Mat said
But would it really damage her career and credibility if she was wrong? Because if you believe that then isn't her career damaged from this happening in cases previously?
We need to get a couple of things straight here, I think. Firstly, I don't have a "career" - I don't support people claiming wrongful conviction for financial gain, job promotion (I don't have a "job"), or recognition for myself - my "public" persona, as far as Luke's case is concerned, came about because of the local negative reaction to Luke's case - I had worked "behind the scenes" for four years - no-one knew who I was, or what I was doing. But someone let it be known not only who I was, but where I was - when the book was published I decided it was safer if everyone knew who I was, just in case.
The media communication with myself over the years has been at Luke and Corinne's request- they were crucified by the media, and didn't trust any of them - they began to run media enquiries by me, and that is how I ended up making statements, etc, on the Mitchell family's behalf.
Secondly, the case - singular - to which Mat refers here, is the Adrian Prout case. I am not ashamed of my involvement in that case, but it is probably as well to clarify what that involvement was and what "damage" it did.
We were approached at WAP and ased if we would host a website for Adrian. Having done all our usual checks, we set up the website, based on the evidence we had seen. As always, a forum discussion was set up to accompany the website. During that discussion, I did what I always do, and argued that, with no body, and a number of conflicting pieces of evidence, nobody could be sure that a murder had occurred. Various aspects of the evidence, as it then stood, were discussed.
Then Adrian took, and failed, a polygraph test, and confessed that he had murdered his wife. We had to wait a couple of days for confirmation that (a) the confession was genuine, and (b) the resultant search had found Kate's body. (The website and forum were suspended during this period.) Immediately we had confirmation, we opened the website and forum, with all content removed, and an apology to Kate's family was posted on each. Those were left visible for 14 days, and then the sites were taken down.
Without Adrian's confession, there was absolutely nothing in the evidence which warranted a conviction - I believe that we absolutely have to be rigid in our determination that cases must be proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, or we open up the possibility of a state/justice system free for all, where anyone can be accused and convicted on nothing. That is a terrifying prospect, and I know too many people it has already happened to - I don't want to see any more, but sadly, because ordinary people really don't believe it can happen, or that it's only a very, very rare occurrence, and could never happen to them, it's not a top priority in most people's minds.
It certainly wasn't something I gave a lot of thought to in 2003 - I knew about the "famous" cases from the past, and thought they were terrible, but I had no idea how bad the problem really is.
That is why I am not ashamed of my involvement in the Adrian Prout case. I would much rather take the risk of potentially being fooled on occasion than sit back, knowing what I do, and do nothing. For what it's worth, through all of the cases I have been involved in, to a greater or lesser degree in the last 9 plus years, Adrian is the only one whose claim of innocence has been destroyed - all of the others, over the years, have produced more and more evidence supportive of their innocence. It's a track record I can handle - I don't pay much heed to the critics, since I don't see most of them even attempting to do what I do every day of the year.
