Sandra Leans book "No Smoke" should be re-vised or withdrawn

[sandra L]

Sometimes, defence teams have information, or at least, technical access to information, but they don't know or understand the significance of it. Sometimes, like a very well known Scottish QC, they fully expect that the system will "play by the rules" and disclose significant evidence, rather than labelling it ambiguously in the express intent that the defence team does not realise its significance.

Sometimes, like the defence team in the Mark Carver case, they run the case on the technical rule that it is for the prosecution to prove guilt and not the other way around.

Why would I have fought so hard and suddenly have stopped if Simon's confession were false.

The correct question, I would suggest, is why would you have fought so hard and suddenly stopped if you believed Simon's confession was false. If that was your belief, then, of course, no one would have expected you to carry on fighting*. But, as I have stated previously, just because you believed it to be false doesn't necessarily mean others will adopt the same belief, for whatever reasons.

There is very little factual information in the public domain on which others can found such a belief. If Simon's confession was influenced, for example, by Spice, the side effects of which are harrowing, and can include intense hallucinations, extreme paranoia, etc, then the confession would have to be examined in that light, especially given Simon's comments to a mental health nurse that he thought he was "going crazy" and wanted to "scream all the time" some three to four months before the confession.

Please understand, I am not stating any belief one way or the other about Simon's confession, nor have I done so. I am seeking to understand whether there could be any other factors which caused a man who had maintained innocence for so long to suddenly confess, so close to freedom, other than your personal assertion that he was "clearly a disturbed individual." The effects of Spice, for example, could make someone "clearly a disturbed individual" without necessarily making them a murderer.

Why aren't Simon's previous legal teams speaking up; Campbell Malone, Michael Mansfield? Why aren't his family? What about his representative at the time of his confession, Dr Michael Naughton?

What did they know that you didn't

I have absolutely no idea. I have no contact with any of them. My questions are my own, asked in order to try to resolve some of what I see as questionable circumstances surrounding the confession and the subsequent death of Simon.

If, as is your right, you choose not to answer those questions, then I am left to ponder what might be the answers - what other possibilities could be taken into account.

*Of course, sometimes people who have fought hard and long stop fighting, as I did, for reasons completely unrelated to confessions, true or false. Sometimes, there are other factors which make it too difficult to carry on fighting at such a high level, none of them related to the perceived guilt or innocence of the person being fought for.

[Stephanie]

The correct question, I would suggest,

The correct question I should have asked you was, with hindsight, do you regret not having had access to a full set of Simon Hall's case files before you published your book?

[sandra L]

No, I don't.

If it takes five, or ten, or twenty years to have access to a full set of anyone's case files, then something is terribly wrong with our justice system - those case files should be freely available from day one.

[Stephanie]

No, I don't.

If it takes five, or ten, or twenty years to have access to a full set of anyone's case files, then something is terribly wrong with our justice system - those case files should be freely available from day one.

I rest my case Sandra.

This is how people like you knowingly put misinformation into the public domain, regardless of the consequences.

My question was straight forward. It was you who chose to answer it in a disingenuous way.

However for clarity, you were not given access to a full set of case files in the SH case .

Therefore you took a gamble when you published your book with a chapter dedicated to the Simon Hall case. Your gamble came back to bite you in 2013 but rather than own up to your mistakes you have chosen to attempt to blur the facts with your alleged confusion regarding the confusion.

"Have at it as you say. However, it's not me who is in denial.

[sandra L]

Stephanie said

The correct question I should have asked you was, with hindsight, do you regret not having had access to a full set of Simon Hall's case files before you published your book?

I replied

No, I don't.

What is disingenuous about that?

Are people to sit back and do nothing when the authorities hide information, mislead the public about "facts," etc, or do we do what we can, with what we have, and leave it to people to make up their own minds what they think of the information presented? Do we allow sloppy investigations, illogical CPS decisions, tainted evidence and police pressure on witnesses to masquerade as a robust CJS for 5, 10 or 20 years before any semblance of the truth is uncovered? Ask the Hillsborough campaigners what they think of that.

Let me turn this around. I wrote a book about the cases of seven people. Stephanie chose to marry a man eight years into a sentence for murder in the belief he was innocent. Did Stephanie wait until she had  full set of case papers before deciding to marry him, and spending hundreds of hours proclaiming his innocence?

Simon's confession did not "come back to bite me" in 2013 - just like the questions raised by the official line of his case, his confession raised new questions which have never been answered.

And, I re-iterate, in a justice system with nothing to hide, why are case papers so difficult to access? In the US, all of the information is freely available to the public - people like me (or you) can sift through it and say, hey, wait a minute, that's not what was said in court/what the prosecution claimed/what the police statements say. Here in Scotland, we are committing a crime even sharing what information we do get a hold of with others. It's not quite so restricted in England and Wales.

If I took a gamble, it was the risk of getting arrested for putting certain information about the Luke Mitchell case in the public domain. I thought it was worth the risk!

