Cardiff Five

Satish Sekar

Description

Satish Sekar shows how a miscarriage of justice destroyed families, divided communities and undermined confidence in the criminal justice system. The Cardiff Five case is the first example in the 1st of a homicide in which the original suspects were vindicated by the conviction of the true killer in the DNA age. By then, they had shared 16 years in prison for a crime they did not commit.

Sujets

• Reino Unido
• True crime
• United Kingdom
• Great Britain
• Royaume-Uni

Informations

• Publié par: Waterside Press
• Date de parution: 10 septembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908162250
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Cardiff Five
Innocent Beyond Any Doubt
Satish Sekar
Copyright and Publication Details
The Cardiff Five
Innocent Beyond Any Doubt
Satish Sekar
ISBN 978-1-904380-76-4 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-908162-11-3 (Adobe e-book)
ISBN 978-1-908162-25-0 (Epub)
Copyright © 2012 This work is the copyright of Satish Sekar. All intellectual property and associated rights are hereby asserted and reserved by the author in full compliance with UK, European and international law. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, including in hard copy or via the internet, without the prior written permission of the publishers to whom all such rights have been assigned worldwide. The Foreword is the copyright of Michael Mansfield subject to the same terms and conditions © Michael Mansfield .
The publisher hereby states that the contents and opinions in this work are those of the author and contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by the fact of publication.
Cataloguing-In-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book can be obtained on request from the British Library.
Cover design © 2012 Waterside Press. Design by www.gibgob.com
UK distributor Gardners Books, 1 Whittle Drive, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN23 6QH. Tel: [phone] ; [e-mail] ; www.gardners.com
North American distributor Ingram Book Company, One Ingram Blvd, La Vergne, TN 37086, USA. Tel: [phone]; [e-mail]
Printed by MPG-Biddles Ltd, Bodmin and Kings Lynn.
e-book The Cardiff Five: Innocent Beyond Any Doubt is available as an ebook and also to subscribers of Myilibrary and Dawsonera (for ISBN see above ).
Published 2012 by
Waterside Press Ltd
Sherfield Gables
Sherfield on Loddon
Hook, Hampshire
United Kingdom RG27 0JG
Telephone [phone]
E-mail [e-mail]
Online catalogue WatersidePress.co.uk
Contents
Copyright and Publication Details
Acknowledgements
The Author
The Author of the Foreword
Foreword
Support for Satish Sekar
Dedication
Introduction
The End of the Beginning
A Notorious Miscarriage of Justice
A Pattern of Concern
The Unit
Tariff Outrage Pressure — A Force to be Reckoned With
A Daunting Task
The Precedent
The Transition to PACE
The Post-PACE Act Cases
Cranking up the Pressure Advances in Forensic Science
A Substantial Clue — Blood Grouping
DNA
Advances in DNA-testing Systems
Reopened
The Prediction
The Prediction Comes True
Appendix to Chapter 2 The Unit: Unsolved and Unresolved Homicides
Cold Cases
Why Bother?
The Quest for Vindication
Making History
Further Resolution
The Pioneering Unit The Review Process
The Major Crimes Review Unit
Hacking and LAGs
Warts and All Committed — The Investigation After Hacking
Broken Promises
Regaining Trust
Phase Two The Scientific Evidence
An Integrated Approach
Independence and Verification
DNA
Closing in on the Killer
Proved Innocent Identifying the Killer and the Implications
The Sweep
Inspired
The Case for a Complete DNA Database
The Identification of Cellophane Man and its Implications The Arrest and Aftermath
Unmasked
Too Easy
Arrest and Aftermath Guilty — History is Made
Remand
Guilty
Harrington’s Case
Gafoor Responds
The Aftermath Characteristics of a Killer
Error of Judgement
Professor Canter’s Offender Profile of Lynette White’s Killer
Another Interpretation
Accountability Lessons — Profiling Gafoor
A Pitiless Coward
Failing to Take Responsibility
Unpredictable
The Guilty Secret
A Frighteningly Normal but Unusual Killer
Under Fire
Behavioural Investigative Advice Tariffs — Protecting the Guilty
The Final Insult
The Home Secretary Loses the Power to set Tariffs
Tying the Hands of the Judges
Gafoor’s Tariff
Sadism
An Inappropriate System
Preventing Miscarriages of Justice
The Most Important Factor The Power of Vindication
A Potent Weapon for the Innocent
End of An Era
Bullying of Children
The Presumption of Guilt
A Change is Gonna Come
Posthumous Relief
A Failure
Travesty
The Lessons Conclusion
Vindication of the Cardiff Five
Justice and Reconciliation
A Need for a Fully Independent Judicial Inquiry
And What of the Collapsed Trial? Appendix 1 — Judicial Murders in Cardiff
Vindication
A Major Hitch Appendix 2 — Some Further Injustices Some Frequent Abbreviations Index
Acknowledgements
Without the unseen contributions of many people this book could not have been written, especially Ashley Wheeler, whose editing skills made the first drafts readable. Bryan Gibson of Waterside Press provided invaluable support and interest from an early stage, which is greatly appreciated.
The support and contributions of my mother, Saraswathi Sekar, brother, Chandra Sekar, sister-in-law, Aine Kaye Sekar (and niece, Sylvie), Dr. Anil Aggrawal, Roger Backhouse QC , Stuart Hutton, Ian Moore, Polly Glynn, Mia Hakl-Law, Martin Parker, David Burns, Edward FitzGerald QC , Duncan Campbell, Mags Gavan, Angela Grobben, Peter Ward Howlett, Michael Mansfield QC , Mark Metcalf, Alun Michael MP , Derek Miller, Bob Parsons, (the late) Steve Peckham, John Actie, Malik Abdullahi, Lloyd Paris, Rachid Abdullahi, Alex Waite, Gemma Waite, Leanne Waite, Joseph Harris, Carly Harris, Stephen Miller, Tony Paris, Daryl Clemens, Richard Eikelenboom, Nat Cary, Andrew Rennison, Paul Wood, Bob Woffinden, Richard Adams, Steven Bird, Belinda Holden, Letlapa Mphahlele, Nogah Ofer, Matthew Gold, Leon Mann, Gary Mills, Tony Poole, Michael O’Brien, Desmond Hughes, Pamela McGeoch, Joseph Vonley, Connie O’Callaghan and Brian Moore were essential to the whole process of research, writing and development of the book. Their assistance will never be forgotten.
Thanks are also due to various press officers, who had to field my demands for information and insistence that their organizations take responsibility for the role they played. I make no apology for that. These lessons must be learned and repetition of errors avoided.
Others such as Dave Barclay, John Little, Natalie Walker and Claire O’Brien helped greatly as well. Many people too numerous to mention by name contributed to the writing of this book as well. They all have my gratitude.
Satish Sekar
March 2012
The Author
Satish Sekar is a freelance journalist and researcher. His work includes that for the feature film “In the Name of the Father” and TV and radio programmes such as Panorama, Trial and Error, Law in Action,Today and Channel 4 News. He has written for the Guardian , Independent , Daily Telegraph and other newspapers including Private Eye .
In 1998, his book, Fitted In: The Cardiff Three and the Lynette White Inquiry was published by the Fitted-In-Project, a justice organization, of which he is the founding director. 1 Soon afterwards, the case was actively re-opened by a new unit set up to examine unsolved and unresolved homicides leading, in 2003, to the real killer pleading guilty to Lynette White’s murder, the first time in British history that people originally convicted were vindicated by the conviction of the person truly guilty of murder in the DNA age.
A consultant on forensic issues, Satish Sekar has been involved in various high profile issues, including in relation to police reform, police complaints, DNA -testing and related databases.


