Criminal Cases Review Commission

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Sandy Martin

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sandy Martin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention; he is absolutely right and I will expand on that point later in my speech.

I am raising this issue today because the case of Oliver Campbell, my constituent, is a classic example of a devastating miscarriage of justice, for the resolution of which the CCRC appears to be more of a hindrance than a help.

Oliver was convicted of murder in 1991 and spent 11 years in prison. He is here in Westminster Hall today with a friend, so that he can hear this debate. He knows that I am not being rude when I say that he has a low IQ; he also knows that that is as a result of a brain injury he sustained as a baby. This reduced mental capacity should have been evident to everyone involved in this case from the moment of Oliver’s arrest in 1990, some two months after the murder of an Asian shopkeeper in Hackney.

I have known Oliver for about 10 years. I think that anyone meeting him would come to the same conclusion reached by myself and others, including the BBC’s “Rough Justice” team, Michael Birnbaum QC, Oliver’s long-standing solicitor Glyn Maddocks, and the distinguished broadcaster, Kirsty Wark, namely that Oliver simply was not capable of carrying out such a crime.

Oliver was arrested because witnesses identified one of the two men who carried out the robbery during which the shopkeeper was killed as wearing a distinctive baseball cap. The other man, Eric Samuels, was relatively short and the witnesses also described the two men as being of similar height. Oliver is a large man who is 6 feet 3 inches tall.

Oliver was questioned for several hours in a police station without the presence of an appropriate adult, which he should have had due to his impaired mental capacity, or a lawyer. Eventually, a lawyer was found, but it was only after that lawyer had left the police station, having left clear instructions to be called back if there was to be any further questioning, that the police—in direct contravention of those instructions—pressed Oliver, in the presence of his ex-foster carer but no legal representative, to confess. Within half an hour of persistent suggestion from the police, Oliver had confessed to a murder that I do not believe a reading of the evidence could possibly suggest he had committed. Many of Oliver’s answers to the police were bizarre and made no sense whatever, so it is hard to understand how they could ever have been relied upon.

Oliver’s lawyer was then called back, and Oliver immediately withdrew his so- called confession. However, in December 1991 he was convicted, almost entirely on the basis of this very dubious confession, and he served 11 years in prison. There was no forensic evidence linking him to the baseball cap nor to the scene of the crime. None of the fingerprints or hairs that had been recovered from the scene or from the cap match those of Oliver. His co-accused, Eric Samuels, who admitted taking part in the robbery, said in interview that Oliver had nothing to do with the murder and was not at the scene. However, this information was never put before the jury as evidence. Samuels’ statement was never signed and Samuels refused to take the witness stand.

Samuels was subsequently tracked down and interviewed by the BBC’s “Rough Justice” programme for its 2002 episode, “If the Cap Fits”. He was filmed during the show’s investigation and again described how the cap was taken from Oliver’s head by the man who was actually his accomplice—the man who was actually the murderer—and how it had been dropped near the shop. Samuels again refused to sign a statement, this time on the advice of his key worker.

A ballistics expert was also brought in by the BBC, who established that the murderer must have been right-handed; other experts have shown that Oliver favours his left hand for most tasks. Oliver’s bizarre confession apparently includes details of how he made a holster for the gun out of string and how he had practised shooting in a forest or a field, but he could not tell the police the location or even whether it was a forest or a field. He was pressed to identify how many bullets he had had and how many were fired, but he clearly had no idea what the correct answer to either of those questions was.

After the “Rough Justice” programme was broadcast, detailed and extensive submissions were made to the CCRC by Oliver’s legal team, including by his solicitor, Glyn Maddocks, and his eminent QC, Michael Birnbaum, in the clear hope—indeed, expectation—that the Commission would refer Oliver’s case back to the Court of Appeal.

After two long years, the CCRC concluded that there was nothing new to form the basis of a fresh appeal and that therefore there could be no appeal. That was despite a recent change in the law that would have enabled the Court of Appeal to rely on the statements that Eric Samuels had made, in which he completely exonerated Oliver.

The CCRC also ignored the reports of two very eminent psychologists, who explained that Oliver’s acquiescence to police questioning was due to his limited mental capacity, and his eagerness to please and be accepted. As Kirsty Wark reported at the end of the “Rough Justice” programme, this evidence of Oliver’s mental state, which had never been brought before the original jury, constituted

“fresh new evidence which points to a terrible miscarriage of justice”.

I am bringing this case to the attention of the House for two reasons. First, of course, it is because I believe Oliver to be innocent of the crime of murder. Life is not easy for Oliver; life never would have been easy for him, even without a murder conviction hanging over him. Oliver works five mornings a week at a community café as a cleaner; he spends the rest of his time trying to clear his name. Secondly, however, and crucially, the other reason for us to have this debate here today is because the CCRC was established by this House to make it easier to rectify miscarriages of justice, and I do not believe that it has achieved that aim.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend and I are founder members of the new all-party parliamentary group on miscarriages of justice. As he knows, we now have the Westminster commission on miscarriages of justice, led by Lord Garnier and Baroness Stern. Does he believe that we need a fundamental change to the CCRC, both in terms of its structure and its resources?

[Sandy Martin]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and he is right. I was very pleased to have gone to the first hearing of the Westminster commission on the role of the CCRC just the other day. I think it is making good progress and I hope to see a radical change in the way that we deal with appeals on the grounds of miscarriage of justice.

In my view, the grounds for an appeal in this case are compelling. I am not a lawyer but I have an inquiring mind, and the first three grounds submitted by Oliver’s lawyers seem to me to constitute essential issues that cry out to be reconsidered properly by a court.

