by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (June 1st 2011)

Introduction

There can be no doubt that forensic sciences – and I use the plural deliberately – have advanced in leaps and bounds over the last quarter of a century. The programme CSI is science-fiction, that is fiction based allegedly on forensic science, but it does illustrate the importance of my main theme – the need for an integrated approach between these sometimes competing sciences and also between the sciences and the needs of lawyers within the adversarial legal system.

However, there is another urgent theme that must be addressed – the treatment of the innocent and what role medical practitioners have in helping to resolve the many issues that they face, but of course, those issues come later in the process. The first stage is the use of forensic sciences as an investigative tool that can correct or hopefully even prevent miscarriages of justice, which would avoid the need for any restorative justice.

In the past, competition between scientific disciplines and even the legal process caused unnecessary difficulties that contributed to the miscarrying of justice. That illustrated the need for an integrated approach between these disciplines and lawyers too, especially as defendants are held responsible for the conduct of their defence through their instructions. Today this means that they have to be aware of forensic science. With fingerprints and DNA that’s not a problem, but what about other disciplines? Forensic entomology, pathology, botany, fire-analysis, data-logging and pig-burning are equally important forensic sciences for instance?

Many may struggle to know who to instruct regarding such sciences, and in some cases what use it could be and that includes scientists or lawyers, partly because they are specialists, who know their area of expertise and try to avoid straying from their comfort zone. Therefore, I suggest, cases require an overview conducted by a forensic scientist, or expert, who can identify any forensic science that could assist to get to the truth and which expert or experts are best-equipped to provide answers.

The adversarial system suffers from the lack of an inquisitorial element, which can allow the truth to fall between the competing interests of prosecution and defence lawyers. The investigative process is of course meant to be inquisitorial, but what is the experience in practice?

The police investigate crimes, but they perform a task that does not include an objective investigation of the possibility of innocence, especially after arrest. It’s not their function. By that stage both they and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have invested their reputations in proving the guilt of the defendant(s), so they have no interest in producing evidence of innocence. On occasion such evidence has been suppressed if discovered.

Once they have a confession and the CPS has charged the defendant, they often see no need to investigate further through forensic sciences, especially in the current economic climate, but this can be a false economy. The extraordinary case of Neil Sayers, (which will be covered in the forthcoming series of articles An Integrated Approach – Righting Wrongs) demonstrates this.

Forensic sciences can offer tests which could resolve issues in cases, but the competing interests at trial can lead to tactical decisions not to conduct tests or instruct experts. But it is far from one way traffic. Defence lawyers oppose the police and prosecution and have their own vested interests too. They also choose not to get certain tests conducted, if they fear that it could prove the opposite of what they want to show.

The end result – as happened in Sayers’ case – is that some tests that could have resolved vital issues were not conducted and experts were not instructed. This is not saying that he is necessarily innocent – just that he and anyone in his position should have the right to have their claims of innocence tested rigorously as the opportunity existed, but neither prosecution nor defence did so.

Everything changes after conviction, as it did for him. The tactical considerations governing the trial process no longer apply and the convicted defendant no longer has much to lose from instructing experts and getting tests conducted, but the law will not allow them a second bite of the cherry and that is entirely reasonable at least in certain circumstances. However, there are cases where unreasonable expectations are placed on defendants to the point that some did not get a first bite as they did not understand the significance and potential of forensic sciences to help them and the jury too.

Disorder

These developments and techniques demonstrate the need for an integrated approach between the various forensic science disciplines and also the criminal justice system as a whole. This theme recurs in Sayers’ case, but it would be a mistake to think that this only happens in the most serious cases like murder. It can and has happened in far lower profile ones. For example, it happened to a man facing trial for grievous bodily harm and violent disorder when he and his friends were the victims of a cowardly racist attack.

Three black men were racially abused and then attacked by a far larger group of racist thugs in Norwich in April 1989 – the Hillsborough tragedy occurred on that very day. Once the attack got serious and involved weapons from a nearby building site, Brian Moore, Terrence Alexander and Carlos White felt that they had no option but to defend themselves. They were joined in their fight by four white men who stumbled across the attack and helped the three black men to try to prevent them getting hurt.

Moore and his friends defended themselves with available weapons too and reported the incident to police later. Incredibly, they too were charged. That cost the CPS the witness testimony of the victims against the perpetrators, as the victims had been turned into defendants themselves, rather than witnesses by an outrageously crass decision by the police to charge them and another by the CPS to prosecute them. The same thing happened to the white men who helped Alexander, Moore and White.

The credibility of the black victims and the white men who helped them had been compromised as witnesses before the jury by those ludicrous decisions and it soon became clear just how unjust the decisions had been. The leader of the racist thugs, Jonathan Galbraith, was among those acquitted on the orders of the judge, His Honour Judge Binns, without being required to provide a defence as a result of those decisions.

