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131,579. The confession was king and police were a law unto themselves. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) Catching Britain’s Killers: The Crimes that Changed Us III ***** introduction
131,580. A miscarriage of justice so shocking it exposes the dark secrets of the police interrogation room and transforms the rights of us all. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid.
131,581. ‘Establishing time of death is terribly important: it is absolutely vital to get it right or the wrong people could finish up begin conviction.’ (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid. Dr Cameron
131,582. Radio Times: After the body of Maxwell Confait was found in his south London bedsit in April 1972, three boys were quickly arrested and questioned. Confait had been strangled, and the trio – Colin Lattimore (18) who had learning difficulties, Ronnie Leighton, 15, and Ahmet Salih, 14 – confessed their supposed involvement to police. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid.
131,583. In the early 1970s the questioning of a suspect often took place in a cellblock, and with no independent witness, the only version of what was said came from the police themselves. The three boys were taken to Lewisham police station. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid.
131,584. All three boys were being tried for arson, but Colin and Ronnie were also standing trial for the murder. They all pleaded their not guilty and protested their innocence. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Justice & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid.
131,585. ‘The confession had been obtained under threats, duress without strong strong evidence … The police behaved badly.’ (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid. brief
131,586. ‘Colin’s alibi was absolutely superb.’ (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid.
131,587. Life sentences with no time limit. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Rights & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid.
131,588. The Fisher Inquiry set out to discover how the boys could have confessed to something they didn’t do. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid.
131,589. ‘The police were absolutely hostile to being with.’ (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid. Justice lady
131,590. New evidence emerged January 1980: a prison inmate was overheard discussing his and another inmate’s involvement in the crime. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid.
131,591. ‘One of the most serious miscarriages of justice in legal history.’ (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Miscarriage of Justice: Lattimore et al & Justice & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid. BBC news
131,592. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984: Pace. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Miller et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid. BBC news
131,593. The police culture of a previous era persisted. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Miller et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid. BBC news
131,594. Four years after Pace, a case in Cardiff would publicly expose the dangers of a police service that still chased confessions. On Valentine’s Day 1988 20 year old Lynette White was found stabbed to death in her flat in Butetown near the Cardiff docks. 10 months later her ex-partner Stephen Miller was arrested on suspicion of murder and questioned at Cardiff police station. After five days of interrogation he confessed to Lynette White’s murder … At his trial Miller was found guilty of murder along with two other men both implicated by his taped confession … ‘They’ve become known as the Cardiff 3: serving a prison sentence for life for a murder they say they didn’t commit.’ (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Miller et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid. television news
131,592. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984: Pace. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Miller et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid. BBC news
131,593. The police culture of a previous era persisted. (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Miller et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid. BBC news
131,594. Four years after Pace, a case in Cardiff would publicly expose the dangers of a police service that still chased confessions. On Valentine’s Day 1988 20 year old Lynette White was found stabbed to death in her flat in Butetown near the Cardiff docks. 10 months later her ex-partner Stephen Miller was arrested on suspicion of murder and questioned at Cardiff police station. After five days of interrogation he confessed to Lynette White’s murder … At his trial Miller was found guilty of murder along with two other men both implicated by his taped confession … ‘They’ve become known as the Cardiff 3: serving a prison sentence for life for a murder they say they didn’t commit.’ (Kill & Police & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice & Miscarriage of Justice: Miller et al & Rights & Civil Liberties & Arrest & Confession & Murder: Confait & Law) ibid. television news
130,577. In 2017 an 18 year old went public with allegations that shook the country. Anna Chambers polerised opinion and seemed to draw attention to an under reported problem: police sex crime. For two years she turned down many interview offers. (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & Law) Abused by the Police? ***** BBC 2019
130,578. She was brought up in this working-class neighbourhood near Coney Island. The park where the alleged attack happened is just around the corner. (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & Law) ibid.
130,579. ‘He pulled my head to his dick and just making me blow him … and just shoved it inside of me. I was just screaming … The black guy … was just looking in the mirror … like it was nothing … They just left me there. (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & Law) ibid.
130,580. Back home her dad sent her to hospital to do a rape test. A nurse alerted the police. (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & New York & Law) ibid.
130,581. DNA was found on Anna’s body. A DNA test confirmed a positive match with the semen of NYD detectives Richard Hall and Eddie Martins. (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & Law) ibid.
