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The Birmingham Six
14 March 1991
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~jjphoto/six.jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1006201.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/14/newsid_2543000/2543613.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1437228,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4151635,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1358577,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,730156,00.html
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/other/1974/faul76.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six
injustice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/19/sean-hodgson-miscarriage-justice-ruling
wrongful imprisonment
wrongful convictions > False Arrests, Convictions and
Imprisonments USA
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/
false_arrests_convictions_and_imprisonments/index.html
miscarriage of justice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/19/ludovic-kennedy-dies-89
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/05/justice-on-trial-introduction
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/may/05/miscarriages-of-justice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/18/prisoner-hodgson-murder-quashed-miscarriage
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4446369.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/jilldando/story/0,7369,755712,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2485830/Jill-Dando-murder-Miscarriages-of-justice.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/jilldando/story/0,7369,755712,00.html
Sean Hodgson
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/29/sean-hodgson-release-prison
miscarriage of justice > Sean Hodgson released
after 27 years March 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5934566.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/19/life-after-miscarriage-justice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/19/miscarriage-justice-hodgson
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/19/sean-hodgson-miscarriage-justice-ruling
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/innocent-prisoner-set-free-after-27-years-1647547.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5931869.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5932836.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/18/prisoner-hodgson-murder-quashed-miscarriage
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/mar/18/sean-hodgson
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/12/dna-teresa-de-simone-hodgson
Stefan Kiszko
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/nov/17/ukcrime.immigrationpolicy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/nov/11/ukcrime.duncancampbell
Long-standing miscarriages of justice in the UK
High-profile judicial mistakes,
from Barry George's conviction for the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando
to the jailing of Judith Ward for the 1973 IRA coach bombing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/18/miscarriages-justice-history
in denial of murder IDOM
miscarriage of justice > Robert Brown
http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,7369,981144,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,7369,911068,00.html
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1265362002
http://www.innocent.org.uk/cases/robertbrown
http://www.mojuk.org.uk/bulletins/rb.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3697544.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/2966946.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/01_january/16/hardtalk_brownrobert.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/08_august/29/bakewell.shtml
get a case review
Criminal Cases Review Commission CCRC
http://www.ccrc.gov.uk/
http://www.cps
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/18/prisoner-hodgson-murder-quashed-miscarriage
http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,,1453787,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4092782,00.html
victims of miscarried justice
innocent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/innocent-prisoner-set-free-after-27-years-1647547.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4151635,00.html
failure of justice
fabricate
confessions
wrongly convicted over...
wrongful imprisonment for...
the Hoxton One
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/mother-fights-to-free-the-hoxton-one-1704141.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/
teenagers-murder-conviction--may-be-miscarriage-of-justice-1704129.html
the Cardiff Three
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1920149,00.html
the Birmingham Six
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/may/22/northernireland.sandralaville
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/aug/23/ukcrime.alexkumi
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1358577,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,730156,00.html
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/other/1974/faul76.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/14/newsid_2543000/2543613.stm
the Birmingham Six / the Guildford Four > Ludovic Kennedy,
veteran presenter and campaigner
1919-2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/19/ludovic-kennedy-dies-89
the Bridgewater Four
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1264588,00.html
the Guildford Four
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1409654,00.html
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,9061,1408973,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,12269,1330869,00.html
http://www.film.u-net.com/Movies/Reviews/In_Name_Father.html
the Maguire Seven
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1409654,00.html
free
be set free
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/innocent-prisoner-set-free-after-27-years-1647547.html
walk free from court
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,200-2127194,00.html
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1691796,00.html
freedom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/29/sean-hodgson-release-prison
caution (FA)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,200-2127194,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,200-2127168,00.html
exonerated
Justice on Trial
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/05/justice-on-trial-introduction
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/series/justice-on-trial
cast doubt over...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5769769.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6276604.ece
Derek Bentley 1933-1953
At the age of 19,
Derek Bentley was hanged for the murder of PC Sydney Miles,
the policeman who caught him breaking into a warehouse in Croydon, south London.
