- Unhappy birthday - 15th November 2024
- Migration story - 14th November 2024
- Numbers game - 13th November 2024
A formal apology by the head of the biggest UK police force over “cases of appalling behaviour” by its officers, has highlighted how there has been nothing like this from the largest service in Wales even though it was responsible for a string of terrible miscarriages of justice.
Sir Mark Rowley of the Metropolitan Police (Met) said sorry to the gay community in London for his force’s past homophobic persecution. He’s the first UK police chief to apologise. In a letter to human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, which was also read out in the House of Lords, Sir Mark wrote: “Recent cases of appalling behaviour by some officers have revealed that there are still racists, misogynists, homophobes and transphobes in the organisation, and we have already doubled down on rooting out those who corrupt and abuse their position”.
However an official apology such as this has been demanded by the many victims of high-profile miscarriages in South Wales after they were jailed wrongly for murders they did not commit. Yet the force at the centre of them (South Wales Police [SWP]) has never issued a formal statement of regret.
The nearest they have come is a comment from SWP’s Assistant Chief Constable David Thorne who was being interviewed for the Sky programme ‘Murder in the Valleys’ (MITV) about the horrific Clydach killings when four members of the same family were beaten to death (Mandy Power her elderly disabled mother Doris, and two young children). He acknowledged that mistakes had been made in police inquiries and proclaimed: “It’s safe to say we got it wrong (in the past). We absolutely got it wrong. (There were) HUGE errors in the way investigations were conducted…”. However he stressed that his officers had behaved properly in the Clydach investigation.
Mike O’Brien of the so-called Cardiff Newsagent Three knows about those ‘errors’ only too well, because, with two others, he spent 11 years inside prison for a crime he did not commit. Mr O’Brien told The Eye: “My health has been ruined, and there has been long-lasting damage. My miscarriage of justice case has caused a huge family rift”. Mr O’Brien, who is now in his fifties, was jailed wrongly in 1988 for the murder of Cardiff newsagent, Phillip Saunders.
He said on social media: “It isn’t just the Met…”. A Media Conference (MC), was held last year (at which The Eye Editor, Phil Parry, spoke) calling for a judicial inquiry to uncover the truth about the miscarriages (it has now been refused). Following the MC some then marched to the Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC), and Welsh Government (WG) buildings to demand action, with several senior politicians backing a Statement of Opinion to support the calls for an inquiry. A rally is to be held on July 20 outside Cardiff Crown Court again calling for it.
These actions underscored demands for an official apology, as well as the legal investigation, following the number of miscarriages in the 1980s, ’90s, and 2000s including: The Cardiff Three (Five), The Cardiff Newsagent Three, The Darvell Brothers, Jonathan Jones (The Tooze Murders), as well as Annette Hewins.
However this shameful list does NOT have on it all those innocent people, who were convicted of less important crimes than murder, yet who now have a record which will affect them for the rest of their lives, and there is a powerful argument for getting rid of SWP completely.
Phil emphasised the disturbing fact that areas with a greater population, have FEWER police forces. “It is ridiculous that in a population of 3.1 million people we in Wales have FOUR forces”, he said. “Scotland is much bigger, but only has ONE. London has almost nine million people yet has just TWO (including The Met). Think of the public money that is wasted duplicating resources, to pay fat salaries to all those Assistant Chief Constables, and Chief Constables!”.
At the MC, Phil told the audience that he was regularly approached by solicitors during the 1990s, who said the police were doing bad things, and that something had to be done. On one occasion he was told to put away his notebook because he was informed that no record should be made of the conversation. He also described how other forces had been put in ‘special measures’ (including The Met), but that this was the least that should be done with SWP.
The MC was organised by Mr O’Brien, who talked movingly about how he had been badly affected after what had happened to him.
