Jeremy Bamber Forum
OFF TOPIC => General => Topic started by: Jackiepreece on December 17, 2011, 10:45:AM
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by my friend Charlie Fox
What Price Justice? Convicting three men of murder in 1990… about £10m. Bringing the officers who caused three innocent men to be convicted of that murder to trial in 2011… about £30m. Causing their trial to collapse? Priceless.
On Thursday 1st December 2011, nearly 24 years after Lynette White was brutally stabbed to death by Jeffrey Gafoor, the trial of the former police officers for the corruption that led to the convictions of three innocent men known as ‘The Cardiff Three’ collapsed due to prosecution error, writes Charlie Fox. The case was the most complicated, lengthiest and is expected to be the most expensive of its kind in modern legal history.
This has been the matryoshka doll of cases. At its heart lies the truth, invisible beneath layer upon layer of cocked-up investigations and lengthy court cases. Now the outer layer is superglued shut, the truth lost forever.
In order to understand the importance of the trial of these policemen collapsing, it is vital to understand the investigation which sparked it all.
A brutal murder
The story begins with the brutal murder of Lynette White on Valentine’s Day, 1988. Lynette was a 21-year old prostitute working in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay. She was a pretty girl and made good trade, bringing clients to a flat on James Street in the area. Lynette had a black boyfriend called Stephen Miller, known locally as ‘Pineapple’ due to the way he wore his dreadlocks bunched at the top of his head. At the time Miller was 26 but had an IQ of 75 and the mental capability of an 11 year old. They had a tumultuous relationship and had separated a few days before her death. Miller later claimed to have no knowledge of the flat White used for work, the lease to which was held by her friend, Leanne Vilday, another prostitute. At the time Vilday was living with a third prostitute, Angela Psaila near to James Street. Mark Grommek lived above the flat that White used. At 9pm on the 14th February 1988 Leanne Vilday took the police to White’s flat as she had not seen her for some time and was worried about her. They discovered her body. Fully dressed, she had been stabbed at least 50 times. Her throat had been cut through to her spine.
There was a report that a white man with an injured hand had been seen in the vicinity and police inquiries were for some time aimed at finding him. None of the five eventually charged with White’s murder were white. Despite persistent interviews, police inquiries made no progress until late 1988, when Grommek, Vilday and Psaila, who had until then denied all knowledge of the killing, began to ‘volunteer’ information. Grommek said he had opened the front door to several men including Yusef Abdullahi, known locally as ‘Dullah.’ He stated in interview that the men had gone into Lynette’s flat and he had then heard screams. Vilday, Psaila and Grommek, after months of claiming no knowledge at all, finally each named five men who were later charged with being involved.
There was nothing to forensically link any of them to the scene, but there was evidence of blood present from an unidentified male.
Notorious
At Swansea Crown Court in 1989 five men were put on trial but the case had to be abandoned due to the death of the judge. In 1990 their trial began and Stephen Miller, Tony Paris and Yusef Abdullahi were convicted of Lynette White’s murder in what was to become known as one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in modern legal history. The two others, cousins John and Ronnie Actie were acquitted.
The prosecution case revolved around the evidence of Miller and the confessions he made in interview. Confessions that only happened after 13 hours of interviewing taking place over five days and 19 tapes of prolonged oppressive bullying tactics used by the officers interviewing him.
Any lawyer worth their salt knows the outcome of this case and the effect that it had on the way police interviews were conducted afterwards. It was a textbook example of how to breach PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence Act), how not to conduct an interview and a striking illustration of how shoddy legal representation can harm a suspect.
Miller’s solicitor, not present for the first two interviews, sat silently whilst his client was bullied and hectored into making confessions. Having denied involvement well over 300 times, Miller was finally persuaded to make four admissions on which the prosecution relied. Two of the officers who interviewed Miller – DCs Greenwood and Seaford – would later stand trial for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the same Crown Court that The Cardiff Three were convicted in 1990 of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Their trial cost the British taxpayer an estimated £10m.