Bombshell claim of student cleared at eleventh hour. So why WAS he ever made to stand trial?
THE detective accused of failing to disclose vital evidence in the rape trial of an innocent student recommended months ago that he should not be charged, it was claimed last night.
Liam Allan spent almost two years on bail before police handed over text messages that exonerated him.
But Mr Allan, 22, claims the heavily criticised officer who led the investigation – Detective Constable Mark Azariah – suggested to him in February that the case against him was weak.
The startling development came as calls mounted yesterday for an independent inquiry into the scandal. There were claims that dozens of cases have collapsed in recent years because of police failings over the way they handle evidence.
Mr Allan, from Beckenham, South East London, said: ‘I rang [Det Con Azariah] in the last week of February seeking an update. At this stage, I hadn’t been charged but it was more than a year since my arrest.
‘He said the case had gone high up within the Crown Prosecution Service and the decision would be theirs.
‘He said he recommended in his report to the CPS that I should not face charges. He didn’t expand on what he put in his report.’
Two hours later – ‘as I came out of a lecture’ – Mr Allan received a call to say he would be charged with six rapes and one sexual assault.
‘ Having been given hope, my world was instantly turned upside down,’ he said.
Last Friday, the day after the trial collapsed, a series of messages from Mr Allan’s accuser were disclosed revealing her secret fantasies about being raped and choked during sex. These were in reference to another partner.
Prosecutors did not hand over the phone messages, saying they were ‘too personal’ to share and ‘not relevant’.
But The Mail on Sunday can today reveal the existence of another message referring directly to her sexual experiences with Mr Allan – which cast doubt on the girl’s story from the outset.
‘It wasn’t against my will or anything,’ she wrote in a text to a friend. It was sent before she made her complaint.
Mr Allan said: ‘This clearly undermines her case. Why didn’t we get to see this? It wasn’t too personal.’
He revealed he now has ‘no choice’ but to sue the police and CPS, adding: ‘I am however, happy to work with the CPS and police to help ensure things change for the better. In this case no individual is to blame; there are multiple factors.’ Although Scotland Yard and the CPS are looking into what went wrong, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said it had not been asked to investigate any of the officers involved in the case.
Police sources pointed out that no investigation is carried out by one officer alone, ‘and this case, like all investigations, was overseen by the officer’s line managers’.
Calls are also growing for a wideranging, independent investigation into the disclosure system, as well as the failure of so many rape trials – which could see Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders grilled by MPs.
Tory MP Nigel Evans, who was taken to court over false rape claims, added: ‘I hope the Justice Select Committee can hold a full inquiry into it. Lessons have to be learned.’
Bob Neill, chairman of the Justice Select Committee, said he will raise the matter of disclosure with the Attorney-General in the Commons this week, and that his committee could investigate it further.
He added: ‘I’m not at all convinced that the DPP has got a grip on it.’
Angela Rafferty, QC, chairwoman of the Criminal Bar Association, said that without the intervention of the barristers in court, Mr Allan ‘would have suffered an appalling miscarriage of justice’ because of the failure of police and the CPS.
She said the failure was ‘not an isolated incident’ and added that police and the CPS may have had ‘unconsciously bias’ towards people who report sex offences.
Last night, the Met said it was ‘urgently reviewing this investigation and will be working with the CPS to understand exactly what has happened in this case.’ The CPS said: ‘We will now be con- ducting a management review together with the Metropolitan Police to examine the way in which this case was handled.’ Comment: Page 25
MANY people would be justifiably furious, bitter and vengeful after the treatment given to Liam Allan by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Driven by dogma and hamstrung by incompetence, the CPS stole two years of his life, publicly pursuing him for a rape charge which – as an unbiased, competent police investigation would have found – should never have been brought.
But, as he shows in his exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Mr Allan prefers not to be consumed by anger. He is a courteous and thoughtful person who likes and respects women. He thinks rape is a vile crime. And one of his greatest fears is that his mistreatment will make it harder for real rapists to be caught and punished.
He is right. There is a growing public awareness that the authorities, driven by militant feminist perspectives on the issue, want to obtain more convictions for rape. And there is also a growing public understanding that this often leads to a presumption of guilt against anyone accused of this offence.
The flawed logic goes like this: rape is an exceptionally wicked crime; therefore anyone accused of it is likely to be guilty. The fault in this is obvious, but the ideology driven justice system is blind to it. It is very likely that it is this presumption of guilt that caused the authorities to fail to review or disclose the evidence that showed Liam Allan was innocent.
Anyone serving on a jury in such a case in future will be considerably more likely to doubt that the prosecution i s fair or just. And that raises the danger that more guilty rapists will be acquitted.
Excessive zeal does not necessarily get the results it seeks. The attitude of the CPS to rape defendants all but overturns the ancient and vital presumption of innocence which lies at the heart of our justice system.
If instead it strove to regain a reputation for scrupulous fairness ( of the kind it did not show to Liam Allan) it would almost certainly have a better conviction rate. The CPS and the police should listen to Liam’s thoughtful voice, instead of to the militants always shouting in their ears.