History > 2006 > UK > Justice (I)

1pm

Asian trio guilty of race riot murder

Monday May 22, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies


Three young Asian men were found guilty today of murdering a black IT worker, stabbed through the heart during race riots in Birmingham last October.

The jury at Birmingham crown court convicted Waqar Ahmed, 26, Azhil Khan, 23, and 22-year-old Afzal Khan, all from the Handsworth area of Birmingham, of killing Isaiah Young-Sam on October 22.

The trio had denied murder. However, the jury, which began considering its verdict on Thursday, was told how they fled to Huddersfield hours after the attack before returning to Birmingham the next day and booking one-way flights to Pakistan. They were held during a stopover in Dubai and returned to Britain.

Mr Young-Sam, 23, had been walking through the Lozells area of Birmingham with his brother Zepheniah and two friends on the evening of October 22 when he was chased and stabbed by a gang of men wearing hooded tops and bandanas, the court was told.

The group had been taking a quiet back route to avoid violence which had broken out between the city's black and Asian communities over a rumour - widely circulated but unsubstantiated - that a West Indian girl had been raped by a group of Asian men in a shop.

The court heard how the four men appeared to have gone past the danger area when a gang of Asian men got out of a Toyota Corolla and chased them.

Mr Young-Sam was caught by the gang, who surrounded him and produced weapons from under their clothing while shouting racist abuse, the court was told. He was fatally stabbed while one of his friends, Locksley Byfield, was wounded in the buttocks.

The three defendants were also convicted of wounding Mr Byfield with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

After the verdict, Mr Young-Sam's 22-year-old sister Kavina, flanked by her parents, read a statement describing him as a "kind, fun-loving, humble, respectful and dignified young man" who lived at home and studied the Bible.

"My parents, my brother and myself will never come to terms with the vicious attack and murder of Isaiah and cannot understand how people could take the life of such an innocent young man," she added, calling the killers "animals".

During the trial, prosecutor Adrian Redgrave QC described Mr Young-Sam's murder as "a wicked killing of someone who was a total stranger to those involved in the attack".

Although it was not known which of the three defendants made the fatal wound, this was irrelevant, Mr Redgrave argued: "Not only the killer himself but anyone who helped or encouraged him may be convicted of murder."

The rumours about the rape prompted protests outside the shop where it supposedly took place, with the tension later erupting into violence in which businesses were attacked, cars set on fire and hundreds of police wearing riot gear pelted with bricks and bottles. Around 35 people needed hospital treatment.

During the trial, the prosecution stressed that the case was not linked in any way to the rape allegation, but was simply "one specific attack during the course of the rioting that ensued".

    Asian trio guilty of race riot murder, G, 22.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,,1780631,00.html

12.45pm

Rochelle killer jailed for life

Tuesday May 16, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

The convicted sex attacker who murdered a south London schoolgirl and dismembered her body has been sentenced to life in jail.
John McGrady, a 48-year-old former butcher, pleaded guilty to attacking Rochelle Holness last September but offered no explanation for his actions.

The 15-year-old's body was discovered in five bags close to a rubbish chute on the Milford Towers estate in Catford, south-east London.

She had disappeared four days earlier after leaving the flat she shared with her mother and two younger bothers to make a call from a public phone box.

McGrady attempted to commit suicide after the murder, which he confessed to his girlfriend.

A statement read out by Rochelle's family said they had "been through hell" since the killing. The statement said the sentence was appropriate, describing McGrady as a remorseless killer.

"Mr McGrady yesterday claimed to feel shame, sorrow, and remorse for his actions," it said.

"In fact, the only shame was that he expressed to his then girlfriend. There was no explanation, no apology, not even a willingness to throw himself on the mercy of the court."

The statement said that sexual offenders and murderers should not be allowed the opportunity to attack people in the way that McGrady did.

However, Detective Inspector Tim Gratton-Cane said McGrady was a "wicked and evil man" whose actions could not have been prevented by legal restrictions.

"It's quite clear from the circumstances that he made a decision on September 25 that he was going to go and get someone to satisfy his needs," he said.

McGrady, who had previous convictions for rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment, had previously been sentenced to a total of 11 years in prison for two attacks in 1988 and 1993.

An autopsy found Rochelle had been strangled, but McGrady refused to tell investigators what happened before her death.

On the day of the murder, he had an unsatisfactory sexual encounter with his girlfriend. The court heard how, as she left his flat, he said: "What am I going to do? That means I will have to go out and look for someone."

Police believe Rochelle was snatched from the phone box where she had gone to make the call after running out of credit on her mobile phone.

During the hearing, her mother, Jennifer Bennett, shouted to McGrady: "You should not live. You took my baby from me. You are not sorry."

In their statement, the family attacked the "sensationalist" coverage of the case by the media. "Their behaviour has been as insensitive as John McGrady's," it said.

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, last year cited the case as an example of racial bias in the reporting of crime stories.

It initially attracted little coverage, despite widespread reporting on the murder of 18-year-old Sally Anne Bowman in Croydon at around the same time.

