Lessons

The criminal justice system has never listened to Lloyd Paris – its loss. Lloyd shows dignity and decency even though those qualities are sadly lacking in the treatment he has received from it. His brother Tony was one of the victims of a now notorious miscarriage of justice. On Saint Valentine’s Day 1988 20-year-old Lynette White was murdered. It was a knife crime of exceptional brutality – a sexually motivated homicide. The case against his brother and four co-accused depended on a case scenario that Professor Dave Barclay described as “scientifically ludicrous”.

There were dire consequences for the Cardiff Five and their wider families. John and the late Ronnie Actie were acquitted in November 1990. Two years later Stephen Miller, the late Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris were freed on appeal, but the whispering campaign against them and subsequent damage continued for years. It ended, or should have in July 2003 when the Cardiff Five were vindicated by the conviction of Lynette White’s real killer.

Bad Form

There were many victims of this terrible case and further insults would occur. The Cardiff Five had lost a total of sixteen years between them for a crime Gafoor admitted he had committed on his own. More importantly, the crime-scene evidence, forensic pathology, forensic psychology, blood distribution patterns and DNA proved that Lynette had indeed been murdered by one person acting on their own and that man was Jeffrey Gafoor. Despite the serious aggravating circumstances, Gafoor receives a tariff – the minimum that he must serve before he becomes eligible to apply for parole – of just thirteen years. Amazingly, both Tony Paris and Yusef Abdullahi had received harsher tariffs for the same crime.

“Well it’s bad form to tell you the truth”, Lloyd Paris said. “You know the type of thing that man done, he should have done a lot more jail. I don’t know what the system’s coming to. They say it takes time for things to go round that slow, but it’s too slow. Everything is going too slow. It took all this time to get the police in court. It took the police all that time to get Gafoor. It’s silly. It really is silly”.

Max Hilll QC, then Vice President of Bar Association agreed that it would look odd to the public. “[Y]ou identify a need for precision in sentencing in miscarriage cases”, Hill said. “I’m happy to discuss that because clearly from a distance if as you tell me in the Lynette White case there was a sentence that was applied to those wrongly convicted, which was heavier than the person ultimately rightly convicted, to many people that would appear wrong and the question behind that may be, do you need to do something about tariff sentencing to ensure that doesn’t happen?”

(We will be answering this question in our forthcoming report Just Tariffs, and highlighting the problem in further articles).

The Western Mail’s Chief Reporter, Martin Shipton, believes that changes are required. “Well it suggests that there is something seriously wrong with the way in which tariffs are arrived at”, he said. “Now whether that is because there is insufficient guidance available to judges, whether the policy has changed over the intervening years, I’m not sure”. But Shipton is clear that there can be no excuses for innocent people receiving harsher tariffs than the innocent for the same crime, differences in when legal proceedings occurred, notwithstanding.

“Well it seems ludicrous that the tariff for the real killer is actually – ultimately – even when we are told that the fact that he allowed innocent people to go jail is taken into account is actually lower than the total amount of time that was spent in prison by the innocent people” [my emphasis].

Significance

Today, the real and sole murderer of 20-year-old Lynette White, becomes eligible to apply for parole. Jeffrey Gafoor admits that he alone is responsible. In the early hours of Saint Valentine’s Day 1988, Lynette was stabbed over fifty times. Her throat was slit. Still Gafoor continued his vicious attack. He stabbed her breasts and chest repeatedly – at least half of the offensive injuries were to that area of her body. The attack continued after she was dead or dying. The brutality obviously went far beyond what was required to kill her. It was cruel and in my view torture. Gafoor has never explained why Lynette suffered this horrific fate. And he has not explained why he stayed silent while five innocent men stood trial for a crime he admits he committed on his own.

