The Price of [IN]Justice #1 - The Guildford Four
The case of the Guildford Four concerns Gerard Conlon, Paul Hill, Patrick Armstrong, and Carole Richardson, who were wrongfully convicted in 1975 for the Provisional IRA's deadly pub bombings in Guildford, England, which killed five people and injured dozens. Their convictions were secured amidst a climate of intense public fear and anger surrounding IRA activities on the British mainland. The four, all young people at the time, found themselves ensnared in a justice system under immense pressure to deliver swift retribution for the attacks.
Their convictions rested almost entirely on confessions obtained under duress and alleged police brutality during interrogations; there was no forensic evidence linking them to the bombings. The accused later retracted these confessions, stating they were coerced through intimidation, threats to their families, and physical violence. Despite alibis and inconsistencies in the prosecution's case, they were found guilty and received lengthy prison sentences, with the judge expressing regret that they had not been charged with treason, which still carried the death penalty.
After 15 years of imprisonment and a tenacious campaign by family members, lawyers, and journalists, their convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1989. It was revealed that crucial alibi evidence favouring Paul Hill had been deliberately withheld by the police from the defence and the prosecution. The case of the Guildford Four stands as a stark and high-profile example of a severe miscarriage of justice, highlighting police misconduct and the devastating human cost of wrongful conviction.
The Price of [IN]Justice #2 - The Birmingham Six
The Birmingham Six – Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power, and John Walker – were six Irishmen wrongfully sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 for the IRA pub bombings in Birmingham that killed 21 people and injured 182. Arrested as they were about to travel to Belfast for the funeral of an IRA member, they became prime suspects in a nation demanding swift justice for one of the deadliest attacks on British soil during The Troubles.
Their convictions were based on coerced confessions, which the men claimed were extracted through severe physical and psychological abuse by police, and on flawed forensic tests (the Greiss test) that supposedly detected nitroglycerine traces. During their trial and subsequent appeals, the men maintained their innocence, detailing the brutal treatment they endured. However, in the prevailing anti-Irish sentiment and pressure for convictions, their claims were largely dismissed, and the forensic evidence was presented as conclusive.
After 16 years in prison and a long, arduous campaign, their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and were quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1991. New evidence demonstrated that police had fabricated confession notes, suppressed evidence, and that the forensic tests were unreliable. The Birmingham Six case is another landmark miscarriage of justice, exposing serious police misconduct and the fallibility of a justice system when under intense public and political pressure.
The Price of [IN]Justice #3 - Stefan Kiszko
Stefan Kiszko was a 23-year-old tax clerk with a reported mental age of 12 when he was wrongfully convicted in 1976 for the sexual assault and murder of 11-year-old Lesley Molseed in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Lesley's murder provoked widespread public outrage, and the police were under immense pressure to find her killer. Kiszko, a socially isolated and vulnerable individual, became the focus of the investigation despite a lack of direct evidence linking him to the crime.
His conviction was secured on the basis of confessions made during police interviews, which he later stated were coerced, and on scientific evidence related to sperm found at the scene. Crucially, evidence that Kiszko was infertile due to a medical condition (anorchism) and therefore could not have produced the sperm found on Lesley's clothing was known to medical experts and, allegedly, to some within the investigation, but was not properly presented or considered by the defence or the court during his trial. This vital exculpatory evidence was effectively suppressed or overlooked.
Stefan Kiszko spent 16 horrifying years in prison, where he was consistently targeted and brutalised by other inmates due to the nature of the crime for which he was convicted. His mother, Charlotte, campaigned tirelessly for his release. His conviction was finally quashed in 1992 after fresh scientific evidence confirmed his innocence. Tragically, Stefan Kiszko died in December 1993, just 22 months after his release, his health irrevocably broken by his ordeal, making his case one of the most heart-wrenching miscarriages of justice.
The Price of [IN]Justice #4 - Sally Clark
Sally Clark, a solicitor, endured one of the most publicised miscarriages of justice in modern British history when she was wrongfully convicted in 1999 of murdering her two infant sons. Her first son, Christopher, died in December 1996 at 11 weeks old, and her second son, Harry, died in January 1998 at 8 weeks old. Initially, both deaths were attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), but police later launched a murder investigation.
