Perhaps the most dispiriting factor for anyone involved however remotely in what can loosely be described as the operation of our system of law and order is when a grievous miscarriage of justice is revealed whether originating at the base of the justice pyramid; arrest by police, or within the escalating system that is supposed to prove the guilty guilty and exonerate the innocent. I suppose a foundation stone of not just our but many justice systems who have followed our example can be encapsulated by the English jurist William Blackstone in his seminal work Commentaries on the Laws of England published in the 1760s. It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.
In the light of current miscarriages of this very justice system it is right to look closely at the organisations which operate like long off or deep cover in cricket as the last ditch organisations against such wrongful convictions. That organisation in England is the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Its members are not just those who belong in the club of the great and the good; they are approved by the prime minister. A few minutes perusing its website would lead an observer to conclude that each and every avenue of investigation within its parameters is a tribute to the open and diverse society we have been told we have become. And yet the scandals continue. The case of Andrew Malkinson is currently under investigation. The Post Office "Horizon" scandal does not shine a favourable light on the organisation. From the website it writes;" The ‘Post Office Horizon’ scandal is the most widespread miscarriage of justice the CCRC has ever seen. It relates to wrongful prosecutions of former sub-postmasters, managers of counter assistants that were reliant on the flawed computer accounting system ‘Horizon’."
It seems that the CCRC is citing its opinion that it`s vastly underfunded inter alia as a prime reason for its current problems. To quote once again from its website; "This resulted in people being convicted of (or pleading guilty to) offences they did not commit including theft, fraud and false accounting. Since April 2021 the appeal courts have overturned convictions in more than 80 Post Office Horizon cases. In each of the cases the court decided that it had been unfair to prosecute the individual because there were serious defects in the Post Office’s Horizon computer system. In the last three years, more than 100 unjust convictions or sentences have been overturned following CCRC referrals. The organisation has an annual budget of around £8 million and receives around 1,400 applications per year for its Case Review Managers to carry out thorough investigations into often complex cases. In the last year, 1,424 people applied for the CCRC to review their case and 1,275 cases were completed. In the previous year, 1,198 people applied and 1,183 cases were completed. Indications are that applications are currently set to be 30% higher in the current financial year. In the last reporting year (1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023), 83.7% of cases were completed within 12 months of application being received by the CCRC. In that period, 1,275 case reviews were completed. In the previous year, 1,183 case reviews were completed." Like so much of the information emanating from the Ministry of Justice reams of selected statistics often fail, whether or not by intent, to give a wholly rounded picture of the reality on the ground. One must ask by what terms is this organisation "successful" in its endeavours? Latest statistics published today are shown below.
It seems that the CCRC is citing its opinion that it`s vastly underfunded inter alia as a prime reason for its current problems. To quote once again from its website; "This resulted in people being convicted of (or pleading guilty to) offences they did not commit including theft, fraud and false accounting. Since April 2021 the appeal courts have overturned convictions in more than 80 Post Office Horizon cases. In each of the cases the court decided that it had been unfair to prosecute the individual because there were serious defects in the Post Office’s Horizon computer system. In the last three years, more than 100 unjust convictions or sentences have been overturned following CCRC referrals. The organisation has an annual budget of around £8 million and receives around 1,400 applications per year for its Case Review Managers to carry out thorough investigations into often complex cases. In the last year, 1,424 people applied for the CCRC to review their case and 1,275 cases were completed. In the previous year, 1,198 people applied and 1,183 cases were completed. Indications are that applications are currently set to be 30% higher in the current financial year. In the last reporting year (1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023), 83.7% of cases were completed within 12 months of application being received by the CCRC. In that period, 1,275 case reviews were completed. In the previous year, 1,183 case reviews were completed." Like so much of the information emanating from the Ministry of Justice reams of selected statistics often fail, whether or not by intent, to give a wholly rounded picture of the reality on the ground. One must ask by what terms is this organisation "successful" in its endeavours? Latest statistics published today are shown below.
Those interested can play around with those numbers and come to their own conclusions. A simple arithmetical exercise shows that of the 30,516 applications only 220 appeal decisions were upheld i.e. 0.72%. Helen Pitcher, CCRC Chairman, in The Times 2nd September 2023 wrote that 105 unjust convictions or sentences since 2020 were overturned after referral to her organisation. She observes that in 2022 1,424 applications were received. One doesn`t have to be a statistician to come to some very uneasy conclusions from these numbers. Either our justice system is so well run that there are is little likelihood of a miscarriage or that the whole process is geared to the denial of anything going wrong within it. Of course there must be the caveat that many of the applications had and have little hope of progress for various reasons. However there is a single fact that is uncontroversial; namely that since 2010 by design the justice system has been not just underfunded, but has been emasculated at each and every level from police officers on the beat upwards. Once again as with the NHS it is only when scandals reach the eyes and ears of the public that a government, in office but powerless, takes note. Today`s scandal of the probable long known structural failings in school and public buildings is just another step on the stairway into a dark basement of despair for those whose faith in government competence and democratic politics has reached rock bottom.
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