Blog entry 28th December 2020
As we move in to 2021, I do so with hope. During 2020 very positive steps forward were made with my appeal.
This only occurred once I parted ways with my legal representation, and along with my web-site manager presented my case to the Court of Appeal myself. All of the appeal points which have been submitted were available to my former solicitors Wells Burcombe, yet they were incapable of getting my appeal to where it is now. Also, Wells Burcombe were unable to uncover key issues that have now moved my appeal to where it is at the Court of Appeal currently. Instead, that was achieved through this web-site and the diligence of my web-site manager.
It should also be noted that everything that I submitted to the Court of Appeal had previously been submitted to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. They too failed to move my case forwards to the Court of Appeal. I now fully understand why the CCRC receives so much criticism for failing to move appeal applications submitted to them to the CoA.
It is far too easy for miscarriages of justices to occur. There is no mandatory legal requirement upon the police and prosecution to disclose evidence to the defence which may benefit their case. Instead there are "best practice guidelines", that are too easily misinterpreted and abused. The only law act that does deal with pre-trial evidence disclosure issues the far too easily abused term of "should" rather than "must" when dealing with directives regarding disclosure that they know will support a defendants maintenance of innocence. This is why the majority of appeals hinge on issues of withheld or non-disclosed evidence.
Once convicted, access to withheld or non-disclosed evidence is almost impossible. In my instance the police and prosecution have never denied the existence of the withheld evidence. Instead, they have either point-blank refused to answer requests for disclosure or, responded that they will only consider the request for the withheld materials should an appeal be granted. With no legal requirement to provide full disclosure the police and prosecution have an open hand to knowingly convict the innocent and then take every measure to obstruct their chances of appeal.
That is not an 'equality of arms' or 'justice' in any sense of the terminology.