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E-Mail A_Baron@ABaron.Demon.Co.UK
July 28, 2003,
Sir,
Your article on Saturday re the confessions of James Payling to the
murder of David Williamson highlights a serious anomaly of the current
system.
The Police And Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 placed police
questioning of suspects on a statutory basis, in particular recording
their interrogations on tape. Before that the only protection a suspect
had from being "verballed up" by corrupt police officers was the Judges'
Rules, a series of administrative directions that had no legal force.
The Judges' Rules could be and were frequently ignored resulting in
especially suspects with antecedents being convicted solely because
their previous convictions were put before the jury when they challenged
the police version of events and lost their shield. Now, conversely, it
seems that any minor infraction of the statute can result in obviously
guilty suspects being cleared of extremely serious crimes, as in this
case.
The quid pro quo is that while confessions made to police officers
off-tape are ruled out, alleged cell confessions made to convicted
criminals are considered worthy of belief. Michael Stone (whose case has
been featured by the "Mail") is currently serving a life sentence
because his cell confessions were allowed to go before a jury. After his
first trial, one of the witnesses, Barry Thompson, admitted that he made
made up Stone's confession out of the whole cloth. At his second trial,
Stone was convicted on the basis of an uncorroborated confession he was
alleged to shouted through a cell wall to Damien Daley, a confession
that was almost certainly not made.
The conviction of Michael Stone (who is almost certainly innocent of the
Chillenden murders) is as great a travesty of justice as the failure of
the criminal justice system to bring to book the murderer of David
Williamson.
Yours Sincerely,
A Baron
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http://www.ismichaelstoneguilty.org/
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