[Stephanie]

If, as is your right, you choose not to answer those questions, then I am left to ponder what might be the answers - what other possibilities could be taken into account.

Where will the Zenith burglary omission factor into your synopsis, you appear to have ignored this fact?

The transcript of SH's interview with the CCRC in April 2013 can be found here; scroll down to 4th April 2013
https://therealmrshspoofblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/the-burglary-omission-smear-campaign-hindsight/

Simon Hall had already publicly blogged how I found out about the burglary omission, yet chose to tell the CCRC something else entirely.

He also blogged:

"So here’s a good idea, tell them you did a burglary at around 5am that night because that will help your alibi for a murder that they say happened at 6am.

anyway, your mate will confirm your story…….

What’s that? His account is different to yours? He says you didn’t leave the Old Rep until 5am. Perhaps somebody is covering their own ar*e here? It makes you think about that article he did in the Evening Star newspaper, where he says ‘They’ve got the wrong man.’

Is that so hard to believe? Why didn’t I tell my legal team? Well I told some of my family about the burglary on a visit only a day or two after I came back from court. On that visit we mutually decided that it wouldn’t help my case because it only served to prove motive. The police were looking for a motive, initially implying that I saw Mrs Albert as a pain to my mother. Mum was always round there helping her because her own family never really bothered with her. But police gave up on that and went for the burglary motive.

You might think; ‘why this why that?’ It’s easy for people to think that if it was them they’d have done this or they’d have done that. That may be so, but it wasn’t them was it? It was me and I certainly wasn’t thinking straight. It was all so surreal but so frightening. I was crushed by the severe pressure I was under. This was like a tidal wave and I was just swept along with it. I couldn’t concentrate, I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t eating, I just wanted to hide away. I wanted to die!

I tried, in October 2003, after my first appeal was refused, rushed to hospital with severe blood loss. I’d lost all hope. That was the only thing I could think of. I wasn’t using my brain. https://therealmrshspoofblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/simon-halls-blogs/



I wonder what Simon Hall's mental health was like in October 2003? Maybe you should speak to those people who were campaigning for him back then Sandra.



"It was around that time that I got into heroin. I’d never smoked it before and I’ve never dreamt of smoking it before but I needed something as an escape to rely on, to get my mind out of prison, through the bars.

I was always off my face, I was always trying to forget where I was.

I was on heroin for about 4 years, my health had suffered. I’d lost so much weight, my mind was scrambled, I was so ill, I was in a bad way. I was even on the gear when the BBC came to HMP Dovegate to film the Rough Justice documentary.

Relationships were strained. I was a mess. I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I didn’t know who or what to trust.

Even though my parents knew about the burglary, they never brought it up again. They didn’t tell my legal team and neither did I because I genuinely believed it wouldn’t help the situation. I didn’t even tell my own wife! Not because I wanted to keep secrets from her, but because it seemed so irrelevant to the situation at the time and I didn’t want anyone to know I’d done burglary.


How did Simon Hall's mental health appear to you during the 2007 Rough Justice documentary Sandra?

[Stephanie]

it's not me who is in denial.

Why are people so often in denial?

In the psychological sense, denial is a defense mechanism in which a person, faced with a painful fact, rejects the reality of that fact. They will insist that the fact is not true despite what may be overwhelming and irrefutable evidence.

There are three forms of denial. Simple denial is when the painful fact is denied altogether. Minimisational denial is when the painful fact is admitted but its seriousness is downplayed. Transference denial is when the painful fact is admitted, the seriousness also admitted, but one's moral responsibility in the situation involving the painful fact is downplayed.

When a person is in denial, they engage in distractive or escapist strategies to reduce stress and help them cope. The effect upon psychological well-being in doing this is unclear. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/29/the_odd_body_denial/

[Stephanie]

Simon Hall wrote:

Excerpts from letter 2014

“Its’s going to take a long time to get to where I want to be but I’m determined to get there and I know that I will. I am researching and thinking about my past and I’ve got an understanding psychology book and a book called “they f**k you up” – How to survive family life by Oliver James. I’m reading them both at the same time and cross referencing different bits. It’s slow going and there’s a lot to take in but I’m understanding things a bit clearer.

“I panic because of shame and because the truth is destroying me. Living in denial gave me no reason to panic and if you remember, I only started to panic like that when I was being found out lying. I panic through fear of judgement and rejection.

“Am I like my biological father? He put himself before the children that he had.

“I am worried about genetics. All of the W****n kids are damaged. I believe that both nature and nurture f**ked me up, I do hate L***e I do hate S***n, but I hate myself more. If they were in this cell, I’d punch their lights out. That’s true, but I’d want to hurt myself too.

