Downfall

The downfall of British judge Constance Briscoe has been long overdue. She claimed to have hauled herself up from adversity to sit on the Bench – a role model for aspiring black lawyers, but was she ever the inspiration she claimed to be? The 57-year-old barrister and part time judge was no stranger to controversy, having claimed to have triumphed over adversity in childhood and successfully sued her mother for libel.

She now contemplates her spectacular fall from grace from a prison cell – sentenced to 16 months for intending to pervert the course of justice. She deceived police investigating the offences committed by former Minister Chris Huhne and his estranged wife, the economist wife Vicky Pryce.

Briscoe’s recent 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 mother’s 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 – the Lynette White Inquiry. Unlike Briscoe, Mark Grommek, Angela Psaila and Learnne Vilday had an excuse – a good one. They had been browbeaten into telling the lies the police demanded of them. Unlike Briscoe the intent to pervert the course of justice was not their’s, but they alone paid the price.

They had no real choice, but to tell the lies they told and once they had told the first batch, they were boxed in. They had little choice but to stick to a monstrous script  – one that they were later sent to jail for sticking to. Unlike Briscoe they had mitigation – plenty of it. 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 did not meet the legal standard of duress.

They had perverted the course of justice, but unlike Briscoe only because justice had been so perverted as to force them to commit those crimes against justice. They were then punished for committing the very crimes that they were given no choice but to commit. The law that resulted in their convictions is archaic and unjust. The lawyers and functionaries implementing it must know that In their situation virtually all of us would have done as they did, but it matters not a whit to the law and those charged to uphold it. Where was that same law and its enforcers when these victims of a grave injustice needed protection and support?

Freedom of  Choice

Unlike them, Constance Briscoe freely chose her path to disgrace, but she was treated more leniently than they were. The New Cardiff Three were sent to jail for 18 months – two more than Briscoe who had no excuse. Briscoe was intended to be the star witness against Huhne, but her friendship with Pryce and role in her friend’s revenge almost caused the trial to collapse. Briscoe and Pryce and Huhne – all of whom had privileged lives – had no excuse. The New Cardiff Three really had rotten lives and were vulnerable to the abuse by the criminal justice system that overcame them partly because of the vulnerability to abuse those lives left them open to.

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.

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 appointed 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. Despite this it fails to explain how the trial could have collapsed over disclosure if that lawyer had done his job. 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 (Mark Grommek, Angela Psaila and Learnne Vilday) 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, meaning they evaded the consequences of their actions and uncivilised conduct. Our concern remains the conduct of the CPS. Judges being jailed for perjury is a rare occurrence – thankfully. However, justice must be dispensed evenly. In this case it has been, but what about all the others?

Embittered but Credible

Huhne, admittedly an embittered and ordinarily discredited source, raises important questions about the CPS. “Constance Briscoe has been revealed as a compulsive and self-publicising fantasist”, Huhne said after her conviction. “British justice is likely to be a lot fairer with Briscoe behind bars. If she can make up the witness statement used as the key evidence against me, she is clearly capable of hiding evidence she should have disclosed to the defence in the many cases that she prosecuted for the Crown Prosecution Service. Aggrieved defendants will now seek a CPS review”.

The Bar Council dismissed previous complaints against Briscoe as a family dispute. The judiciary also failed to rein in a judge, now exposed as rogue. The CPS has no plans to investigate cases handled by Briscoe as judge or barrister. Such decisions bring it into further disrepute. Surely now there can be no confidence in her conduct on the Bench and indeed as a barrister. And with the refusal of the CPS to investigate here cases, can there be any confidence in it?

The CPS 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? And why does the criminal justice system allow the CPS to betray justice yet again?

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.

Disbelief

The failure to investigate, let alone prosecute in miscarriage of justice cases is striking. Mervyn ‘Tex’ Ritter expressed disbelief that appeal judges believed him after an unsuccessful appeal by the Bridgewater Four. Despite their exoneration in 1997 there was no prosecution of Ritter or police officers despite compelling Esda (Electrostatic depression analysis) evidence.

