The Crime of Innocence

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar January 22^nd 2009

Anomaly

The Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, has been asked to correct an anomaly that resulted in a brutal murderer receiving a significantly lower tariff than three entirely innocent men. Jeffrey Gafoor pleaded guilty to the Valentine’s Day 1988 murder of 20-year old Lynette White on July 4^th 2003.

Yusef Abdullahi, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris served four years each before their convictions were quashed in December 1992. John and Ronnie Actie were acquitted after two years on remand in November 1990. Gafoor was arrested following advances in forensic science in February 2003.

Sentencing him to life imprisonment Mr Justice (Sir John) Royce told Gafoor: “You allowed innocent men to go to prison for a crime you knew you had committed”, Royce considered this to be the most important aggravating factor. Despite this the law only allowed the judge to set a tariff of thirteen years.

“I think it is outrageous that he got a lower tariff than us”, said Tony Paris. “He was guilty and we were innocent. He let five men get charged for what he did and three get life sentences. And when you consider that at any time one or all of us could have committed suicide while he remained at liberty, I don’t think that this is genuine remorse”.

Just Tariffs

I proposed reforms to encourage real perpetrators to take responsibility for their crimes and prevent miscarriages of justice, because it would be in their interest to own up before they are caught and brought to justice, to the Law Commission and the Ministry of Justice. The Law Commission’s response was vacuous, as it believes that the system already caters for this eventuality in setting tariffs, as Royce referred to it in setting the tariff that Gafoor must serve.

But his hands were tied. In that case the aggravating circumstances were that it was a particularly brutal crime and that he had allowed men he knew to be innocent to be convicted of a crime that he knew he had committed and serve a total of sixteen years imprisonment. He thought he could have set a maximum of five years for all of that, but chose to set four years and six months.

And in mitigation he set three years and six months for pleading guilty at the ‘first’ opportunity – a mere fifteen years after he took White’s life – and assisting the ongoing inquiry into what went wrong in the original investigation.

Both aggravating circumstances are extremely serious, but the law as Royce saw it only allowed him to have them outweigh comparatively trivial mitigation by just one year. This is not taking it into account; it is an insult.

Judges should be entitled to impose an appropriate tariff based on the individual circumstances of the case that they are considering. Had Royce imposed the full five years he was entitled to for just the brutality of the crime, it would not have been unreasonable, which makes a complete mockery of the claim that the system already takes vindication into account. And this is far from the only flaw in setting tariffs in cases of vindication.

Ignoring Victims

When setting the tariff that Gafoor must serve Royce took into account “powerful statements” on the effect that her murder had had upon them from Lynette’s family. The Cardiff Five were not invited to detail the effect that wrongful imprisonment had on them. Paris thinks that this is unfair and wants the views of victims of miscarriages of justice to be considered prominently when sentencing people like Gafoor, especially when Royce thought that what had happened to them was the most important aggravating circumstance.

“Our feelings should have been taken into account when the judge set his tariff”, said Mr Paris. “We are victims of Gafoor’s crime as well. The law should have given us the same opportunity as Lynette’s family to say what this case has done to us”.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice believes that there is no need for tariff reform, because there are mechanisms to correct miscarriages of justice already. How exactly does treating real perpetrators more leniently than the innocent and preventing judges from setting appropriate tariffs based on the merits of individual cases correct miscarriages of justice, let alone help to prevent them?