Lynette’s Law (Part Two)
December 30, 2024
By Satish Sekar[i] © Satish Sekar (December 30th 2024)
Badly Served
Few victims have been as badly served by the criminal justice system as Lynette White and the Cardiff Five. I first became involved in the Lynette White and Cardiff Five case in February 1991 around 3 years after the 20-year-old sex worker[1] was the victim of what was then the most brutal sexually-motivated homicide of its type that Wales had ever seen – her throat had been slit to the spine. She had been stabbed over 50 times – over half of them to her breasts or nearby region. It was undoubtedly a sexually-motivated murder and a particularly sadistic one at that. I mention that because the judge at Jeffrey Gafoor’s trial – he pleaded guilty at an appearance in July 2003 – Mr Justice Royce said ‘It verged on the sadistic.’
It did not. It was sadistic – look up the definition of sadism – but even if it fell short of that definition, it clearly involved sexual conduct. Gafoor’s explanation for the murder, which is the point of this article and demand for Lynette’s Law, makes that crystal clear. He claimed that he wanted his £30.00 back so he could find a sex-worker who would give him unprotected sex. Lynette, according to him, was murdered for insisting on him using a condom and refusing to give him his money back.
He pulled a knife on her and used it to savage effect. This meant that he had committed the murder in the course of armed robbery – at the very least that was his intent. So, according to Gafoor, Lynette was murdered in that atrocious fashion because she refused to give him back his £30.00. He claims that he left the scene of the atrocity without the money. Both of these factors alone meant that he should have been awarded a 30-years starting point. That would have reflected what this man did to Lynette, but still it would not have taken the ordeal of the Cardiff Five into account.
The Notorious Miscarriage of Justice
As Christmas approached in 1988, five men were remanded to prison to face trial for Lynette’s murder, but Yusef Abdullahi, the cousins, John and Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris were undoubtedly innocent. That was obvious – the indisputable evidence made that clear, but two years and two trials later the Cardiff Three (the Acties were acquitted) were convicted. Almost four years after their arrest the Cardiff Three were freed on appeal. That left the Lynette White Inquiry in limbo. South Wales Police strongly implied that they arrested the right men and that the Court of Appeal had robbed them and Lynette’s family of justice.
In fact, this was one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in British history, but it would take two reopened inquiries and a welcome change in mindset in South Wales Police to deliver justice. The Cardiff Five were innocent – they always were. Angels they were not, but that is not the point. The indisputable scientific evidence was finally allowed to speak without manipulation – forensic science cannot lie, but sadly, humans can when it is interpreted wrongly. In this case the misinterpretation of the forensic science evidence was gross – the miscarriage of justice required it as this occurred at the dawn of the DNA age.
DNA testing was in its infancy – it was not ready to make the vital contribution yet. By 1999 the case was reopened and the forensic scientist Dave Barclay, then at the National Crime Faculty, reviewed the scientific evidence. The original case scenario presented at trial was ‘absolutely ludicrous’ Barclay said. He concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever that five men and some witnesses had committed such a crime without leaving so much as a single cell of DNA behind, and crucially without interfering with the plethora of scientific evidence in the flat or showing any attempt to do so. By 1999 DNA testing systems had caught up with requirements of cases like this. Several items were DNA tested using the new system SGM+ (Second Generation Multiplex Plus), which was both considerably more sensitive and discriminating than previous systems and provided a vital clue – they had the DNA of a person of very great interest. It later emerged that this was undoubtedly the DNA of the real killer of Lynette White.
Barclay also recommended that other items which had not been examined previously but had been stored were tested. Some of them revealed the same DNA profile of interest, but the clincher came next. Barclay and later Angela Gallup, noticed that one drop of blood on a wall in the flat was the key – it was likely to have dripped down the wall to where the wall met the skirting board. In July 1988 the flat was painted over as a health hazard, which preserved the blood and DNA. They recommended gently scraping the paint off the blood and conducting DNA tests which yielded the same DNA profile of interest. There was no doubt that they had the DNA profile of the murderer of Lynette White. By the end of February 2003 Gafoor had been arrested – the police saved his life.
He pleaded guilty on July 4th 2003. There was no longer any credible doubt about the innocence of the Cardiff Five, but the damage done to them and their families was irreparable. And Lynette’s family had suffered greatly too. Outrageously nether the Cardiff Five, their families nor Lynette’s qualified for after-care. Despite a limited scheme of after-care they did not qualify. Shamefully, the organisation charged to deliver after-care did nothing to champion their cause even though there was no longer any doubt that they were victims of miscarriages of justice.
This should have opened the door to learning the lessons and correcting the errors that had occurred in this case and others. Instead, South Wales Police demanded control of the investigation into what went wrong and the body charged with overseeing control over policing failed in its duty. It allowed South Wales Police to control the investigation – one that became a catastrophe, leaving undoubted victims on all sides deprived of answers and the cracks that had become chasms papered over until the next fiasco.
Few aspects of this atrocious injustice have ever been dealt with adequately. Instead a system of justice and organisations that have repeatedly proved themselves unfit for purpose have been allowed to usurp control and find a way to turn what should have been a great victory unto an unmitigated disaster time and time again. And now further insult has piled on – Jeffrey Gafoor is about to be freed without having to tell the truth. Anyone who believes that he murdered Lynette over £30.00 must also believe that pigs can fly. And now he will be aided by the Parole Board to walk out of prison without providing an adequate explanation of why Lynette died, let alone in such an atrocious fashion. And we are supposed to believe that the Parole Board has adequately probed whether the public is likely to be safe if Gafoor is released without answering this question.[2]
[1] I mention her occupation reluctantly – she was a young woman with potential whose life was brutally cut short. Unfortunately, her murderer, Jeffrey Gafoor, sought a sex-worker on February 13th 1988 and it was her misfortune that he chose her.
[2] In Part Two, I will highlight further issues with both the tariff and parole system and the indicate my plans for judicial review, leading to the novel solution to the failure of judges over tariffs and the Parole Board. Part Three will detail the solution of Lynette’s Law and how it can ensure that victims get the answers that both sets of victims in the Lynette White Inquiry were denied – why she was murdered.
[i] Satish Sekar is the author of Fitted In: The Cardiff 3 and the Lynette White Inquiry (1998), The Cardiff Five: Innocent Beyond Any Doubt 1st edition (2012)and 2nd edition (2017), Trials and Tribulations: Innocence Matter? (2017) and Forensic Pathology: Preventing Wrongs (2020). Bad Form: How Tariffs Protect the Guilty and Punish the Innocent will be published in 2025.