The late Gary Mills and Tony Poole’s case is even more disturbing. Despite clear findings of wrong-doing by police officers by two sets of appeal judges, a Lord Chief Justice, a libel trial jury and the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) justice has been denied.

Serious allegations of malpractice including perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice have never been adequately investigated by the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) or the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), let alone considered by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Despite a witness being allowed to lie in his statements to police Paul White has never been investigated for perjury, let alone brought to trial.

Grudging

However, witnesses who claim police malpractice can find themselves charged and condemned. Almost 20 years ago Kevin Sarbutts was jailed for three years for perjury. In 1990 he admitted lying at the trial and second trial of Alban Turner, which resulted in Turner’s wrongful conviction.

Turner was freed on appeal in 1990, but grudgingly by the Court of Appeal, which referred the papers on Sarbutts to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Lord Lane said that it was ʻequally wickedʼ to lie to jail an innocent man or to free a guilty man.

Sarbuttsʼ trial dealt with his allegations of police brutality and misconduct – no charges were brought in relation to Turner. With echoes of the Cardiff Five witnesses’ trial, Sarbutts was treated leniently by His Honour Judge Brian Smedley after a request from the jury for that.

Vindication

Even vindication doesn’t result in investigations, let alone prosecutions. Over a decade after the late Phillip Skipper stood trial for the murder of his estranged wife Karen – a crime committed by John Pope – a witness came forward with a cock and bull story. Pauline Horton claimed that she saw Phillip follow his wife on that fatal night just after she left to walk the dogs.

It allegedly broke Skipper’s alibi and saw him wrongly accused by Pope’s defence at his 2010 appeal and in his subsequent retrial. Her own evidence established that she had a restricted view and could only have seen them in darkness for seconds. There has been no investigation of her claims.

Striking

“Perjury strikes at the heart of the criminal justice system”, said Mr Justice (Sir David) Maddison, when he jailed Learnne Vilday, Angela Psaila and Mark Grommek for 18 months in 2008. Vilday et al had been subjected to conduct that was “unacceptable in a civilised society,” Maddison said.

Police faced trial over it, but the trial collapsed in farcical circumstances in December 2011. Consequently, the three core-witnesses remain the only people convicted of helping to cause one of Britain’s most notorious miscarriages of justice.

Lynette White was brutally murdered in 1988 and five innocent men served a total of 16 years in jail for it. It remains the only miscarriage of justice case where witnesses were convicted of lying about victims of a miscarriage of justice since the notorious Ged Corley case.

Absurd

The Cardiff Five is far from the only miscarriage of justice case from the 1980s and 90s that involves lying witnesses and proven malpractice by police, but it is the only one to result in convictions for perjury. It is not even the only one in South Wales. The case against the Newsagentʼs Three (Michael OʼBrien, Ellis Sherwood and Darren Hall) was never compelling, but they lost more than a decade of their lives.

OʼBrien has waged what was on occasions a one-man battle for justice. He has overwhelming evidence that the investigation that convicted him involved far more than the ʻmonkey businessʼ that prosecutor Gerard Elias QC described. There were over a hundred breaches of the Police And Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) and strong evidence of a pattern of malpractice involving Lewis.

Ten years ago the Newsagentʼs Three were bailed, pending the quashing of their convictions for the murder of Phillip Saunders. Despite admitting perjuring themselves in a BBC Wales documentary on the case Helen Morris and Christopher Chick were never charged. The police officer at the heart of that investigation Stuart Lewis had a history of dubious conduct as well. To date the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) failed to get to the truth. OʼBrienʼs ground-breaking civil action was settled by South Wales Police without admitting liability or issuing an apology¹.

Egregious

Gary Mills and Tony Poole were freed after 14 years wrongful imprisonment in June 2003. Last April the IPCC announced that after an ʻinvestigationʼ lasting over four years, no police officers would be charged or disciplined over their case despite a libel trial, the then Lord Chief Justice, appeal judges and Law Lords reaching different conclusions.