    Rochelle killer jailed for life, G, 16.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1776063,00.html

6pm update

Four animal rights activists jailed

Thursday May 11, 2006
Press Association
Guardian Unlimited

Three members of an animal rights group were jailed for 12 years each today for their role in stealing the body of an 82-year-old woman from her grave.
John Ablewhite, Kerry Whitburn and John Smith were each handed 12-year prison terms at Nottingham crown court after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiring to blackmail the owners of a guinea pig breeding farm in Staffordshire.

A fourth defendant, Josephine Mayo, was jailed for four years after admitting a lesser part in the six-year campaign against the Hall family, which bred the animals for medical research purposes.

As part of the campaign against the family the body of Gladys Hammond, 82, the mother-in-law of one of the Hall brothers, was taken from a graveyard in Yoxall, Staffordshire, in October 2004.

Her body was only recovered earlier this month after Smith revealed its location in a nearby beauty spot in Cannock Chase to police.

Judge Michael Pert QC told the defendants they represented a danger to society.

"You sought to enforce your view not by reasoned debate or lawful protest but by subjecting wholly innocent citizens to a campaign of terror," the judge said.

The four had "ruined" the lives of Hall family, the Mr Justice Pert said.

"Your stated aim was to put the Hall family out of business, to that end, you targeted them, their employees and their families. You targeted people who did business with them and friends of them. You targeted the pub, the golf club and solicitors seeking to isolate them (the Hall family) financially and socially.

"What is clear is that you have, in the vast majority of these cases, ruined their lives over a period of years and perhaps forever."

The judge continued: "The lowest point of your campaign was the theft of Gladys Hammond's body. Few reading or hearing of these events could imagine that anyone could stoop so low.

"We are not going to start guarding country graveyards on the off chance that some other lunatic fringe group emulate you."

Smith, whose information led police to Mrs Hammond's remains, raised a defiant fist to the courtroom as he was taken down to the cells with his three co-defendants.

Of the four defendants, only Mayo, who was the girlfriend of Whitburn, had no previous criminal convictions.

Smith was convicted in the early 1990s of smashing a car into a butcher's shop window.

Ablewhite, a vicar's son and supply teacher, served nine months in prison in 2001 for attacking the home of Leonard Cass, the brother of Brian Cass, managing director of the medical research company Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Whitburn committed a string of offences including trying to steal monkeys from a pet shop in Nottingham.

Detective Chief Inspector Nick Baker, who led the investigation into the quartet, had told the court they had dedicated their lives to animal rights extremism.

"Their fixation drove them to meticulous research using public records to uncover any detail they could about people connected to the Halls. This eventually led them to Gladys Hammond's grave," he said.

The investigation into the desecration of Mrs Hammond's grave involved nearly 50 detectives at its height and is estimated to have cost almost £750,000.

Mrs Hammond died in 1997 and was buried in the graveyard of St Peter's church, Yoxall, where she had worshipped. Two years later the threats against the Hall family, which Mrs Hammond's daughter had married into, began in earnest.

The Hall family announced Darley Oaks Farm would stop farming guinea pigs for medical research in August last year but no offer to return the remains was forthcoming.

John Hall and his daughter Sally-Ann left Nottingham crown court without commenting but a police family liaison officer read out a statement on their behalf.

They said: "Animal rights extremists used psychological warfare, verbal abuse, criminal acts and very offensive propaganda in their quest to close our business. The callous and depraved act of desecrating Gladys's grave and removing her body was totally outrageous.

"As a family we were devastated. We struggled to comprehend how anyone could conceive such a plan.

Despite closing the guinea pig business, the family remained defiant.

"The biomedical industry and animal testing continues without us, and is essential for medical progress. We are looking forward to getting back to normal life and farming."

    Four animal rights activists jailed, G, 11.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/animalrights/story/0,,1772868,00.html

Screw turns on Clarke

as he admits foreigners reoffended

· Five former prisoners committed more crimes
· Hunt for 73 'serious criminals'

Saturday April 29, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour, political editor

Charles Clarke was under intense pressure to resign last night after he admitted that five foreign prisoners released by the Home Office have committed further serious offences, including possession of class A drugs, violent disorder, grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm.

A frantic police trawl concentrating on the 79 wrongly freed prisoners guilty of the most serious offences has also unearthed that two of the released men are now the subject of serious allegations, in one case for serious sexual assault and in another for rape.

One of the five already found guilty of reoffending was also tried for rape, but the case was unproven with the offence left on the individual's file pending further investigation.

At the end of a torrid week for the government, the home secretary insisted he would brazen out the renewed calls for him to stand aside for failing in his primary duty to protect the public.

In an attempt to show he had got a belated grip on his department, Mr Clarke revealed that deportation cases are to start in 63 of the 79 cases. But so far only six of the prisoners have actually been arrested pending deportation.

A search has has not even started on the nearly 1,000 foreign prisoners released by the Home Office since 1999 without considering the case for deportation. The government has no idea if they have reoffended or what offences they may have committed. Mr Clarke was unable to disclose the precise whereabouts of any of the 79 serious offenders although he said all had been on the police national computer, including their most recent addresses. Urgent searches are now under way to locate the remaining serious offenders.