Bentley, who had a mental age of only 11, had not pulled the trigger
but was convicted on the strength of an ambiguous instruction to 'Let him have
it'
shouted to his accomplice, 16-year-old Chris Craig.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1999/feb/21/vanessathorpe.theobserver1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/19/ludovic-kennedy-dies-89
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/jul/12/familyandrelationships.family4
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,2763,634024,0.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1999/feb/21/vanessathorpe.theobserver1
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/28/newsid_3393000/3393807.stm
be pardoned > Derek Bentley
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/28/newsid_3393000/3393807.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/138218.stm
Op-Ed Columnist
Innocent but Dead
September 1, 2009
The New York Times
By BOB HERBERT
There is a long and remarkable article in the current New Yorker about a man
who was executed in Texas in 2004 for deliberately setting a fire that killed
his three small children. Rigorous scientific analysis has since shown that
there was no evidence that the fire in a one-story, wood frame house in
Corsicana was the result of arson, as the authorities had alleged.
In other words, it was an accident. No crime had occurred.
Cameron Todd Willingham, who refused to accept a guilty plea that would have
spared his life, and who insisted until his last painful breath that he was
innocent, had in fact been telling the truth all along.
It was inevitable that some case in which a clearly innocent person had been put
to death would come to light. It was far from inevitable that this case would be
the one. “I was extremely skeptical in the beginning,” said the New Yorker
reporter, David Grann, who began investigating the case last December.
The fire broke out on the morning of Dec. 23, 1991. Willingham was awakened by
the cries of his 2-year-old daughter, Amber. Also in the house were his year-old
twin girls, Karmon and Kameron. The family was poor, and Willingham’s wife,
Stacy, had gone out to pick up a Christmas present for the children from the
Salvation Army.
Willingham said he tried to rescue the kids but was driven back by smoke and
flames. At one point his hair caught fire. As the heat intensified, the windows
of the children’s room exploded and flames leapt out. Willingham, who was 23 at
the time, had to be restrained and eventually handcuffed as he tried again to
get into the room.
There was no reason to believe at first that the fire was anything other than a
horrible accident. But fire investigators, moving slowly through the ruined
house, began seeing things (not unlike someone viewing a Rorschach pattern) that
they interpreted as evidence of arson.
They noticed deep charring at the base of some of the walls and patterns of soot
that made them suspicious. They noticed what they felt were ominous fracture
patterns in pieces of broken window glass. They had no motive, but they were
convinced the fire had been set. And if it had been set, who else but Willingham
would have set it?
With no real motive in sight, the local district attorney, Pat Batchelor, was
quoted as saying, “The children were interfering with his beer drinking and dart
throwing.”
Willingham was arrested and charged with capital murder.
When official suspicion fell on Willingham, eyewitness testimony began to
change. Whereas initially he was described by neighbors as screaming and
hysterical — “My babies are burning up!” — and desperate to have the children
saved, he now was described as behaving oddly, and not having made enough of an
effort to get to the girls.
And you could almost have guaranteed that a jailhouse snitch would emerge. They
almost always do. This time his name was Johnny Webb, a jumpy individual with a
lengthy arrest record who would later admit to being “mentally impaired” and on
medication, and who had started taking illegal drugs at the age of 9.
The jury took barely an hour to return a guilty verdict, and Willingham was
sentenced to death.
He remained on death row for 12 years, but it was only in the weeks leading up
to his execution that convincing scientific evidence of his innocence began to
emerge. A renowned scientist and arson investigator, Gerald Hurst, educated at
Cambridge and widely recognized as a brilliant chemist, reviewed the evidence in
the Willingham case and began systematically knocking down every indication of
arson.
The authorities were unmoved. Willingham was executed by lethal injection on
Feb. 17, 2004.
Now comes a report on the case from another noted scientist, Craig Beyler, who
was hired by a special commission, established by the state of Texas to
investigate errors and misconduct in the handling of forensic evidence.