Even the 1996 appeal judges, whose conclusions that the verdicts were safe was quite simply wrong, strongly criticised Detective Inspector Trevor Gladdingʼs conduct, euphemistically branding it ʻexceedingly unwiseʼ. And there was more police conduct that they criticised without interfering with the verdicts then.

Those judges also described the policeʼs conduct towards a crucial witness Paul White, who claimed to have seen a fist make a downward movement and heard a man shout “No Tony, no”! above the sound of a blaring sound system. Nobody else inside the flat heard that and if White had seen what he claims then he had to be at least ten feet tall, as the flat is on an incline to street level.

Burning Injustice

Detective Constables Brian Paine and Mark Cheminais also allowed White to lie in his witness statement by saying he had gone there on his own when he had previously said that he had gone there with the late Andrew Neal. White was facing arson charges at the time, which were not prosecuted subsequently.

He was described at trial as an important witness, but Lord Justice Otton as he then was dismissed his evidence as ʻincapable of beliefʼ. Despite overwhelming evidence that White lied, he has never been investigated for perjury and perverting the course of justice, let alone charged. Why not?

Less than a month after the convictions of Mills and Poole were quashed, Jeffrey Gafoor pleaded guilty to the murder of Lynette White, vindicating the Cardiff Five and the process that would result in perjurers being convicted over a miscarriage of justice began.

Do Mills and Poole have to wait for similar resolution of their case before Whiteʼs lies are even investigated? There is strong evidence of police malpractice in this case that has yet to be adequately investigated too². Do the Newsagentʼs Three have to be vindicated too? There ought to be a better and fairer way.

Perjury Under Duress

Mark Grommek, Learnne Vilday and Angela Psaila were sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment for perjury on December 19^th. They are the first witnesses to be convicted of perjury in a miscarriage of justice case, where even the prosecution accepted that their allegations of police malpractice, which included violence and threats of wrongful imprisonment, were true.

The case of the Cardiff Five (Yusef Abdullahi, John and Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) was the first miscarriage of justice n the DNA age in Britain to be resolved by the conviction of the real murderer, Jeffrey Gafoor. The four alleged eyewitnesses – Paul Atkins was deemed unfit to stand trial – were the first to be charged with any offence in that case since Gafoorʼs conviction on July 4^th 2003.

Grommek Vilday and Psaila pleaded guilty to perjury in October. There is no doubt that those witnesses perjured themselves, as they have admitted it and the conviction of Gafoor proved it, but such cases are rare and this is unique in terms of it being accepted that they were mistreated by police.

Grommek gave evidence that he was subjected to threats of violence by a then Detective Inspector Richard Powell, before he gave accounts that falsely implicated Abdullahi and Ronnie Actie,. His claims of police malpractice were accepted by the prosecution – no police officers had been charged over this case, although several remain on bail.

The conviction of Grommek, Psaila and Vilday is controversial. Will they be only witnesses to face trial over a miscarriage of justice case in such circumstances? Vilday was also put under intolerable pressure as was Psaila who believed that her blood had been found in the room when Lynette was murdered until told differently in 2004. She reacted with shock at the news.

Discredited Predecessor

There is no shortage of miscarriage of justice cases, but none of the major cases have resulted in such an investigation let alone convictions. The closest is the case of former Greater Manchester police officer Ged Corley, who was accused of a series of armed robberies. After it became clear that he was on duty at the time some offences occurred, several of Manchesterʼs criminal fraternity were allowed to change their accounts and accuse him of master-minding the robberies instead.

After his convictions were quashed in March 1990 an investigation resulted in perjury convictions, but of the armed robbers who had framed him. The only convictions that were obtained of police officers in that case were because they pleaded guilty to lesser offences, but not perjury or conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. That came from one of the biggest investigations that the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), the predecessor of the equally flawed Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) had ever conducted.

