The Justice Gap (www.thejusticegap.com)

MoJ scraps policy of destroying court records after seven years: MoJ confirms to academic Brian Thornton that trial records will be kept as long as the prison sentence – possibly indefinitely. A surprising (and belated) victory for the Open Justice Charter thejusticegap.com/open-justice...

Our latest report in the @justicegap.bsky.social highlights how the government, police and courts decontextualised the riots, severing them from issues of structural discrimination and systemic racism.

www.thejusticegap.com/courts-downp...

"It has been ten years since the Supreme Court admitted that the law on joint enterprise had ‘taken a wrong turn."

As we mark ten years since the Jogee ruling, I’ve written in @justicegap.bsky.social about why justice cannot wait another ten years 👇

www.thejusticegap.com/kim-johnson-...

CCRC finds that 135 CCTV tapes from the original police investigation had gone missing and, according to the BBC, 15 prosecution witnesses pressured into lying, Shocking.

Turns out 'the man with no alibi' always had one: Dorset Police accused of 'framing' Omar Benguit and 'burying' alibi. BBC's Bronagh Munro on an appalling miscarriage of justice thejusticegap.com/omar-benguit...

Pix: @andyaitchison.bsky.social

'Peter's on benefits. Things we take for granted - can’t claim benefits if you don’t have a bank account; can’t get bank account if you haven’t got ID - problems you shouldn’t face having done 38 yrs in cat A prison for a crime you didn’t so.’ Peter Sullivan's lawyer Sarah Myat

'You’ve now to got prove your innocence beyond reasonable doubt? How can you do that if there was never any evidence against you in the first place.’ Justin Plummer, on being denied compensation after 28 years wrongly imprisoned.

Glyn Maddocks KC: ‘We don’t have a culture of learning lessons from past mistakes. In other areas of life, a train crash or plane crash, teams go in & work out what went wrong.That doesn’t exist - we have serial miscarriages of justice, one after another.’

Appeal judges accused of serially ‘failing to learn lessons of past’: @APPGMJ hears from Justin Plummer, Peter Sullivan & Oliver Campbell who spent a total of 77 yrs wrongly imprisoned - all had convictions overturned but not a penny in compensation paid: thejusticegap.com/appeal-judge...

Powerful APPG on Miscarriages of Justice event hearing from Oliver Campbell, Peter Sullivan & Justin Plummer – three wrongly convicted men who spent a total of 77 years in prison.

Their stories show a system failing people twice: convicting the innocent & abandoning them after release.

One applicant contacted 51 law firms claiming to support CCRC applications, received just four replies, only one could help – and they £3,800 just to look at the files.

New research reveals applicants' experiences of ‘unfriendly and dismissive’ miscarriages of justice watchdog.
Sam Dulieu reports on latest meeting of APPG on miscarriages of justice meeting. Pix: Andy Aitchison thejusticegap.com/new-research...

Miscarriage watchdog invites CPS inspectorate to review handling of wrongful convictions. CCRC interim chair Vera Baird: 'It is important that stakeholders have confidence.  We know we need the assurance of an inspection to prove that point.' thejusticegap.com/miscarriage-...

'Bonkers' Jenrick on manoeuvers: shadow justice minister expected to call for Sentencing Council to be scrapped & reveal ‘dossier’ of 30+ ‘activist’ judges who have volunteered for groups supporting refugees or posted supportive messages on social media. thejusticegap.com/bonkers-and-...

The CCRC has sent the case of Clive Freeman back to the Court of Appeal. Freeman has served 37 years for crimes he insists he did not commit. In 1989, he was convicted of arson and the murder of Alexander Hardie after Hardie was found dead in his flat thejusticegap.com/ccrc-refers-...

Justin Plummer believes he was framed by the police: 'I was doing that many burglaries, I reckon somewhere along the line I did a high-ranking copper’s house or a KC’s and they said to Bedfordshire Police get this sorted out because “he’s taking the piss”.’

'If they thought they could get away with it again, they would’: Justin Plummer, free after 28yrs in prison, on having his conviction overturned in 2021, only to be reconvicted on word of a schizophrenic police informant cellmate & having that overturned: thejusticegap.com/justin-plumm...

‘It will be interesting to see how Court of Appeal responds to what seems to be a more expansive approach by the CCRC. The CCRC has rightly been criticised for its failings, but the Court of Appeal played its part too.' Dr Hannah Quirk, reader in Criminal Law at King’s College

CCRC uses 'safety valve' power for first time to refer without fresh evidence: Miscarriage watchdog sends Ben Fields case back to the Court of Appeal for the first time in 30 years invoking section 13(2). Is this a sign of a newly energised CCRC? thejusticegap.com/ccrc-uses-sa...

During 6m of research, 1/3 of Old Bailey’s courts occupied by JE trials. 'Cost is staggering: across 17 trials, 54yrs spent on remand, inc. 19 years by individuals not convicted or not sentenced to custody. Remand for this group alone is estimated to have cost between £1- £2.2m.'

Joint enterprise ‘shattering lives through overreaching prosecutions’: @we-are-appeal.bsky.social's
Nisha Waller & Tehreem Sultan on new research into 17 murder trials at the Old Bailey, 55 defendants including 33 secondary parties thejusticegap.com/joint-enterp...

Inspectors found ‘thriving elicit economies of drugs, mobile phones and weapons’ at Manchester and Long Lartin. In January, Charlie Taylor called for urgent actions to tackle drones. It was ‘highly alarming’ police and prisons had ‘ceded the airspace’ to organised crime gangs.

Prisons have ‘ceded airspace’ to crime gangs’ drones: ‘Overwhelming’ flood of drugs is ‘destablising’ prisons, says Chief Inspector of Prisons’ - in a category C prison a staggering 59% of prisoners tested positive for drugs. Pic Andy Aitchison thejusticegap.com/prisons-have...

Prof Angela Gallop, co chair of Westminster Commission, said, 'commoditisation and fragmentation' has led to the 'dumbing down' of forensics.

@kimjohnsonmp.bsky.social, chair of the APPG on miscarriages of justice: ‘These cases are not isolated incidents but symptoms of deep, systemic failings in our criminal justice system.'

'Science belongs in the hands of scientists, not the police': Report on launch of Westminster Commission on Forensic Science. 'If we want to avoid miscarriages of justice, we need to have strong forensic sector - not one teetering on the brink.' thejusticegap.com/science-belong

MPs to debate proposal to end ‘systemic injustice’ of joint enterprise: ‘The principle is simple,’ says
@kimjohnsonmp.bsky.social. ‘If you did not make a significant contribution to a crime, you should not be convicted of it.’ thejusticegap.com/mps-to-debat...

Georgia joins US states legislating for miscarriage of justice compensation. Still has death penalty, but exonerees to receive $75,000 for every year wrongfully imprisoned, plus an additional $25,000 for every year spent on death row thejusticegap.com/georgia-joins-…

'What we want is for them [the MoJ] to appreciate how low the organisation has sunk and to revive it': @hammersmithandy.bsky.social talks to the JusticeGap about the 'hollowing out' of the CCRC - 'an organisation that continually fails to learn from its mistakes' thejusticegap.com/andy-slaught...