Liberty Leaflet

SOUTH WALES LIBERTY

JUSTICE in CRISIS CAMPAIGN

"Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable, and so the evidence has to be internally denied.” - Arthur Miller

In December 99 the Cardiff Newsagent 3 were cleared of murder after a 12 year struggle to expose a totally illegal and unethical police investigation. We hoped that the full judgement of the Court of Appeal, to be given in Jan 2000, would bring a strong condemnation of police methods. This did not happen. The judges concluded:- "We are satisfied that there were clear breaches of the 1984 (Police and Criminal Evidence) Act."

In fact considerable evidence was presented at the Appeal of other serious malpractice in addition to breaches of the act.

They continued : - "In reaching these conclusions we are not making any findings of deliberate misconduct against any police officer, nor could we do so, not being a court which makes findings of fact. (Our emphasis).

Yet however:- On the same day the Newsagent Three were cleared, the Appeal of Brian Parsons was refused. The judges made a finding of fact that evidence could not possibly have been planted by the police despite a clear opportunity to do this, other suspicious circumstances and a massive failure by the police and prosecution to disclose relevant evidence to the defence at the time of the original trial. Furthermore, in the case of Sion Jenkins, four days after the Newsagent 3 appeal judgement, three more appeal court judges made findings of fact that despite major developments in the defence forensic argument and significant alibi evidence the jury had never heard, such matters would not have influenced the jury's decision. Another strong appeal was lost, another bizarre prosecution scenario upheld.

In the Newsagent Three and Brian Parsons cases, re-investigations by honest police officers from outside forces produced damning reports about the original investigations. These Appeal Court judgements show how, despite this, the Courts still do not address the problem of the offending police forces. This, coupled with the widening pattern of miscarriages of justice throughout the UK, now frequently affecting those with no criminal record at all (Sheila Bowler, Jonathan Jones, Eddie Gilfoyle, Annette Hewins, Brian Parsons, and many, many more)and a shameful list of cases, even the minority that are eventually admitted by the Court of Appeal, lead us to launch our JUSTICE in CRISIS CAMPAIGN.

Our number one message is:- WE DEMAND INTEGRITY AND HONESTY FROM THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AT ALL LEVELS.

We seek to confront the following fundamental issues:- We want an end to the frequently continuing miscarriages of justice. We want the unacceptable delays in bringing such cases to review and appeal addressed. We want unsafe convictions overturned, not upheld because of the restrictive approach and practices of the Court of Appeal. We want cases where malpractice has been shown, to be quashed automatically. We want to question the "infallibility" of the jury and ensure that all evidence can be reviewed properly at appeal. We want police officers, lawyers, judges and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to be accountable for their practice.

The Lord Chief Justice Lord Bingham has laid down the following basis for Court of Appeal Judgements, "If the court is satisfied that despite any misdirection of law or any irregularity in the conduct of the trial or any fresh evidence, that the conviction is safe, the Court will dismiss the Appeal." (1997)

While he does not address here the issue of how police malpractice should be regarded, there seems to be an implication that malpractice in itself might not be enough to render a conviction unsafe. This is simply not good enough to ensure justice! It provides us with a way of maintaining unsafe convictions such as those of Brian Parsons and Sion Jenkins by claiming that abuse of process has not affected the safety of other evidence or that new evidence is of no significance. It provides a get out clause for a failing system.

WE BELIEVE THAT ALL ABUSE OF PROCESS IS LIABLE TO RENDER ALL THE EVIDENCE UNRELIABLE

Therefore we maintain that:- Where malpractice of any kind by any agent of the system is apparent then the case in question should automatically be thrown out. Where malpractice is suspected it should be investigated and action taken. The police, CPS, lawyers and judges must become accountable. They must not remain above the law simply because they enforce it. Decisions and actions by legal bodies must be open to reasonable questioning and scrutiny. They must not be allowed to get away with absurd judgements any more.

As far as we are aware no lawyer or police officer has ever been convicted of any offence in relation to a major miscarriage of justice. The very few police officers who have been charged have either been acquitted, or more often the charges have been dropped because "it happened too long ago" and/or there has been too much "adverse publicity" - curiously these considerations are never applied to other defendants.