The home secretary said the offences committed by those who had reoffended were not murder or rape and that "they were not at the top of the danger tree". He added: "It is a bad state of affairs and very regrettable" but insisted he was the man to oversee the Home Office in the process of dramatic change.

"The truth is that real and profound change does take time and often reveals matters that have been hidden or lay dormant in an organisation. The genuine shortcomings which have been revealed in dealing with foreign prisoners will be repaired and we will learn the lesson to make whatever further changes are necessary."

But the shadow home secretary, David Davis, said that Mr Clarke had to quit, a view backed by two opinion polls published last night. Mr Davis said: "This reinforces the need for Mr Clarke to go - the very fact that he knew of this major failure is cause enough. What this has done is exactly a reversal of what the Home Office's job is: to protect the safety of the public. What has happened as a result of this massive failure is to make the risk to the public greater."

Labour backbenchers have already warned that Mr Clarke's political career is in a precarious state and the calls for him to stand aside may intensify as Labour battles to stave off sweeping defeats in the local elections next week.

Almost two in three voters think Mr Clarke should be sacked over the fiasco, according to a Populus poll which found that 63% thought Tony Blair should fire his home secretary. Mr Clarke received the backing of 32%, even though most sympathised with his plight: 65% said home secretary was a very difficult job that was impossible to get right.

The latest developments came at the end of a difficult week for the government, with the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, heckled by nurses and the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, subject to ridicule after he was revealed to have had a two-year affair with a civil servant. Mr Prescott is said to be in a state of despair and even close to quitting as it emerged that his former lover has hired the services of Max Clifford. Bidding for her story has started at around £100,000. Mr Prescott spent another day with his family in Hull seeking to save his marriage. Ministers at Westminster said he was unlikely to stay on as deputy prime minister.

Minister's statement

Excerpts from Mr Clarke's letter to Commons Speaker Michael Martin:

"So far, six of these [1,023] offenders have been detained pending deportation or removal and further arrests are expected later today and over the weekend. I want to report that a thorough search has been made of police, prison and probation records ...

"This search has to date revealed five cases where an individual has been convicted since their release from prison of offences relating to drugs, violent disorder, grievous and actual bodily harm. The search has revealed no cases where individuals have been convicted of other serious offences."

    Screw turns on Clarke as he admits foreigners reoffended, G, 29.4.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1764137,00.html

Murder gang must serve 27 years

· Judge condemns torture and killing of teenage girl
· Four of convicted were under supervision

Guardian
Saturday April 29, 2006
Sandra Laville

Six young men who gang raped, tortured and murdered a teenage schoolgirl and shot her friend in the head were yesterday jailed for life, with recommended minimum terms of 23 to 27 years.

Mr Justice Penry-Davey told the men in Reading crown court they had been involved in a "brutal and merciless execution" of 16-year-old Mary Ann Leneghan in a Reading park. The girls had been used as bait, he said, and subjected to "gratuitous torture" and "gross sexual abuse".

He recommended that one of the killers, an 18-year-old Kosovan illegal immigrant, should be deported after he had served his sentence.

Mr Justice Penry-Davey said Adrian Thomas, 20, of south London, a drug dealer who moved to Reading to carve out a new territory, was the "prime mover" in the attack. Thomas, Michael Johnson, 19, and brothers Joshua Morally, 23, and Jamaile, 22, all from south London, were given life sentences with the recommendation they serve 27 years in prison.

It was Thomas, who rented a flat above a massage parlour, who had gathered together the group from south London to kidnap Mary Ann and her friend last May.

He blamed the girls for setting him up for a robbery. The girls were taken to the Abbey House Hotel in Reading, where they were subjected to gang rape, drugged and tortured before being driven to Prospect Park in the west of the town, where Mary Ann was stabbed more than 40 times. Her friend witnessed the attack before being shot in the head, but she survived to give evidence against the gang.

As Thomas was led to the cells yesterday his father, Tony Thomas, disowned him. "I would love to curl up and forget Adrian is my son. Adrian is past caring about anyone but himself," said Mr Thomas. "Adrian has a vengeful, petulant side. He has shown no remorse."

The judge jailed the killers after hearing that Thomas and three others were meant to be under the supervision of the probation service in London when they murdered Mary Ann.

The 18-year-old girl who survived the attack told the court it was Johnson who had repeatedly stabbed her friend in the neck, chest and stomach with a flick knife.

The judge said Jamaile Morally, 22, had put a gun in Mary Ann's mouth and shot her friend in the head as she knelt in the park having just witnessed the murder.

His brother Joshua had been responsible for "gratuitous violence" and was a prominent member of the gang, the judge said.

Llewellyn Adams, 24, whose family are standing by him, was given life with a recommendation he serve 23 years. He drove the Nissan Primera used to carry the girls.

Indrit Krasniqi, 18, should serve 23 years, the judge said. He confessed to stubbing out cigarettes on the girls' skin and pricking them with a knife.

Krasniqi, who arrived in Britain aged 13 as an illegal immigrant from Kosovo, was due to have been deported two weeks before the murder - when he turned 18.

