Cardiff Three vindicated
01 January 1993
The Cardiff Three - Steven Miller, Tony Paris and Yusuf Abdullahi - became the latest victims of miscarriages of justice to be released by the Court of Appeal, on 10 December 1992, after the court listened with mounting horror to a taped interview in which officers bullied and intimidated Steven Miller, who went on to confess and implicate the other two. In a judgment delivered on 16 December, Lord Chief Justice Peter Taylor said that solicitors present at police interviews "should responsibly and courageously discharge their function to intervene when improper questions are put", adding that the solicitor acting for Miller "appeared to have been gravely at fault for sitting passively through that travesty of an interview". He referred the interview tapes in the case to the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (RCCJ), the DPP and HM Inspector of Constabulary, to "establish guidelines and ensure that the police follow proper interview techniques". The South Wales police, however, announced after the successful appeal that there would be no disciplinary action against the officers conducting the interviews (Independent, Guardian 11, 17, 22.12.92).
The case attracted national publicity through the work of the Cardiff Three Defence Campaign, relatives and friends of the three, who, through public meetings throughout Britain and exposures on TV programmes, made an irrefutable case for the men's innocence. The confessions, obtained from Miller after nineteen interviews over five days, contradicted forensic and alibi evidence which pointed away from the men.
The convictions of the men in 1990, and the evidence on which they had been obtained, should give a jolt to the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (RCCJ). They were obtained without any breaches of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), and with all the "safeguards" in place: tape-recorded interviews, in the presence of a solicitor. Those at the top of the criminal justice system, including Lord Chief Justice Taylor, himself did not believe that such a miscarriage of justice was possible in such conditions, with such safeguards; so confident was he that he indicated to the Royal Commission that the right to silence could now be "modified", to prevent giving criminal suspects an unfair advantage over those investigating them. It is noticeable that, while professing himself shocked by the conduct of the police in Miller's case, Taylor said nothing during or since the men's appeal to indicate that he has reconsidered that view.
On their release, the three drew attention to the many other innocent men in British prisons, most of whom have no-one to campaign for their release. Over Christmas, 28 prisoners at Long Lartin went on hunger strike to protest their innocence; they included Winston Silcott (whose defence of self-defence was never raised during his murder trial), Satpal Ram (serving life for murder after, he says, defending himself against a racist attack), Sara Thornton (serving life for killing her violent husband), and one of the Carl Bridgwater Three. Three of the men continued their hunger strike after Christmas. (Observer 20.12.92; Independent on Sunday 27.12.92).