Immediate 9 October 2006

Issued by United Against Injustice and its affiliated organisations including INNOCENT, and the Innocence Network UK, the co-ordinating organisation for Innocence Projects based in UK universities.

Miscarriage of justice victims’ organisations criticise Criminal Cases Review Commission

The House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee session of 10 October 2006 will receive a report from Professor Graham Zellick, chair of the CCRC.

UAI, INUK and INNOCENT are taking this opportunity to voice constructive criticism of the CCRC and ask that its funding be increased in line with that granted to the Scottish CCRC. We have submitted a memorandum to the Select Committee.

Ours are the only organisations that can speak for applicants and identify the problems they encounter. We assist applicants to the CCRC.

Applicants experience the response of the CCRC to their applications as dismissive and hostile.The CCRC assesses each item of potential evidence submitted by applicants according to how it would be criticised by the prosecution.

Most suggestions from applicants as to what evidence might exist and where it might be found are dismissed as invalid and are not then investigated to discover whether there is any substance to them.

This may be because the CCRC is under resourced. So instead of dealing with the problem of miscarriage of justice, the CCRC just hides it.

But genuine unresolved cases will not go away – they will remain continuing high profile public presences.

We say

CCRC case workers should get out of their offices more, and
meet with applicants, their families and their representatives,
give them advice on how to apply,
interview witnesses and visit scenes of crimes and
search for undisclosed records hidden in the files of the police and other official bodies.

The CCRC can only refer cases to the Appeal Court if it thinks there is a ‘real possibility’ that the conviction will be overturned. Commissioners take this to mean that they have to study previous judgments and then guess how the Court would react to applicants’ cases.

We say they are excessively deferential to the Court of Appeal. They should assess the evidence to see whether applicants really are guilty or not, not try to second-guess what judges might think.

Often people are wrongly convicted because their lawyers are incompetent and fail to obtain or use evidence that could help their clients. But the CCRC refuses to consider such evidence, because it thinks that appeal judges might refuse to admit it.

If the evidence shows an applicant is actuallyinnocent, but the CCRC does not refer the case because of fears that it might fail the ‘real possibility’ test on technical grounds, then it is substituting itself for the court.

We say: give the CCRC the money to do their job properly. This would be money well spent.

The CCRC’s funding should be increased to a level equivalent to that of the Scottish CCRC (from £5m to £8.8m).
It costs £35,000 a year to keep an innocent person in prison.
The lives of innocent prisoners and their families are damaged, often beyond repair, by wrongful convictions.
Every time a person is wrongly convicted of a crime that actually happened, the real perpetrator is free to commit more crimes.
The reputations of the police and the criminal justice system are damaged by the continuing scandal of wrongful convictions.

A more extended briefing paper is available on request.

For more information, contact

Dr Andrew Green
email INNOCENT

Dr Michael Naughton
School of Law and Department of Sociology
University of Bristol
Wills Memorial Building
Queens Road
Bristol BS8 1RJ
Office: 0117 954 5323
Fax: 0117 925 1870
M.Naughton@bristol.ac.uk

Issuing organisations and their web sites

United Against Injustice

UAI is a national federation of independent voluntary organisations (including INNOCENT) each of which supports the cases of a number of individuals serving prison sentences for serious crimes, who are believed to be wrongly convicted. UAI was formed in 2001. It publishes extensive guidance to CCRC applicants, which has been viewed by the CCRC (no adverse comments have been received).
unitedagainstinjustice.org.uk

Innocence Network UK

INUK is the coordinating organisation for Innocence Projects (IPs) based in UK universities, in which students investigate the cases of prisoners maintaining innocence. There are currently four established IPs and at least ten more planned.
innocencenetwork.org.uk

INNOCENT

Based in Manchester, INNOCENT was formed in 1993 and by members of families and friends of prisoners believed to be wrongly convicted. It has supported appeal cases and made submissions to the CCRC.
innocent.org.uk