He had received a community punishment order in January 2005. Thomas, Johnson and Jamaile Morally were also under probation service supervision.

    Murder gang must serve 27 years, G, 29.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1764079,00.html

4.15pm

Mary-Ann killers jailed for life

Friday April 28, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
David Batty and agencies

Three members of a six-strong gang who tortured, raped and murdered the teenager Mary-Ann Leneghan were today jailed for life.

The ringleader of the gang, Adrian Thomas, 20, of Battersea, south London, was sentenced at Reading crown court to at least 27 years for the murder of the 16-year-old. Michael Johnson 19, of Southfields, south London, and Jamaile Morally, 22, of Balham, south London, will also serve at least 27 years for the teenager's murder.

Sentences have yet to be handed down on the other three gang members.

The gang, four of whom were convicted offenders serving community punishment orders at the time of the attack in May last year, abducted Mary-Ann and her friend from a car park in the centre of Reading.

They took the girls to a hotel, where they were raped, tortured and repeatedly told they would die.

The court heard that Mary-Ann was taken into the hotel bathroom by five men, raped and sexually humiliated. Her friend was made to strip and perform sexual acts. They were forced to smoke crack cocaine and heroin.

The pair were then taken to Prospect Park, where Mary-Ann was stabbed 40 times. Her friend was shot in the head at close range but survived because the bullet did not pierce her skull.

Thomas received a further sentence of 13 years and 13 days for the attempted murder of Mary-Ann's friend.

Thomas, Johnson, Morally and Indrit Krasniqi were all under supervision when they abducted Mary-Ann and her friend. The case has raised concerns about the state of the probation service.

During the trial, the court heard that Johnson had been sentenced to three and a half years' jail in 2001 for abducting a 13-year-old boy with learning difficulties and subjecting him to an ordeal in which he was hung upside down and beaten.

It also emerged that the two girls could have been targeted because the men thought they were behind a burglary at one of their flats.

    Mary-Ann killers jailed for life, G, 28.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1763956,00.html

900 foreign criminals go missing

Clarke admits deportation fiasco

Wednesday April 26, 2006
Guardian
Alan Travis, home affairs editor


An urgent hunt for more than 900 freed prisoners who should have been deported was under way last night after Charles Clarke shouldered responsibility for a "shocking administrative blunder" that had allowed them to stay in the country.

The Home Office said it had so far managed to track down only 107 of the 1,023 foreign nationals convicted of serious crimes who should have faced deportation over the past seven years.

Officials could not confirm that the five convicted killers and nine rapists in the list had been tracked down.

A breakdown issued yesterday showed that five child sex offenders were among the missing. Also among them were 41 burglars and 57 convicted of violent offences. The largest single group - 204 - were convicted of drug offences.

Ministers were told last July by the National Audit Office that preparations to remove foreign criminals from the UK should begin much earlier and not be left until the end of their prison sentences.

A Home Office spokesman last night said: "Additional resources were directed to this, but the system continued to find more cases than we could consider. Now there are sufficient resources, and we are confident no further convicted foreign nationals will be released in this way."

The home secretary apologised for the fiasco but admitted that "due to an oversight" his most senior Home Office officials had misled MPs over the issue.

"I do take responsibility for this," he said. "It is a shocking state of affairs. I take it extremely, extremely seriously in every respect. The concern, possibly anger, that people will feel is entirely understandable. It was a basic administrative failure."

Mr Clarke could not say "hand on heart" that all those involved would be found. He refused to resign and said he did not expect others to go either. "I do not think it is a resigning matter," he said.

Downing Street supported him, adding that it did not expect ministers "to know what is going on in every nook and cranny in their department". But it was hardly welcome news to Tony Blair in the middle of a local election campaign.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats expressed astonishment at the Home Office's admission. "This is the latest in a long line of failures," said the shadow home secretary, David Davis. "This serial incompetence beggars belief."

The Lib Dem leader, Menzies Campbell, said it was extraordinary that so many had disappeared. "The government's tough talk on crime counts for nothing in the face of this incompetence," he said.

The admission by the home secretary came only after MPs on the Commons public accounts committee followed up an investigation into the whereabouts of foreign national prisoners who should have been sent home. Last October senior Home Office civil servants told the MPs that 403 foreign nationals had been released from prison in England and Wales between 2001 and 2005 without any consideration given to whether they should be deported.

Mr Clarke said yesterday that the figure was wrong, and that between February 1999 and March this year 1,023 foreign prisoners had been released without being deported. He said so far the Home Office immigration and nationality directorate had tracked down 107, of whom 20 had been deported.

Mr Clarke also confirmed that 160 of those involved had been recommended for deportation by the courts when they were sentenced, but only five had been thrown out. The Home Office is "very energetically" drawing up profiles on the 916 missing ex-prisoners and has yet to give their names to the police.

    900 foreign criminals go missing, G, 26.4.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1761537,00.html

12.45pm update

Paedophile jailed for raping girl, 9

Thursday April 20, 2006
Press Association
Guardian Unlimited

A known paedophile who repeatedly raped a nine-year-old girl despite being under community supervision was today jailed indefinitely.

