‘Human error to blame for corruption trial collapse’
HUMAN errors committed by police officers and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) rather than “wickedness” led to the collapse of the UK’s biggest error police corruption trial, according to a report for the Home Office.
More than £30m of taxpayers’ cash was spent before the investigation, into whether eight former South Wales Police officers perverted the course of justice over the 1988 murder of Cardiff prostitute Lynette White, was aborted.
The murder case resulted in three innocent men being jailed before their convictions were quashed. The real killer was caught more than a decade later.
The 2011 trial of the former police officers was halted over fears documents had been lost. They were eventually found in a storage unit, but by that time legal proceedings had been halted.
A major review into the collapse of the trial was announced more than two years ago and carried out by Richard Horwell QC.
His report concluded: “On the evidence it is clear that very few emerge with credit: too many aspects of the investigation and prosecution were poorly managed. But my principal finding, from which much flows, is that bad faith played no part in the errors of either the police officers or the prosecution lawyers. It is human failings that brought about the collapse of the trial, not wickedness.”
The report makes 17 recommendations – 14 for the police and three for the CPS – to improve the process of disclosure of evidence.
The case against the officers was that they had “moulded, manipulated, influenced and fabricated” the evidence against five innocent men, but the trial was beset by problems especially concerning prosecution disclosure.
It was presumed the lost document were destroyed on the order of the senior investigating officer, and as a consequence, the prosecution decided it could no longer have confidence in the trial and criminal process, and the case was aborted.
Although it was later found, Mr Horwell’s report details another document that was discovered to have been destroyed, but he said the destruction of this “irrelevant” digital document was a “world away from a corrupt police officer destroying an original document that undermined the prosecution case”.
Among the recommendations for police, Mr Horwell said he would like to see a national training programme for disclosure.
Stephen Miller, John and Ronald Actie, Yusef Abdullahi and Anthony Paris stood trial in 1990 for the murder. The Cardiff Three, as they became known, were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment but were acquitted in December 1992 after their convictions were quashed on appeal.
In 2003, advances in DNA technology saw the real killer Jeffrey Gafoor caught. He confessed to stabbing Ms White more than 50 times after a row over £30.
A spokesman for South Wales Police said: “In the same way as significant civil litigation and the other reviews of the discontinued trial have found, [Mr Horwell] concluded there was no evidence of corruption, malice or misfeasance within the investigation of the former officers and has rejected the need for a public inquiry.”
A CPS spokesman said: “We are pleased Richard Horwell QC recognises the significant improvements we have made in how we disclose material in serious cases. We will study the findings of the report in detail to consider whether any issues have been identified which have not yet been addressed.”