Why are we here
Ten years ago we published Satish Sekar's acclaimed book Fitted-In: The Cardiff 3 and the Lynette White Inquiry. We hoped that it would stimulate debate on several areas of law and result in major policy reforms that would improve the performance of the criminal justice system. The murder of Lynette White was a particularly brutal murder. At the time it was the worst murder of its type in Welsh history. She sustained more than fifty stab wounds. The Cardiff Three – Yusef Abdullahi, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris had been free for more than five years. John and Ronnie Actie had been free even longer, but who would fight for justice for Lynette White?
We were proud to publish Sekar's book – a relentless demolition of a deeply flawed case. There were many lessons to learn and not just by police. The CPS should never have prosecuted this case and safeguards had failed repeatedly. The sorry tale is detailed in Sekar's book, but his was a crusade not only for lessons to be learned by the whole criminal justice system. He demanded history be made. He assured us that despite the errors the murder of Lynette White could still be solved and that DNA testing would be crucial in this process. We decided that this story had to be told. In July 1998 we launched his book. Even we were surprised by its impact.
Within a year the Lynette White Inquiry was re-opened for the second time. This time attitudes in South Wales Police had changed. From being their most vociferous critic on this case, Sekar became part of the solution that police sought. They wanted to convince him that they were genuine and intended to solve the murder. Following exceptional scientific work by Professor Dave Barclay among others vital DNA samples were recovered from the murder scene nearly fifteen years after Ms White's untimely death. Innovative use of the national DNA Database enabled police to unmask the true killer. On July 4th 2003 Jeffrey Gafoor pleaded guilty to the murder of Lynette White. It was the first time in British history that a miscarriage of justice had been resolved by the conviction of the truly guilty in Britain. We are honoured to have been part of that process.
We had hoped that it would mean that our task was complete. Sadly that is not the case. There are still many lessons to be learned and not just from that case, but let us start there. Five years later the biggest investigation of what went wrong in a miscarriage of justice case continues. To date thirty-four people involved in that case – twenty of whom are serving or retired police officers have been arrested and interviewed under caution on suspicion of offences including perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The first trial of crucial witness Mark Grommek on three counts of perjury began on October 17th 2008. Further trials are contemplated, but are unlikely to occur before 2010.
Meanwhile, important issues have passed without comment. We had hoped that mainstream media would take up the cudgels where we left off. Sadly that has not happened and we have reluctantly concluded that we must take up the fight once more. We believe that it is an affront – outrage even – to every concept of justice that the real murderer received a significantly lower tariff than the entirely innocent Cardiff Three. We share Satish Sekar's disbelief that this could happen and his anger that the Ministry of Justice refuse to accept that there is anything wrong with the current system. How, we ask, can it be justified that the law believes that the most brutal murder of its type at that time and the fact Gafoor allowed innocent men to serve a total of sixteen years for his crime only outweighs a guilty plea fifteen years too late and assistance with the current investigation by just one year? Is this not an affront to justice? Does it not deny that the Cardiff Three are victims of a gross betrayal of justice? We endorse Sekar's proposal for tariff reform, which we reproduce here. We ask you to write your representatives calling for such tariff reform. It is far too late for the Cardiff Three, but others can benefit.
We were shocked and appalled to find that despite being undeniably innocent, the Cardiff Five receive no assistance at all to rebuild their lives. We find this scandalous. Sekar has established how and why this happened. We are delighted to make his articles on this subject available to a wider audience. Five years ago a scheme was established to provide limited assistance to victims of miscarriages of justice. However, those who were released at their first appeal were excluded. Among those excluded were the Cardiff Five. Consequently, despite there be no doubt about innocence they were left to fend themselves – they still are. The Actie cousins were never even considered as requiring after-care, yet they are equally innocent. It is already too late for Ronnie Actie. He died last September. We hope that he will be the last victim of a miscarriage of justice to be so poorly treated.
These issues and others have convinced us that our work is far from complete. We want to bring these issues and others to a wider audience. There are lessons to be learned from other cases and from innovative scientific techniques that we intend to be part of. We will make such information accessible on subjects such as forensic entomology, fire reconstruction, DNA databasing and much more besides. We intend this to be a free resource for the public that will provoke discussion and action. Justice is inalienable right, but it must be fought for and cherished. It is one of the most precious things life has to give.
The Fitted-In Project