The report is devastating, the kind of disclosure that should send a tremor
through one’s conscience. There was absolutely no scientific basis for
determining that the fire was arson, said Beyler. No basis at all. He added that
the state fire marshal who investigated the case and testified against
Willingham “seems to be wholly without any realistic understanding of fires.” He
said the marshal’s approach seemed to lack “rational reasoning” and he likened
it to the practices “of mystics or psychics.”
Grann told me on Monday that when he recently informed the jailhouse snitch,
Johnny Webb, that new scientific evidence would show that the fire wasn’t arson
and that an innocent man had been killed, Webb seemed taken aback. “Nothing can
save me now,” he said.
Innocent but Dead, NYT,
1.9.2009,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/opinion/01herbert.html
Jill Dando murder: Miscarriages of justice
Barry George is not the first person to be wrongly convicted of murder and
then have their conviction quashed.
Last Updated: 6:27PM BST 01 Aug 2008
The Daily Telegraph
By Caroline Gammell
Stephen Downing spent 27 years in prison for the murder of Wendy Sewell, a
typist who was killed in a churchyard in Bakewell, Derbyshire, in 1973.
His conviction in the so-called "Bakewell Tart" case was hailed as one of
Britain's worst miscarriages of justice when he was freed in January 2002.
Mr Downing received an initial £250,000 payment on release from prison and
further £500,000 in 2006 because he was not told he was under arrest or that he
had the right to a solicitor.
He was 17 with a mental age of 11 when he was convicted of beating 32-year-old
Mrs Sewell to death with a pick-axe handle at a cemetery in Bakewell.
He was arrested and interviewed for about eight hours before admitting the
attack. Later he retracted his confession but was convicted the following year.
Stefan Kiszko was convicted of killing 11-year-old Lesley Molseed in 1976 and
served 16 years before being released in 1992.
The tax clerk, from Rochdale in Greater Manchester, was found guilty of
abducting the girl and then stabbing her on a moor in West Yorkshire.
Mr Kiszko, who was described as "odd and vulnerable", spent nearly two decades
in prison before the Court of Appeal acknowledged that his impotence meant he
could not possibly have killed her.
He died of a heart attack aged 44 just a year after being released.
His mother Charlotte died four months later and because he had no other
relatives, the Government did not have to pay him compensation of more than
£500,000.
Ronald Castree was finally convicted in November 2007, having committed the
crime as a 21-year-old.
Timothy Evans, 25, was hanged on March 9, 1950, for the murder of his wife and
daughter.
Deemed to be of low intelligence, the Welsh van driver with an IQ of 70
apparently "confessed" to killing his wife Beryl and their 14-month-old daughter
Geraldine in 1949.
Three years after his execution, former neighbour John Christie confessed to
strangling eight victims - including Mrs Evans and Geraldine.
Mr Evans received a post-humous official royal pardon in 1966, but his case
helped bring about the abolishment of capital punishment.
His family fought for compensation right up until 2004, arguing that the royal
pardon was "inadequate remedy".
Unemployed Colin Stagg was tried for the murder of 23-year-old Rachel Nickell,
who was killed while walking with her two-year-old son on Wimbledon Common in
1992.
He was charged with murder and spent a year in prison, but the judge presiding
over the case threw out the charges against him because they were based on a
honey trap operation.
Trial judge Mr Justice Ognall described it as "wholly reprehensible'' and
"deceptive conduct of the grossest kind" and threw the evidence out.
Mr Stagg is still trying to claim more than £1 million compensation from the
Metropolitan Police but the case is on hold while the police investigation
continues.
Robert Napper, 41, has been charged with Miss Nickell's murder and appeared in
court last November.
Jill Dando murder:
Miscarriages of justice, DTel, 1.8.2008,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2485830/Jill-Dando-murder-Miscarriages-of-justice.html
Related
Anglonautes > Vocabulary
/ Encyclopaedia > Justice
Anglonautes > Vocabulary / Encyclopaedia > Terrorism > Northern Ireland
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