Cardiff Five

Satish Sekar

Description

This fresh edition of Satish Sekar's classic work brings events up to date as at 2017 and includes matters that the author was prevented from publishing sooner. Among other things it deals with the collapse of the 2011 trial of police officers and others concerning the original miscarriage of justice in this case and in a new Epilogue calls for a Truth and Justice Commission.

Sujets

• True crime

Informations

• Publié par: Waterside Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910979495
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Cardiff Five
Innocent Beyond Any Doubt
Satish Sekar
With a Foreword by Michael Mansfield QC
SECOND EDITION
Copyright and Publication Details
The Cardiff Five: Innocent Beyond Any Doubt
Satish Sekar
Second Edition
ISBN 978-1-909976-52-8 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-910979-49-5 (EPUB eBook)
ISBN 978-1-910979-50-1 (PDF eBook)
Copyright © 2 017 . 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 .
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 © 2017 Waterside Press. Design by www.gibgob.com
Main 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 Lightning Source.
e-book The Cardiff Five: Innocent Beyond Any Doubt (Second Edition) is available as an ebook and also to subscribers of Myilibrary, Dawsonera, Ebrary and Ebscohost.
This second edition published 2017 by (First edition 2012)
Waterside Press Ltd
Sherfield Gables
Sherfield on Loddon
Hook, Hampshire
United Kingdom RG27 0JG
Telephone [phone]
Email [e-mail]
Online catalogue WatersidePress.co.uk
Contents
Copyright and Publication Details ii
Acknowledgements vii
Publisher’s Note viii
The Author ix
The Author of the Foreword xi
Foreword xiii
Support for Satish Sekar xix
Dedication xxvii
Introduction 29
The End of the Beginning 29
A Pattern of Concern 31
The Unit 33
Tariff Outrage 35 Pressure — A Force to be Reckoned With 39
A Daunting Task 39
The Precedent 40
The Transition to PACE 41
The Post-PACE Act Cases 43
Cranking up the Pressure 44 Advances in Forensic Science 47
A Substantial Clue — Blood Grouping 47
DNA 49
Advances in DNA-testing Systems 51
Reopened 52
The Prediction 53
The Prediction Comes True 54
Appendix to Chapter 2 56 The Unit: Unsolved and Unresolved Homicides 59
Cold Cases 59
Why Bother? 61
The Quest for Vindication 62
Making History 62
Further Resolution 65
The Pioneering Unit 66 The Review Process 69
The Major Crimes Review Unit 69
Hacking and Lay Advisory Groups 71
Warts and All 74 Committed — The Investigation After Hacking 75
Broken Promises 75
Regaining Trust 77
Phase Two 78 The Scientific Evidence 83
An Integrated Approach 83
Independence and Verification 84
DNA 85
Closing in on the Killer 88
Proved Innocent 89 Identifying the Killer and the Implications 91
The Sweep 91
Inspired 92
The Case for a Complete DNA Database 94
The Identification of Cellophane Man and its Implications 96 The Arrest and Aftermath 99
Unmasked 99
Too Easy 101
Arrest and Aftermath 102 Guilty — History is Made 105
Remand 105
Guilty 106
Harrington’s Case 108
Gafoor Responds 108
The Aftermath 111 Characteristics of a Killer 115
Error of Judgement 115
Professor Canter’s Offender Profile of Lynette White’s Killer 118
Another Interpretation 120
Accountability 122 Lessons — Profiling Gafoor 125
A Pitiless Coward 125
Failing to Take Responsibility 128
Unpredictable 130
The Guilty Secret 132
A Frighteningly Normal but Unusual Killer 133
Under Fire 134
Behavioural Investigative Advice 135 Tariffs — Protecting the Guilty 139
The Final Insult 139
The Home Secretary Loses the Power to set Tariffs 140
Tying the Hands of the Judges 141
Gafoor’s Tariff 142
Sadism 146
An Inappropriate System 149
Preventing Miscarriages of Justice 151
The Most Important Factor 155 The Power of Vindication 157
A Potent Weapon for the Innocent 157
End of An Era 158
Bullying of Children 160
The Presumption of Guilt 162
A Change is Gonna Come 163
Posthumous Relief 165
A Failure 168
Travesty 169
The Lessons 171
Original Conclusion 173
Vindication of the Cardiff Five 173
Justice and Reconciliation 174
A Need for a Fully Independent Judicial Inquiry 175
And What of the Collapsed Trial? 183
Epilogue: The Final Obfuscations 185
Transforming Victory into Defeat 185
Innocence Matters 187
The Other Disclosure Issue 191
Disclosure Obligations and Failures 192
The Conspiracy that Never Was 196
Moving the Goalposts 197
Cooperation 200
The Safeguards 203
Truth and Justice 205
Appendix 1 — Judicial Murders in Cardiff 213
Vindication 213
A Major Hitch 216
Appendix 2 — Some Further Injustices 221
Some Frequent Abbreviations 227
Index 229
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, 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, Steven Bird, Belinda Holden, Letlapa Mphahlele, Nogah Ofer, Matthew Gold, Leon Mann, Gary Mills, Tony Poole, Michael O’Brien, Desmond Hughes, Pamela McGeoch, Connie O’Callaghan, Richard Adams, Dev Barrah, Martin Parker 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 too. They all have my gratitude.
Satish Sekar
November 2017
Publisher’s Note
The views and opinions expressed in this book are those of the author entirely and are not necessarily shared by the publisher. Readers should draw their own conclusions about any claims made or any facts or opinions stated in the book concerning which the possibility of alternative interpretations, narratives, descriptions or subtleties of terminology should be borne in mind.
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 use 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