Miscarriages of justice

Tilting the Balance – 7 ways our justice system favours conviction of the innocent over acquittal of the guilty

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...

Breaking the silence – Court rules prisoner voices can be heard

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...

Secretary of State refers Court of Appeal Safety Test to Law Commission

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...

Voiceless Inside – Miscarriage of Justice campaigners take Ministry of Justice to Court over Podcast Ban

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...

group of men forming a libe

Getting a Wrongful Conviction back into Court: A tortured path

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...