The Miscarriages of Justice Review Centre

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Claire manages the student-led Miscarriages of Justice

Review Centre which provides Sheffield law students
with the opportunity to investigate cases of convicted
people maintaining their innocence, who have
exhausted the initial appeals process.
Student volunteers aim to find fresh evidence to support their
clients claims of innocence and use it in making applications to
the Criminal Cases Review Commission. In this video, we talk to
some of the student volunteers and Dr Andrew Green, the
Centres director, about the activities of the Centre.
The University of Sheffield0:09We're
here today to hear from members of
S
k
i
k of Law. I set up the centre in the schoolpwhen it became clear that not only was
S
School
ki
thereipan unmet need for this type of service, but that students would gain a lot from being
t
p in real cases dealing with real problems.
involved
o At the moment, we have a number of
t
casesto that eight groups of students are working on - ranging from sexual offences to
0
o and to assault. The students with the help of staff reinvestigate these cases where
murder
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there is alleged to have been a miscarriage of m
justice.
1
i
0:45What
the students are doing is looking for fresh evidence in the hope of overturning a
m
n
i
m
conviction. For many years, I've been working u- before I came to University of Sheffield in
t called Innocent. It still continues to meet
I've been
working with families in an organisation
nu
e of work in Innocent, and that means
regularly and we still do much of the same kind
ut
s
meeting
te a lot to family members who come regularly. When they come to meetings they're
sdeeply distressed, and they say that. Even
oftene
a years after the conviction, they still burst
staff S
and students that are involved in the Miscarriage of Justice Review Centre here at the

into tears in meetings because that's a place where

they can speak freely, which they
n

a
n
d

d that the effect has been devastating.

can't normally in the rest of society. They tell us
9

1:26They can never stop thinking about the case. That they - as they've often put it - they

42
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s inside. And whole families are doing that.

serve the sentence along with the person who's

e
It's really frightening the way that it affects families.
Unless people come into contact with,
c
o
e are very reluctant to even think that it nhappens. They don't, I think as one person
people
c
d
o
s
n
d
s
and really
understand, and have a direct relationship to a miscarriage of justice case,
s

involved in a miscarriage of justice case who used to be a police officer himself said to me,
I think that people just don't want to believe that the police can behave like that.
2:08That
people can be so easily wrongly convicted, because it makes you feel insecure in
S
life. Ifk some terrible thing happened to you, you were arrested mistakenly and charged

i offence, then you might easily be convicted of it. We don't want to go around
with an
p

spending our daily lives thinking that would happen. So really the more impact we can get
- the tmore of this impact of the devastating effect - we can get across to people, the more

o might really believe and appreciate that miscarriage of justice is a serious problem.
people
When we get a case, that's when it's really busy and the students have a lot to do. First of

all, all the materials have got to be gathered.

m
iS we may have to go off somewhere and collect it. Or we may have to get it sent to
2:47So
n
us in kparcels. It's usually a lot of material because these cases have being through quite a
u
lot ofit stages. They've already been through the appeal courts. They've probably been to
p
the Criminal
Cases Review Commission already once. And all that has generated more
e
s
paperwork.
So it's boxes and boxes of stuff. We then scan all that. And it's a lot of work,
t
o scan it all in, so we can deal with it electronically. And then we look, we get very
but we

a
n2
d
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3:25We'll
also go and visit our client who's normally in prison. Spend quite a long time
m
kS
8i
with them discussing it in detail. It's amazing what comes out of these visits. Really
ikn
interesting
and worthwhile. We may visit scenes of crime if we think that's worth doing. We
pisu
pet
may even
interview witnesses and then we may attempt to get further disclosure of
tce from the Crown Prosecution Service. And then when we've done all that, and
material
ots
written
it up as reports and liaised with lawyers, we hopefully put forward a detailed
on
application
to the Criminal Cases Review Commission on behalf of our clients.
43da
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d
4:03When
I started working at the Miscarriages of Justice Review Centre, I thought that a
im
wrongful
ni4 conviction was just when someone was convicted of a crime that they didn't
commit.
un7 But now that I've spent more time on the project, and taken more time to look
tu case documents, you understand the extent and the depth to which wrongful
into the
ets
convictions
exists in the UK. Our criminal justice system is a complex and complicated set
see
up. And having looked at the depth of the cases that we study, the amount of material that
sc
we have
ao to cover, it just becomes apparent to you that we're dealing with something that
nan
is almost
like an epidemic.
dnd
ds
4:44We've
had to be looking through an assortment of case files and court documents,
42
which4
35 includes barrister notes and solicitor notes. We take an in-depth look at - the process
familiar with the case, and decide what leads we think are worth following up.

which I've been involved in is certainly been more of an investigatory sort of process

s
e
bits that
c the solicitors and barristers which looked at it first perhaps missed. This, then, has
o
n
d
s
where we receive the case from our client, and then over time we've tried to uncover the

involved going to the CPS and talking to them about returning case files.
5:19And
S we're looking to make a CCRC application with the hope that - as our case has

k reviewed yet - perhaps finding something which we can take forward, and make
not been

i
an impact
on a client who has little other option left but come to us for help. It's clear that
p

there are a number of reasons why miscarriage of justice can occur. My particular case,
we'vet looked at how forensic science can wrongly implicate somebody into a crime. Or not

o
necessarily
implicate, but just be wrong, and therefore be particularly difficult to overturn.
5

5:58And
S from that, we also look at how the police can be involved in extracting a false

km
confession,
or a false confession can arise, and then how erroneous witness identification
i compound with each other to create a subsequent wrongful conviction. The only
can all

pn
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exhausted.
So it becomes unfeasible for lawyers, and solicitors, and barristers to take on
t
theseo
e cases when they already have a huge workload. And students have a legal
s
education.
They have an understanding. They have a passion because that's why they get
5
involved in the first place. They have an interest, and they have the time, and they have
a
the desire
to help people.
m
n
id
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6:51And
S they can take on this work, and they can supplement the important work of other
uS
1k
solicitors
t9k and barristers. The implications for convicting potentially innocent people is that
i
we could
be heading towards a dystopian society where anybody, at any time, could be
ei
p
sp
snatched
off the street for a crime that they didn't commit on the most minor piece of
et
evidence
that links them to a particular crime. Lots of the cases that we look at, the links
act
o tenuous that it's sometimes difficult to believe that's even possible that they could
are so
noo
successfully
be brought through the prosecution system and then convicted for a crime, to
dn
6
whichd
7 they are barely even associable with.
5s
m
8m
i sounds almost Orwellian to say that you could be taken - your liberty could be just
7:34It
in
takensn of you - for the most minor thing. And it could happen to anyone, at any time.
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https://innocent.org.uk/about/
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ec
co
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reason that these people come to us is because - it's when the appeals process has been