Guarantees

The families of murder victim Karen Skipper and her estranged husband Phillip who stood trial wrongly for her murder want a guarantee from the Secretary of State (Minister) of Justice that in the absence of compelling new evidence such as DNA, acquittals must be respected. They claim that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) could never have charged Mr Skipper, if he had been alive, on such evidence as Mark Evans QC allowed to use, especially as there was DNA evidence implicating another man, Evans’ client, so why was the defence allowed to do it without requiring a proof of guilt?

The victms’ families are shocked and disappointed that the criminal justice system allowed them to be victimised again with such poor quality evidence. A prison informer, Paul James had claimed at Mr Skipper’s trial in 1997 that Skipper admitted accompanying Mrs Skipper to Birdies Field that fateful night, but James refused to co-operate when called by Pope’s defence.

“I know that he [Mr Skipper] is dead and can’t defend himself,” James said, before the defence abandoned the attempt to get evidence from him and relied on statements he had made previously, along with evidence from earlier trials.

Quality

The quality of evidence did not improve. Mr Skipper’s neighbour, Pauline Horton, came forward after 13 years, claiming that she saw Mr Skipper following his wife towards Birdies Field in Cardiff on her last walk. She insisted that she was afraid of the Hell’s Angels, but neither Mr Skipper nor his friend David Davies were Hell’s Angels.

Horton accepted that both Mr Davies and Skipper had been perfectly nice to her. At best, she was, as prosecuting counsel Ian Murphy QC, had suggested, mistaken, but she would not countenance her evidence being rejected. “Don’t you call me a liar!” she told Mr Murphy angrily, but her evidence did not stand up. Perhaps there was a more sinister explanation of her evidence than Murphy suggested.

Scientifically Ludicrous

DNA from blood-staining on intimate areas of Mrs Skipper’s clothing linked Mr Pope, not Mr Skipper, to the crime. Mr Evans had claimed that the blood-stains had rehydrated from dew overnight and given the impression of fresh blood despite four scientists agreeing that direct contact was the most likely explanation and that rehydrated blood appears different from fresh blood.

Mr Pope’s explanation that Mrs Skipper’s dog bit him three weeks earlier after he removed a thorn from its paw and that Mrs Skipper had given him a tissue and transferred the blood to her pocket was rejected by the jury. It was a fanciful explanation and one that was flatly contradicted by the science.

Obscene

Mr Skipper had been eliminated as the source of that blood on the jeans fifteen years ago. At the time the prosecution claimed that it was not important. They had little choice as the prosecution was dead in the water if that evidence was acknowledged for what it was – proof of innocence. The prosecution in 1997 chose to ignore or minimise the importance of that evidence, which was seized on by Mr Pope’s QC, Mark Evans.

But the blood-staining was on intimate parts of Mrs Skipper’s clothing and was therefore quite obviously significant. It was clearly very inconvenient in the prosecution of Phillip Skipper.

If the significance of those blood-stains had been fully appreciated during the original investigation in 1996 or during Mr Skipper’s trial in 1997, it would have been crystal clear that Mr Skipper was innocent. That in turn would have ended his ordeal promptly and prevented a deplorable defence from being gifted to an unscrupulous man.

Nevertheless, Mr Pope was allowed to ignore Mr Skipper’s acquittal and accuse him twice more without any standard of proof.

“It should not be allowed”, said miscarriage of justice survivor Michael O’Brien. “A similar thing happened to me after I won my appeal. Phillip Skipper was entitled to be presumed innocent after his acquittal. Only compelling new evidence like DNA should allow an accusation like that against a person who has been acquitted or had their conviction quashed”.

Mr Justice (Sir Nigel) Davis at least had the good grace to stress that it was owed to the memory of Phillip Skipper to acknowledge his innocence.

The Rules of the Game

The family of murder victim Karen Skipper took a long time to accept that her deceased husband Phillip was innocent, but they are now convinced and share the outrage of his family, which includes the mother of his daughter as well. They all believe that, rather than observing the trial of her murderer, John Pope, they were forced to endure yet another trial of Mr Skipper – a man who could not defend himself and whose rights and reputation were given no legal protections at all.

