Richard Horwell QC has completed his report and it has been considered by the Home Secretary, who scraped back into Parliament by the skin of her teeth. Amber Rudd has welcomed it – no surprise there. Horwell thinks the failures were due to human error. That contributed to it, but it was at best a lacklustre prosecution. It refused to utilise important evidence that unequivocally proved the Cardiff were innocent, and did so before they stood trial in 1989 and again in 1990. High quality evidence proving this was conspicuous by its absence in the prosecution case in 2011 and even in rebuttal of the outrageous defence. Adding insult to injury the sham processes culminating in the Horwell Report have not even acknowledged that this evidence existed, let alone deal with its exclusion. Rudd welcomes the sham and hopes that this is the end of the story. It is not. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. In this case, despite the clearest vindication possible, justice has been seen to be denied. It still is. Horwell had an opportunity – albeit limited – to redress a gross wrong. He has failed to do so.

It should now be clear that the approach favoured by South Wales Police and others of aiding the three sham inquiries and refusing to comment on the shameful miscarriage of justice that befell the Cardiff Five and affected the community that had a right to expect the highest standards that it did not receive, has achieved its intent. Whether that force (its highest ranks shared that intent or not) the deliberate prevention of learning the lessons of an utterly shameful miscarriage of justice has occurred because of these processes that had no ability to deliver justice, or intent – their aim was altogether more sinister. The sham processes served their purpose of taking the case off the agenda long enough for it to be forgotten about and the damage that it was perceived that it could cause, limited. The dismal failures of this approach and failed processes have not been addressed. The pathetic platitudes about innocence and miscarriage of justice are risible – contemptible in fact.

All three sham processes the HMCPSI, IPCC and now Horwell achieved their purpose of delaying and ultimately thwarting justice. They were and are the pathetic sham I knew they would be. It was obvious what they would be. The Terms of Reference of all three made that clear. They were a gross waste of public funds and the politicians responsible should be surcharged.

South Wales Police’s PSD stole my work and published it to others in flagrant breach of my copyright, and knowing that I not only did not support these sham processes, but that I viewed them with total contempt. The justification provided for that theft was a year after the fact and demonstrably wrong in law – it is astonishing that Police Complaints Commission (it has to demonstrate independence in practice for me to call it Independent) failed to notice that. The fact that South Wales Police see nothing wrong with the department complained of investigating itself and expect me to provide paperwork their officers failed to provide, despite it being made clear that was required, demonstrates bad faith. It is amazing that the so-called complaints procedure and senior ranks who discussed it accept the shoddy note-keeping etc when it suits them, but ignore the fact no note exists of the terms of my cooperation at all. How convenient for them. If that is not properly redressed I reserve the right to take whatever action is necessary regarding it. South Wales Police stole my cooperation for processes they knew I had concluded were designed to cheat justice. They even had the very officer complained about investigating himself!

All three of these shams ignored the original miscarriage of justice and its causes and effects. All three ignored the disgraceful abuse of justice that jailed three vulnerable people (the bullied witnesses I refer to as the New Cardiff Three) that the court accepted had been subjected to conduct that was ‘unacceptable in a civilised society’. The archaic demands of the law on duress was conspicuous by its absence in all three shams. All three failed to notice that the 2011 farce was set up to fail – disclosure providing a neat smokescreen to hide inexplicably crass prosecutorial decisions. An illuminating light will be shone on those decisions in my forthcoming book Trials and Tribulations – Innocence Matters?

I have already detailed some of these failings in my previous books Fitted In: The Cardiff 3 and the Lynette White Inquiry and The Cardiff Five: Innocent Beyond Any Doubt. Criticisms raised in them of the investigative and judicial processes that led to the notorious miscarriage of justice and maintained it even after vindication, are conspicuous by their absence in the three shams. The failure to use compelling scientific evidence even after a deplorable and utterly false defence was advanced in 2011 trial is disgraceful. Where was the analysis of that in the three sham processes?

The processes that South Wales Police and others supported have failed miserably. Rather than reward mediocrity and gross injustice, if any truly care about justice they will not only join me in demanding a Truth and Justice Commission into the whole case, but campaign actively until that Commission is established. Justice and integrity demand nothing less!

1 Mr Michael is now the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales. The position replaced Police Authorities with the exception of London, which transferred Police Authority powers to the Mayor of London.

]]> https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?feed=rss2&p=1032 0 https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=926 https://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=926#comments Sat, 17 Jan 2015 18:52:24 +0000 http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=926 Read more]]> By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (January 20^th 2012)

Exoneration and Vindication

Exoneration on appeal or acquittal at trial is where most miscarriage of justice cases are left – exoneration without acceptance of innocence. Unlike most I refused to stop investigating, believing that it was possible to resolve this case fully by finding the real killer.