I don’t think it’s genetics. I remember my conscience as a kid, before ****n got hold of me. I think nurture is so important from both to adulthood. If I’d been in loving households, I’d be different. https://therealmrshspoofblog.wordpress.com/


"With disordered characters, what we commonly perceive as unconscious defenses (e.g., denial) are more often deliberate tactics of impression-management, manipulation, and responsibility-avoidance. http://counsellingresource.com/features/2008/10/08/denial-as-defense-mechanism/

[sandra L]

How did Simon Hall's mental health appear to you during the 2007 Rough Justice documentary Sandra?

More to the point, how did it seem to you? Wasn't that the year you "got in touch" again, or were "more in touch" before marrying him in December 2008?

[Stephanie]

More to the point, how did it seem to you? Wasn't that the year you "got in touch" again, or were "more in touch" before marrying him in December 2008?

I did not profess to have the same CV as you at that time Sandra, nor did I have a fascination with the workings of the "criminal mind."


"A life-long fascination with the workings of the human mind, and especially the workings of the "criminal mind," led Sandra Lean, at the age of 32, through the doors of Napier University in Edinburgh. A single parent of two young children, she studied Psychology and Sociology to Honours Degree level. A Masters' Degree in Forensic Psychology seemed like the most obvious next step, until a local, high-profile murder hit the headlines. Behind the scenes, Sandra Lean began sifting through the facts, only to discover that all was not as it seemed. What she found led her to other, similar cases, and more patient, methodical sifting, in an investigation that was to last almost four years. The result was a shocking, but true, discovery. Innocent people are being locked up in our prisons, convicted of the most horrific crimes, on a regular basis. These are not one-off, tragic mistakes, but rather, a routine, everyday occurrence. For every high-profile miscarriage of justice that we hear about, there are dozens more that never make the news. No Smoke examines just some of these cases, highlighting the very human tragedy of wrongful conviction, and pointing out the unthinkable: this could happen to any one of us. https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Smoke-Shocking-British-Justice/dp/184685704X


Unfortunately I came to learn about the workings of the criminal mind following my involvement with Simon Hall.

[Stephanie]

I've posted about Matthew Hamlen on another thread http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,8126.msg384310.html#msg384310 but thought it relevant to post here also.

Even though Hamlen was sentenced to 30 years following his conviction under the double jeopardy law, in May 2016 he applied for leave to appeal. 

"Matthew Hamlen is a 37 year old electrician, and a married man with a son who is currently in the custody of HMPS in the UK having been sentenced to 30 years imprisonment in February 2016  for of the 2008 murder of Mrs Georgina Edmonds. He has strenuously and consistently denied any involvement both before and during his original trial in 2011/2012 , at which he was unanimously acquitted by the jury, and his later ‘double jeopardy’ trial in January and Feb  2016.
Asked at his second trial to explain how a sample of  DNA was ‘found’ at the crime scene, a sample which the police and their forensic department had somehow ‘missed’ for the first trial and for over six years after the murder, Matthew explained to the court:

“I know I didn’t do this, I could not do something like this. As far as the DNA goes, I’m not an expert. All I can tell you is, it didn’t get there at the time, if it is mine.”
https://matthewhamlenisinnocent.wordpress.com/about/

[sandra L]

On the basis of the number of cases Stephanie has quoted on this forum, I'd like to ask Stephanie a direct question:

Because of Simon's confession, and your belief that it was true, do you now believe that everyone maintaining innocence is lying?

[Stephanie]

I've posted about Matthew Hamlen on another thread http://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,8126.msg384310.html#msg384310 but thought it relevant to post here also.

Even though Hamlen was sentenced to 30 years following his conviction under the double jeopardy law, in May 2016 he applied for leave to appeal. 

"Matthew Hamlen is a 37 year old electrician, and a married man with a son who is currently in the custody of HMPS in the UK having been sentenced to 30 years imprisonment in February 2016  for of the 2008 murder of Mrs Georgina Edmonds. He has strenuously and consistently denied any involvement both before and during his original trial in 2011/2012 , at which he was unanimously acquitted by the jury, and his later ‘double jeopardy’ trial in January and Feb  2016.
Asked at his second trial to explain how a sample of  DNA was ‘found’ at the crime scene, a sample which the police and their forensic department had somehow ‘missed’ for the first trial and for over six years after the murder, Matthew explained to the court:

“I know I didn’t do this, I could not do something like this. As far as the DNA goes, I’m not an expert. All I can tell you is, it didn’t get there at the time, if it is mine.”
https://matthewhamlenisinnocent.wordpress.com/about/

And so it goes on http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/14694322.display/

[sandra L]

Interesting case, with a number of apparent anomalies (I know nothing about this case - this is the first time I've heard anything about it.

How, though, can the prosecution claim he attempted to withdraw £200 - the pin number was wrong, so he wouldn't have even got to the point of entering an amount.

[Stephanie]

Interesting case, with a number of apparent anomalies (I know nothing about this case - this is the first time I've heard anything about it.

How, though, can the prosecution claim he attempted to withdraw £200 - the pin number was wrong, so he wouldn't have even got to the point of entering an amount.

It's called a hyposthesis.

So DNA not good enough for you then?