They are further aggrieved that this time Pope’s retrial occurred without any safeguard at all of Mr Skipper’s right to be presumed innocent. Mr Pope, through his counsel, Mark Evans QC, was given carte blanche to put Mr Skipper on trial yet again, only he could use so-called evidence that had been ruled inadmissible during Mr Skipper’s trial in 1997.

The families of Karen Skipper and Phillip Skipper are united in their disbelief that the criminal justice system tolerated this. They say that relying on old evidence that had failed to convince the jury first time round and incredible new evidence that should have been laughed out of court meant that there was no burden of proof on his accusers – Mr Popeʼs defence. Where, they ask was the respect for their human rights? Where, in fact, was respect for the law?

The roles appeared to have been somewhat reversed. Prosecuting QC, Ian Murphy, was bound by the rules of evidence and Mr Popeʼs right to be presumed innocent and he observed his burden scrupulously. Mr Evans effectively was prosecuting Mr Skipper, but there were no rules governing what he could say and do.

Scrupulously Unfair

The judge, Mr Justice (Sir Roderick) Evans, bent over backwards to accommodate Mr Pope – even giving a bad character direction on Mr Skipper despite the lack of convictions justifying it. Pope was allowed to sit back while his QC prosecuted Skipper with no constraints. Phillip Skipper could not defend himself from the character assassination and nobody represented his interests, even though it was in the interests of the prosecution of Pope to do so.

This was a shocking abuse of the law and raises the question of why the system did not provide lawyers to represent the rights of the families of Phillip Skipper and Karen too. It got far worse. Mr Evans had even suggested that if the jury thought that it could have been Mr Skipper, then they should acquit his client. That outraged miscarriage of justice survivor Michael O’Brien.

“I don’t know how they can get away with saying those words to the jury and why the judge didn’t step in because it’s already been established in a court of law that Mr Skipper was acquitted and under European law, it says once you’re acquitted, you’re entitled to the presumption of innocence, so how they’ve managed to get away with this defence”? said O’Brien.

Mr Murphy could have done so far more robustly. After all, it was in his interests to prove Mr Skipper innocent, as that would have cut the ground out from beneath the deplorable defence tactics. Sadly, this appears to be a trend in such prosecutions – nobody represents the rights of the wrongly accused.

“Well it more than beggars belief. It just makes you angry, you know, the fact that a man who can’t defend himself”, Mr O’Brien continued. “That’s like picking on a vulnerable person and this is picking on someone who can’t defend himself and it’s the same principle behind it and it shouldn’t have been allowed”.

Inadmissible evidence and also the quite frankly ludicrous evidence of Pauline Horton masqueraded as ʻproofʼ of Skipperʼs guilt. The Crown could never have prosecuted such a shoddy case, so why was a defence lawyer allowed to do so by the back door?

“Well I think we’ve got to define what significant new evidence is”, O’Brien says. “Let me put it clearly, unless there is DNA or something of that calibre, or somebody who can describe them to a tee who didn’t know the person who had done the crime, but if they’re too scared to come forward where you can actually prove there was no collusion, then you shouldn’t be allowed to produce this kind of evidence and blame other people as the defence, because that is just attacking somebody’s innocence again”.

O’Brien is outraged. “I think that goes against everything that the court says the innocent person is entitled to and which an acquitted person is entitled to – the presumption of innocence – and I think the only reason why Pope’s defence has got away with this is because they know they have legal privilege”, he says. “They know they are supposed to go on the facts. What evidence is there that Phillip Skipper has done this crime? It should never have arisen a second time, but they’ve done it. It has to be stopped”.

And there’s another issue. Why did the prosecution fail to demonstrate Mr Skipper’s innocence when the evidence to do so had been there all along?

Lax Procedures

The families of a murder victim and her late former husband – he was wrongly accused of that crime fifteen years ago – joined forces to slam what they believe are lax procedures at a recent trial. They claim that Phillip Skipper was wrongly accused all over again at the retrial of former labourer John Pope – that it was more like Mr Skipper that was on trial than Mr Pope.