The Cardiff Five ((Yusef Abdullahi, John and Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) were charged with Lynette’s murder in December 1988. Almost two years later the Actie cousins were acquitted and the Cardiff Three were wrongfully convicted. It is now acknowledged to be one of Britain’s most notorious miscarriages of justice. It was quite obviously a sexually motivated homicide, even if that was not the label in use in the 1980s and ’90s.

Professor Dave Barclay conducted a review of the scientific evidence, which led t the vindication of the Cardiff Five and a measure of actual justice for the memory of Lynette White. He explains the significance of the crime being a sexually motivated homicide. “All but a very few are on the breasts, but sheʼs had her neck cut as well and wrists and so on”, he said. “Thereʼs a slash across the face. Itʼs a sexually motivated homicide – full stop. [I]tʼs a sexually motivated homicide and donʼt forget those stab wounds are through the puffa jacket and clothing and yet theyʼre still, theyʼre all concentrated on the breasts. Itʼs a single male sexually motivated homicide” [my emphasis].

So why the emphasis? Sexually motivated homicides are almost always committed by one man acting on his own, like Gafoor. Sometimes two vicious people combine and encourage each other to commit such crimes. Barclay and others cannot provide a single example in all the annals of crime where a murder like this was committed by five men, who made accomplices of two other sex workers, but let them live after committing such an evil crime. And all of this was allegedly done without leaving any trace, tying them to the scene or victim in total darkness. Sadly, Barclay has never given evidence about all this and more. So what would he have said if he had been given the chance? “Interestingly I give evidence more in Holland and places like that where they seem quite happy to have people give an overview”, he said. “I would have said whereʼs the evidence for any of that bullshit? I might even have said that in court”.

Evidence-led

Barclay demonstrated that the crime-scene evidence, forensic pathology, forensic psychology and blood distribution pattern was only consistent with one explanation. Lynette was murdered by one person acting on his own. That person, by his own admission and guilty plea – and evidence – was Jeffrey Charles Gafoor. For at least nine months the investigation followed the credible evidence – the crime-scene and forensic science wasn’t lying, but the original investigation took a diversion. It derailed the inquiry.

“[I]f you have two possibilities, you need very persuasive evidence to go for the least likely, so youʼve got a single male arguing with a prostitute over a deal and thatʼs what the scientist thought for nine months, or youʼve got this thing where Angela Psaila, [Mark] Grommek, at least and maybe somebody else and the five accused are all tearing round this room, sawing at peopleʼs necks and trying to cut their hands – stuff like this”, Barclay says.

“Angela Psailaʼs supposed to be asked to cut the neck or hands, I canʼt remember, or the wrist, so thatʼs so inherently improbable on every possible level: psychologically, practically and just they couldnʼt do it in that dark room without leaving footwear and finger-marks in blood and if you actually consider something I did after I totalled up the number of people that were supposed to have held the bloody knife”, he continues. “Thatʼs four people, so there are four people with blood on their hands and theyʼre going out without leaving finger-marks in blood or whatever, so I think that was a major thing. Occamʼs Razor is a thing that we use a lot in forensic science, ʻin all probability, the simplest explanation is the correct oneʼ, and you have to be really sure that the simplest explanation isnʼt correct and that was something that was not done either”.

The Cost of Silence

The methods that Barclay used in his review and subsequent work on this case were available in the 1980s and ’90s. There was no reason for this miscarriage of justice to be allowed to occur. Jeffrey Gafoor was the one person who knew for certain that not only were the Cardiff Five innocent, but that they were suffering a grave injustice for his crime. He chose to stay silent and let their lives be destroyed Ronnie Actie and Yusef Abdullahi both died before reaching fifty. John Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris still endure the unjustifiable whispering campaigns in a case that disgraces justice. Meanwhile, the real killer, becomes eligible to apply for parole today after completing a tariff that was incorrectly applied and failed miserably to reflect the crimes Gafoor committed.

