Initial Response of Satish Sekar to the Report by Richard Horwell QC

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!