Shortly afterwards, the evidence of Galbraith’s central role in the shameful events of that afternoon emerged. While Galbraith and other members of his gang savoured their ill-deserved freedom, a victim of the attack, Moore, was convicted of violent disorder and sentenced to two years imprisonment. White was acquitted, despite admitting hitting Galbraith on the head with a piece of wood, so what was the difference between Moore’s case and White’s for example?

That emerged during Moore’s appeal in July 1991, almost five months after he was incarcerated. The only evidential difference was that Moore allegedly banged Galbraith’s head on the pavement. There were witnesses for and against such an interpretation, but there was an obvious issue that has never been satisfactorily resolved. If Moore had banged Galbraith’s head on the kerb, surely the medical records would unequivocally prove that such an attack had taken place.

The jury heard no evidence about this. Galbraith had some head injuries. Moore had placed himself near Galbraith, but insisted that all he did was drag him out of the road, saying that Galbraith’s head may have hit the pavement, but it certainly was not banged intentionally, or violently. If true, he would be supported by the medical records, but Moore’s defence at trial kept Galbraith’s medical records out of the hands of the jury, because they believed that they would not have been helpful.

They may have been right at that time, but hindsight is 20/20. After Moore’s appeal succeeded on sentence only – they didn’t appeal on conviction, even though Moore maintained that he had acted in self-defence – the evidential reason for his conviction emerged. It had to have been based on the alleged head-banging incident, but yet again it demonstrated the need for an integrated approach to the case as a whole, especially between witness evidence, the judicial process and medical science.

Some of Galbraith’s hospital records had been disclosed, but the significance was not only not known at trial, it was impossible to predict. Moore’s case hinged entirely on this alleged incident. If he had banged Galbraith’s head on the pavement, one of two things should have happened.

Firstly, he should have been convicted of grievous bodily harm – he was charged and acquitted of that offence – and secondly the medical evidence should have been consistent with that accusation. How could violently banging a then defenceless man’s head on a pavement be anything less than grievous bodily harm and how could any lawyer be expected to think anything else?

Consequently, it was reasonable for Moore and his defence to believe that he had been cleared of banging Galbraith’s head on the pavement, when he was acquitted on the orders of the judge of grievous bodily harm. The first they could have known otherwise was when the appeal judges based his violent order conviction on that alleged incident.

The use of this incident to justify the conviction raises issues of double jeopardy at a time when it was an inalienable principle of British justice. Moore was not seeking a second bite of the cherry – he wanted a first bite. Legal aid was obtained to instruct the forensic pathologist, Dr. Iain West, and his conclusions showed that while Galbraith had head injuries, there was nothing consistent with violent head-banging on the pavement.

Moore’s case languished at the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) while the case against him seemed in tatters. He was free, so his case was not considered a priority. It remained gathering dust, unable to progress to review. West died in July 2001 without having been contacted by the CCRC, which eventually instructed an expert whose conclusions were vague.

Its expert would not rule out the possibility that head-banging could have taken place, but did not say that it had. The CCRC could have requested all of Galbraith’s medical records – it would have had a better chance of getting them – and then tackled the dispute between the experts, especially as West could no longer defend his opinions.

The dispute between West and the CCRC’s expert was not resolved. With West sadly deceased, it surely should have instructed other experts to resolve the dispute between the experts. Instead the CCRC moved the goalposts. Having decided that the evidence did not exclude the possibility of head-banging entirely, regardless of the strong opinion of West that it did and failing to resolve that, the CCRC claimed that the conviction could have been obtained by threatening gestures and behaviour allegedly made by Moore. It failed to say what these were and when they were allegedly made and what the evidence that suggested it had happened was.

Moore deserved a fair examination of his case to establish if there was realistic prospect of the Court of Appeal intervening. He did not get that. Shorn of the head-banging incident, the justification for the conviction provided by the three appeal judges had gone, as according to them, there is nothing else to distinguish Moore from his fellow victims of the racist attack, so surely there was a reasonable prospect that the Court of Appeal would intervene if asked to on the basis of new evidence regarding the unlikelihood that it had happened at all.

The Crown could not provide any medical or scientific evidence at all supporting its claim that it had occurred.  Moore’s case may not seem that important in the context of the others that resulted in sentences for more serious offences, but it is. It has deprived Moore of his good name and prospects. Nothing can restore his career now – an aspiring television presenter at the time, his career was wrecked by a case that yet again lacked an integrated approach to the law and medical science and witness evidence, which suggests that Moore’s conviction should not be considered safe.

At the very least the CCRC can legitimately be expected to resolve differences between experts in cases like this, especially as the solution is so obvious. Medical practitioners sometimes have powers of life and death. That’s obvious, but occasionally, so do forensic scientists, which may not be so clear. The classic example of this is the man termed by some ‘The Father of Forensics,’ Professor Sir Bernard Spilsbury.