Another who spoke emotionally was John Actie, one of the Cardiff Three/Five. He was accused of involvement in the murder of 20-year-old Lynette White, who was viciously killed in James Street in what is now known as Cardiff Bay. Three BLACK men had been convicted of the murder (although FIVE, including Mr Actie, were put on trial), when one WHITE man (Jeffrey Gafoor) was finally caught years later through DNA analysis. He confessed to carrying out the terrible 1988 murder, and even apologised, through his barrister, to the others who had been incorrectly jailed.
The five innocent men, were arrested in December 1988 after detectives had been on the case for 10 months, and were pursuing a suspect seen nearby (who looked EXACTLY like Gafoor), minutes following the murder. But when SWP changed the investigating team, and pressure mounted to make an arrest, attention turned to locals. Despite no forensic evidence connecting the five to Ms White’s murder they were taken in.
Tony Paris, Yusef Abdullahi, and Stephen Miller were found guilty in 1990 of the murder, and spent more than two years serving prison sentences having spent the same time on remand, while cousins John and Ronnie Actie were acquitted after being in custody since their arrest. False eyewitness statements, coerced confessions, and more were used in the police ‘investigation’. However on appeal in 1992 the taped interviews with Mr Miller, who had a mental age of 11, were deemed an example of inappropriate interrogation for reference in future cases, such was their intimidating and coercive nature.
A website highlighting their case has been launched called “Justice for the Cardiff 5”. It exposes the failings by SWP investigating officers, and bolsters demands for a judicial inquiry.
Several programmes have been broadcast looking at the events in which the police played such a major part, and a number are in production now. Early last year, another was transmitted (although it is still available to be streamed) examining Mr O’Brien’s story in detail.
The promotional material before one of them, proclaimed: “Episode One Monday 23rd May at 9pm Raphael Rowe delves into the brutal murder of Cardiff newsagent Phillip Saunders in 1987. The episode examines the investigation that led to the conviction of three innocent men, which resulted in their wrongful imprisonment. The episode reveals shocking police threats and coercion that led to the arrest and incarceration of Michael O’Brien, Ellis Sherwood and Darren Hall. After the men had spent more than a decade behind bars, a court appeal quashed the original verdict, but the unsolved case continues to haunt the city. Plus, for the first time ever, the victim’s sister and nephew break a 35-year silence and reveal exclusive insights into the case”.
Adding to the woes of SWP, and emphasising the calls for a formal apology, is that a former head of CID was recently jailed. A highly complex sting operation trapped one time Detective Chief Superintendent Phil Jones, which involved the bugging of cars, and deploying of decoy ‘clients’ who made out they wanted to pay for information.
It climaxed in Mr Jones admitting to paying an ex-colleague to supply him with information from police databases, after he retired from SWP to run a private investigations agency in 1997.
The jailing of David ‘Dai’ Morris for the shocking Clydach murders in 1999, is also put centre stage by the apology from the Met, and the fact that none has been forthcoming from SWP, despite the fact it is not (in theory) a miscarriage of justice case, although the man convicted of them died in jail still protesting his innocence.
The documentary episodes looking into them (MITV) were nominated for two awards at the BAFTA Cymru ceremony, including one for best Factual Series.
The successful prosecution case against Mr Morris was that he had gone to Ms Power’s looking for sex, high on drink and drugs, been spurned and beat the entire family to death, leaving his chain there in the process.
Yet the evidence suggested Doris had been killed first, NOT her daughter, when presumably it would have been the person doing the spurning who would have died FIRST!
Mr O’Brien appears on MITV saying that he believes the conviction of Mr Morris IS in fact another miscarriage of justice. He told the MITV documentary-makers: “When I was released from prison I remember…saying ‘I’m going to be South Wales Police’s worst nightmare for what they did to me’, and I meant every word of it”.
During filming for the programme a forensic review found traces of DNA on a sock which it is believed was used to hold the murder weapon, that were “more likely than not” to have come from Mr Morris, and SWP trumpeted the finding. They effectively said: ‘We know we got it wrong in the past, but this time is different. Trust us’.