Context

Less than two weeks after Corleyʼs convictions were quashed, the Court of Appeal, headed by the discredited then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, freed Alban Turner, but in a manner that left a bad taste. It was clear that crucial witness Kevin Sarbutts had lied. The crucial issues were what lies had he told and why had he told them.

Sarbuttsʼ retraction was referred to the now abolished PCA. The investigation was huge and utterly flawed by design. It did not investigate whether Sarbutts had lied about Turner – just his allegations of police malpractice. Turnerʼs guilt or innocence was crucial, but it was peripheral at best. As such the context was missed and the investigation lacked a crucial focus.

Sarbutts was convicted of perjury in 1994 and sentenced to three years imprisonment after the jury asked for leniency. His claims that he had lied to frame an innocent man were not part of the case against him. The PCA has been replaced, but is the IPCC adequate, especially in dealing with perjury in miscarriage of justice cases?

Extraordinary

The extraordinary case of Gary Mills and Tony Poole is in the news again. After fourteen years of wrongful imprisonment, they were freed in June 2003 – the last seven because senior judges did not know the law or ignored it. The main reason for the quashing of their convictions was the cumulative effect of the lack of integrity of the inquiry into the controversial death while in police custody of Hensley Wiltshire in 1989.

More than four years ago they lodged a complaint with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) alleging criminal conduct by police. They claimed that the number two in the inquiry, former Detective Inspector Trevor Gladding, had perverted the course of justice and perjured himself. Allegations of serious malpractice were made against other officers as well.

Two different sets of appeal judges: a high court jury¹ and a former Lord Chief Justice were far from impressed with Gladding’s conduct. Eventually, the Criminal Cases Review Commission also declared itself dissatisfied with the effect that several instances of police malpractice could have had on the safety of the convictions and referred it back to the Court of Criminal Appeal, which heard it in 2003.

Inadequate

The CPS referred their complaint for investigation, which was picked up by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in April 2004 and would become a major test of the independence of the new body. Nearly four years later it issued a provisional report dismissing the complaint.

“The investigation report belongs to Gloucestershire Constabulary and it is for them to decide what can be released into the public domain,” said IPCC spokesperson David Nicholson.

I raised eleven questions with them. He responded with: “It is for Gloucestershire to decide whether and how they answer.” To date, the IPCC, CPS and Gloucestershire Police have not answered the queries. In other words, the IPCC and CPS think it is acceptable for the bodies complained about to exonerate themselves and decide what information should be allowed into to the public arena. So much for openness and integrity.

Legacy

Their complaint was a legacy case, meaning it was investigated under the old rules, which meant that independent investigators were not used and there was no requirement of disclosure of the report. The IPCC has done itself no favours at all.

“The matter has now been concluded and the complaints were unsubstantiated,” said Nicholson. Such a comment is quite frankly ludicrous and merely emphasises the unsatisfactory nature of the IPCC.

The IPCC’s finding contradicts all previous inquiries including the much criticised investigation for the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) conducted by former Chief Constable of Durham Police George Hedges in the early 1990s.

Culture of Secrecy

The IPCC was established to counter the culture of secrecy surrounding complaints against police. This shameful decision and refusal to make its full findings public will taint its claims of independence for years to come.

The Commissioner in charge of this complaint was Rebecca Marsh. She wrote: “On the evidence available, the IPCC is not satisfied that there is a realistic prospect that the conduct of the officers complained of fell below the required standard. We are therefore minded to conclude that misconduct proceedings cannot be justified.”

And this in the case that the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf said: “Almost every aspect of this prosecution is tarnished.”

Nevertheless, we now know that perjury and perverting the course of justice do not constitute an abuse of due process of law² and that such conduct does not fall below the required standard of conduct from police officers,³ but that it is not libellous to say that Trevor Gladding perverted the course of justice and perjured himself.⁴

“We agree that this has taken a very long time to resolve,” said Mr Nicholson. “The setting up of the IPCC was because of frustrations with the ‘previous system’ and the length of time that cases took to resolve.”