There is no excuse for the lives of the Cardiff Five and their families to have been wrecked. There is no excuse for Lynette’s family to have been denied justice for so long. While Gafoor is not responsible for justice miscarrying, his cowardly decision to refuse to take any responsibility for his crime when it mattered destroyed several lives. Do the courses and rehabilitative exercises that he experiences in prison to prepare him for parole bear this in mind? If not, why not? The real and sole killer received an inappropriately lenient tariff that further insults all the victims of this tawdry injustice – one that simply won’t go away until justice is allowed to reign once and for all.

The Suspension of Disbelief

There is no longer any credible doubt that the Cardiff Five¹ are innocent, but they always were. It should not have required the conviction of the real murderer of Lynette White to convince anyone. Any objective review of the evidence should have led inexorably to that conclusion. As with other miscarriage of justice cases the evidence and common sense ought to have prevented not only wrongful convictions, but the wrongful arrests too.

The murder of Lynette White is a tawdry tale of a vicious killing that involved excessive brutality – far beyond what was needed to kill – and the investigation and trials that followed of justice betrayed. It is now established as one of the most notorious and easily preventable miscarriages of justice in British history.

An extraordinary tale began in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 1988 with what was then the most brutal murder of its type in Welsh history – over 50 stab wounds – with obvious sexual overtones to it. After ten months the original inquiry revealed a closed mind that focused on obviously innocent men.

Forensic science proved the police’s scenario that five men and at least two alleged eyewitnesses were in that room along with the victim was quite frankly ludicrous. This became an egregious miscarriage of justice, but it ought to have been impossible. The quality of the evidence gathered against the five men who eventually stood trial was woeful to put it mildly.

It was a case that required an extraordinary suspension of disbelief from several professionals, especially lawyers who should have known better, but there is nothing in that story that does not occur routinely in other cases. It is the combination of what has gone wrong that is incredible. Equally unbelievable is the failure of the criminal justice system to halt a plainly inappropriate prosecution in its tracks and hold those who failed the public accountable.

Bullied and Hectored

It is well known that Stephen Miller was ‘bullied and hectored’ by police in interviews that breached his rights shamefully. Miller was shouted down until he accepted the police’s version of Lynette’s murder – a scientifically ludicrous scenario that produced an utterly false confession.

Miller was an extremely vulnerable person. He was highly suggestible and of below average intelligence. He was very susceptible to bullying and held to an absurd standard by David Elfer QC – a standard that required accepting everything put to him to meet Elfer’s definition of suggestibility.

Dr Gisli Gudjonsson, the acknowledged leader in his field, understood the extent of Miller’s vulnerability to making a false confession. Sadly Elfer did not and, even more worryingly, nor did Miller’s defence lawyers for his trial and retrial. Their failures contributed in no small measure to an awful miscarriage of justice.

Referral

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) recently announced that it would investigate the conviction of Jordan Cunliffe. Then just 15 Cunliffe was convicted of the shocking 2007 murder of salesman Garry Newlove. Mr Newlove was kicked to death outside of his home in Warrington. A group of youths looked on.

Cunliffe was convicted using the controversial centuries old legal principle of Joint Enterprise. This was also used to secure convictions for the murder of aspiring architect Stephen Lawrence. The CCRC will begin its investigation of Cunliffeʼs case in February 2015. Newloveʼs widow, Helen, was made a Baroness in 2010. That year she expressed strong support for Joint Enterprise.

“Would you stand there watching somebody else kicking and punching”?, she said in 2010. “Would you actually think that was right to watch, even if you didn’t do the act? They were all as guilty as the person doing the act”. Cunliffe was there, but insists that he did not take part in the attack. Along with Adam Swellings and Stephen Sorton, Cunliffe was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Victimʼs Commissioner

In 2012 the Conservative peer belatedly succeeded Louise Casey as Victimsʼ Commissioner. The duties of the Commissioner is to ensure that victims are treated with the utmost respect. The Commissioner must be independent of any political partiality or persuasion, meaning that Baroness Newlove must keep her political beliefs out of her role as Victimsʼ Commissioner.

