A family's fight for their son's freedom
Reading Time: 8 minutes After completing his DipABRSM in 2014, Mark took some time to focus on his legal studies before returning to his music in 2023. I was really lucky to meet some amazing musicians through Vox Holloway Choir and Liberty Choir, who encouraged me to take on the LRSM. With their support,...
Reading Time: 10 minutes The Law Commission’s ongoing review of the criminal appeals system completed its pre-consultation phase last week, examining a raft of proposed reforms to the way our State institutions respond to potential miscarriages of justice. I was immediately struck by a well-intentioned but highly questionable passage in the Law Commission’s Issues...
Reading Time: 8 minutes After almost 8 years of patiently requesting permission from the Ministry of Justice to speak with an investigative journalist about his wrongful conviction, former King’s College London law student Mark Alexander has today won his legal challenge against the government’s restrictive policy on prisoners’ access to the media. Multiple journalists...
Reading Time: 12 minutes A lot of people tend to assume that well-behaved prisoners get time off for ‘good behaviour’. In the United States, for example, federal inmates can earn up to 54 days off each year under the First Step Act, if staff feel they have remained “in exemplary compliance with institutional disciplinary...
Reading Time: 11 minutes For the past few years, the hope of spending the end of his 16-year sentence in an ‘open’ prison where he could spend more time with his family, travel to university during the week to conduct research for his PhD, and begin making plans for his future beyond prison, has...
Reading Time: 4 minutes The Deputy Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Justice Dominic Raab has confirmed to us that he has asked the Law Commission “to consider including a review” of the threshold test for overturning convictions in the Criminal Appeals Court, in line with recommendations made by the Westminister Commission on Miscarriages...
Reading Time: 8 minutes The Ministry of Justice has denied an investigative journalist access to interview Mark Alexander while he is in prison, effectively preventing further investigation being conducted in to his case to establish his innocence. Mark has always maintained that he was wrongly convicted of murder in 2010. This is now the...
Reading Time: 7 minutes When the Westminster Commission on Miscarriages of Justice published the findings of its inquiry into the Criminal Cases Review Commission (‘In the Interests of Justice’) on 5 March 2021, it made over 40 recommendations. Whilst the vast majority of these were directed at the CCRC, 9 of the recommendations made...
Reading Time: 5 minutes Deconstructing a wrongful conviction is a painstaking process. Often, once all the tripwires that floored the original jury have been carefully exposed, a case will require extensive investigative efforts to reveal previously unseen evidence that can exonerate the individual, or at least raise serious doubts about the veracity of the...
Reading Time: 5 minutes One of the many problems plaguing the Criminal Cases Review Commission – the body set up to review potential miscarriages of justice in England and Wales – is the sheer length of time that it takes them to consider any given application. To help address the issue, the House of...
Reading Time: 8 minutes Proving your innocence in most cases requires finding some ‘fresh evidence’ that wasn’t available at your original trial, a challenge that stops many a wrongly convicted person in their tracks. Unless you are one of the lucky few able to acquire pro bono support, conducting a private investigation from behind...
Reading Time: 5 minutes Most people wrongly convicted of a crime are quick to lodge an appeal within the allotted 28-day time limit. Unless there was something seriously wrong with the actual trial process however, your only hope of an acquittal is to find some fresh evidence that wasn’t available just a week or...
Reading Time: 4 minutes In 2019, a Westminster Commission made up of a growing number of MPs concerned by the rising tide of wrongful convictions across England and Wales was formed across party political lines in search of solutions. Establishing an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justice (APPGMJ), they launched a public inquiry...
Reading Time: 4 minutes Samuel Alexander disappeared in 2009. His body was later found buried at his family home. Despite a lack of DNA, eyewitnesses, or murder weapon – and with no cause or date of death – his only son Mark was convicted of murder. A law graduate, Mark has been investigating his...
