, as well as forensic entomology, forensic botany and other scientific disciplines too. And if, somehow, he managed to achieve that, he had to instruct his lawyers to investigate these issues and hire the relevant experts.

If, by some miracle, Sayers, a young man of average intelligence achieved all that, it would still have counted against him. After all, why would a young student at Hadlow Agricultural College have such an interest in forensic science and knowledge of state of the art techniques?

He would have been accused of having an unnatural interest in such techniques. No doubt he was planning the perfect crime! So if he didnʼt know, it was his fault as instructing lawyers to conduct the required tests is his responsibility, but if he did, it was also his fault as that meant he possessed knowledge that no young man had any business knowing, so he must be guilty. Franz Kafkaʼs Joseph K stood a better chance of receiving a fair trial.

Vindicated

The Cardiff Five (Yusef Abdullahi, John Actie, Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) had been vindicated – proved innocent by the conviction of the real killer. Bizarrely, the CPS and Nicholas Dean QC failed to appreciate the lessons of previous prosecutions of police officers over miscarriages of justice.

In the 1990s – a golden decade of miscarriage of justice awareness – a worrying trend emerged. Convictions fell like flies, or seemingly so. Among them were some of Britainʼs most notorious miscarriages of justice. Beginning with the quashing of the convictions of the Guildford Four (Patrick Armstrong, Gerry Conlon, Paul Hill and Carole Richardson) in October 1989 others soon followed. A whole squad – the notorious West Midlands Serious Crimes Squad – was disbanded and numerous convictions were quashed. But despite this there were no successful prosecutions of police officers over those cases.

Watching the Detectives

Former police officer Ged Corley was convicted of being the mastermind of a series of armed robberies. His convictions, based on the word armed robbers turned super-grasses, were quashed in 1990. The Police Complaints Authority (PCA), discredited predecessor of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), investigated a bizarre complaint where the de facto head of the inquiry that convicted Corley, Peter Jackson complained about his own investigation.

Alban Turnerʼs conviction for the murder of Notting Hill Carnival coke-can seller Michael Galvin was quashed in March 1990 as well. His conviction depended on Kevin Sarbutts, whose allegations against the police resulted in a perjury conviction. His allegations against Turner were not investigated. They were to all intents and purposes ignored despite serious discrepancies. That would prove to be far from unusual.

A Gross Pattern of Incompetence

The convictions of the late Paul Darvell and his brother Wayne for the murder of Swansea sex-shop manageress Sandra Phillips were quashed in 1992 in strong terms by three judges headed by the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord (Peter) Taylor. Three officers were acquitted in 1994 despite proof that the original jury had been lied to. Allegedly contemporaneous notes had been written on notebooks issued two months later.

And 1991 saw the collapse of the case against the Tottenham Three (Mark Braithwaite, Engin Raghip and Winston Silcott). That resulted in police being prosecuted, but the previous errors were repeated. Jurors have to believe the original defendants were innocent or they wonʼt convict, especially if the prosecutions are lacklustre, which these were.

Egregious Injustices

These were far from the only miscarriages of justice to plague British justice at that time, but they had something in common – trials of police officers followed, as did acquittals in every case that was contested. Some like the Birmingham Six and Stefan Kiszko were as egregious injustices as could occur, yet despite charges being brought, the accused did not even face trial.

There was a lesson in these prosecutions, or rather there was for those willing to see. In all of the cases that reached trial, the accused police officers employed a simple and reprehensible strategy – a sadly effective one. They turned their trials into retrials of the wrongly convicted. Time after time the CPS failed to grasp the obvious lesson of these cases. Juries would not convict police officers over the miscarriage of justice cases without being convinced that the original defendants had been innocent.

Vindication

The trial of Mouncher et al offered new possibilities. Here was a case where there was no credible doubt about the innocence of the original defendants. They had been proved innocent. Jeffrey Gafoor had pleaded guilty and he was guilty. But the CPS did not have to rely on Gafoor – a man who had knowingly allowed innocent men to suffer wrongful imprisonment for his crime and who had benefited from his assistance to the Lynette White Inquiry Phase III investigation in the form of a reduction in the tariff he received.

An integrated approach to the crime-scene evidence, forensic pathology, blood distribution pattern and later DNA would prove consistent with only one interpretation. Lynette Whiteʼs horrific murder had not been witnessed by two or even four people forced to participate in it. There had not been five killers or even three. The evidence demonstrated unequivocally that there was only one killer – a man and his name is Jeffrey Gafoor. It proved that the Cardiff Five were, as they had always insisted, innocent. It had been proved beyond doubt.

Lessons

If the CPS and counsel it instructed had learned the lesson of all the previous failed prosecutions of police officers in the miscarriage of justice cases, they would have realised that their first and most important task was to convince the jury that there was no credible doubt that the Cardiff Five were innocent and that the evidence had established this fact many moons ago. Then and only then would a jury care.

They had this evidence available to them from a very credible witness that there was no doubt about their innocence, but the jury were denied his evidence. If the CPS and its counsel had done their jobs to the standard the public had a right to expect, the ground would have been cut from beneath the feet of the reprehensible tactic of accusing men who had been proved innocent before it was given the opportunity to sully justice further.

Sadly the CPS trod the discredited path yet again and wasted public resources botching yet another prosecution of police officers in circumstances where it was harder to lose than win, but they managed to snatch a pathetic defeat from the jaws of victory.