The following principles are core to the office of the Commissioner: inclusivity representing all victims and witnesses, including the most vulnerable members of our community; transparency in the way that decisions are made, business is conducted and the office operates; and encouraging responsibility through work with all criminal justice and local agencies to ensure the voices of victims and witnesses are heard and that each organisation takes responsibility for victims and witnesses.

As it says on its website, Newloveʼs role as Victimsʼ Commissioner is to “promote the interests of victims and witnesses, encourage good practice in their treatment, and regularly review the Code of Practice for Victims which sets out the services victims can expect to receive”.

The Code details the treatment that victims are entitled to receive from the various agencies. It was revised recently. Among the rights is information on restorative justice. “Victims should be put first in every case no matter what the crime or sentence”, Newlove said recently. “Crime can rip victims and their families apart – they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity by everyone involved. Although sentencing in individual cases is a matter for the courts – they still need to be sensitive to those who have suffered loss”.

More Equal Than Others

Victims must be treated with respect. Nobody could disagree, but does this apply to all victims and if not why not? We have pointed out previously that the Cardiff Five is an absolutely unique case. Not only were they the victims of a truly shocking and appalling miscarriage of justice, but also a crime – perjury. The conviction of Mark Grommek, Angela Psaila and Learnne Vilday in 2008 for that offence meant that they were victims of a crime.

We pointed this out to various agencies, arguing that these victims had been thoroughly let down. The judge who sentenced the real killer of Lynette White, Jeffrey Gafoor, to life imprisonment told him that the most serious aggravating circumstance was that he had allowed innocent people to go to prison for a crime he knew he had committed.

The Cardiff Five were plainly victims, yet they were not accorded any of the courtesies due to victims. They were not given the right to make victim impact statements before the tariff was imposed (see The Rights of the Forgotten Victims – Victim Impact Statements at http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=751 and The Rights of the Forgotten Victims – Undue Leniency at http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=753). Why not? Yusef Abdullahi and Ronnie Actie died without even reaching 50, deprived of after-care that may have prolonged and improved the quality of their lives (see A Lack of Care at http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=709).

All victims are equal, but it seems that some are more equal than others.

Absurd

The victims of crime (or their family) have the right to give statements about the impact the crime has had upon them to the judge before he or she decides how long the guilty party must serve and rightly so. However, nowhere in the debate on victims’ rights is there any mention of the effects of the rights of victims of miscarriages of justice who have been vindicated, even though there should be no doubt that they have been victimised too.

Despite vindication – a miscarriage of justice that has been resolved by the conviction of the truly guilty – real perpetrators have been treated more leniently than the entirely innocent ones they allowed to be wrongly accused or convicted. That is shameful, especially as it was entirely preventable.

Horrific

The power to set tariffs (the minimum time that must be served of a life sentence) was taken away from the Home Secretary before the first case of vindication in a murder case in the DNA age in Britain, which occurred in July 2003 when Jeffrey Gafoor pleaded guilty to the murder of Lynette White. She was the victim of what was then (Valentine’s Day 1988) the most brutal murder of its type in Welsh history.

Her murder involved over fifty stab wounds, some of which were inflicted as she was dying or after death. Yusef Abdullahi, Steve Miller, Tony Paris and the cousins John and Ronnie Actie were charged with her murder and the Actie cousins were acquitted in November 1990, while the Cardiff Three were jailed for life. The wrongful convictions were quashed two years later, but not before the Cardiff Five had served a total of sixteen years actual prison time for a crime that they did not commit.

Unconscionable

Within a year of the publication of my book Fitted In: The Cardiff 3 and the Lynette White Inquiry in 1998, the case was re-opened and a combination of excellent police work and investigations by forensic scientists resulted in the arrest and conviction of Gafoor. He gave no comment interviews before admitting his guilt at his first appearance for pleas.

