Six months have passed since South Wales Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) failed to complete the prosecution of 12 police officers and 2 witnesses for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perjury. A unique legal action has had to be launched against South Wales Police to force them to return a journalist’s work product that they have unlawfully retained against the wishes of the rightful owner of that property – me.

Over 20 years of work, consisting of taped interviews, papers and letters, were given to officers investigating how one of Britain’s most shameful miscarriages of justice was allowed to happen. Despite the end of those proceedings police not only retain the originals and copies, but insist that they have the right to decide if or even when they will be returned and whether they will be provided to the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) and the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission).

Investigations into the collapse of the trials last December by IPCC and Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) continue with no deadline or end in sight and the bill continuing to rise without even the possibility of establishing how that miscarriage of justice occurred, or what will be done to prevent recurrence. The terms of reference of both investigations refer only to the collapse of the trial.

I had been due to be a witness in that case as I had gathered important evidence during my research into one of Britain’s first vindication case in a miscarriage of justice in the DNA age. The Cardiff Five (Yusef Abdullahi, John Actie, Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) should never have been arrested, let alone stood trial. The CPS’s Code for Crown Prosecutors makes that very clear, but these men lost a total of 16 years to prison for a crime they did not commit. Abdullahi and Ronnie Actie did not live to see their fiftieth birthdays.

For at least 15 years the CPS has refused to explain why it failed to follow its own Code for Crown Prosecutors, despite its own Sufficiency of Evidence Criteria showing that this was obviously a case that should have been discontinued and quickly. The CPS not only refuses to talk about this wretched failure, but demands I wait an unspecified period after reneging yet again on a previous commitment to explain its conduct. And then they demand patience and cooperation with a process that disgraces any normal notion of justice.

I made it clear that I would not cooperate with the CPS’s investigations, as it is clear that the CPS has no interest in learning the lessons of its numerous failings in this case. They have never investigated their role in this case, let alone cooperated with an independent examination. Unlike South Wales Police the CPS has never apologised to the Cardiff Five, their families, Lynette White’s family and indeed society which pays again and again for the unbelievable incompetence or worse displayed by the CPS over more than 20 years in this one case. If it can happen here imagine how many others this unaccountable organisation has acted with similar disregard for evidence. I cannot cooperate with its investigations and the same applies to the IPCC for different reasons.

South Wales Police responded to my choice to end my cooperation by ignoring that decision and acting unlawfully. I was the only journalist listed as a witness in the ‘Lynette White Inquiry Police Corruption Trial.’ The CPS and Crown Counsel Nicholas Dean QC ensured that I alone could not attend the trial. Investigators into what had gone wrong were given access to my unique work product, papers, letters and tapes. They were loaned to police voluntarily for the duration of that investigation alone.

That process ended 6 months ago. At a meeting with assistant chief constable Matt Jukes and chief superintendent Tim Jones last December I demanded the return of my property. It was after all mine and I had a right to it. It had not been confiscated. It was not the proceeds of crime – they had no right whatever to keep it. Repeated requests were fobbed off. A ludicrous compromise was suggested. I could have copies while they kept the originals and would decide what should happen to them, including giving them to the CPS and IPCC against my wishes.

I have been denied access to my own work for over 6 months since the trial ended, preventing me from using my own work for my soon to be released book. Last week Darren White of Deighton/Pierce/Glynn wrote to South Wales Police was instructed. “As you will be aware, criminal proceedings in relation to this matter have now concluded and Mr Sekar has requested the return of his property held by South Wales Police,” wrote Mr White. “This property has not been returned to him, despite Mr Sekar making it absolutely clear that South Wales Police no longer has his consent to retain his property.

“If South Wales Police will not return our client’s property, please set out the legal basis on which the property is retained.

“If we do not hear from you by 15th June, we will commence legal proceedings on Mr Sekar’s behalf without further reference to you.”

If police can unlawfully retain the property (work product) of journalists and do so without their consent after receiving their voluntary cooperation previously and demand the right to do as they please with it, will any journalist cooperate with them ever again?

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.