Reading Time: 12 minutes Born in 1939, Samuel grew up in Egypt while it was still a British protectorate. His family worked in medicine and pharmaceuticals, but faced real poverty. After moving from Alexandria to Cairo, they lived in an apartment block without electricity or running water. As part of the minority Christian group...
Reading Time: 4 minutes The universality of Coronavirus (COVID-19), and the resulting measures being taken to limit its spread, represents a unique moment in the history of mankind. The experience of shared hardships has touched all of us at the same time, irrespective of our differences, and crossed all divides. Whoever we are, wherever...
Reading Time: 10 minutes Mark organised a small fundraising event for Emmaus UK some years ago, whilst in prison. Terry Waite CBE, President of the charity, invited Mark to curate an afternoon of ‘Words and Music’ with him, reflecting upon a selection of moving poems from his new book, ‘Out of the Silence‘. We’ve...
Reading Time: 4 minutes Mark’s visceral experience of the criminal justice system has impressed upon him the urgent need for reform. “You just don’t learn this kind of thing at law school, the real, practical issues that undermine and delegitimise the entire process”. Invited to contribute to a new book, ‘Crime and Consequence‘, Mark...
Reading Time: 5 minutes This article could just as easily have been called ’Ten ways the Daily Mail were misled by the crown prosecution service’, because in many ways the press isn’t to blame for the inaccuracies and calculated falsehoods recited in the prosecution’s opening speech – which they perhaps naturally, albeit uncritically, relied...
Reading Time: 4 minutes “Gifted son gets life for butchering pushy father”. “He is accused of attempting to dismember him with a saw”. “He… tried to cut it up with an electric saw”. “A blade from a saw was found with the corpse… An electric saw was found in the house” – Excerpts from...
Reading Time: 4 minutes Mark and his family would like to thank everyone who supported their petition to the Lord Chancellor, Rt. Hon. David Gauke MP (below). Unfortunately, the Ministry of Justice has not granted the media access to interview Mark in prison. They have since explained that “Consideration as to whether a prisoner...
Reading Time: 2 minutes Mark “battered his father to death”. Police discovered Samuel’s “dismembered body and battered skull”. Samuel died “having suffered blows to the head”. – Excerpts from the Daily Mail et al We simply don’t know how my father died. The Home Office Pathologist was “unable to formally ascribe a cause of...
Reading Time: 3 minutes “Weeks after the disappearance… neighbours noticed there was a smell of ‘rotting sheep’ from the property”. SP “could not help but notice the strange smell that appeared to be emanating from Samuel’s home”. “At much the same time, a foul smell was noticed in the cul-de-sac”. – Excerpts from the...
Reading Time: 4 minutes “Forensic studies of the body indicated that Samuel had probably been murdered in early September”. “Traces found in the garage suggested that the body had been stored there for 2 months before being buried”. – Excerpts from the Daily Mail et al The Home Office Pathologist was unable to determine...
Reading Time: < 1 minute “The nozzle from a petrol can, heavy-duty black gloves, and a roll of black plastic sheeting” were found in the house. – Excerpts from the Daily Mail et al What sensible household doesn’t have assorted sundries like these? Of course, we are supposed to insinuate some sinister purpose behind this...
Reading Time: 2 minutes “Girlfriends were not permitted. Samuel Alexander would have seen them as a distraction”. Samuel “saw no room for girlfriends”. “Girlfriends were not welcome”. Samuel “disapproved of Mark having a girlfriend”. Samuel “barred him from having girlfriends”. – Excerpts from the Daily Mail et al These rather glib remarks were –...
Reading Time: 3 minutes Mark “resented his father’s meddling, according to his girlfriend” Mark “had had enough of being bossed around”. Mark was “driven by the knowledge that only with his father out of the way could he live the life he wanted to lead”. Samuel “made him live with him at his home...
Reading Time: 4 minutes Samuel “insisted his son attend the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris Mark was “determined to finally have his way, weeks before he was due to start studying in the French capital”. Samuel “refused to allow him to live on campus, and instead searched for a ‘host family’, unaware that Mark...
