The decision of the Court of Appeal to uphold the appeal of the
independent assessor Lord Daniel Brennan regarding the right to charge miscarriage of justice victims for bed and board is a disgrace.
The victims of miscarriages of justice are seriously damaged people who have
been greatly wronged by an unjust system. Few ever work again and many
struggle to maintain relationships. Upon examining the Birmingham Six on release,
Doctor Adrian Grounds declared that their mental state could be likened to
that of torture victims.
What miscarriage of justice victims deserve is a full and unreserved apology
from the Home Secretary on behalf of the justice system. The treatment and
support required to reintegrate them into society should be available as
should adequate compensation to make up for the suffering they have endured.
Instead, no apology is ever forthcoming, the victims are treated worse than
convicted criminals and most are forced to fight through the courts to gain
adequate compensation.
The scandal of the way in which miscarriage of justice victims are just
kicked out onto the streets having served years for crimes they did not
commit does not seem to bother the Home Secretary. Convicted criminals have
resettlement programmes put in place months before they are released but not
those who never committed a crime. How much would it cost for David Blunkett
to apologise for the suffering imposed on miscarriage of justice victims?
The Home Secretary prefers instead to give more powers to those who created
the miscarriages of justice in the first place, namely the police.
The attitude toward those who helped put miscarriage of justice victims in prison is in marked contrast to the shabby way in which victims like Michael O'Brien and the Hickeys have been treated. Rather than be punished many of those responsible for the conviction of the innocent have been rewarded.
The basis of most miscarriage of justice cases is the failure of the police to catch the right person in the first place. This is something that the police are never prepared to admit. In the world of police canteen culture there are no innocent prisoners, only people who got off on technicalities. The police can never be wrong and certainly never be seen to be wrong.
Testimony to this approach are the so called reinvestigations of a number of the 100 plus cases of innocent people eventually cleared by the courts. In some cases the police have reopened the inquiry into who actually did commit the crime. This though does appear something of a cosmetic exercise, given that no one has yet been prosecuted for any of the crimes concerned. Indeed in the case of Stephen Downing who served 27 years for a murder he did not commit, the police reinvestigating the crime had the audacity to suggest that the only person still in the frame was Downing himself. This despite his having just been cleared by the Court of Appeal.
There is a similar lack of action on the part of the criminal justice system when it comes to bringing to account those responsible for convicting innocent people in the first place. Not one police officer, crown prosecutor, judge or Home Secretary has been held to account for their actions in helping to convict the innocent. Again a look at the record reveals the opposite, with prosecutors in particular - who made their names convicting the innocent - going on to hold the highest positions in the criminal justice system.
So there was Sir Michael Havers who in 1974 led the prosecution team that secured the conviction of the Guildford Four, withholding crucial evidence along the way from the defence barristers. Havers later went on to become Margaret Thatcher's Lord Chancellor.
Peter Taylor was part of the prosecuting team that secured the conviction of Judy Ward for the M62 coach bombing. Again crucial evidence was withheld that led to Ward serving 18 years in prison for a crime she did not commit. No punishment for Taylor who later became the Lord Chief Justice.
Prior to rising to become appeal court judge Lord Justice Russell was part of the prosecuting team on the Birmingham Six case.
In the area of the police there has been the occasional attempt to bring officers to account for their efforts to pervert the course of justice such as in the cases of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four. In both high profile cases three middle ranking officers were brought before the courts and acquitted. The damage limitation nature of this process is obvious when remembering that the Guildford and Birmingham pub bombings were major murder investigations. As such they would have involved the most senior police officers in the Metropolitan and West Midlands Police forces. To suggest a few middle ranking officers were just left to get on with it really does beggar belief.
The officers prosecuted were of significant enough rank to at least give the impression that a process had been gone through to discipline those involved. The reality of failing to discipline those who secured the conviction of innocent people is that it sends out a message to the bobby on the beat that anything goes. Hence innocent people continue to be incarcerated.
Thankfully, the likes of Michael O'Brien, who has been docked £37,500 for bed and board while he was serving 11 years for a murder he did not commit, are not about to take the latest slight lying down but will fight it all the way to the European Court of Human Rights.
Surely, the 100 plus people who have been freed by the courts over recent years for crimes they did not commit should be enough proof that mistakes can and are made.
The next step having admitted the mistake is to make amends. Every time a miscarriage of justice comes up the whole system is brought into disrepute. The silly action of the independent assessor Lord Brennan in insisting that miscarriage of justice victims pay for bed and board simply reiterates in the public mind a desire on the part of those who run the system to sweep such embarrassment under the carpet. Taking such action merely compounds the original injustice.
