{"id":2613,"date":"2025-05-05T20:45:20","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T20:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/?p=2613"},"modified":"2025-10-20T11:58:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T11:58:16","slug":"disastrous-injustice-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/2025\/05\/05\/disastrous-injustice-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Disastrous Injustice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (May 4th<\/sup> 2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Origins of My Interest in Forensic Pathology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a long-standing interest in forensic pathology and its history, an interest that was aided, inspired even, by the recently retired solicitor, Raju Bhatt. Knowing of my interest, which had been facilitated by a scandalous miscarriage of justice suffered by the late Gary Mills and Tony Poole, I asked Bhatt which forensic pathologists I should look out for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I was already interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something was grossly wrong with the forensic pathology and medical evidence in the case of Gloucester men, Mills and Poole. My quest for justice in that case, and also to improve the criminal justice system in a vital area of law and medicine, got underway in the early 1990s. It took over a decade to help to get those convictions quashed, which happened in June 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was a rare case indeed, one where several things had gone wrong in the same case, each of which contributed to the disastrous situation that cost a young man his life. None of the various medical conditions alone caused the death of Hensley Wiltshire, but taken together, his life slowly ebbed away, resulting in an entirely preventable fatality that was totally outside of the control of Mills and Poole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice Denied and Justice Delayed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bhatt had taken over representing Mills and Poole \u2013 it was an atrocious injustice for many reasons. They were convicted of the murder of Hensley Wiltshire in 1990, but just over six years later \u2013 there was a long delay before their appeal \u2013 three Court of Criminal Appeal judges decided that a gross error over the cause of death made by one of the top forensic pathologists in Britain\u2019s recent history, the late Dr Iain West, did not matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor did the failure to note, let alone treat, several injuries, some of which were obvious, or at the very least, should have been. The appeal judges, led by the late Sir Phillip Otton, substituted their preferred cause of death, rhabdomyolysis, the breakdown of damaged muscle-tissue into the body, which was present, and contributed to Wiltshire\u2019s death \u2013 an entirely preventable one, as Wiltshire was denied treatment that could have saved his life \u2013 for the reason accepted by the jury and presented by the Crown at their trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Radically Different<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rhabdomyolysis as the main cause of death was radically different to what the jury had heard. They had been assured that Wiltshire had died due to fat embolism \u2013 fat had broken down in the body and \u2018polluted\u2019 his blood supply. There is no question that fat embolism was detected, but if it played any role in Wiltshire\u2019s death, it was a small part. The jury had been assured that nothing could have saved Wiltshire\u2019s life \u2013 that was incorrect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the prosecution and defence lawyers and the judges all accepted that, as did the medical experts, but there was a big dispute over what had actually caused Wiltshire\u2019s death at the 1996 appeal. The prosecution lawyers, their experts and the judges believed the major cause of death was rhabdomyolysis and the defence and their expert, dubbed \u2018the expert\u2019s expert,\u2019 Donald Trunkey,[1]<\/a> was adamant that the major cause of death was blood loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bullying<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trunkey was pressed and pressed into saying that he would have admitted Wiltshire to hospital. This was done knowing that British doctors could not have admitted a patient to hospital or kept her or him there against their will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was shameful as not only did the judges know this, and that Trunkey\u2019s view on this made no difference whatsoever, but Trunkey was ambushed. He was never told that there was not an iota of unequivocal evidence that Wiltshire had refused to remain in hospital anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The importance of allocating rhabdomyolysis as the major cause of death was that it would take time for rhabdomyolysis to occur, especially to the point of causing death or being the major cause of death. This was vitally important as the judges made clear. If they were right, it meant the injuries that had caused the major rhabdomyolysis that contributed to death had occurred before Wiltshire had been in police custody and that meant that notorious \u2018mystery injuries\u2019 or not, and also the failure to note rib fractures and other injuries notwithstanding, the police would not have been responsible for Wiltshire\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all of this and more were matters of fact that were the domain of a jury, not appeal judges. No jury was ever permitted to decide what the likeliest cause of death was, and also, who, if anyone, was criminally liable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Wasted Opportunity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) took over the task of deciding if cases should be referred back for appeal in 1997. This would prove to be a miserable failure for the organisation. It did agree to take Mills and Poole\u2019s application out of the normal procedure of date order because their case had taken over six years to be heard on appeal \u2013 the judges were displeased about the delay \u2013 and over a year to be considered by the House of Lords. However, when it reviewed their application, it repeatedly ignored the arguments that had actually been made in favour of utterly irrelevant points that had not been made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The jury had been concerned about the evidence that Neville Juke could have given as he had been an eyewitness to the fights with Mills. Juke had told the Court of Appeal his account in 1996, but the judges concluded that even though the Crown had used its discretion not to disclose Juke\u2019s statements to the defence, Mills could not say that he was wholly unaware of the content of Juke\u2019s second statement, which they described as an accurate summary of it \u2013 it was not \u2013 but that was actually a defence point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Mills and his lawyers believed that the summary put to Mills in interview by the police was indeed accurate, then they could not have risked calling him as a witness. It later emerged that the summary was far from accurate. They had been deceived into not calling Juke \u2013 ambushed even.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too Little Too Late<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took three years and a judicial review to get the CCRC to understand this and that it made no difference whatsoever if Mills had confessed or not. The point was, as it had always been, Mills had been deceived into not calling Juke and the jury had been denied his evidence too. In 2003, the same passage of interview that the 1996 judges had relied on as an accurate summary was dismissed as inaccurate. Fourteen years too late, their convictions were quashed \u2013 at least three years of which is at the door of the CCRC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, the former Chair of the CCRC, Helen Pitcher, resigned after gross failures of the organisation in the case of Andrew Malkinson. It was also considered by Parliament\u2019s Justice Committee after serious failings were revealed. Its Chairman, The review into the CCRC\u2019s handling of Andrew Malkinson\u2019s case by Chris Henley illustrated serious failings in the conduct of the CCRC. But was this an isolated example and why has the organisation\u2019s gross failures in Mills and Poole\u2019s case been ignored for over two decades? Shouldn\u2019t the Justice Committee examine other cases to establish whether these failings indicate an institutional problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The medical and pathology issues were conspicuous by their absence from the 2003 judgement in Mills and Poole\u2019s case. These issues have never been resolved. Furthermore, the Coroner never ordered an inquest to resolve the issue of the cause of death. Over two decades after Mills and Poole were freed, the reason Hensley Wiltshire died remains a mystery that has never been determined by a jury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, both sets of appeal judges reached conclusions on the reliability of Juke\u2019s claims and the level of violence that allegedly took place in 34 Conduit Street on that fateful night, even though both were matters of fact that was the domain of a jury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Trunkey was a surgeon of international repute on trauma care. Sadly, he died in 2019, aged 81.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (May 4th 2025) The Origins of My Interest in Forensic Pathology I have a [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[908],"tags":[916,856,909,861,368,273,911,915,275,917,912,860,859,910,186,914,286],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2614,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613\/revisions\/2614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}