Reading Time: < 1 minute “Mark maintained that Sami was living with him in London”. “Mark said he was living in a close Egyptian community in London with friends”. – Excerpts from the Daily Mail et al The semantics are important here because one could be forgiven for thinking that “living with him in London”...
Reading Time: 2 minutes Samuel was “barely mobile”, “increasingly frail”, and “walked with a stoop”. – Excerpts from the Daily Mail et al This is plainly not true. As the Honourable Judge Reddihough remarked in sentencing: “There is clear evidence before the court that by the time of this offence Sami had made a...
Reading Time: < 1 minute Mark’s faith has been an important source of strength for him in prison. Many have been moved by Mark’s music in Church, where he plays the piano and violin for the weekly services. Mark wrote this special prayer for the prison choir, which speaks not only to his own personal...
Reading Time: 9 minutes Asked to write a book review for the Prison Service Journal, Mark submitted this thought provoking piece on ‘Parole and Beyond‘, a comparative study of international parole systems that shines a spotlight on the hidden workings and effects of correctional justice. Parole and Beyond – International Experiences of Life after...
Reading Time: 6 minutes Letter to the Head of News, External Communications Dear Madame, Thank you for your letter of 31 August. I appreciate you giving our request some consideration. I must say, I was extremely surprised by the Ministry’s response given the length of time invested by all parties in this matter and...
Reading Time: 17 minutes Mark Alexander writing on the resurgence and growth of innocence projects in universities Originally published in Criminal Law and Justice Weekly – Issue 23 (2016) 180 JPN 411 – 415 [1] Over the past 9 months I’ve been trying to get a sense of the health of the innocence project...
Reading Time: 6 minutes Mark originally wrote this article for Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners and criminal justice practitioners in England and Wales. This June marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, much lauded as the foundation stone of our British legal system. It was the one of the first documents...
Reading Time: 8 minutes A shorter version of this article was first published on the Justice Gap The announcement that Innocence Network UK (INUK) had disbanded in September 2014 came as a real shock to those of us on the inside still fighting for justice. There had been no indication to those of us on...
Reading Time: 6 minutes In 2015, the CCRC opted not to refer our first application to the Court of Appeal In spite of the new evidence we presented to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), it has decided not to refer my case to the Court of Appeal. This is because the CCRC do...
Reading Time: < 1 minute This was the CCRC’s formal response to Mark’s complaint, following their decision not to refer his case to the Court of Appeal. You can read Mark’s reaction here.
Reading Time: 4 minutes Mark studied for his Diploma in Music Performance (DipABRSM, rebranded as ARSM in 2024) whilst in prison, achieving a Merit. He was the first person to have ever attempted an exam at this level in prison. On a sunny afternoon in July, two examiners from the Royal Schools of Music...
Reading Time: 6 minutes The Joint Committee on the draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill – comprised of 6 MPs and 6 Peers –recently invited interested organisations and individuals to tender written evidence as part of their inquiry into Prisoner Voting. This follows pressure on parliament from the Council of Europe to comply with the...
Reading Time: 2 minutes After a year of study, Mark sat his grade 8 piano exam in prison, passing with Merit. Two diplomas and two degrees later, Mark is still looking for ways to stretch himself, and defy the apparent limitations of his circumstances. When everything else was lost, music felt like the only...
Reading Time: 4 minutes This is an executive summary (not the full report) of the original 34-page Serious Case Review (SCR) commissioned by the police in March 2010, and conducted by Buckinghamshire County Council (pdf below). Three of the police officers involved in Mark’s case sat on this Serious Case Review, which met 5...
Reading Time: 3 minutes Although Mark wasn’t allowed to attend his father’s funeral as he awaited trial, friends were able to deliver this eulogy – written by Mark for the occasion – on his behalf, during the service held on 27 April 2010. Golden Memory Familiar sounds echo in new places, they follow me,...
Days Wrongfully Imprisoned
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