Kevin Hazelwood, 40, was already on the sex offenders' register for downloading child pornography but was still able to subject the girl to a string of assaults. He was told he must serve a minimum of five years and seven months.

He pleaded guilty at Lewes crown court on March 10 to six counts of rape, two counts of attempted rape and two counts of indecent assault, all on the same victim.

Hazelwood, from Brighton, also admitted charges of sexual activity with or in the presence of a child under 13, historic assaults on a girl dating back to the 1980s and for making indecent movies of children.

Judge Richard Hayward said Hazelwood was "cunning and manipulative" and was "unable or unwilling" to control his paedophile urges.

The court heard that in October 2002 Hazelwood was placed on the sex offenders' register after pleading guilty to 20 specimen counts of making indecent pictures of children.

Judge Hayward told him: "Before anyone rushes to judgment on this issue, I must say that you alone are to blame. You are cunning and manipulative of people. You gave every indication of complying with the sex offenders' register and there is no reason why a hard-pressed probation officer or anyone else should know anything about it."

He added: "You are a determined and predatory paedophile and you will remain a danger to young girls for the foreseeable future."

Gillian Etherton, prosecuting, told the court how Hazelwood befriended the nine-year-old girl's parents before using the relationship to "systematically sexually abuse" her from when she was about six years old until two weeks before his arrest in November 2005.

Miss Etherton said: "It would appear from a fairly early stage that the defendant took a keen interest (in the young girl).

"At face value he appeared to get on well with her and would say to her mother that he would in effect take her up to her room to give mum breathing space."

The mother recalled that suggestions of sleepovers with the girl at Hazelwood's home were always initiated by him, Miss Etherton said.

She added that the abuse came to light in November 2005 when the girl disclosed to her mother in conversation that "uncle Kevin does it to me".

"The mother immediately understood what the disclosure meant," said Miss Etherton.

The girl also disclosed that when she would cry while being abused, Hazelwood would "call her a baby".

As a result of the girl's conversation with her mother, police were brought in and in interview she said Hazelwood had subjected her to three years of abuse.

Miss Etherton said: "He would sometimes say to her 'I'm bored, let's play a game' and he would often entice her with different games and presents.

"She described how she didn't want any presents because they reminded her of him."

The court heard that Hazelwood had taken indecent pictures of the girl and had threatened to send them to her mother if she failed to maintain her silence over the abuse.

Miss Etherton said: "She felt to some degree to blame and in trouble and to some degree that explains her silence."

Following the girl's police interview in November 2005, Hazelwood was arrested and questioned but initially declined to comment, except to admit abusing another young girl between 1981 and 1985.

He later admitted to making indecent images, including taking pictures of the nine-year-old girl, which were later deleted.

    Paedophile jailed for raping girl, 9, G, 20.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1757518,00.html

Anger at legal compensation shakeup

Clarke's bid to overhaul law on wrong convictions attacked by justice groups

Thursday April 20, 2006
Guardian
Alan Travis, home affairs editor

Miscarriage of justice campaigners were enraged last night by plans to stop defendants walking free from the court of appeal after their convictions have been quashed on a technicality.

The announcement by the home secretary, Charles Clarke, was made as part of a package making a £5m a year cut in the £8m paid out annually in compensation to victims of miscarriages of justice. Mr Clarke said he wanted to see the change introduced in legislation as soon as possible.

One option is to introduce the Scottish "not proven" verdict into the English legal system. He said it was needed to put an end to the growth of a "small industry for the legal profession that has been giving away large amounts of money to individuals who do not deserve it".

The urgent government review will look at the statutory test used in the court of appeal to decide whether to quash a conviction. In particular, it will focus on whether an "error in the trial process" necessarily means a miscarriage of justice has occurred.

Mr Clarke acknowledged that a move to a "not proven" verdict would be a major change. "It would be a radical change. We are going to have a look at it. The time has come to assess it," he said.

The package of cuts to compensation payments will cap payments at a maximum of £500,000. He is also to introduce legislation empowering the compensation assessor to make deductions from the award if there are other criminal convictions in the case. He cited the example of a man serving nine years in prison for robbery convictions who had one of them quashed by the court of appeal and went on to receive £75,000 compensation.

But the proposals have angered miscarriage of justice campaigners. Gerry Conlon, of the Guildford four, who was wrongly convicted over an IRA bombing in 1974, said he was "absolutely horrified" by the package and called the compensation cuts a "penny-pinching, vote-catching exercise".

John McManus of MOJO, the campaigning organisation set up by Paddy Hill of the Birmingham six, said he was appalled that ministers appeared to be suggesting that those whose convictions were quashed were really criminals. He claimed that in many cases technical grounds were used to quash convictions to avoid the exposure of corrupt police officers.

"If the government want to do something about this compensation bill they should prosecute the corrupt police officers who have been involved. There have been at least 150 miscarriages of justice cases in the last 15 years but no police officers have ever been prosecuted."

But Mr Clarke believes that the growing compensation bill for miscarriage of justices has more to do with the failings of the English adversarial criminal justice system. He claimed yesterday that the system encouraged highly paid barristers funded by legal aid to play courtroom games in pursuit of compensation claims far beyond what was acceptable.

