I think it's been too long for a retrial. Much of the forensic evidence has been lost, and memories have been dimmed too much.
I agree. If the CCRC do refer the case to the Court of Appeal, the conviction will either be upheld or overturned, and if it is overturned there will be no retrial, JB will be found not guilty. The key question is, will the CCRC refer the case for a second time? They will be very careful about doing this because the 2002 appeal went overwhelmingly against JB. The CCRC referred the case then on one ground only (the DNA/silencer evidence), but as was their right JB's team relied upon a series of grounds of appeal. Each one was rejected and the Court of Appeal went further than is normal or than was necessary in stating that they were in complete agreement with the verdict of the jury. The CCRC will inevitably have this in mind in considering the latest submissions on behalf of JB. I suspect they will need some powerful new evidence, not available at trial, to risk their reputation on a second referral. If they do make a referral on a single ground it will still be open to JB's team to rely upon other grounds, including ones which have been argued before. The position currently does not look very promising for JB in view of the provisional decision of the CCRC not to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal. Mike Tesko has strongly suggested that there is new evidence which has come to light recently. If this is credible evidence which seriously undermines a key aspect of the prosecution's case at trial the position for JB will be far more positive. However the latest posting on Jeremy's "official" website does not give the impression that there has been any dramatic new development since the CCRC announced their provisional decision. We should perhaps not read too much into that, although if there has been a major breakthrough I can see no reason for JB's team not to make that public, as they did with the Peter Suthurst report. Whatever the position, I suspect that we will have a long wait until we hear the final decision of the CCRC.