Mr Skipper was not alive to defend his reputation. Mr Pope was found guilty of the murder of Karen Skipper for the second time last week. He had been convicted of the murder in February 2009, but the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction last year and ordered a retrial. Its judgement still has not been published.¹

The Presumption of Innocence?

Mrs Skipperʼs body was discovered in the River Ely in Cardiff on the morning of March 10th 1996. A year later her estranged husband Phillip who died of cancer in 2004 was acquitted of her murder. According to the criminal justice system, the presumption of innocence was never taken away from Phillip Skipper. The Fitted-In Project followed the case carefully. It was after all Walesʼ second vindication case in the DNA age.

To the disgust of the families of Mrs Skipper and Mr Skipper, Popeʼs defence QC Mark Evans turned it into Mr Skipperʼs third trial. Having attended this trial, we agree that it was hard if not impossible to spot any evidence of Mr Skipper being presumed innocent.

We are surprised that despite the European Convention of Human Rights being incorporated into UK law in 1998, the Article 8 Right to Family Life of Mr Skipper’s family was paid such scant regard. Similarly, Mrs Skipper’s family’s rights were not defended either. This is applied in the setting of the tariff too.

Lip Service

The families insist that there was no presumption of innocence for Mr Skipper despite his acquittal, but the coalition government says there is no problem.

“It has long been an important feature of our criminal justice system that a person charged with an offence is presumed to be innocent until proved guilty”, said the Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, Lord (Tom) McNally. “A person found not guilty is to be treated as innocent, as too is a person whose conviction has been quashed on appeal”.

Fine words, but the treatment of Mr Skipperʼs memory in this trial shows that the practice is vastly different. Mark Evans QC lost no opportunity to accuse Mr Skipper of his estranged wifeʼs murder, using evidence that had been rejected by the jury that tried and acquitted Mr Skipper and evidence that was inadmissible against him in that trial.

This was a thinly disguised prosecution of a man who could no longer defend himself – a prosecution that had no burden of proof and for whom there appeared to be no rules on the admissibility of evidence.

There was absolutely no presumption of innocence for Mr Skipper and no thought was spared for the feelings of his child – still a young teenager. The quality of the so-called evidence used in this back-door prosecution of Phillip Skipper was woeful. There ought to be rules governing such tactics and consequences for such conduct.

1 The judgement was published subsequently: The Editor.

Satish Sekar explains the case to Colombia’s finest forensic scientists.

Despicable

John Pope was a suspect originally in the murder of Karen Skipper, which occurred in Cardiff in March 1996. He was eliminated, incorrectly as it turned out. Sadly the late Phillip Skipper stood trial for a crime that he did not commit the following year. An inquiry by West Midlands Police concluded that the decision to prosecute Skipper was justified. It certainly was not. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) should not have allowed it to come to trial.

The scientific evidence was not allowed to speak as it could and should have. Blood-staining in an intimate area of the victim’s clothing established his innocence through forensic science techniques that were available at the time. DNA testing established that it was not his blood, nor that of his estranged wife Karen.

That should have eliminated Skipper from police enquiries, but desperate times called for desperate measures. A ludicrous explanation was advanced – one that hinged on Mrs Skipper never having washed resold jeans that she bought at a market several weeks previously. Phillip Skipper was rightly acquitted, but the damage had been done, despite the absence of both smoke and fire.

Remorseless

Nevertheless, his memory – he died of cancer aged just 48 – was put on trial again three times. It was Pope’s DNA and his explanation of the transfer of blood that he claimed caused that positive DNA identification stretched credibility. Was it possible? Yes. Was it likely? No.

Pope never took responsibility for Karen Skipper’s murder. That’s his right, but blaming an innocent man who could not defend himself three times was reprehensible to put it mildly. And after being found guilty again his QC Mark Evans put forward mitigation on his behalf – the closest that Pope ever came to accepting responsibility.