It is clear from analysis of his work that he was prone to allowing his testimony to go beyond the limits of his science and for his prejudices to trump the interests of justice.[2] Nevertheless, in his day, Professor Spilsbury’s reputation was second to none, sending many to the gallows, but perceptions changed and had begun to do so even in his lifetime.

Perhaps fearing exposure and disgrace as his powers waned, Spilsbury took his own life in 1947. He is now seen by no less an authority than the eminent retired forensic pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight, as ʻa very dangerous manʼ.’

The consequences of Spilsbury’s reputation were extremely dire for some.[3] However, he made forensic pathology respectable and solved many mysteries – some of which were the most famous of his time.[4] Hawley Harvey Crippen, Frederick Seddon, George Joseph Smith, Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong and Alfred Arthur Rouse all went to the gallows on Spilsbury’s say so, but perhaps the most important of Spilsbury’s victims was Norman Thorne – executed for a crime he may well have been innocent of.

He coined a phrase that offers a stark warning of the risks of poor science and over-reliance on reputations, built on false foundations. “I am a martyr to Spilsburyism,” Thorne said days before he was hanged for a crime that probably never occurred – suicide was at least a possibility even if it suited Thorne’s convenience.

Thorne’s denunciation of Spilsburyism was years ahead of his time, but it should be remembered and today’s expert witnesses must also be aware of the consequences of inflexibility in their evidence. Once Spilsbury had made up his mind, nothing could change it, including evidence, which sadly finds an echo in some of today’s experts in many jurisdictions.

[1] An indication of the importance of an integrated approach can be seen in Equality of Arms, at http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=690  for more on this case and others too.

[2]This review of Andrew Rose’s book Lethal Witness: Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Honorary Pathologist at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3667415/An-over-celebrated-pathologist.html gives a flavour of the controversial pathologist’s methods.

[3] The Fitted-In Project will be publishing a pamphlet on the consequences of Spilsburyism and its legacy in 2016.

[4] For further information on the former Fellow of the RSM see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article5429780.ece

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.

Apology?

Michael O’Brien’s quest for an apology for over eleven years of wrongful imprisonment has so far been unsuccessful, but he secured the highest ever compensation to a victim of a miscarriage of justice in a civil action against the police. South Wales Police paid O’Brien and his then brother-in-law Ellis Sherwood a total of half a million pounds in 2006.

“In accordance with counsel’s advice payment into court have been made in full and final settlement of the claims by Mr. O’Brien and Mr. Sherwood without an apology”, said Deputy Chief Constable Dave Francis. “It is emphasised that this has been done without any admission of liability”.

Bad Faith

Francis went on to claim that O’Brien and Sherwood had chosen to accept the payments rather than take their allegations to court, but O’Brien says he had no choice but to accept the payment, because he faced bankruptcy if he pursued his claim and the court awarded him less than the police paid into court.

“I stand by all of my allegations against the police”, said O’Brien. “They acted in bad faith. Let them sue me if they dispute this”. OʼBrien has made no secret of his allegations of bad faith. South Wales Police and those accused, especially Lewis have never sued him.

His solicitor who helped him to bring the historic claim was unimpressed with the way the settlement had been portrayed as well. “South Wales Police are trying to depict their payment of £500,000 plus legal costs of probably the same amount again as a commercial settlement,” said Sarah Ricca. “I wonder if anyone is fooled by such a claim.”

The Newsagent’s Three have yet to receive an apology from either the police or criminal justice system. Nor is there an investigation into unlawful conduct by police officers in this case despite the conclusions of former Detective Superintendent Alan Partridge and the endorsement of the appeal court.¹

Refusal

“Their refusal to apologise after all that they put me and my family through clearly shows that they refuse to accept the findings of the CCRC and appeal court”, said O’Brien. It has had a detrimental effect on the Forceʼs attempts to move on past the discredited methods of policing at that time

“I do not trust them to investigate this crime impartially any more”, OʼBrien said. “I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they refuse to investigate my claims of bad faith in the original investigation, let alone allow the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether there is sufficient evidence to prosecute any of them. Only a fully independent public inquiry can get to the truth of what happened in my case and other miscarriages of justice in South Wales”.

Consistent Critic

Since his release O’Brien has been the most vociferous critic of South Wales police over miscarriages of justice, including his own. A tireless campaigner for a public inquiry into several Welsh cases including the Cardiff Five and that of Annette Hewins, O’Brien has been a consistent thorn in their side.

Ironically an apology and an investigation into proven police malpractice in his case could have avoided the expense to the public that Francis appears so keen to avoid years ago.

Justice

“The fact that they paid such a large amount into court has nothing to do with concerns for the public purse and everything to do with the strength of the evidence against South Wales officers,” said Ricca. “There now needs to be a public inquiry into this and other cases involving South Wales police officers which raise such serious allegations of police misconduct.”

Nobody wants the murder of Phillip Saunders solved more than Michael O’Brien, so much so that he offered a reward of £50,000 for information leading to the convictions of the real murderer. All he ever wanted was justice.

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.

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.