NO SAFEGUARDS CAN WORK WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY
The introduction of true accountability would be a fundamental change but we need much more to put things right:- an end to jury and defence lawyer "infallibility." In Court of Appeal terms the jury and defence lawyers are effectively considered to be infallible. Under current rules the possibility that they simply got it wrong can never be considered by an appeal court. There are many reasons why juries may arrive at the wrong decision, sometimes because they are not given the full picture. Furthermore evidence theoretically available at the time of the trial but not used (due to tactical decisions or lack of diligence on the part of lawyers) cannot be used at a later appeal. This is even more absurd than jury infallibility! Any admissible evidence not used at trial should be automatically heard at appeal.

A responsible approach from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Too often the CPS prosecute on the basis of weak and unreliable evidence such as custody confessions and statements which have been obtained by threats or inducements of various kinds. The CPS should be truly independent of the police, not there to "`rubber stamp" prosecutions. Over 40% of Crown Court cases end in acquittal but this is rare in serious cases such as murder, not necessarily because the evidence is stronger but because the pressure on juries is greater. Even now, despite all the evidence to the contrary, juries still tend to believe that there is "no smoke without fire" and fear allowing killers to go free. Consequently many people have been convicted of serious crimes on weak and fallacious evidence. Many of the serious miscarriages of justice that have taken many years to resolve should never even have got to Court. In short, cases need fair, honest and speedy review (currently it takes years) but also we simply need to stop bringing weak and corrupt cases to Court in the first place.

We demand:- A PUBLIC ENQUIRY. To examine the whole issue of Miscarriages of Justice: How they can be prevented and rectified. We present our "wish list" (below) as a starting point but we believe it is vital that this enquiry has strong majority representation from people with direct experience of miscarriages of justice including actual victims.

We wish to turn the myth of being innocent until proven guilty into reality and in so doing end the massive waste of public resources and the unbearable burden of human suffering currently being perpetrated by the legal system.

A WISH LIST FOR PREVENTING OR CORRECTING MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE
1. Evidence should be substantial, not based on guess work and suspicion. (Juries find it hard to believe that innocent people could be put on trial for serious crimes and consequently have on occasions convicted on virtually no evidence at all.)
2. Make evidence gathered in custody outside of taped interviews inadmissible in Court. (Review the dropping of charges and other rewards in return for "evidence.")
3. Give "PACE" Protection (interviewing rules etc.) to witnesses as well as defendants.
4. Ensure legal representation at all stages.
5. Equalise resources of defence eg: access to experts, to match that of prosecution.
6. Police and prosecution to have duty to disclose all evidence to defence.
7. Retain right of silence (To protect vulnerable suspects.)
8. Make uncorroborated confessions inadmissible in court.
9. Consider safeguards in the jury system (e.g. should there be some review of selection criteria, should there be more advice to juries on the dangers of wrongful conviction.)
10. Provide legal aid before and after leave to appeal is granted when a case seems to warrant review. (Currently people who are wrongly convicted have virtually no legal aid to fight their case and only limited legal aid even when an appeal has been granted.)
11. Establish an independent forensic science service with equal access for defence and prosecution.
12. Give the criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) a comprehensive, independent investigation service (This may include some police officers for their expertise but should not amount to the police investigating the police.)
13. Speed up appeals process (removing the restrictive rules of the Court of Appeal would help this, as evidence already available could be used rather than having to try and find new evidence years after the event.)
14. Maintain prisoners right of access to the media and outside support.
15. Redirect media and public pressure towards getting the right conviction rather than any conviction.
16. Make all agents of the criminal justice system accountable for malpractice or gross incompetence.
17. Consider the establishment of a new organisation to act as a criminal justice watchdog.
18. The possibility that the jury simply reached the wrong verdict should be considered where the CCRC, looking at the case as a whole deems it a very real possibility.
19. Throw out cases automatically where police or legal malpractice is evident.
20. Change the layout and rituals of Courts (e.g. allow witnesses to sit down during cross examination and allow defendants to sit with their lawyers.)

Please support our campaign. For more information contact:
SOUTH WALES LIBERTY, P0 Box 648, Cardiff, CF24 4XL.

Copied from a leaflet given out at the public meeting at John Moores University, Liverpool, 3rd June, 2000

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