Ground A is that the admissions made by Oliver in his so-called confession were inconsistent, inaccurate when compared with the rest of the evidence and, on a number of points, simply absurd. Ground B is the report of Professor Thomas-Peter, a well-respected and highly experienced psychologist. That report states that Oliver’s

“lack of mental capacity for understanding anything other than the simplest of questions indicates to me that he would be vulnerable to self-incrimination.”

He added that Oliver had difficulty understanding double negatives and that, from his reading of the available documents,

“it seems that part of Oliver’s defence was based upon his succumbing to intimidation rather than his inability to understand complex questions.”

Ground C is police misconduct. I would very much like to believe that the treatment Oliver received at the hands of the Metropolitan police would not happen today. Oliver was not treated appropriately and consistently in relation to his obvious needs and inabilities: he was questioned without solicitors, and was misquoted back to himself by the officers in order to confuse him. References were made during the interview to fingerprints on a can of lager held by the murderer being Oliver’s, which was not the case and which the police knew not to be the case. If the prints were Oliver’s, they would certainly have been cited in the prosecution’s case; if they were not Oliver’s, the fact that they belonged to someone else ought to have been enough to acquit him. However, that evidence was never brought to the attention of the court. There is still no forensic evidence to link my constituent to this murder.

[Mr Sheerman]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in some criminal justice systems, access to all the evidence that was presented by either side at the trial makes it much easier to look at the case later and mount an appeal, and does he believe that is something we should have in our country?

[Sandy Martin]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and thank him for his intervention. As far as I can tell, any criminal justice system that does not allow all the existing evidence to be available to both sides of the argument prevents the correct decision from being made in court. I believe the commission needs to look again at Oliver’s case, and that if it carefully re-reads the submission from the QC, it will conclude that there is indeed good cause to send this case to appeal.

The recently established APPG on miscarriages of justice has gained a great deal of support in this House. Oliver’s pro bono solicitor, Glyn Maddocks from Gabb and Co, who has represented Oliver for over 20 years and is a recognised expert in miscarriage of justice cases, is a special advisor to the APPG. He has been working closely with the newly established Westminster commission on miscarriages of justice, which is co-chaired by former Solicitor General Lord Garnier QC and Baroness Stern. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government will give their full support to the Westminster commission as it undertakes its important work?

The purpose of the Westminster commission is to look at the difficulty in overturning wrongful convictions in England and Wales. Such a review, particularly of the CCRC and its relationship with the Court of Appeal, is long overdue. I hope to have an opportunity to submit the failings of the CCRC’s review of Oliver Campbell’s case as evidence to the Westminster commission. We need our justice system to be fit for purpose, to identify and punish the guilty and exonerate the innocent, and when there is clear evidence that that has not happened, we need to know why. However, we also have a fellow human being to consider—a man who is still living under licence, with barely enough income to survive and subject to recall to prison at any time. I strongly believe that Oliver has already had to wait too long to have his name cleared. I urge the Minster to write to the CCRC and ask it to review Oliver’s case once more as soon as practicably possible, and reconsider its decision not to refer his case back to the Court of Appeal.

No one doubts that the job of the CCRC is difficult; it is constantly being asked to do more with fewer resources. I suspect that when it was set up in 1997, it was never expected that it would receive 1,500 applications each year. In its 22 years of existence, it has reviewed nearly 24,000 of the 25,000 applications it has received, many of which have been completely ineligible. The commission has referred 658 cases to the Court of Appeal, of which all but 10 have been heard in the courts. Some 437 convictions have been quashed, and 198 appeals have been dismissed. It is beyond me, and beyond anyone else who knows anything about this case, why Oliver’s case was not one of those referred. However, does the Minister agree that the rate of convictions quashed suggests that a large number of the cases that have not been sent to the Court of Appeal might also have led to convictions being overturned?

There is some concern about the subordinate relationship the CCRC has with the Court of Appeal, and about the difficulty it faces when applying the real possibility test, which it currently uses to decide which cases to refer. I have personally seen from Oliver’s case that the CCRC has acted somewhat more as an arbitrary gatekeeper than as a champion for righting the obvious miscarriage of justice he has suffered.

Oliver will be 50 next year, and has been fighting to clear his name for nearly 30 years. Those within the criminal justice system who have had contact with Oliver professionally, including during his time in prison, have had very serious doubts about his conviction. The governor at Wandsworth described him as

“of very low intelligence and childlike in some ways. Knowing him as we do it is difficult to see how he has ended up in this situation”.

His probation officer said he had serious concerns about Oliver’s conviction for murder. Even the trial judge’s report to the Home Secretary at the end of Oliver’s trial reflected his view regarding the gross artificiality of the result, and the unsatisfactory nature of the trial process that led to it.

It is right that I pay special tribute to Oliver’s legal team, his solicitor Glyn Maddocks and his QC Michael Birnbaum, both of whom have worked tirelessly and resolutely for over 20 years on an entirely pro bono basis to achieve justice for Oliver. Such dedication is rare, but at a time when legal aid is almost non-existent and miscarriages of justice are increasing—surely linked to cost pressures in the criminal justice system—it is an absolutely precious commodity. I hope that many other younger lawyers will be inspired to work on cases such as Oliver Campbell’s.

Several people have said that Oliver Campbell’s case is the clearest example of a miscarriage of justice that they have seen. I am surprised and dismayed that the CCRC, established by this House with the support of all parties following the recommendation of the royal commission on criminal justice under the Major Government, has failed to enable the correction of what is so clearly a wrongful conviction. I call on the Minister to institute a review of the CCRC’s decision-making powers.