130,582. After two weeks no arrests have been made. (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & Law) ibid.
130,583. ‘The case of a women who says she was raped in the back of a police van is drawing attention to an apparent loop-hole in some state laws that may allow police to escape sexual assault charges by claiming sex acts were consensual.’ (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & Law) ibid. television news
130,584. One case in particular catches my attention: I found another case with a woman in Chicago. She says she was raped by two police officers after a night out drinking. It seems to have striking similarities to Anna Chambers. Two on duty police officers and a DNA match. (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & Law) ibid.
130,585. The investigation went on for three years … Eventually, the officers were offered a plea deal: they accepted one count of official misconduct in exchange for two years probation and dropping the sexual assault charges. (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & Law) ibid.
130,586. In 2016 more than a dozen Oakland police officers for sexual misconduct involving an under-age girl. (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & Law) ibid.
130,587. ‘You run the risk of being exiled. They vandalised your car, your home. You may receive physical threats … We had cops who had 20 or 30 complaints against them for brutality, for stealing, for planing evidence, and nothing ever happens to them. And they’re not afraid; they’re not afraid of Internal Affairs … I can recall complaints where sex workers were coerced into performing sex acts on an officer to avoid going to jail. There were some sex workers who complained that officers harassed them. There were cases where sex workers were sexually assaulted, raped, robbed, and officers and detectives wouldn’t take their complaint seriously. Or would threaten them with jail.’ (Abuse & Police & Miscarriage of Justice & Rape & Law) ibid. Internal affairs insider
19,984. DNA exonerations have been responsible for releasing over 250 innocent people from prison. And it has helped expose case of prosecutorial misconduct all over the country. (Crime & Prison & Innocence & DNA & Justice & Miscarriage of Justice) Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Criminal Justice s8e7
96,610. Rozzer: I’m looking for two negroes in a white car.
Washington: Any two will do? (GBH Films & Black Culture & Miscarriage of Justice) The Hurricane 1999 starring Denzel Washington & Vicellous Reon Shannon & Deborah Kara Unger & Live Schreiber & John Hannah & Dan Hedaya & Debbi Morgan & Clancy Brown & David Paymer & Harris Yulin & Rob Steiger & Vincent Pastore & Beatrice Winde et al, director Norman Jewison, Washington and driver
96,707. What can I say … Boyd killed the other man with a poker. The Long Memory 1952 starring John Mills & John McCallum & Elizabeth Sellars & Eva Bergh & Geoffrey Keen & Michael Martin-Harvey & John Chandos & John Slater & Thora Hurd & Vida Hope & Harold Lang & Mary Mackenzie et al, director Robert Hamer
96,709. It was a choice between him and my father. ibid. lying witness
96,711. I’ve been hating you and planning revenge on you for twelve years … I can’t be bothered. I just can’t be bothered. ibid.
103,235. It breaks your soul down … It takes your decency and respect. (Innocence & Law & Court & Justice & Injustice & Miscarriage of Justice) After Innocence, 2005, victim
103,236. For every one of us up here, there’s hundreds more in prison. (Innocence & Law & Court & Justice & Injustice & Miscarriage of Justice) ibid. victims meet the press
103,237. It could happen to anybody, and it did. (Innocence & Law & Court & Justice & Injustice & Miscarriage of Justice) ibid. Barry Scheck
103,238. The found four different sperms in her and none of them were mine. (Innocence & Law & Court & Justice & Injustice & Miscarriage of Justice) ibid. victim of false rape charge
103,239. Now through DNA we have hard evidence that there is a lot more mistakes being made than we ever expected. That means there are thousands of people in jail today who could prove their innocence with DNA tests. (Innocence & Law & Court & Justice & Injustice & DNA & Miscarriage of Justice) ibid. Barry Scheck on Phil Donahue Show
103,240. My lawyer was the worst lawyer on the planet. The only time I saw him was at court. (Innocence & Law & Court & Justice & Injustice & Miscarriage of Justice) ibid. victim of false rape charge #2
103,535. Dimbleby, I refuse to believe that Tina Turner was responsible for framing the Tottenham 3. Spitting Image s11e3, ITV 1991
107,366. Recent events have cast into sharp relief the crisis in our criminal justice system. First there was the abandonment of the trial of three West Midland police officers on charges of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Then a woman was awarded £25,000 in damages after being subjected to verbal and physical abuse by police officers who had arrested her in flagrant abuse of their powers and given perjured evidence at her trial. Then the Home Secretary announced the abolition of the right to silence for detained persons held in police stations. Then a man who had been ‘verballed’ by West Midlands Police was awarded £70,000 in damages, after the fact that his interview notes had been forged was revealed by an EDSA test; he was the twentieth person to have had his conviction quashed in a case in which the investigating officers belonged to the Serious Crime Squad of that force. Most recently, the Home Secretary’s proposal to send more people to prison has been attacked by prison governors and half a dozen of the country’s senior judges.
