A Long Walk to Justice

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He thought it would only take a year,’ says MOJO caseworker Paul McLaughlin. ‘It was just that there were more people than he thought.’ These events are great fun and an excellent way to meet up with other members of our profession, not-for-profit organisations, students and, indeed, their dogs! They are however fundraising events, and all funds raised are distributed to Scottish charities providing legal support and services to the most vulnerable in our society. For more information, visit atjf.org.uk/legal-walks The EAC is mandated to prosecute the person(s) most responsible for international crimes committed in Chad between June 7, 1982 and December 1, 1990. This court is the first ad hoc tribunal to be established under the umbrella of a regional political body rather than the United Nations. It is also unprecedented in that it is the first regional court with criminal jurisdiction.

The Habré trial has proceeded satisfactorily to date. There have been no serious breaches of fair trial rights and the court-appointed lawyers are defending the accused competently and ensuring the adversarial nature of proceedings. Did you at any point stop to think about the appalling suffering you would cause Mr Middleton? Using the tragic accidental death of a baby, and the terrible grief of an entire family, to score points in a petty campaign to rubbish me is unforgivable. Bolton established an Innocence Project in New Orleans before returning to the UK and founding the Centre for Criminal Appeals which investigates wrongful convictions. On 14 March 1991 a group of men emerged from London’s Old Bailey and faced a phalanx of reporters. Their mood was a mix of jubilation and rage. They were the so-called Birmingham Six, Irishmen arrested in November 1974 for planting two bombs that went off minutes apart in Birmingham pubs, killing 21 people and injuring 182.

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I note you fail to mention that Mr Middleton set up an organisation to help other wrongly accused people, www.wronglyaccusedperson.org.uk and has devoted himself to that organisation since being acquitted. I was honoured to be asked to join that organisation, and am proud to be part of it. Billy put forward a special plea of ' consent' to the sexual assault charges yet in the statement above he is implying that it never happened and that this was " proved in court". He can't have it both ways - either his ex-wife consented or else it didn't happen, not both. The English CCRC twice rejected Nealon’s applications and only after a third approach did they refer it to the Court of Appeal, which quashed his conviction. He says without doubt there are prisoners currently in New Zealand jails who are innocent but won’t get justice under the present system.

For 16-and-a-half years we have been used as political scapegoats, by people in there at the highest,’ he shouted, pointing to the court behind him. ‘The police told us from the start that they knew we hadn’t done it. They told us they didn’t care who done it. They told us that we were selected and that they were going to frame us just to keep the people in there happy. That’s what it’s all about,’ he spat, every word laden with bitterness and frustration. ‘Justice – I don’t think them people in there have got the intelligence, nor the honesty, to spell the word, never mind dispense it. They’re rotten.’ Over the last decade, legal bodies, MPs of all parties and even parliament’s justice select committee have called for a more open and independent system, such as a CCRC, to look at possible wrongful convictions. The main opposition party in Parliament, New Zealand’s Labour Party, has recently supported establishing a CCRC.Hissène Habré took power in Chad through a military coup and reigned over the country from June 1982 until his fall from power on December 1, 1990. His regime is believed to be responsible for the death or disappearance of nearly 40,000 people, victims of a repressive system of government and atrocious crimes allegedly committed while he was in power.

Birdling notes while change will ultimately be a political decision, it shouldn’t be party political.

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It will, of course, be for Mr Middleton to decide whether he wishes to take legal action regarding the content and intention of this post. The law is, strictly speaking, unconcerned with guilt or innocence. Its concern is conviction or acquittal.’ If I’m sitting in a jail cell saying I’m innocent, I’m innocent, I’m innocent, for 17 years – who’s listening? If he’d been kidnapped and held hostage overseas he’d have got intensive psychological treatment. But if you’re kidnapped by your own government – oooh, that’s embarrassing – we don’t want to talk about it.’ McLaughlin points to the case of Victor Nealon, sentenced to life in prison in 1997 for attempted rape. Despite police claiming no DNA evidence existed, it was eventually discovered the victim’s clothes had never been tested. When they were, they showed DNA from another man, not Nealon. It’s also the position of the Justice Ministry, which has clung to its powers in this area. In 2003 it conducted a review of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy system and recommended an independent board consider miscarriage of justice cases. However, by 2006 it had curiously changed its view, saying its work was of a high standard and it was the appropriate body to consider wrongful convictions. But not only was this a subjective assessment of its own performance, it came despite admitting there was ‘a modest knowledge base about the occurrence of miscarriages of justice in New Zealand and the operation of the Royal prerogative of mercy’.

After training in New Zealand, Malcolm Birdling did a PhD at Oxford University comparing the CCRC with the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, and has recently appeared at the Privy Council in both the Mark Lundy and Teina Pora cases.But Sandra Lean wanted fraudster Billy Middleton manipulative BS and fabricated narrative for her ‘ study’