The Cardiff Five were innocent, but Lynette White remained as robbed of justice as she had ever been and her family and society too were horribly cheated. This was and remains the difference-making miscarriage of justice in Britain, but only because it was possible to find the real killer and vindicate the originally accused, proving their innocence beyond doubt and that in turn would open the door to real change and not just for them.¹

Vindication of the Cardiff Five was essential. It began the process of acknowledging what had gone wrong and possibly redressing it. Outrageously the police were allowed to dictate the terms of establishing what went wrong – a process that ultimately failed miserably and created new victims in the process.

Historic

In July 2003 Jeffrey Gafoor became the first murderer in British history to plead guilty to a murder that had previously resulted in a miscarriage of justice. Like South Wales Police, he apologised to both Lynette’s family and the Cardiff Five.

To their eternal shame no other individual or organisation involved in the miscarrying of justice in this scandalous injustice has apologised, let alone taken responsibility for their roles in it. But justice requires more than apologies – far more – and it should not depend on vindication, which occurs too rarely.

Facilitation or Acquiescence

I have been involved in miscarriage of justice work for over two decades. The role of the criminal justice system in facilitating or at least acquiescing in miscarriages of justice can no longer be ignored. The Cardiff Five have been vindicated and it was a rare case where the poor performance of a lawyer – it ought to have been plural – was acknowledged, but several others have never been accepted.

For example, the tragic case of Stefan Kiszko was one where the performance of his QC disgraced every concept of justice. There is no doubt that Kiszko was innocent. He was accused of the murder of a child and dealt with severely by other prisoners unaware of his vulnerability and of comprehensive proof of his innocence.

Kiszko was vindicated 32 years after the appalling murder of eleven-year-old Lesley Molseed, but it was far too late. Kisko was long dead, but evidence of his innocence had been known for many years by then. It should have prevented his wrongful conviction and the scandalous theft of his life by an an incompetent system that failed to ensure that proof of his innocence was clearly presented to the jury.

Outrageous

His defence QC, later to become Home Secretary, Leader of the House of Lords and Governor of Bermuda, Baron David Waddington, made significant and outrageous errors of judgement. Despite being bombarded with masses of unused papers at the opening of Kiszko’s trial, Waddington did not seek an adjournment to go through it.

Waddington pursued a defence of diminished responsibility despite Kiszko refusing to authorise it. But the worst error of all proved Kiszko’s innocence beyond doubt and later the guilt of Ronald Castree. The murderer had deposited his semen on Molseed’s clothing. It did not match Kiszko and was later proved to have been deposited by Castree.

Even at his trial it was obvious that the semen proved Kiszko innocent. The former tax-clerk could not produce semen. The failure to present this evidence of innocence disgraces every concept of justice and Kiszko’s then defence lawyers failed him and society miserably.

This was a truly appalling miscarriage of justice – one of Britain’s worst ever – compounded by the fact that Kiszko died aged just 41 in December 1993, having been released after 17 years wrongful imprisonment the previous year. He never recovered from his ordeal – an entirely preventable one.

But it should not require vindication to learn the lessons of cases like this and there are others which will almost certainly never end in vindication. What about them?

Apology

In July 2003 history was made. South Wales Police became the first British force in the DNA age to resolve a miscarriage of justice by finding and convicting the real killer. It was quickly followed by an apology from the then Chief Constable Sir Anthony Burden to Lynette’s family and to the Cardiff Five.

That was followed by an investigation into what went wrong. It is the only miscarriage of justice case to have had such an investigation in the world even though there are approximately 150 vindication cases in various jurisdictions. It had a remit that allowed it to investigate anyone and everyone, going wherever the evidence led it. It was the type of investigation demanded over many cases and not just in those where doubt about innocence had been removed.

Farcical

Ultimately the process collapsed in farcical circumstances and justice was betrayed – not by that investigation, but its aftermath. The truth of how an egregious travesty of justice was allowed to occur has not only never been established, it has not been looked for and if the criminal justice system has its way, it never will be. The truth and its power to affect meaningful change in the criminal justice system will be consigned to history.

That will mean that a case – perhaps the only one – that had the potential to improve the performance of the criminal justice system by identifying and hopefully eradicating flaws that contributed to the miscarrying of justice will have its unique potential wasted. That in turn condemns others to share the fate of the Cardiff Five. After their experiences that will be unconscionable.