The prosecution's case heavily relied on the controversial statistical evidence provided by paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow. He testified that the probability of two SIDS deaths in an affluent, non-smoking family like the Clarks was 1 in 73 million, a figure later discredited as a gross miscalculation and misuse of statistics. Furthermore, crucial medical evidence that could have supported a natural cause of death for Harry (a bacterial infection) was not disclosed to Clark's defence team by the pathologist Alan Williams.
Sally Clark was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. She served more than three years before her conviction was quashed on a second appeal in 2003, after it was revealed that microbiological reports showing Harry had a staphylococcal bacterial infection had been withheld. The devastating personal toll of her wrongful conviction was immense; Sally Clark never fully recovered from the ordeal and died in 2007 from acute alcohol poisoning, an outcome widely seen as a tragic consequence of the injustice she suffered.
The Price of [IN]Justice #5 - The Post Office Horizon Scandal
The Post Office Horizon scandal is one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in British legal history, involving hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses who were wrongly prosecuted for theft, fraud, and false accounting between 1999 and 2015. These prosecutions were based on data from a faulty computer accounting system called Horizon, developed by the Japanese company Fujitsu, which was rolled out across Post Office branches nationwide starting in 1999.
Despite numerous sub-postmasters reporting inexplicable shortfalls and discrepancies shown by the Horizon system, the Post Office aggressively pursued prosecutions, often relying solely on the flawed Horizon data as evidence of wrongdoing. Many individuals were financially ruined, forced into bankruptcy, lost their homes and reputations, suffered severe mental and physical health problems, and some were imprisoned. The Post Office consistently denied there were any systemic issues with Horizon, instead blaming the individuals for the financial discrepancies.
After years of campaigning by affected sub-postmasters, a landmark High Court case in 2019 ruled that the Horizon system contained numerous "bugs, errors and defects" and that there was a "material risk" it was the cause of the discrepancies. This led to the quashing of many convictions, with more still under review. A statutory public inquiry into the scandal is ongoing, exposing the extent of the Post Office's failings, its culture of denial, and the devastating human cost of its actions, which many describe as a form of institutional corruption and abuse of power.
The Price of [IN]Justice #6 - Timothy Evans
Timothy Evans was a 25-year-old Welsh van driver who was wrongfully convicted and hanged on 9 March 1950 for the murder of his infant daughter, Geraldine, at their home at 10 Rillington Place, London. He had also been accused of murdering his wife, Beryl. Evans had a low IQ and was described as suggestible, which played a significant role in the tragic events that unfolded during the police investigation.
During police questioning, Evans gave a series of conflicting statements, eventually "confessing" to the murders, though he later retracted this, accusing his downstairs neighbour, John Christie, of committing the crimes. Christie was the chief prosecution witness against Evans. Unbeknownst to the police or the court at the time, Christie was a serial killer who had already murdered several women and would go on to murder more, including his own wife, concealing their bodies in and around the same house.
Three years after Evans's execution, Christie was arrested after more bodies were discovered at 10 Rillington Place. Christie confessed to murdering Beryl Evans, though he denied killing Geraldine. Despite this, doubts about Evans's conviction grew, leading to official inquiries. Timothy Evans was granted a posthumous pardon in 1966, and his conviction was formally quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2004. His case became a pivotal argument in the campaign for the abolition of capital punishment in the UK.
The Price of [IN]Justice #7 - Barry George
Barry George was wrongfully convicted in 2001 for the murder of television presenter Jill Dando, who was shot dead on her doorstep in Fulham, London, in April 1999. Dando's high-profile status meant her murder attracted immense media attention and public pressure for a swift resolution. George, who lived near Dando and had a history of stalking women and some mental health issues, became a key suspect.
The prosecution's case against George was largely circumstantial and relied heavily on a single microscopic particle of gunshot residue found in the pocket of a coat seized from his home a year after the murder. There was no other forensic evidence linking him to the crime scene, no murder weapon was found, and no clear motive established. His defence argued that the particle could have come from contamination or other sources.