The average IPCC investigation in the relevant region takes 166 days. This investigation took almost four years to reach incredible conclusions at great expense in a report that will almost certainly never see the light of day. The name has changed, but judging by this decision not much else.

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?

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.

Damage Limitation

The Police Corruption Trial of the Century ended in farce on December 1^st 2011 – a nine year investigative process had resulted in convictions of three vulnerable witnesses and no others. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), prosecutor Nicholas Dean QC and defence lawyers – police even – all accepted that they had been forced to lie (see Duress and The Lawʼs An Ass). Nevertheless, the law did not recognise the duress that they had suffered.

Mark Grommek, Angela Psaila and Learnne Vilday therefore had no choice but to plead guilty to perjuring themselves.¹ Having done so, they were treated leniently due to the bullying they had endured by police officers who had in the words of the judge used methods that were “unacceptable in a civilised society”.

The New Cardiff Three were sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. By March 2009 the CPS announced that 13 police officers (some of whom had retired) had been charged with a variety of offences including conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perjury. Two witnesses also faced those charges. They had no intention of going down meekly. However, this would prove to be a poorly prepared prosecution marred by penny-pinching foolishness that would ultimately cost the public millions more and deprive us all of the accountability and answers we have waited years to discover.

The Judge

Despite the seriousness of the case it was destined to be heard in Swansea before Mr Justice (Sir Nigel) Sweeney. The judge had been involved in prosecuting a notorious crime – the Chillenden attack on the Russell family which left Lin Russell and her daughter Megan and dog Lucy dead and Josie Russell fighting for her life.

Sweeney knew that the Crownʼs pathologist – albeit subsequently discredited – suggested that there had been significant contact between the killer and a bootlace used to strangle the unfortunate Megan. There was no disputing that the contact was substantial and that the killerʼs DNA would have been on the lace, but Sweeney knew that Michael Stoneʼs DNA was not on that boot-lace. This was strong evidence of innocence, but a fanciful explanation was advanced and Stoneʼs defence accepted the Crownʼs willingness to stipulate that Stoneʼs DNA and fingerprints had not been discovered at the crime-scene.

The Crown claimed that Stone – a habitual drugs-user – had obtained the lace from another user and had used it to restrain Megan. Somehow despite putting substantial pressure through the lace onto his fingers he had not deposited his own DNA while both Meganʼs and the unknown drug-user he had allegedly obtained the lace from remained on it, or at least alleles (bands in the DNA testing system used did).

It was obvious that the far more probable explanation of the unidentified male DNA at the relevant points on the lace was that it had been shed by the killer. It was yet another example of a convenient interpretation of the DNA results – one that stretched credibility and most probably contributed to an egregious miscarriage of justice. Sweeney was either aware of the fanciful nature of the explanation that he relied on, or he should have been.

Precedent Ignored

Stone was convicted again in September 2001 and subsequently lost an appeal. An application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) failed to present the compelling scientific evidence of innocence. He remains in prison for very serious crimes that he did not commit in circumstances where strong evidence supporting his claims of innocence has never been heard by any court or even the CCRC.

By this time a very significant miscarriage of justice – a Dutch vindication case had thoroughly unravelled. The Schiedammer Parkmoord has been covered in considerable detail by us (see the various articles on that case). Astonishingly the significance and potential of that case remains largely ignored by supporters of Stone, lawyers and media all professing to champion his innocence even though the methods used in that case to prove the innocence of Kees Borsboom are plainly apt in Stoneʼs case.

Shamefully, the scope to prove him innocent remains ignored while an almost certainly innocent man languishes in prison while an expert who has first hand experience of the issues involved is denied the opportunity to test his claims of innocence. Sweeneyʼs role in securing this miscarriage of justice has never been subjected to public scrutiny. Over a decade later no media apart from us even mentions it, let alone investigates it.

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.