AC3.1 Examine information for validity
Evidence
While evidence in a criminal case us generally reliable, there are occasions where it has
been shown that evidence is not valid. An example of this is the case of Sally Clarke and the
expert evidence of Sir Roy Meadow.
Case study
Sally Clark – She was convicted of the murder of her first two children in 1999. The death of
her first child, aged just under 3 months, was originally treated as natural causes, or sudden
infant death syndrome. When her second child died a year later, it was treated as
suspicious.
When a home office pathologist revisited the first death, he deemed it suspicious too.
Sir Roy Meadow made ‘simply astonishing’ mistakes with regards to the statistical evidence,
claiming there was a 1 in 73 million chance of two children dying of natural causes at their
age. However, this statistical evidence was unreliable; but the jury accepted his evidence
because he was the medical expert. Sally Clark was released from prison after three years,
following an appeal hearing that deemed her conviction to be unsafe. Clearly the evidence
was not valid in this situation.
Case study
The Birmingham Six – Six Irish men had been sent to prison for the 1974 terrorist bombings
in an English and Birmingham pubs. In 1974, two IRA bombs exploded in two pubs, killing 21
people and injuring lots more. The reason for these bombing was because of the ongoing
conflict between the British government and the IRA over the status of Northern Ireland. Six
Irish suspects were arrested and sent to interrogation. The IRA then claimed responsibility
for the bombings and declared that the six were not members.
During the trial, the defendants maintained their innocence and claimed the police had
forced the confessions out of them. The prosecutors denied this and came up with forensic
evidence that showed the Birmingham Six had handled explosives shortly before the arrest.
However, in 1985, the forensic evidence was exposed by scientists as unreliable, therefore,
in 1987, an appeals judge conceded that the same results could be obtained from testing
people who recently touched playing cards or cigarette paper. They were later released
after years in prison. After seven years, a British court of appeals overturned their sentences
after serious doubts about the legitimacy of the police evidence and the treatment of the
suspects during their interrogation.
Case study
Jeremy Bamber – In 1986, Jeremy Bamber, 24, was jailed for life for killing five members of
his adoptive family at their farmhouse in Essex. He was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years
for the murders of his stepparents, sister and her two six-year-old sons. The judge, Mr
Justice Drake, said he was ‘warped and evil beyond belief’. While the investigations
continued, Bamber remained a free man, who was on bail, living off his dead parents’
finances. He still protests his innocence, and his case was taken back to the Court of Appeal
by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. On the night of the murder, Bamber had phoned
the police to say his father had called him, saying Caffell had “gone crazy and has the gun”.
Initially, police believed Caffell had fired the shots then turned the gun on herself. But, on 10
August, after the police ended their examination of the crime scene, a relative of the
Bamber parents found a silencer in the gun cupboard of the farmhouse. It was later said to