The abandonment of the trial of the West Midlands police officers had been preceded by the trial of three Surrey police officers for perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice – the trial was described in Ronan Bennett’s ‘Criminal Justice’ (LRB 24th June) which also raised the question of the trial of the West Midlands policemen.＊As solicitor to Partick Armstrong, one of the Guildford Four, since his arrest in 1974, I am very concerned about the way in which the trial of the three Surrey officers was approached by the prosecution, the defence and the judge, Mr Justice Macpherson.
To begin by recapping the events described by Bennett. In the aftermath of the release of the Guildford Four in 1989 the Director of Public Prosecutions instituted criminal proceedings against three Surrey police officers who had formed the team interviewing Patrick Armstrong. They were charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice, the allegation being that they had given perjured evidence at the trial of the Guildford Four, during which they had claimed that a document they produced was a contemporaneous record of Mr Armstrong’s confession. The Crown case was that the document could not have been original and contemporaneous because it was the product of two earlier drafts that had been discovered by Avon and Somerset Police in May 1989. The document, the Crown alleged, was created to back up the police officers’ version of the interrogation, to create the impression that the information contained in Armstrong’s confession had been volunteered by him.
Since there was no evidence against the Guildford Four apart from their confessions, and since their defence was that they had falsely confessed, the credibility of the police officers was always crucial to the Crown case. During their trial in 1975 Mr Armstrong told the court, and refused to budge from his assertions despite rigorous cross-examination from Sir Michael Havers, that the content of his confessions had been largely suggested to him by the police officers and that he had said what they wanted him to say because their violence had terrified him and reduced him to tears. Mr Armstrong denied that the police officers had made a verbatim record, as they claimed at the trial, or that the ‘contemporaneous’ document was an accurate record of the interview. The officers were unable to say why it hadn’t been shown to Mr Armstrong and why he hadn’t been invited to sign it. The other defendants gave similar accounts of the violence. They were convicted because the jury chose to believe the police.
At the original trial the explosions at Guildford and Woolwich in October and November 1974 had been presented by the Crown as isolated acts of terrorism unconnected with any other event. That, to the Crown’s knowledge at the time, was untrue. The arrest of the IRA Active Service Unit in Balcombe Street in December 1975 required the prosecution to present a case against them which depended, apart from the admissions by two of the ASU, on the numerous forensic links to the offences which started in August 1974 and finished on their arrest. These links were identical to the forensic evidence discovered during the investigation into the Guildford and Woolwich offences and clearly demonstrated that Woolwich and Guildford were part of a connected series of events for which the Guildford Four could not have been responsible. The Crown went to extraordinary lengths during the course of the Balcombe Street trial to conceal these links. It even instructed Crown forensic scientists – as one was to testify to Sir John May – to alter their statements to remove reference to the evidence which connected the Guildford and Woolwich offences to the other crimes.
At the unsuccessful appeal of the Guildford Four in 1977, the Court of Appeal was content to accept the truth of the admissions of the Balcombe Street defendants. Their detailed confessions provided a wealth of hitherto unknown detail that exactly matched police forensic information and could only have been known to those who carried out the Guildford and Woolwich offences. Despite their admissions, no attempt was made by the police to interview the Balcombe Street defendants for these offences. The Surrey Police did send DCI Thomas Style, one of the three officers put on trial, to interview them, but despite their admissions to DCI Peter Imbert and the existence of a forensic statement which intimately linked the Guildford bombings to the Caterham bombing, DCI Style failed to ask them a single question about the Guildford bombings. No one was to tell the jury at his trial about this signal omission. Alastair Logan, essay A Sewer Runs Through It