However the case against him was compelling as there was no answer to the DNA evidence, which could not have been planted for reasons that have been explained in The Cardiff Five: Innocent Beyond Any Doubt¹. Nevertheless, the law orders judges to credit defendants for ‘swift’ guilty pleas when setting tariffs. But did that apply in this case?

It was an horrific crime and Gafoor had allowed men he knew to be innocent to serve several years of actual imprisonment for his crime, but it was not entirely Mr Justice Royce’s fault that the tariff seemed unduly lenient. However, it remains obscene that there is a real possibility that the truly guilty Gafoor could serve less time in prison for a crime that he committed than the innocent men that he allowed to suffer wrongful imprisonment for the same crime. There can be no excuse for that.

Remorseless

Gafoor can show ‘genuine’ remorse for his crime, because he has reason to be sorry for murdering White, but the Cardiff Three could not without lying about their guilt – a lie that would have prevented her murder from ever being correctly resolved. Given the nature of the crime that they were convicted of they would have been deemed to be ‘in denial of murder’ if they failed to admit their guilt as well.

They would also have been required to take courses to address their offending behaviour, even though they were actually innocent. Gafoor can easily do all of this and progress through the system because he is guilty. Ironically, the system caters for the needs of the guilty and rewards them, but punishes the innocent.

The Cardiff Three could have been crushed by their experience of wrongful imprisonment, or worse still committed suicide in prison, while Gafoor savoured his ill-deserved freedom – none of which was taken into account when setting the tariff.

The criminal justice system claims to put victims at its centre of the system, so why have the Cardiff Five been denied the status they deserve as victims of Gafoor, the criminal justice system and perjury too?

Impact

The law allows the families of victims the right to give victim statements about how the murder of their loved one has affected them to judges before the tariff – the minimum that must be served before an offender is eligible to apply for release on parole – is set. This gives victims a say, but what about other victims?

Lynette White’s family did so before Mr Justice Royce imposed the tariff on Jeffrey Gafoor. Royce referred to them in his explanation of the tariff and described them as powerful, but Lynetteʼs family were not the only victims of Jeffrey Gafoorʼs hideous crimes. Despite being adversely affected by Gafoorʼs crimes for the rest of their lives the criminal justice system and criminal actions during the investigation, the Cardiff Five (Yusef Abullahi, John and Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) were given no input at all.

Surely they deserved that small courtesy that could have assisted in understanding the full effect of Gafoor’s crimes, especially as it is not even a criminal offence to knowingly allow innocent people to suffer wrongful imprisonment for his crime, but shouldn’t it be?

Support?

More than five years after they were proved innocent beyond any doubt they will probably never recover from their ordeal. Depriving them of the opportunity to detail how they too were victimised by Gafoor’s actions adds to it by denying the fact that they suffered greatly at his hands too.

Allowing them to give victim statements demonstrates in practice that they have indeed been victimised by his actions and shows that the criminal justice system takes its responsibilities seriously. It is an area that has shamefully neglected until now. There have been other vindication cases since the Cardiff Five made history and there will be more to come.

In this case it has already been proved that they were the victims of crime as well, as perjured testimony contributed to their wrongful convictions, but where is the support for them? As victims of crime are they not entitled to the assistance provided to others by organisations such as Victim Support? And if not, why not?

To date they have never received any and were not referred to Victim Support by the police. Nor did Victim Support make any effort to contact them despite the high profile nature of this case. They are clearly victims as well and should be treated as such, so the criminal justice system should acknowledge this and allow the victims of such miscarriages of justice the right to be heard and receive whatever.

Vindication

The law can be amended easily to allow vindicated victims like the Cardiff Five to give victim statements as well. It is surely not too much to ask that they be given the same courtesy that is afforded to the family of the victim of the murder. Other miscarriages of justice have been resolved in this manner now.

