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.”

Disgraceful

Neil Sayers had been shamefully let down. The 19 year-old student at Hadlow Agricultural College in Kent was left to pay the price for his lack of knowledge of forensic entomology. The life cycles of insects was crucially important to his chance of justice as that was the only possibility in the circumstances of this case to establish the post-mortem-interval, which would show when the relevant event to the body took place – either a range of when death occurred or, in this case, when the attempt to partially burn the body of Russell Crookes took place.

Crookes had been missing for almost two weeks. His mutilated, partially burned, maggot-infested body was discovered in a waterlogged grave in a copse run by Hadlow Agricultural College. Graham Wallis could be tied to the crime in various ways, but he took the chance to shift blame onto Sayers. Either Sayers is guilty and is therefore a vicious murderer and callous liar, or he is the victim of a cruel miscarriage of justice.

Forensic science offered the best chance to resolve whether Wallis was telling the truth, or cynically inserted an innocent man – supposedly a friend – into his account, to cover up his own responsibility for the murder of Russell Crookes. Sayers’ defence team performed abysmally. Evidence proving that Wallis had lied repeatedly was ignored, even the indisputable scientific variety. They ignored evidence that could have proved that Wallis had lied about when the fire occurred, even though that would have opened the door to destroying Wallis’ credibility.

A First Bite

Sayers knows that the criminal justice system does not permit him to have a second bite of the cherry, but he didn’t get a first bite. Wallis insisted that they had tried to burn the body of Russell Crookes immediately after he was killed, but this was hard to believe, because there had been several visits to that site in the days following Crookes’ disappearance.

According to Charles Miskin QC’s case the scorch-pattern and fire-related debris had been there on every one of these visits and been missed by all of them. It seemed very unlikely, but Sayers’ lawyers had failed to call evidence regarding the fire-site at the trial. He would not get a second chance. The same could have been argued regarding the maggots too, but Sayers was fortunate. Legal aid was granted once Kent Police confirmed that some maggots had been located.

Some had been routinely thrown away. Imagine throwing away half a cloth that had smeared blood on it before having it DNA tested and storing the rest in a fridge or cupboard at a police station for five years. Change cloth for maggots and that’s what happened here. It should never be allowed to happen again. This was vital evidence and it should have been treated with the respect due to a forensic science and evidence.

Belated Tests

Sadly the fixed sample, rather than the sample to be reared, had been thrown away. They would have been better as the time the precise time they died was known, which would have meant that a more accurate post-mortem-interval could have been calculated. The ʻreared’ maggots still existed; they were located in a fridge at a police station. They were brought to Dr Martin Hall’s laboratory at the National History Museum and tested by both Hall and his independent German colleague Dr Mark Benecke.

For five years the maggots had been prevented from telling their story, even though they were the only scientific way of establishing when the body suffered a significant event, which was either when death occurred if they had survived the attempt to burn the body, or when that attempt took place if they hadn’t. Unfortunately, Michael Heath’s error over the extent of fire-damage caused further problems and that would require a small fortune to put right.