After serving eight years in prison, Barry George's conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2007. The appeal judges ruled that the forensic evidence regarding the gunshot residue was unreliable and should not have been presented to the jury in the way it was, as its probative value was considered negligible. At his retrial in 2008, where the gunshot residue evidence was not deemed admissible in its original form, George was unanimously acquitted, raising serious questions about the original investigation and the strength of the evidence that led to his conviction.
The Price of [IN]Justice #8 - Judith Ward
Judith Ward was wrongfully convicted in 1974 for her alleged involvement in several IRA bombings, most notably the M62 coach bombing which killed twelve people (nine soldiers and three civilians), and bombings in London and at Euston Station. At the time of her trial, she was portrayed as a committed IRA terrorist, and her conviction was seen as a significant success for the authorities in combating the IRA's mainland campaign.
Ward, who had a history of mental health problems and a tendency towards making false, grandiose claims, made a series of confessions to police. These confessions formed the core of the prosecution's case. However, it later emerged that crucial scientific evidence which would have undermined the confessions and pointed to her innocence was deliberately withheld from the defence by prosecution lawyers and government scientists. This included evidence showing that tests for nitroglycerine, supposedly linking her to explosives, were unreliable and prone to contamination.
After spending 18 years in prison, Judith Ward's conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1992. The appeal judges heavily criticised the original prosecution, particularly the "material and culpable" withholding of evidence, describing her trial as a "grave injustice." Her case highlighted severe prosecutorial misconduct and the dangers of relying on uncorroborated confessions, especially from vulnerable individuals, and led to calls for greater transparency and disclosure in the justice system.
The Price of [IN]Justice #9 - Derek Bentley
Derek Bentley was an 19-year-old man who was controversially hanged on 28 January 1953 for the murder of Police Constable Sidney Miles. The murder occurred during an attempted burglary in Croydon, South London, which Bentley undertook with a 16-year-old accomplice, Christopher Craig. When confronted by police on the rooftop, Craig, armed with a revolver, opened fire. PC Miles was shot and killed by Craig.
Bentley, who had a reported mental age of 11 and suffered from epilepsy, was already under arrest when PC Miles was shot by Craig. His conviction for murder rested on the prosecution's interpretation of the ambiguous phrase "Let him have it, Chris," which Bentley allegedly shouted to Craig. The prosecution argued this was an incitement to shoot, while the defence contended it could have meant for Craig to surrender the gun. Under the legal principle of "joint enterprise," Bentley was held equally responsible for the murder committed by Craig.
Despite public outcry, pleas for clemency, and the jury's recommendation for mercy (as Craig, being under 18, could not be sentenced to death), Bentley was executed. His case fuelled the debate on capital punishment and the fairness of the joint enterprise doctrine. After a long campaign by his family, Derek Bentley received a posthumous pardon in 1993, and his murder conviction was formally quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1998, which ruled that the trial judge had misdirected the jury and that Bentley's conviction was unsafe.
The Price of [IN]Justice #10 - The Tottenham Three (Winston Silcott)
The case of the "Tottenham Three" – Winston Silcott, Engin Raghip, and Mark Braithwaite – arose from the Broadwater Farm riot in Tottenham, North London, in October 1985, during which Police Constable Keith Blakelock was tragically killed. The riot was sparked by the death of Cynthia Jarrett during a police search of her home. The intense pressure to secure convictions for PC Blakelock's murder led to a highly controversial investigation and trial.
Winston Silcott, who was already in custody for an unrelated murder (for which his conviction was also later quashed), along with Raghip and Braithwaite, was convicted in 1987 for PC Blakelock's murder. Silcott's conviction, in particular, drew significant scrutiny. It was based on contested interview evidence, as police notes of his alleged confessions were later found to have been tampered with. Scientific tests (ESDA) on the interview notes suggested that incriminating remarks attributed to Silcott were inserted after the interview was concluded.
In 1991, the Court of Appeal quashed the murder convictions of all three men. For Silcott, the primary reason was the unreliability of the police interview evidence, deemed unsafe due to the evidence of fabrication. Engin Raghip's conviction was quashed because of his learning difficulties and mental state at the time of his police interviews, making his confession unreliable. Braithwaite's conviction was also overturned. The case highlighted serious police misconduct and the dangers of relying on uncorroborated confessions obtained under questionable circumstances, especially in high-pressure investigations.