After 31 years, the hunt for justice still goes on
THE 52-year-old man was found in his garden, his skull shattered with a garden spade. It was a crime detectives at the time described as one of the worst they had investigated.
Thirty one years later, it still reverberates throughout Wales.
A family has never seen justice and three young men’s lives were destroyed when they were wrongly jailed for murder.
One suffered a stroke because of the drug addiction he developed during his 11 years inside, leaving him with impaired speech and limited mobility. Another lost family members and marriages and has never resolved his anger at the way he was treated.
For many years, faith in South Wales Police was seriously damaged.
This is the story of Cardiff newsagent Philip Saunders and the three men whose lives were changed forever that fateful night on October 10, 1987.
One Autumn night Phillip Saunders closed up his kiosk in Cardiff Central bus station. Carrying £500 takings, the businessman stopped for a pint before driving home to Anstee Court.
Unbeknown to him his killer was already there, waiting to rob him.
Mr Saunders died in hospital five days after being found, when his life support machine was turned off.
Police quickly labelled the attack as an attempted robbery gone wrong, suggesting the killer had likely injured his victim to avoid being identified.
In the weeks after the murder, and in the absence of any arrests, the police upped the scale of their inquiries.
Despite their efforts, police reported a disappointing lack of progress.
On the night the Cardiff newsagent was found, youngsters Michael O’Brien, Ellis Sherwood and Darren Hall had their sights on a completely different goal – stealing a car.
Bullied as a child for his skinny frame and thick, round spectacles, for 19-yearold painter and decorator Michael, petty crime had become a way of fitting in with the crowds in Ely.
When the trio were brought in for questioning one month later they were stunned. One week later, when they were charged with murder, disbelief turned to outrage.
On June 27, 1988, the trial into the murder of Phillip Saunders began. While Ellis and Michael both denied murder and robbery, Darren, in an unexpected twist, pleaded guilty to robbery and admitted manslaughter – a plea later rejected by the judge. The 18-year-old’s confession that he had acted as a lookout for the other two became central to the prosecution case.
It was only when the case went to the Court of Appeal more than 10 years later that it was heard Darren had been suffering from anti-social personality disorder and was prone to exaggeration.
It was revealed he had previously confessed to a robbery which took place while he was on remand for another offence, although such information had not been divulged at the time.
As the 1988 murder trial progressed, the prosecution’s evidence became increasingly flawed.
Police officers faced accusations they had handcuffed the accused to hot radiators to try and make them confess.
Giving evidence, convicted criminal Christopher Chick claimed Ellis had boasted about the murder the day after Mr Saunders was found.
However, days later, he went on to say he had been “forced” by the police to sign fabricated statements, and that threats had been made that his child would be put into care.
For the Cardiff Newsagent Three, the most damning piece of evidence was a police officer recounting an alleged conversation between Ellis and Michael in their cell.
According to Detective Inspector Stuart Lewis, Michael had turned to his coaccused to confess: “I can’t hold out much longer. I may have to tell them.”
At the time DI Lewis claimed to have scribbled down the conversation on the back of a police expenses form. By the time of the three men’s appeal, the document could no longer be located.
Three weeks after the trial started, the jury returned their verdict. After sixand-a-half hours of deliberation the trio were found guilty of robbery and murder on a 10-2 majority.
Each man received a life sentence. The front pages reported Michael crying as he was taken to the cells, repeatedly shouting: “We never done it”.
Today, three decades since he was given a life sentence for murder, Ellis Sherwood is a free man. Now 52, he and his long-term partner Yvonne spend their days in a large detached house in a leafy street in Llanishen.
Ellis is a man of few words. This year marks only the second full interview he has given since his conviction was quashed.
When asked to describe his memories of prison, Ellis’ answer is simple – “being stoned”.
“We had to do it (take drugs), we were in prison for nothing,” Ellis said, his speech impaired slightly by the effect of his stroke. As he makes a cup of tea, one arm hangs by his side, immobile.
For Ellis, drugs became his only way of keeping sane. While Michael threw himself into law books to fight their sentence, for Ellis, delving into the world of academia came less easily.
Once free, his habit was kicked. But by that time, the damage was done.
In 2001, two years after he was released and a few days before his first daughter was due to be born, Ellis suffered a stroke as the result of his past addiction.
Due to the stroke, Ellis has been left with epilepsy, and, according to social workers, unable to be trusted to look after his own children in case he suffers a fit. Neither does he have full control of his compensation money.
When South Wales Police paid him £200,000 following his release, the cash was held by the Court of Protection because it was argued the stroke had left him unable to look after his own financial affairs. He now has to apply in writing through solicitors in Cardiff to access any of it.
In 2009, the father-of-three was awarded £1.4 million in compensation
from the Home Office as a result of the stroke. That sum is also being held by the Court of Protection.