Shamefully, the tariff was exactly the same as before, but there was no recognition from the court of the ordeal of Phillip Skipper and his family, not even the acknowledgement of his innocence that the first trial judge Mr Justice (Sir Nigel) Davis had given. Why not? Instead, the second trial’s judge, Mr Justice (Sir Roderick) Evans had decided to give the jury a bad character warning about Skipper even though he had no relevant convictions.

After Jeffrey Gafoor was brought to justice for the murder of Lynette White, allowing the innocent to suffer for your crime was supposed to be taken into account. In fact, it has never happened – an appalling message to give to killers as it tells them that there are no consequences for allowing the innocent to go to jail for their crimes.

A Total Disgrace

The Fitted-In Journal covered Pope’s retrial last year (2011) – many other mainstream media did not – and at least some of those that did simply didn’t get it. Another miscarriage of justice was unfolding before our eyes, but few media were interested in it. They still aren’t even though this case bears all the hallmarks of a serious travesty of justice and wrecked lives – many of them.

Karen Skipper’s family had been cruelly deceived. They had originally thought that ‘Ginger’ (Skipper’s nickname), was guilty and after having let him into their family, they hated him with a passion. Skipper died young of stomach cancer, maintain his innocence to the end. They were wrong about him and accept that now, but where are they supposed to put their guilt now? How are they to come to terms with having hated an innocent man?

Neither Victim Support, nor the Miscarriages of Justice Support Service visited either Skipper family – Philip’s or Karen’s – to assist them through a very difficult process that they had to endure thrice with a fourth likely should Pope appeal. That included a girl who had been forced to hear about her deceased father being wrongly accused of murder three times while barely in her teens. Her mother could have painted a different picture of Mr Skipper than the one that emerged at trial, but the court never heard from the mother of his child.

Meanwhile, Pope’s defence could hurl any mud, however nonsensical, with no controls, while they effectively prosecuted Phillip Skipper once more, but without a burden of proof. There was no representation for Phillip Skipper’s estate, or his family, let alone redress. Why not? There was clear and unequivocal scientific evidence that he was innocent.

Outrage

Pope’s defence even demanded an acquittal for their client if the jury thought that Skipper might have done it. Had the Crown tried to prosecute Skipper on such evidence, it is inconceivable that the Court of Appeal would have given permission for double jeopardy to be set aside.

It was a rehash of the original Skipper trial, including evidence the original prosecutor thought not worthy to put before the jury, a ‘new’ witness whose account beggared belief and there was DNA against someone else – a suspect who had occurred in the original inquiry – Pope. Why was this allowed?

The CPS could not hope to bring such a prosecution to trial now, so why was Pope’s defence allowed to do so? There was outrage aplenty for Bob Dowler when convicted serial killer Levi Bellfield tried to point a finger at him and rightly so, but where is the outrage for Phillip Skipper, who had no opportunity to even defend himself and where is the outrage for his daughter?

Obligations

It was apparently a matter of pride for South Wales Police to put right what they got wrong in the Lynette White Inquiry. They failed to do so, but in the Karen Skipper Inquiry, they refused to even try. Why were they allowed to get away with that?

Where was the outrage for Karen Skipper and her family? Where was the outrage for Phillip Skipper and his family? And where is society’s outrage? Why do we tolerate millions of pounds of our resources being thrown away without consequences or even accountability in cases such as this?

Where is the investigation of the Karen Skipper Inquiry to establish how the wrong man originally stood trial and if any errors occurred that could have prevented repetition? In 2009 after Pope’s original conviction I asked South Wales Police to investigate what went wrong. They refused. The result was a colossal waste of public resources, time and unnecessary suffering imposed on a young girl who deserved far better. She still does.

Two trials and an appeal later, there is no excuse for failing to investigate this and other vindication cases thoroughly, but there is one vital lesson to emerge from the Lynette White Inquiry Police Corruption Trial. South Wales Police and the criminal justice system cannot be trusted to put right what they got wrong.

1 This article was originally published in the Fitted-In Journal, which was sadly destroyed by hackers and is no longer available. The content of this article is relevant to some of our projects – hence our republication of it. Satish Sekar is the author of Fitted In: The Cardiff 3 and the Lynette White Inquiry (The Fitted In Project, 1998).This article was uploaded onto this site after the publication of his second book on the Lynette White Inquiry. The Cardiff Five: Innocent Beyond Any Doubt was subsequently published by Waterside Press in 2012.

