Ten year jail sentences quashed by court of appeal after allegations that crucial evidence was planted by flying squad officers

Three men who were serving 10 years for armed robbery had their convictions quashed at the court of appeal yesterday following allegations that corrupt Scotland Yard detectives planted crucial evidence and bragged they "stitched up guys like you all day long."

Michael Brown, 27, Anthony Taylor, 29 and Kevin Martin, 30, repeatedly denied raiding a jeweller's shop in Edmonton, north London, and stealing gems worth £6,000 after immobilising the owner with a stun gun.

They were convicted in July 1995 after a jury heard that officers from the flying squad found a stun gun in Mr Martin's London flat, and had matched his palm print to one found on the glass counter of the shop.

The case against the three men began to crumble two years ago when a police complaints inquiry into the flying squad uncovered a web of corruption.

Two officers who were instrumental in the jewellery shop investigation, detective constables Terry McGuinness and Kevin Garner, have since been convicted of a series of offences, including aggravated burglary and conspiracy to steal 80kg of cannabis.

McGuinness was jailed for nine years. Garner is awaiting sentence.

The court of appeal heard Garner was the officer who claimed to have found the stun gun in Mr Martin's flat. McGuinness was also there during the search, which took place nine months after the robbery.

Three other officers involved in the investigation are awaiting trial on corruption charges and cannot be named for legal reasons.

When Mr Martin was arrested, he insisted officers had planted the stun gun under a cushion on his sofa. Mr Martin said one of the officers turned to him and boasted he "had stitched up guys like you all day long."

Quashing the convictions, Lord Justice Henry, Mrs Justice Bracewell and Mr Justice Richards, said: "It would be curious if so incriminating an item were to be found so ill concealed by a surprise raid nine months after the alleged use of that weapon."

They noted there was no forensic evidence linking the stun gun to the one used in the robbery.

"In the light of what is now known, the crown prosecution service accepts that the evidence given at the trial, of the search for and discovery of the gun cannot be relied on," their judgment said.

The justices also referred to the "surprising" way detectives managed to match Mr Martin's palm print to one found on the glass counter seven months after the robbery, even though Mr Martin, who lives in south London, had been a suspect for more than six months and his prints were already on police files.

McGuinness, 42, is also alleged to have shown photographs of Mr Taylor, who lives in Hackney, north London, to a witness shortly before an identity parade in April, 1994.

The defendants had a first appeal dismissed in June 1996. But their case was referred back to justices in October last year by the criminal cases review commission following revelations about widespread corruption in the flying squad uncovered in a secret Scotland Yard investigation, codenamed Operation Spain.

McGuinness confessed to a series of charges after a "sting" set up by the Met's anti-corruption branch, CIB3, in December 1997.

CIB officers planted 80 bars of cannabis inside a bathroom cabinet in an east London flat.

After leaking information about the whereabouts of the haul, McGuinness and Garner were filmed stealing the drugs and were arrested. Both men became supergrasses.

"What's this we've got here?" said Detective Constable Garner, holding up a long black weapon that he appeared to have found on Kevin Martin's sofabed.

"It looks like a stun gun to me," replied DC McGuinness.

"I've never seen that before in my life", yelled Martin. "You're stitching me up."

As a 19-year-old, Martin had carried out a raid on a jeweller's in Dalston, for which he served two years in prison. In the eyes of the police, the conviction made him a significant suspect in the "stun gun" robbery in Edmonton in 1993.

On November 2, he and his girlfriend were woken at 7.30am by bangs, crashes and raised voices. The police had broken down his neighbour's door - they had the wrong flat. Realising the mistake, officers poured into Martin's flat.

His girlfriend screamed that she was seven months pregnant. Martin saw armed officers outside and was warned to keep away from the window. "I turned round, and they were in the bedroom," Martin said.

"Four or five, with others coming in behind. I was very frightened. Then one of them hit me on the face with a blunt object, I never found out what.

"Suddenly, they were raining blows on me. They were telling me to keep calm and hitting me at the same time."

"It was one mad minute that led to seven years of pain for me and my family."

Martin believes the police planted the stun gun while he was being assaulted.

He was handcuffed, his feet were shackled, and he was bundled into a police van. There were two main pieces of evidence against Martin: the stun gun and a palm print from the shop counter that supposedly matched his.

This evidence, only produced seven months after the crime, was suspicious. The first two occasions the prints were sent for analysis the result was negative - it did not match Martin's.

"No one, not the criminal cases review commission, not the court of appeal, has ever been given a satisfactory answer as to why that print finally matched," said Martin.

There was no identification evidence against him. He was never put on an identity parade.

In prison, Martin immediately made a complaint about the police and the following month was visited in Belmarsh, south-east London, by an investigating officer.

"He said to me, 'No judge or jury will ever believe that those officers fitted you up. You've just got to serve your sentence'."

Seven months into Martin's sentence, his younger brother, Jason, committed suicide. The brothers had been close, and Jason had had a breakdown after Kevin's conviction.

In August last year, an officer from CIB3, the anti-corruption branch, told Martin his case was being reinvestigated as part of an inquiry into allegations against the flying squad. He was released on bail, pending appeal, in November last year.

"There's a lot of other guys in prison going through all this who have been fitted up, and no one's listening. I just want this to give all those people hope."