Ellis and Yvonne do not live an extravagant lifestyle. Their house has been their only big purchase, and thousands have been spent on legal fees.
For him, however, the biggest injustice remains losing his children. According to him, the stigma he faced after leaving prison has not gone away.
He said: “I bought this house for my kids and they are not here.”
While Ellis has shunned the intense press interest in the years following his release, Michael O’Brien has done exactly the opposite. In the years since the 1999 appeal quashing his conviction, his name has appeared in countless headlines calling for a public inquiry into what has happened, and a full apology from South Wales Police. Neither have been granted. Determined to be optimistic, he maintains that despite everything, his life-long fight for justice has made him the person he is today.
That does not mean, however, that the path has been easy. Currently living with a friend he met in prison, he has seen two marriages crumble and has lost two children.
Speaking from his temporary home in the Vale of Glamorgan, he said: “I made one mistake in my life and that was trying to fit in and be someone. It cost me 11 years and 43 days of my life.”
In the days and months that followed Michael’s imprisonment he lost both his baby daughter Kylie and his wife in quick succession.
“When I was on remand, my wife gave birth to my daughter,” Michael explained. “She was three months old and died in a cot death so I had to deal with my daughter dying and getting wrongly convicted. My wife couldn’t deal with it, she was only 17 or 18. She walked out on me for my best friend. By this point I had lost the family unit I had, I had lost everything.”
For Michael, entering Long Lartin prison in Leicestershire was a terrifying experience. Overwhelmed, the teenager’s first response was to turn to the wealth of drugs so readily available.
The changing point came after he collapsed in his cell, where he remained unconscious for eight hours. With the help of a prison nurse he managed to get clean. Once his brain became clear, the anger followed.
“I cleaned myself up, started taking education courses and I took up the law. It stimulated my mind. At that point, my case was starting to become high profile, documentaries were getting made.”
Michael’s journey to the Court of Appeal is a story that has been well documented. The turning point for his fight came after an interview for BBC’s Week In Week Out programme saw all the witnesses from the court case admit they had been lying.
An investigation carried out by Thames Valley Police concluded there had been more than 100 breaches of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act in the original inquiry by South Wales Police.
The Cardiff Newsagent Three successfully put in an application for bail, despite their solicitors warning it was unlikely to be granted. It was granted.
When the appeal came one year later, the judges sat for a total of three minutes after hearing days of evidence before acquitting the trio of all charges.
What is less well-documented, however, is the struggle that followed, returning to a world which had carried on for 10 years without them.
As well as getting used to the physical changes in a Cardiff preparing for the turn of the century, the emotional repercussions of what happened started to show. “I went out for a night out once, I saw all the youngsters enjoying themselves and it hit home how much I had lost,” Michael confessed.
“Between 1998 to 2001 I had no medical help, no psychiatrists, I was left to my own devices. I started on the drugs again because I couldn’t cope with being out this time. I wanted a police apology and they weren’t giving it to me. It took me a long time to get back on my feet.”
In the decade Michael was in prison his first child had grown up. His release meant that for the first time he could spent time with his son outside a prison visitation room. During a settlement of a civil claim against South Wales Police, he received £300,000 for malicious prosecution.
“In 2004 I decided to move from Ely”, he said. “I had money then and some people didn’t like it, they would smash my car and it was only a Renault Clio. You don’t see many millionaires living in Ely so common sense told me I couldn’t stay there.”
In the decades after his acquittal, tragedy has continued to follow Michael. After marrying his second wife Claire the former painter decorator became a father again. Two years later Claire went to check on Dylan one morning to find he wasn’t breathing.
The toddler, who had suffered from a string of health problems after being born with fewer chromosomes than normal, died on June 15, 2012. Michael and his wife now have a foundation set up in his honour to provide support for families with a diagnosis of a metabolic disease.
His death, with other factors, caused his second marriage to come to an end.
As the anniversary of Phillip Saunders’ death comes and goes this month, the list of unanswered questions remains just as long.
While one of the three searches for a new home, the other is still campaigning to be reunited with his children. Little is known about what became of Darren Hall.
Justice for Phillip Saunders and his family has never been found. Described as a quiet, unmarried man, no tributes were published at the time of his death, nor after his supposed murderers were sent to prison.
In 2006 his family spoke out for the very first time. Phillip’s nephew, Phillip Saunders junior, compared the lack of closure to a “cancer”.
He described his uncle, who he would work with on the stalls at Bessemer Road Market, Leckwith, as a “nice honest person who couldn’t do anyone any harm”.
“It never goes away” said Phillip, whose father Ted was his uncle’s brother.
“It affects you dreadfully. I think about him every day, especially when the case is brought up again.
“It’s there every morning and you just want to bring it to an end.”