Nevertheless, it still has that potential and is uniquely placed to achieve meaningful changes that can prevent, or at least reduce the risk of repetition. Rarely has a miscarriage of justice been as glaring as this and rarely has the resolution of that miscarriage of justice been as impressive as it was here.¹

Unacceptable

This case had one of the worst investigations of all time followed by one of the best investigations ever, but plenty happened in between. The vindication of the Cardiff Five was an essential part of the process. Without it there would have been no acknowledgement of responsibility for a case that destroyed lives and not just those of the Cardiff Five and Lynette’s family, but their wider families and even friends and the witnesses that were forced to lie and their families too.

Those witnesses were subjected to practices that a respected judge Sir David Maddison described as: “unacceptable in a civilised society”, but they were sent to jail for telling lies they were forced to tell. Perjury, as Maddison said, ‘strikes at the heart of the criminal justice system’. So too did the methods used to secure that evidence and more besides.

But the police should not be castigated in isolation. They would not have done as they did if they had not seen that these methods were effective in securing convictions and the kudos and promotions that follow. The methods used in this case are not unusual – far from it – and the prosecuting authorities have known about it for years, saying and doing nothing as it suited their interests then.

Values

In Wales these methods can be traced back to the Merthyr Rising of 1831, a miscarriage of justice that had the direst consequences possible. Those methods cost a young and innocent man his life. As the former Governor of Maryland Parris Glendening said: “The search for justice has no statute of limitations. When confronted with the possible miscarriage of justice, even from the distant past, our values compel us to take a second look”. It should not matter when the injustice occurred.

Ten, 20, a 100 years back or more makes no difference – only the evidence should matter, especially in this case. It is the father of vindication cases in Wales, occurring long before South Wales Police came into existence, but the methods used to secure the conviction of Dic Penderyn (Richard Lewis) for stabbing a soldier in the leg, absurdly described as attempted murder, in order to hang him, bear striking resemblance to those employed in the modern Welsh miscarriages of justice.

Like the current cases the perpetrators of that injustice not only were not brought to justice for their crimes. In fact, they were rewarded for their actions. What a shameful message to send to police and others too – one that was not wasted. If the consequences for securing shameful convictions are promotion, kudos and other incentives, how can they be expected to stop using methods that were spectacularly effective?

Culpability

But this tarred the honest police who recognised that miscarriages of justice helped nobody with the same brush as those that perpetrated the miscarriages of justice. That too is a grave injustice. Unless no crime occurred – and that has happened – the inevitable consequence of a miscarriage of justice is that they have achieved the one and only certain way to protect the real perpetrators who remain at liberty perhaps to commit further offences.

For several decades spanning almost two centuries there were no consequences for using these methods and they were used several times to terrible and tragic effect. But blaming the police alone for the modern miscarriages of justice is short-sighted at best. Blaming defence lawyers alone is equally deficient, although both deserve a liberal sprinkling of culpability.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stalling Justice

The Police Corruption Trial of the Century had ended in the shambolic farce that some – not me – were always convinced it would be. Now for the first time I can say exactly what I think of the deeply flawed process.

Graham Mouncher, and seven former colleagues in South Wales Police, Michael Daniels, Peter Greenwood, Paul Jennings, Thomas Page, Richard Powell, John Seaford and Paul Stephen were acquitted on the orders of the judge, Mr Justice Sweeney last week. Ian Massey and Violet Perriam were also acquitted.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) threw the towel in without asking for time to try to locate the missing files. Yesterday the charges against the remaining defendants John Gillard, Stephen Hicks, John Murray and Wayne Pugh were dropped – Rachel OʼBrien had already been found unfit to stand trial for health reasons.

Explanation

Page demanded an inquiry into why he and his colleagues were subjected to the inquiry. That was obvious. An investigation carried out by South Wales Police under the auspices of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) had gathered evidence that serious crimes – conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and perjury had been committed during the original Lynette White Inquiry (Phase I).

That evidence had been presented to the CPS which decided whether there was sufficient evidence to justify prosecutions. It concluded that those charged, including Page, had a case to answer. Consequently, they were committed for trial.¹ It was exactly the same process that anyone suspected of a serious criminal offence has to go through.

Unlike the Cardiff Five who were demonstrably innocent – they had been vindicated by the conviction of the real killer and the scientific evidence – Page and his co-defendants had retained their liberty while facing and standing trial.

They ran a sadly predictable defence – a despicable one, but one that had borne fruit previously. They blamed the victims of the proven miscarriage of justice (see Conspiracy of Malice – Predictable). But before the lives of the Cardiff Five could be trashed for nothing error after error had to occur.

Inadequate

Represented by a battery of lawyers at public expense the games began. It soon became clear that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was not up to the task if it ever has been. Despite knowing in advance that lawyers for the eight police officers scheduled to face trial first planned to use disclosure obligation to try to force the collapse of the trial before a single word had been given in evidence, the CPS failed to appoint a Disclosure Officer to ensure that the Phase III officers understood exactly what was required of them.