"This is not really about justice or righting wrongs in a fair way," said Mr Clarke. "I think the more the legal system clearly relates to the conduct of individuals who have done things or not done things and the less it relates to the technicalities of the legal process, the better.

"What individuals want to see is a legal system which correctly finds guilty those who are guilty and acquits those who are innocent, with respect to what they did or didn't do rather than whether or not the legal process was or was not correctly followed."

The proposal was first put forward by Lord Justice Auld in his review of the criminal courts in 2001, who said that "unhappily" the 1995 Criminal Appeal Act had led to the belief among some that an unfair trial should automatically be punished with an acquittal.

It also sparked an angry reaction from opposition MPs. The Liberal Democrat shadow attorney general, Simon Hughes, said an important criminal justice proposal seemed to have been smuggled on to the agenda under cover of an announcement on compensation.

"Criminal trials are supposed to clear up questions of guilt and not encourage suspicions to linger. Any review of the law must be conducted with extreme care. There are many people in Scotland who, with good reason, have deep misgivings about the 'not proven' verdict," said Mr Hughes.

The Conservatives also voiced doubts about the "not proven" verdict, saying it had come in for much criticism in Scotland. "We have a longstanding principle in this country of being innocent until proven guilty," said Dominic Grieve, the shadow attorney general.

"People want certainty and I am at a loss to understand why the home secretary might think this course of action necessary."

    Anger at legal compensation shakeup, G, 20.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1757283,00.html

Clarke targets compensation as 'massive industry for lawyers'

Campaigners enraged by proposed curbs on 'undeserved' awards

Thursday April 20, 2006
Guardian
Alan Travis


Charles Clarke underlined his personal contempt for the adversarial system of criminal justice in British courts when he revealed a series of controversial plans which have enraged miscarriage of justice campaigners.

The home secretary made it clear that he wants to put a stop to a "massive industry for the legal profession that has been giving away large amounts of money to individuals who do not deserve it".

He also criticised highly paid barristers on legal aid who pursued compensation claims to an unacceptable extent. The measures include:

Quashing convictions

Mr Clarke claims the backing of Lord Justice Auld's 2001 inquiry into the operation of the criminal courts for his proposal to ensure that a conviction is not quashed by the court of appeal simply because of an "error in the trial" or a technicality.

The home secretary said he had started an urgent review of the statutory test that the appeal court must use in deciding whether to quash a conviction.

He made it clear that one possible option was the introduction for appeal court cases only of the Scottish verdict of "not proven": "It would be a big change. It would be a radical change. The time has come to assess it."

Lord Justice Auld recommended the change in 2001, arguing it had come to the point where many people believed serious failures of due process should result in an acquittal whatever their effect on the safety of a conviction.

Compensation

The package of changes to the compensation scheme for victims of miscarriages of justice will save about £5m a year out of a total annual bill of £8m. Some will have immediate effect. The government will no longer pay compensation above what is required by international obligations and so has now closed its discretionary payment scheme.

In one case under the discretionary scheme cited by Mr Clarke, a man convicted of smuggling offences for which he was fined and ordered to pay costs was awarded a seven-figure sum even though he had not even been to prison.

The statutory scheme paying out the minimum required by international obligations will continue and claimants will have the right to sue in the civil courts for compensation. Time limits are to be introduced for all applications.

The average time taken to settle cases has now reached more than three years, with five cases having taken more than 10 years to resolve.

Legislation

Mr Clarke is to introduce legislation capping the maximum award at £500,000 under the scheme, plus compensation for loss of earnings. Payments have increased sharply in recent years, with the average now more than £250,000 and with more than 10% paid in legal fees. In one unidentified case more than £2.1m was paid out. A limit is also to be placed on the amount of legal aid available in such cases. Earnings compensation will be limited to one and half times gross average industrial earnings.

Deductions

The government will further limit the compensation payments made by giving an independent assessor the power to make deductions to take account of other convictions and the defendant's behaviour during the trial. In exceptional cases the compensation could be reduced to nil because of criminal convictions or the defendant's failure to be helpful in court.

Case studies

Birmingham Six Paddy Hill, who was released 15 years ago after serving 16 years in prison following his wrongful conviction for IRA bomb attacks in the 1970s, was offered a "final settlement" of £960,000 in 2000. He then faced a deduction of £50,000 after being charged for bed and board during his years behind bars.

Michael and Vincent Hickey Received compensation payments of £990,000 and £506,000 after wrongfully spending almost 20 years in prison for the murder of the paper boy Carl Bridgewater. Their convictions were quashed in 1997 but it took a six-year battle for them to get their compensation payments. The Home Office independent assessor, Lord Brennan, knocked 20% off Michael Hickey's award and 25% off Vincent Hickey's because of their criminal records. They also faced £60,000 deductions to cover the cost of board and lodging while they were in prison.