However, tariffs or sentences have been imposed without acknowledging the status of those who suffered the miscarriage of justice as victims deserving the right to voice their concerns. It was already too late for Stefan Kiszko who died without seeing Ronald Castree convicted of the murder of Lesley Molseed, but not for others.

Colin Stagg and the original defendants in the Damilola Taylor Inquiry were and alive when Robert Napper was brought to account for the killing of Rachel Nickell and the four boys who originally stood trial for the murder of Damilola Taylor when the Preddie brothers (Ricky and Danny) were finally brought to justice. There will be others.

The Right to be Heard

It is difficult to imagine a more disgraceful way to treat all of the victims of such cases and it is inevitable that there will be others that are resolved in this manner in the future. Without all the victims of these cases being given a voice further injustice will occur. The families of the victims of homicides have their say when tariffs are considered, but the victims of these miscarriages of justice are excluded by the system that has wronged them.

Why should the victims of such miscarriages of justice be denied the right to make victim statements? If victims are to be truly put at the heart of the criminal justice system then all the victims of cases such as this must be given a voice. It cannot roll back the years or spare them the ordeal that they have suffered, but acknowledging that they too are victims would be a start – albeit a small step, but long overdue.

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?

Misinterpreted

Yusef Abdullahi was wrongly convicted in 1990 of the Valentine’s Day 1988 murder of Lynette White along with Stephen Miller and Tony Paris. John Actie and his cousin the late Ronnie Actie were acquitted. All five were vindicated in 2003 when Jeffrey Gafoor pleaded guilty to Lynette’s murder. It was the first time that this had happened in Britain through DNA testing.

The Miscarriages of Justice Project (MJP) was established that year after a Home Office Working Group had considered the issue, but their consultant misinterpreted his terms of reference and excluded anyone whose conviction was quashed on a first appeal. And if, like Colin Stagg, they had never been convicted at all, they were not even considered for help by the Working Group. The scheme – a limited advice service – was restricted to those referred back for appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, or an out of time appeal.

Untruths

“The Ministry of Justice funds the Miscarriage of Justice Support Service (MJSS) to help those who have had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal,” said the Minister of State at Ministry of Justice, Baron (Tom) McNally in a written response to Baron (John) Laird’s query.

“The MJSS provides help with issues such as healthcare, accommodation, finance and relationships”, McNally wrote. “The MJSS’ funding has recently been extended for a further year to March 2012 and the Ministry of Justice is working with it to improve the support they provide”.

There is a slight problem with this response; it is not true. The remit and funding agreement of the MJSS does not allow it to help anyone whose conviction was quashed on an in-time first appeal and never had. It is restricted in who it helps and actually excludes the overwhelming ajority of victims of miscarriages of justice.

Fend for Themselves

Almost eight years ago I asked the Miscarriages of Justice Project as it was called then to go and visit Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris in Cardiff. They agreed, but reneged on the agreement, claiming that it would affect their funding and therefore ability to help others. It was an uncaring response from people whose job it was to provide care.

Abdullahi in particular really needed help then. It was the least he deserved, but instead he was left to fend for himself. The MJP decided that it could not help him, because he did not come under their remit, which has not been changed. They did not even point out the absurdity of not being permitted to provide help to demonstrably innocent people. They even had the cheek to ask me to recommend their service to others.

Disgraceful

If he had asked for their help, he would have been referred to his local Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB) and they would have been advised that he would call and what to do, rather than receive help from those who had experience of these issues. What use is that? Abdullahi deserved the care he needed – nothing less.

Lord McNally really ought to have known this and the government should right this wrong without further delay. It is already too late for Abdullahi – he died last month aged just 49. Despite being vindicated Abdullahi had been excluded from receiving assistance from the MJSS. The same applies to Ronnie Actie and Phillip Skipper, neither of whom was convicted. They have other things in common. They were vindicated and died without reaching 50. They didn’t qualify for help either. Nor did Colin Stagg. What kind of system is this? What kind of way is this for society to treat its victims?

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?