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A story of injustice

22 November 2018 / Jon Robins
Issue: 7818 / Categories: Features , Criminal
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It’s time to come clean about miscarriages of justice & mistakes denied, says Jon Robins

Talk about the prevalence of miscarriages of justice these days is often met with an eye-roll accompanied by the suspicion that you are wildly over-stating your case. The Guardian ’s veteran crime correspondent Duncan Campbell once noted the widely-held assumption that after the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, Bridgewater Three et al, all cases that began in the 1970s: ‘The days of miscarriages of justice were over. Not so.’

To some extent, this year’s stream of disclosure scandals beginning with the Liam Allan case has assisted in re-educating the public as to the frailties of our impoverished justice system and its propensity to make serious mistakes.

And yet even leading lawyers insist that miscarriages of justice don’t occur. At the start of the year, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Alison Saunders informed the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that, in her view, there were no innocent people in prison as a result of failures to disclose.

It was heartening

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

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