Winston Silcott He was awarded £50,000 compensation after being wrongly convicted of murdering PC Keith Blakelock, 40, who was hacked to death by a mob during the Broadwater Farm riots in Tottenham, north London, 20 years ago. Silcott was one of three men convicted of the police officer's killing but the conviction was overturned on appeal in 1991. At the time his award was confirmed Silcott was serving life for murdering a boxer at a party in 1984, the year before PC Blakelock was killed.

    Clarke targets compensation as 'massive industry for lawyers', G, 20.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1757282,00.html

Wrongful conviction compensation

Miscarriage multiplied

Thursday April 20, 2006
Guardian
Leader


Some might think it would be difficult to make the current compensation scheme for victims of miscarriages of justice any meaner. But this is to underestimate the Scrooge-like mentality of some criminal justice administrators. Already the current scheme blocked compensation payments to Angela Cannings, who spent 18 months in prison before having her wrongful conviction of the murder of two of her children quashed by the court of appeal in 2003. She was ruled ineligible because her acquittal was not based on newly discovered facts but on discredited scientific evidence. Two men wrongly jailed for the murder of the newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater did receive compensation for the 18 years they spent in prison, only to discover they lost one quarter of their loss-of-earnings compensation for their free food and accommodation inside. As the editor of the Prisons Handbook wryly noted at the time: "It has to be the sickest of all sick jokes. Can you imagine Terry Waite getting a bill for the living expenses he saved during his five years wrongly held in Lebanon." Clearly, the Home Office can.

Yesterday Charles Clarke, the home secretary, announced he would be cutting £5m from his department's miscarriage of justice compensation budget. True, his department does face a freeze on spending for the next three years. But its annual budget runs to £13,000m. Just diverting into the community a few of the many thousands of offenders who are still unnecessarily being sent to prison, would have resolved the budget freeze and avoided the new £500,000 ceiling being set on compensation payments. Moreover, a diversion policy would have been in line not just with the urgings of successive director generals of prisons and chief inspectors, but also the home secretary himself.

Penal campaigners yesterday rightly pointed to the failure of the department to take into account the impact of wrongful convictions. The Bridgewater two, wrongly labelled child killers, were subjected to insufferable conditions including regular adulteration of their food with phlegm, urine and glass. Undaunted, and indulging yet again in illogical rhetoric that would make even a Jesuit blush, Mr Clarke declared: "The changes I have announced today will create a fairer, simpler and speedier system for compensating miscarriages of justice." In reality what it means is that people will no longer be able to apply for compensation if their convictions are quashed in a normal appeal process. This is both unfair and unjust.

    Miscarriage multiplied, G, 20.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1757284,00.html

Nurse convicted of murdering patients

Tuesday April 18, 2006
Agencies
Guardian Unlimited

A casualty nurse who sought excitement by injecting patients with potentially fatal drug doses was today found guilty of murdering two people.
Benjamin Geen, 25, preyed on patients shortly after they were admitted to the accident and emergency department of the Horton General Hospital in Banbury, Oxfordshire.

A jury at Oxford Crown Court today found Geen, of Banbury, guilty of two charges of murder.

He was also convicted of 15 counts of grievous bodily harm against patients.

Geen injected his victims with potentially fatal doses to stop them breathing so that he could "enjoy the excitement" of helping to revive them.

He used different substances, including insulin, muscle relaxants and sedatives, to send his victims close to death. All these drugs are commonly used in the hospital but "deadly in the wrong hands".

Doctors were left bewildered by the unexplained respiratory failures - normally very rare events - which took place between December 2003 and February 2004

Geen murdered David Onley, 75, from Deddington, who died on January 21 2004, and Anthony Bateman, 66, from Banbury, who died on January 6 2004.

Both were very ill men when they were admitted to hospital.

During the two-month trial, the jury of six men and six women heard how Geen had come "alive" and looked "elated" as his patients went into respiratory arrest.

Geen even "boasted" about the regular action during his shifts, telling one doctor: "There is always a resuscitation when I'm on duty."

Eventually, colleagues decided something was seriously wrong after an alcoholic was admitted with stomach pains and ended up in intensive care.

Midazolam, a sedative, and vecuronium, a muscle relaxant, appeared in Timothy Stubbs' urine sample, even though doctors knew they had not prescribed them.

Over the weekend of February 6-9, senior staff at the hospital sat down with the case notes of hundreds of patients whose outcomes they felt they could not explain.

The pile was eventually whittled down to 18 cases, with Benjamin Geen the common factor in every one.

Staff at the hospital called the police, and Geen was arrested as he arrived for work the next day, with a full syringe in his pocket.

Since then, instances of respiratory failure have virtually disappeared at the hospital.

Prosecutor Michael Austin Smith QC told the jury Geen must have known the potentially fatal consequences of what he was doing, but toying with patients' lives was a "price he was willing to pay in order to satisfy his perverse needs". . He said: "He must have known it, but it did not stop him. After Mr Bateman. Mr Onley died, too, and still it didn't stop him, because other people followed on from that, culminating, five people later, with Mr Stubbs, who very nearly died, as did so many other people.

"People were at death's door. Most were lucky; two were not."

