Miscarriages of JusticeUK (MOJUK) 22 Berners St, Birmingham B19 2DR One in Five Decisions by Courts Unsafe Because of ‘Misleading Evidence’ Tele: 0121- 507 0844 Email: [email protected] Web: www.mojuk.org.uk Will Bordell, ‘The Justice Gap’: A new analysis of close to a thousand Court of Appeal cases over the last seven years has found that more than one in five decisions by lower courts (22%) were argued unsafe because they contained misleading evidence. The University College London study, which looked at the transcripts of 996 cases, also revealed that more than three-quarters of suc - Our Not So Wonderful Police Force cessful appeals (76%) were based on reinterpretations of the same materials available in the origi - In the last 9 years over 650 police officer have been convicted of various offences, includ - nal trial rather than new information. Scientists Nadine Smit, Ruth Morgan and David Lagnado main - ing murder, assault, fraud, rape, misconduct, sexual abuse, theft, perverting course of justice, tained that when forensic evidence misled judges and juries, it did so because of a misinterpretation publishing indecent images. witness intimidation. planting evidence, death by dangerous driv - of its relevance, probative value or validity. Their paper called on lawyers and expert witnesses to ing, criminal damage, running brothels, preying on vulnerable women, administering poison, bring more transparency to the relationship between evidence and hypothesis, taking care to avoid importing drugs, money laundering, manipulating crime figures, racial abuse, stealing evi - ‘an erroneous understanding of the evidential value of evidence’. dence, acting dishonestly & without integrity, stealing cash from street beggars. The latter was Belief in a hypothesis, the researchers conclude, is ‘sometimes presented disproportionately to the committed by four Birmingham police officers, one got sacked the other three had their wrists actual probative value of an item of evidence’. According to scientists at the European Forensics slapped and told no to get caught again or should I have wrote, not do it again! Genetics Network of Excellence, as The Justice Gap reported in January, it is a myth to believe that DNA evidence is ‘infallible’. In 235 Court of Appeal cases, the UCL study found examples of mis - Early Day Motion 372: Re-Legalising Medicinal Cannabis leading evidence. Over one-third (85) of these cases involved problems with the presentation of evi - That this House believes that it is the duty of the good citizen to challenge laws that oppress the dence in court, and in 26% (60) judges had made errors in their directions on issues like probative sick and the powerless and deny them their medicine of choice; congratulates the United Patients value, standard of proof, relevance and validity. Although the researchers conceded that their sample Alliance for the act of mass civil disobedience in challenging the discredited, cruel and unenforce - size limited their scope and the conclusions they could draw, they concluded that ‘the identified cases able law that criminalises thousands of seriously ill patients for using natural cannabis to relieve are only the tip of the iceberg and can no longer be attributed to simple individual “bad apples” in the symptoms of severe pain and spasm; and thanks the police for its wise restraint and the Multiple system’. In 2013, the Ministry of Justice admitted in response to a Law Commission report on expert Sclerosis Society, two police and crime commissioners and hon. Members for their support for a evidence that ‘there is no robust estimate of the size of the problem to be tackled’. new compassionate and practical reform of medicinal cannabis use to replace the present irre - The study calls for increased scrutiny and analysis of case transcripts, urging for improvements to sponsible black market with a legal market that can be regulated, removing the threat of prosecu - ‘access to case documents post-conviction’ to avoid unnecessary repetition of past mistakes. tion from those already suffering disproportionately the burdens of life's misfortunes. ‘Accepting that uncertainty will remain present,’ the study explains, ‘it is important that the uncertain - House of Commons: 11/10/2017, http://bit.ly/2xAeUSw ties are not caused by erroneous arguments and judgements but by inherent properties of the knowl - Put Your MP to Work – Demand They Sign EDM 372 edge base, which, in turn, can be presented transparently’. The study goes further to reveal that, on To find your MP go here: https://www.writetothem.com/ average, it took 2.9 years for the Court of Appeal to overrule a case. However, 18 rulings took over 10 years to be overturned. ‘The consequences of these are severe’, the report maintains, ‘and have Ireland: Still 'No Time Frame' for Consideration of Prisoner Transfer from the UK Ruling caused many defendants to be wrongfully incarcerated.’ In the coming years, the researchers hope The Department of Justice has still not indicated a time frame in which it will complete its ‘that this research becomes more than just an “academic exercise” as these datasets grow, and that consideration of a Supreme Court judgment on prisoner transfer applications handed down these results allow for the much-needed continuous evaluation of the use of forensic evidence in well over a year ago. Transfer applications to Ireland from prisoners abroad remain on hold court and their contribution to both justified and unjustified rulings.’ after three prisoners successfully challenged the law detaining them. In September 2014, the High Court ordered the release of three men after finding that it could not retrospectively 'Lone-Wolf Dissident' Christine Connor to Appeal Conviction adapt, so as to achieve compatibility with Irish law, the warrants detaining the men here fol - BBC News: A woman described as a lone-wolf dissident republican who was jailed for try - lowing their transfer from English prisons in 2006. The O’Farrell, Rafferty and McDonald case ing to murder police officers has started a bid to clear her name. Christine Connor, 31, was was appealed to the Supreme Court, where the Government’s case was defeated. convicted in May over a terrorist plot in which she posed as a Swedish model to lure men into Answering a parliamentary question, Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said: "The judge - supporting her attempt to kill. She intends to appeal, arguing that her pleas should not have ment is detailed and has implications for the continuance in its present form of the process been accepted. Her solicitor said the pleas were equivocal, and judges are set to review the operated by the Irish Prison Service for transferring prisoners from other States to Ireland." He case at Belfast's Court of Appeal. Connor's solicitor said the case was a "unique" one. added: "The practical effect of this judgement and whether it will necessitate legislative and/or 'War with police' - "An equivocal plea is one qualified by words which, if true, indicate that administrative changes is being examined by officials of the Irish Prison Service and my the accused is in fact not guilty of the offence charged," he said. "In this unique case, our client Department in consultation with Attorney General. "Given the complex nature of the review told the Crown Court: 'I am not guilty, but on advice I will plead guilty.' This plea should not being undertaken, it is not possible at this stage to indicate a time frame for its conclusion." have been received by the learned trial judge but instead vacated on application." Connor, from north Belfast, is also set to appeal the 16-year jail sentence she was given in June, recognise that reporters, acting as the eyes and ears of the public, have an important role in arguing that it was excessive. She had claimed to be "at war" with the Police Service of informing people about court cases and explaining what had happened in such cases. A landmark Northern Ireland (PSNI) and pleaded guilty to a number of terrorist offences. Some of those ruling was given by three senior judges in 2012 when the Guardian sought documents from a related to homemade grenade attacks on police in Belfast in May 2013, one of which left a hearing involving two businessmen implicated in a huge bribery scandal. They ruled in favour of policeman injured. Her trial heard that she had made hoax 999 calls to lure police to the area, the Guardian and strengthened the media’s right to see documents used in criminal cases. claiming that a woman was in danger. Lord Justice Toulson wrote: “In a case where documents have been placed before a judge 'Her terrorist aspirations' - Police said Connor was not aligned to any dissident republican and referred to in the course of proceedings, in my judgment the default position should be organisations and had acted alone. They also said she had exploited two men to "become that access should be permitted on the open justice principle; and where access is sought for involved in her terrorist aspirations", both of whom later took their own lives. Her efforts to a proper journalistic purpose, the case for allowing it will be particularly strong.” He added that dupe them included using online photographs of a Swedish model and creating a fake social the courts should assist, and not impede, reporters who request documents that would help media profile, detectives said. Her solicitor has also said that Connor has complained to the them to report court cases accurately unless there were strong arguments to the contrary. In Police Ombudsman about the PSNI's decision to release exhibits from the case to the media. other words, obtaining documents from a public hearing should not be an obstacle course for "This is highly unusual and a clear breach of our client's human rights," he claimed.