The Fitted-In Project (FIP) is a group of concerned people who decided to organise themselves to achieve their potential to facilitate policy changes in the criminal justice system. It dedicates immeasurable time and effort helping individuals who have become involved in cases of injustice caused by the failures of the criminal justice system, including the Crown Prosecution Service.
Author Satish Sekar wrote Fitted In: The Cardiff 3 and the Lynette White Inquiry and also The Cardiff Five: Innocent Beyond Any Doubt, both explaining and pointing out the clear and factual proof that evidence of injustice involving one of the UK’s biggest murder cases was clearly in operation by the authorities involved. Sekar is the Founder and CEO of the Fitted-In Project, which published the book Fitted In: The Cardiff 3 and the Lynette White Inquiry 14 years ago, but soon realised that its work was not complete.
Continued Need
The conviction of Jeffrey Gafoor, the real killer of Lynette White, justified our belief in the case of the Cardiff Five and its potential to change the criminal justice system, but it soon raised other issues that could not be resolved by books alone. We recognised that we needed to evolve and decided to expand the scope of The Fitted-In Project.
We began that process by formally establishing The FIP as a company limited by guarantee in February 2010 to enable us to conduct projects and activities that would highlight our concerns and improve the lives of the victims of miscarriages of justice and improve the criminal justice system in the process.
What We Do
We decided that in addition to projects, we should participate in and initiate activities that further the Aims and Objectives of The FIP. Our projects highlight issues such as vindication, which we pioneered, after-care for victims of miscarriages of justice, which includes the effect on their families, the effect of tariffs on them and the use of sport to assist them to rebuild their lives. We will publish reports on some of these projects and pamphlets on specific issues.
We have also developed an international perspective on our projects and activities, participating in international activities, such as the Working Breakfast in Bogotá that detailed The Fitted-In Project’s work to some of Colombia’s finest forensic scientists. Vindication is a phenomenon that affects several jurisdictions and there are important difference-making miscarriages of justice that have the potential to change criminal justice systems throughout the world. One such case occurred in Uganda to our member Mpagi Edward Edmary (see his profile in the folder The International Committee).
The FIP realised that we could also assist people by hiring out the expertise of our members for activities as long as they fit our Aims And Activities, but in order to maximise our potential we need charitable status which will be applied for shortly.
Our Expertise
The Fitted-In Project’s members have a diverse range of skills and expertise that has led clients to wanting to hire them as consultants. They can hire our members’ expertise through The Fitted-In Project’swebsite. Satish Sekar was recently hired through us as a consultant on South Wales Police cases by a solicitor and also by the Sherlock Holmes Museum regarding forensic science elements in a particular case. We do not do casework unless hired to do so through this process. Our consultancy work must comply with or Aims And Objectives and benefit both our clients and the public.
Social Justice
The Fitted-In Project highlights issues related to under-reported areas of miscarriage of justice work. These injustices devastate lives and not just of those wrongly accused. Some victims of these injustices are not even recognised as having suffered a miscarriage of justice. It is a grave injustice that people such as Colin Stagg are not recognised as victims of miscarriages of justice. Stagg was vindicated by the acceptance of responsibility by Robert Napper, but definitions of miscarriages of justice do not include those acquitted at trial.
We believe that people who can be proved innocent must be considered victims of miscarriages of justice. Four of the six vindication cases in the DNA age in Britain involve people who were acquitted at trial. It is not enough to say that they have not been proved guilty; they are demonstrably innocent and that must be acknowledged in order to help them move on and society too. The FIP believes that people like Colin Stagg must be acknowledged as victims of miscarriages of justice. The definition must change to recognise what they have been through and begin the process of restorative justice for them.
The FIP recognises that they are entitled to restorative justice. We include this in our projects on after-care and on tariff changes too. We also conduct projects which use miscarriages of justice victims’ love of sport to help them to integrate back into society. Similarly we have further projects that use sporting talent, especially of young people, to try to encourage them to participate in professional sport or in community sporting events rather than drift into crime. These are among the social justice aspects of our work.