    Nurse convicted of murdering patients, G, 18.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1756174,00.html

Revealed: chaos over sex attacker freed to kill

· Damning report on probation failures
· Pressure on Clarke to reassure public

Sunday April 16, 2006
The Observer
Jamie Doward, Mark Townsend and Gaby Hinsliff

The public's fragile confidence in the way dangerous offenders are monitored after being released is set to be further undermined by a damning report revealing serious failures in the supervision of a sex attacker who murdered a stranger while out on probation.

The report into the murder of Naomi Bryant by Anthony Rice, which was commissioned by the Chief Inspector of Probation, Andrew Bridges, is due to be published this month. It will say the system for co-ordinating those responsible for monitoring Rice did not work properly.

It is the first time an official report has identified specific failures within the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (Mappa) and is likely to make disturbing reading for the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke. He is under pressure to reassure the public after a recent spate of high-profile murders committed by offenders on probation.

Rice killed Bryant, 40, last year, nine months after serving a 16-year sentence for attempted rape, indecent assault and actual bodily harm. He strangled his victim with a pair of tights and then stabbed her in the back and chest 15 times.

The report will reveal that Rice was classed as 'low risk' when he should have been given the highest risk rating. It finds serious errors in Rice's monitoring, observing that he was able to abscond from his hostel apparently without anyone noticing, a failure that allowed him to assault a woman in a separate attack.

The report will also identify serious communication failures between the different groups responsible for monitoring Rice. These include staff at the Winchester hostel where he was staying, his probation officers and the local police force. It will criticise several individuals involved in Rice's supervision

The report's findings bear disturbing similarities with another published earlier this year into the murder of London banker John Monckton. The report into Monckton's murder identified a series of failures by the probation officers charged with monitoring his killer, Damien Hanson, who had been released on probation after serving seven years of a 12-year sentence for attempted murder.

Last month there was further public consternation when it emerged that several members of the gang who tortured, raped and shot teenager Mary-Ann Leneghan were on probation for minor offences. An inquiry into the murder of Robert Symons by Yusuf Bouhaddaou five weeks after being let out of prison under the supervision of the London Probation Service has yet to publish its findings.

There is likely to be further criticism of the public protection system this week when a known paedophile, who raped a nine-year-old girl despite being the subject of a Mappa supervision order, is sentenced. Kevin Hazelwood, 40, will be sentenced at Lewes Crown Court after admitting six counts of rape, two counts of attempted rape and two counts of indecent assault on the young victim who came from Brighton.

In response to the public's concerns over the supervision of dangerous offenders, Clarke will unveil a shake-up of probation services on Thursday which could see hundreds of criminals freed on probation returned to prison.

The Home Secretary will set out plans to tighten up the 'recall' powers under which those released early can be incarcerated if their behaviour caused concern.

Currently, offenders are usually allowed three minor breaches of probation conditions - such as missing a supervisory appointment or breaking a curfew - before action is taken. Even then, the Home Office estimates in one case in 10 rules are not correctly applied.

Clarke will also order a tightening up of assessments, with up to 1,000 probation managers summoned to a conference next week to discuss ways of judging risks posed by released offenders. Last year nearly 11,000 prisoners were recalled. With overcrowded jails, campaigners are warning that recalling more could prove counter-productive.

Juliet Lyons, of the Prison Reform Trust, said the famous New York 'zero tolerance' experiment, which drastically reduced crime, had reduced recalls.

'The prison population went down, and that's because they invested in drug treatment in the community,' Lyons said.

    Revealed: chaos over sex attacker freed to kill, O, 16.4.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1754927,00.html

Britons Face Trial Over Claim Bush Spoke of Attacking Arab TV

January 10, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:37 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LONDON (AP)--Two U.K. men were ordered Tuesday to stand trial later this month on charges of leaking a government memo in which U.S. President George W. Bush reportedly discussed bombing the headquarters of the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera.

Civil servant David Keogh and Leo O'Connor, a lawmaker's former researcher, were charged in November with breaching the Official Secrets Act. Both men are free on bail as they await trial.

Judge Timothy Workman said the men's trial would begin with a preliminary hearing at the Central Criminal Court Jan. 24.

Prosecutors allege Keogh passed the document to O'Connor between April 16 and May 28, 2004.

Details of the alleged document were reported by the Daily Mirror newspaper, which claimed the memo revealed details of a conversation between Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House on April 16, 2004. According to the newspaper, Blair argued against Bush's suggestion of bombing Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. The Daily Mirror said its sources disagreed on whether Bush's suggestion was serious or not.

Blair has said he had no information about any proposed U.S. action against Al-Jazeera, and White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the newspaper's claims "outlandish and inconceivable."

Keogh, a former communications officer at the Cabinet Office, was charged under Section 3 of the Officials Secrets Act with making a "damaging disclosure of a document relating to international relations" without lawful authority.

O'Connor, who worked for former governing Labour Party lawmaker Tony Clarke, is charged with receiving the document. O'Connor indicated at an earlier hearing he intended to plead not guilty. Tuesday, Keogh didn't say how he intended to plead.

    Britons Face Trial Over Claim Bush Spoke of Attacking Arab TV, NYT, 10.1.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Jazeera.html