Yet a long-running campaign has been launched to establish his innocence, and after the first trial when Mr Morris was convicted, his sister Debra gave a tearful press conference with her parents when she stressed her belief that he was NOT guilty.
She said: “He just didn’t do these things…they’ve got the wrong man”.
ACC Thorne, though, insisted that Mr Morris was the RIGHT man, saying on MITV: “This is not a miscarriage of justice”.
However Phil had made a BBC Panorama television programme about the murders a few years after they had been committed, and he was the first to question the police actions.
In research for the programme he and his producer read ALL the police witness statements in the case, which were stacked floor to ceiling at a lawyer’s office.
As Phil said in the opening of the transmission: “One police force in Britain has a disturbing record of locking up the wrong people in murder cases”.
During MITV, the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) at the time, Detective Superintendent (DS) (Retd.) Martyn Lloyd Evans, was questioned about the apparent mistake of not releasing to the public a witnesses E-Fit constructed soon after the murders, which, it said, had a 90 per cent likeness. He replies that because the man seen was carrying a bag, and it was believed the killer did not have one, it was not put out.
Mr Evans said: “I didn’t think it was relevant”, but the E-Fit matched almost exactly the face of the first senior police officer on the scene, Inspector (at the time) Stuart Lewis, who (against all procedure) had only stayed there a matter of minutes, or that of his identical twin brother (another police officer, Sergeant [also at the time] Stephen Lewis, whose wife was having a gay affair with one of the victims). Inspector Stuart Lewis, had changed his shift to be on that night, however at crucial hours during the murders his whereabouts were unknown. He was driving a red Peugeot diesel, and a car similar to this was spotted near the murder scene. So to say the E-Fit was ‘not relevant’, appeared bizarre in the extreme, to critics of the police.
In the MITV films Mr Evans’ boss as the then head of SWP CID, Wynne Phillips, also said something incredible: “We can’t manufacture evidence”. But events before the murders, showed that SWP have done EXACTLY that.
To take just one of those cases (in which Phil was intimately involved, because he had made ANOTHER programme questioning THAT conviction [The Cardiff Newsagent Three]), the police MANUFACTURED (as Mr Phillips said they DIDN’T do) an overheard ‘confession’ between the young men they had arrested, when an admission was effectively made to the murder of the newsagent, and they presented before the court ‘EVIDENCE’ that the group had run from the scene, yet one of the three had bad legs and couldn’t run at all.
These terrible issues are now compounded by the latest report which records that the public’s trust in the police has sunk to new lows.
His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary (HMCIC) Andy Cooke has declared that the police should be forced to do basic work by law – and he is demanding new legal powers to make chiefs follow his rules. He also wants a role in their appointment.
Mr Cooke said: “There are clear and systemic failings throughout the police service in England and Wales and, thanks to a series of dreadful scandals, public trust in the police is hanging by a thread. We have a small window of opportunity to repair it”.
He said repeated calls for change over the years have mostly been ignored or implemented too slowly by forces, and proclaimed that figures from surveys in which the public was asked if it thought the police did a good job were dangerously low, dropping in two years from 75 per cent to below 50 per cent.
A report earlier had also revealed that officers had failed to solve a single burglary in almost half of the areas in England and Wales over the past three years.
Now another report has been made apologising for “cases of appalling behaviour” by the police, but these are to do with attitudes in London not South Wales.
Perhaps another one is needed…
The memories of Phil’s extraordinary 39 year award-winning career in journalism (including stories like these) as he was gripped by the rare incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – how during 23 years with The BBC, and 39 years in journalism (when he was trained to use simple language, avoiding jargon), reporting major reversals of fortune has always been central for Phil and he will look at the extraordinary political events now sweeping Scotland, with news that the police are continuing their high-profile probe into the finances of the Scottish National Party (SNP).
