Stefan Kiszko was vindicated over a decade after his death by the conviction of the real killer of Lesley Molseed, Ronald Castree, but there are others who will never be vindicated. For them exoneration is as good as it gets, but they have to live with petty whispering campaigns questioning their innocence.

Hensley Wiltshire died in controversial circumstances in January 1989. Wrongly held in custody and denied the medical attention he needed Wiltshire deteriorated to the point of collapse. He had visited hospital twice in the night of January 5th-6th. The record of his injuries makes interesting reading. Significant injuries were discovered at the post-mortem examination that were not detected on either previous visit to hospital.

The discrepancy was never adequately explained. It was plain that either Tony Poole and/or Gary Mills had inflicted those injuries or Wiltshire had suffered a beating in the cells of Gloucester Police Station. The medical evidence was never properly resolved and nor was the issue of consent to be treated, but there were other causes concern that contributed to a terrible miscarriage of justice.

Inappropriate

Mills and Poole always instead that Mills had defended himself from three attacks by Wiltshire and that Poole was not involved. Neville Juke had been present throughout the incident in Poole’s Conduit Street flat. He was, as the jury recognised, an important witness, but the jury never heard from him.

Juke had been warned off attending the committal hearing. He had been threatened with arrest if he came. Juke recorded part of that conversation – one that then Detective Inspector Trevor Gladding lied about at their trial in 1990. Amazingly, Mills and Poole’s defence had that tape and therefore knew that Gladding had lied to the jury, but a well-respected QC didn’t play it to the jury.

Ian Macdonald QC believed that he would have had to call Juke to verify the tape. In fact he didnʼt. The now discredited Police Complaints Authority (PCA) proved that Gladding was the officer on the tape easily by comparing that recording to known examples of Gladdingʼs voice from interviews that he had conducted.

Had the jury heard that tape it would surely have destroyed Gladding’s credibility and shown the prosecution in a very poor light. And this error came from a very experienced and competent QC.

Permitting Perjury

But Gladdingʼs conduct was far from the only example of inappropriate conduct by police in that investigation that went unchallenged at trial. In time disclosure obligations changed and a pattern of misconduct emerged. A crucial witness claimed to have seen into the flat while Wiltshire was allegedly been attacked and heard Wiltshire say ʼNo, Tony, no!ʼ above the sound of a sound-system at full volume.

Unknown to defence lawyers police officers knew that the witness, Paul White, had lied. In fact, they knowingly allowed him to claim that he had gone there on his own in his statement when he had told them previously that he had gone there with another man who did not verify what White claimed to have seen and heard.

Integrity

It also emerged that Gladding and a colleague who later rose to the rank of Superintendent, John Jeynes, had misrepresented the content of Jukeʼs second statement to police. This had the effect of deceiving Mills and his defence lawyers into thinking that Juke did not support his claim of self-defence.

Having been bluffed in this manner not to call Juke, it took 14 years to acknowledge that the investigation lacked the integrity required to be the basis of safe convictions. It should never have taken so long. Neither Mills nor Poole received the extent of help and support that they needed to rebuild their lives, despite the existence of a government-supported scheme to assist victims of miscarriages of justice like them. Gary Mills sadly passed away on December 10^th 2012.

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?