1 . See www.fittedin.org
The Author of the Foreword
Michael Mansfield QC is one of the UK’s foremost lawyers, known for his willingness to challenge improper uses of the law, power and authority. He has appeared in many of the most famous and controversial cases of the modern era and at major public and judicial inquiries, including in relation to Bloody Sunday, the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the death of HRH Diana, Princess of Wales (for Mohamed al-Fayed) and the murder of Stephen Lawrence (for his family). He has also represented clients as diverse as the Angry Brigade, James Hanratty (posthumously), Arthur Scargill (and the Orgreave Coking Plant miners), the Price Sisters, Barry George, Angela Cannings, Kenneth Noye and Michael Barrymore. His book, Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer, was published by Bloomsbury in 2009.
Foreword
This is one of the most important books ever written about criminal justice.
It would be easy to confine my remarks to the Cardiff Five case but this would be a disservice to the thrust of this narrative as well as its author. If anyone wants to know what has been going on, and going wrong, over the past half-a-century spanning my entire professional career, here it is. Written with spell-binding passion alongside meticulous research and observation, Satish Sekar has accomplished what few others have achieved. It is redolent of those magnificent French films starring Yves Montand where one man takes on the state in the pursuit of truth and justice — and succeeds.
What becomes glaringly apparent is that this no isolated case. It has become exceptional because of the motivating force exerted by Satish. Unhappily, it is one of many in South Wales and epitomises systemic failure. Most of the others, as well as the Cardiff Five case, are familiar to me because of my involvement in their appeals.
Moreover, such cases reflect an even greater malaise which has infected other police areas throughout the United Kingdom. The best known was the West Midlands Crime Squad which had to be disbanded. Another was exposed during the Macpherson Inquiry into the handling of the Stephen Lawrence murder by the Metropolitan Police Service in London — a matter which is yet to come to a final resolution following further revelations about potential corruption.
What marks out the Cardiff Five case is the tortuous route it has followed right up to the present. More so than the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, the Tottenham Three and the Bridgewater Four. But like those cas