Lynette murderer could be moved to open prison
ONE of Wales’ most notorious killers could be moved to an open prison. Jeffrey Gafoor was given a life sentence in 2003 and ordered to serve a minimum of 13 years for the 1988 Valentine’s Day murder of Lynette White.
Her body was found in a flat above a betting shop in James Street, Butetown, on February 14, 1988.
She had been stabbed more than 50 times.
In 1990 Stephen Miller, Tony Paris, Yusef Abdullahi were wrongly jailed for life after being found guilty of her murder.
But the trio, who became known as the Cardiff Three, were freed after an appeal found police had “bullied” a confession from one of the men.
Ten years later DNA identified Gafoor as a suspect for Miss White’s murder.
On July 4, 2003 he pleaded guilty to her murder and was given a life sentence, of which he must serve at least 13 years.
Gafoor was first considered for parole in 2016 and again in March 2018, but was refused on both occasions.
Now the Parole Board has confirmed that the decision was made this year not to release him, but to move him to an open prison.
A spokeswoman said: “The Parole Board has made the decision not to release Mr Jeffrey Gafoor following an oral hearing but has recommended that he is suitable for a move to an open conditions prison.
“We will only make a recommendation for open conditions if a Parole Board panel is satisfied that the risk to the public has reduced sufficiently to be manageable in an open prison.
“This is a recommendation only and the Ministry of Justice will now consider the advice and make the final decision.”
Following the false imprisonment of the Cardiff Three, an investigation of the original police inquiry was launched, culminating in a trial of eight former detectives and two civilians on charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
The trial collapsed in December 2011 after it emerged that documents had not been disclosed by the prosecution to the defence.
A second trial, involving another four retired police officers, was abandoned with all the charges dropped.
It was described at the time as the biggest corruption trial of its kind in UK criminal history.
In total one million pages of documents were compiled for the trial, leading a police spokeswoman to describe the case as “maybe the most complicated ever undertaken” by South Wales Police.