thoughts on the case so far................

May 2013

As I sit typing this I am waiting for the report on the IPCC investigation to arrive, hopefully this will validate our concerns regarding the police's bad work practices.

Given our time over again we would have played things very differently, hindsight is an extraordinary gift. 

We would have been more insistent on many points, we would have instructed legal teams to be more aggressive and targeted in there questioning, not presuming the jury were bright enough to understand subtle references, we should have insisted that everything was spelt out in the most basic of terms, lying police officers exposed, points proved beyond any doubt.

A big drug trial of this sort is pure theatre, there are no ‘direct victims’ in an Importation case, so no extreme emotional aspect to the case. Points of focus shift, immediate evaluations are made from the way you dress to the way you react to any given situation. Families and friends attending are fair game for unscrupulous police and jurors, in this case the partner of a juror attended the majority of the trial befriending and chatting with the relatives asking for clarification on various points, he listened to evidence and legal argument the jury were excused for, before going home for the evening with his partner. It later became clear this man was also an ex Met Police Officer.

In short anyone who believes in the sanctity of the British Judicial system and that innocence will always be proved is poorly mistaken. It is a system that is stacked against the accused. and works to the desired end, and the best players are the professionals, police, special agencies, professional witnesses, and the Judicial establishment themselves, who are all willing to do whatever is needed to justify their position and an end result. Anyone who has the integrity to question the system is quickly crushed and discredited.

All I can say to anyone involved in a trial like this, is 24 years is a long time by anyone’s standards, trust no one, question everything even at the expense of upsetting the Judge, and remember it’s the Jury who will find you guilty or not guilty, the judge’s only role is to see fair play and pass sentence.