A Killing in Tiger Bay

[The Todal]

A superb three part documentary about a notorious miscarriage of
justice, corruption and racism on the part of South Wales Police, and
many lives ruined. Quality journalism from the BBC.

Do watch it especially if find it inconceivable that a suspect would
confess to the crime of murder when he's innocent.

All three parts available on BBC iPlayer.

[Peter Turtill]

Yes it was a good program but I fail to understand why a judge would allow the case to proceed against the chap with 13 witnesses saying he was working away at the time.

[The Todal]

Unfortunately I can't find the Court of Appeal judgment in the public
domain. I would guess that the jury decided that the confession of
Stephen Miller, which implicated two other men, was more reliable than
the alibi evidence of Yusef Abdullahi who said he was working on a cargo
ship, the Coral Sea, at the time of the murder.

Quotes from the BBC site:

In 1992 the convictions of the three jailed men were quashed and they
were freed. The Court of Appeal ruled that a gross miscarriage of
justice had taken place.

Delivering his ruling, Lord Justice Taylor said that short of physical
abuse, it was hard to conceive of a more hostile and intimidatory
approach by police officers to a suspect, during the interview of Mr Miller.

In 2003, Jeffrey Gafoor, a client of Ms White [who was a sex worker],
admitted her murder and is serving a life sentence.

[Peter Turtill]

Yes but there were 13 witnesses for the chap who was working on the Coral Sea. I would have hoped the judge would have recognised that was too big an obstacle to allow a jury to deliberate upon.

[The Todal]

I don't think a judge would throw out a case on that basis. Alibi
evidence might theoretically be dishonest - he could have persuaded 13
friends to say that for the entire night he was on the ship, "Coral
Sea", but either the friends might have been dishonest or there might
have been a window of opportunity for him to leave the ship unobserved.

[Peter Turtill]

I understand your point and I accept your arguement but I would expect better judgement in such a serious case.

[Algernon Goss-Custard]

Jeff <je...@ukra.com> posted

>> I don't think a judge would throw out a case on that basis. Alibi
>>evidence might theoretically be dishonest - he could have persuaded 13
>>friends to say that for the entire night he was on the ship, "Coral
>>Sea", but either the friends might have been dishonest or there might
>>have been a window of opportunity for him to leave the ship unobserved.
>

>I believe the latter was the stance of the prosecution.
>
>All in all the documentary seemed to miss out a lot of the detail of
>the case compared to the wiki version; no mention at all of Mr X for
>example.
>
>There was far too much of the defendants reactions etc and not enough
>of what actually went on.


I agree. It was awful. And the background "music" ... whooooooh .....
wheeeeeeeeee ... pyoingoingoing ... sssshhhhhh ....... bonggggg ...

--
Algernon

[The Todal]

Still, painful though that may have been for you, it must be worse being
in prison for years for a crime that you did not commit, having been
fitted up by corrupt police.

[Algernon Goss-Custard]

The Todal <the_...@icloud.com> posted

>On 20/09/2021 18:15, Algernon Goss-Custard wrote:
>> Jeff <je...@ukra.com> posted
>>>> I don't think a judge would throw out a case on that basis. Alibi
>>>>evidence might theoretically be dishonest - he could have persuaded
>>>>13 friends to say that for the entire night he was on the ship,
>>>>"Coral Sea", but either the friends might have been dishonest or
>>>>there might have been a window of opportunity for him to leave the ship unobserved.
>>>
>>> I believe the latter was the stance of the prosecution.
>>>
>>> All in all the documentary seemed to miss out a lot of the detail of
>>>the case compared to the wiki version; no mention at all of Mr X for
>>>example.
>>>
>>> There was far too much of the defendants reactions etc and not
>>>enough of what actually went on.
>> I agree. It was awful. And the background "music" ... whooooooh
>>..... wheeeeeeeeee ... pyoingoingoing ... sssshhhhhh ....... bonggggg
>>
>>
>

>Still, painful though that may have been for you, it must be worse
>being in prison for years for a crime that you did not commit, having
>been fitted up by corrupt police.

I haven't seen the third episode yet, and I haven't formed a view on
whether they were innocent or not. It is evident that the police behaved
oppressively, but that isn't the last word in the matter. There were two
women who gave eyewitness testimony of the murder, which needs to be
addressed if we are going to conclude the men were innocent. Perhaps
episode 3 will tell me what these witnesses now say.

One of the thoughts I often have when watching these documentaries about
police questioning is, What was the guy's solicitor doing all this time?
Did he never say, "My client has answered that one several times, now
lay off this line of questioning or we'll go to no-commenting mode", or
anything of the kind? What did he think he was there for?

--
Algernon

[The Todal]

Your question is a good one. In the third episode, Michael Mansfield
briefly alludes to this and clearly doesn't want to be too judgmental
about the solicitor but doesn't approve of the way he handled it.