The Colombian scientists listening with disbelief at how the injustice suffered by the Skippers occurred.

]]> https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?feed=rss2&p=1192 4 https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=688 https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=688#comments Sun, 16 Nov 2014 22:59:46 +0000 http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=688 Read more]]> By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (May 28^th 2012)

Despicable

John Pope was a suspect originally in the murder of Karen Skipper, which occurred in Cardiff in March 1996. He was eliminated, incorrectly as it turned out. Sadly the late Phillip Skipper stood trial for a crime that he did not commit the following year. An inquiry by West Midlands Police concluded that the decision to prosecute Skipper was justified. It certainly was not. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) should not have allowed it to come to trial.

The scientific evidence was not allowed to speak as it could and should have. Blood-staining in an intimate area of the victim’s clothing established his innocence through forensic science techniques that were available at the time. DNA testing established that it was not his blood, nor that of his estranged wife Karen. It was therefore obvious that the killer had shed his blood.

But desperate times called for desperate measures. A ludicrous explanation was advanced – one that hinged on Mrs Skipper never having washed resold jeans that she bought at a market for several weeks. Phillip Skipper was rightly acquitted, but the damage had been done, despite the absence of both smoke and fire.

Double and Treble Jeopardy

Nevertheless, his memory – he died of cancer aged just 48 – was put on trial again three times. It was Pope’s DNA and his explanation of the transfer of blood stretched credibility. Was it possible? Yes. Was it likely? No. Pope never took responsibility. That’s his right, but blaming an innocent man who could not defend himself three times was reprehensible to put it mildly. And after being found guilty again his QC Mark Evans put forward mitigation.

Shamefully, the tariff was exactly the same as before, but there was no recognition from the court of the ordeal of Phillip Skipper and his family. Why not? After Jeffrey Gafoor was brought to justice for the murder of Lynette White, real murderers allowing the innocent to suffer for their crime was supposed to be taken into account. In fact, it has never happened – an appalling message to give to killers as it tells them that there are no consequences for allowing the innocent to go to jail for their crimes.

A Total Disgrace

The Fitted-In Journal covered Pope’s retrial last year – many other mainstream media did not and at least some of those that did simply didn’t get it. Another miscarriage of justice was unfolding before our eyes. A young girl had been forced to hear about her deceased father being wrongly accused of murder three times while barely in her teens.

Pope’s defence could hurl any mud, however nonsensical, with no controls, while the Crown could not. There was no representation for Phillip Skipper’s estate, or his family, let alone redress. Why not? There was clear and unequivocal scientific evidence that he was innocent, yet this was never put before the jury. Why not?

There was outrage aplenty for Bob Dowler when convicted serial killer Levi Bellfield tried to point a finger at him and rightly so, but where is the outrage for Phillip Skipper, who had no opportunity to even defend himself? And where is the outrage for his daughter?

Obligations

It was apparently a matter of pride for South Wales Police to put right what they got wrong in the Lynette White Inquiry. They failed to do so, but in the Karen Skipper Inquiry, they refused to even try.

Why were they allowed to get away with that? Where was the outrage for Karen Skipper and her family? Where was the outrage for Phillip Skipper and his family? And where is society’s outrage? Why do we tolerate millions of pounds of our resources being thrown away without consequences or even accountability?

Where is the investigation of the Karen Skipper Inquiry to establish how the wrong man originally stood trial and if any errors occurred that could have prevented repetition? In 2009 after Pope’s original conviction we asked South Wales Police to investigate what went wrong. They refused. The result was a colossal waste of public resources, time and unnecessary suffering imposed on a young girl who deserved far better.

Two trials and an appeal later, there is no excuse for failing to investigate this and other vindication cases thoroughly, but there is one vital lesson to emerge from the Lynette White Inquiry Police Corruption Trial. South Wales Police and the criminal justice system cannot be trusted to put right what they got wrong.