The CPS chose to sell out the interests of justice in the hope of cutting costs and corners. This wretched penny-pinching would have dire consequences later as Graham Mouncher and his colleagues would shamefully evade judgement by a jury of their peers. The responsibility for that rests squarely on the shoulders of the CPS. The Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General failed miserably to ensure that the bare minimum of standards were observed in this case.

It ought to have been impossible to botch this case. It was or should have been a slam dunk. The real killer had admitted his guilt. Jeffrey Gafoor had made it clear that he had acted on his own and that the original defendants the Cardiff Five (Yusef Abdullahi, John and Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) had nothing to do with the murder of 20 year-old Lynette White.

Gafoor had allegedly told a different story to his QC John Charles Rees. This ʻlegally privilegedʼ information was disclosed by a third party considering Reesʼ fees for representing Gafoor. But it should not have mattered a whit. Indisputable crime-scene evidence and forensic science proved beyond credible doubt that the Cardiff Five were completely innocent of the murder of Lynette White, that one person had killed her on his own and that this had been known before the Cardiff Five were tried.

The CPS and Dean failed miserably to present expert evidence of this despite having it available to them. This was and remains a wretched and miserably botched prosecution. Whether it was deliberately botched remains to be seen.

A Deeply Flawed Process
We had hoped that the inquiry into what went wrong, which began in July 2003, would mean that our task had been completed. There was a lot of material to go through and the whole process took over eight years only to end in abject failure. Thirty-four people involved in that case – 20 were serving or retired police officers – were arrested and interviewed under caution on suspicion of offences including perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. South Wales Police insisted on conducting the investigation themselves. This was a preventable error. If anything went wrong, which it did, the failure would be blamed on them whether it was their fault or not.

The IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) became involved in 2004 and later the (CPS) Crown Prosecution Service were consulted too. The CPS’s Serious Crimes Department eventually decided which of the 34 would face trial and who would not. Despite only taking silk recently (becoming a Queen’s Counsel) recently Nicholas Dean was appointed to lead the prosecutions. The CPS has never explained why it chose such a comparatively inexperienced QC to lead such important prosecutions.

In 2007 it decided to prosecute the so-called core witnesses – the alleged eye-witnesses – first. Paul Atkins was deemed unfit to stand trial, which left Mark Grommek, Angela Psaila and Learnne Vilday to stand trial on three counts of perjury which began on October 17th 2008. This decision was tactically inept and would have huge consequences later. It would lead to a miscarriage of justice – the second in the same case. It would also demonstrate the fundamental unfairness of the laws on duress – a defence which was denied to these defendants even though everyone present at their trial including judge, jury and prosecution accepted that they had been bullied into making those statements by the police.

The Fruit of the Poisoned Tree

Unlike many The Fitted-In Project saw the injustice of what was happening at the time and our CEO Satish Sekar immediately highlighted it in the Fitted-In Journal. The CPS had used the system and law well – cynically in fact. Prosecuting the three witnesses meant that it could not be accused of favouring them, but there was a problem and their lawyers knew it. Their statements and testimony had been studded with inconsistencies and lies and this had been glaringly obvious for 20 years.

These were the very lies that established them as prosecution witnesses against the Cardiff Five. They had been boxed in to commit perjury by these statements. Surely, the way the statements had been obtained was relevant, or at least it should have been.

They had told the same story – the truth for several months in 1988 – until ‘conduct unacceptable in a civilised society’ turned them into prosecution witnesses in November and December 1988. Once those statements were made – the CPS belatedly accepted that these were extracted under duress – they were trapped, knowing that if they deviated from them they could be prosecuted. Now, without trace of irony in the CPS, they were prosecuted for telling the very lies they had been forced to tell.

The CPS knew that it needed to avoid charging them over those statements, as it was part of their case that these witnesses had indeed been bullied and hectored and subjected to treatment that disgraced the criminal justice system. They were charged over the committal hearings and both trials of the Cardiff Five, but not over their statements. That was deliberate, as the Crown would claim that they had ample opportunity to tell the truth after they had been bullied, but did they?

There was no doubt that these witnesses had lied both in their crucial statements and in evidence at the committal hearing of the Cardiff Five and two trials. The questions that needed answering were why and whether they had any free choice in their actions? This was in fact the classic example of the fruit of the poisoned tree and contributed to yet another miscarriage of justice – something we highlighted when our CEO dubbed them the ‘New Cardiff Three’.

To prosecute people for telling lies that prosecuting authorities accept they were forced to tell is grossly unfair to put it mildly and to deny them access to the clearest proof that they too were victims of scandalous conduct denied them their right to a fair trial.

Continue to Exceptional Injustice P.4