Prison Informers: Unreliable Evidence
| Author | James Morton |
| Published date | 01 April 2005 |
| Date | 01 April 2005 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1350/jcla.69.2.89.63517 |
| Subject Matter | Opinion |
OPINION
Prison Informers: Unreliable Evidence
James Morton
On 19 January 2005 the Court of Appeal (Rose LJ, Moses and Walker JJ)
dismissed the second appeal of Michael Stone against his conviction for
the murder of Dr Lin Russell, the murder of her six-year-old daughter
Megan and the attempted murder of her other daughter, Josie (see
[2005] EWCA Crim 105). It was a case which attracted considerable
public attention, not the least because of the struggle Josie had for
survival and press and public interest in her subsequent welfare. In the
week of Stone’s second appeal there were press reports that she had
done well in school examinations and was now learning to speak Welsh
proficiently.
The Russells were subjected to a vicious, seemingly random attack
and Stone, a man with previous convictions for violence including one
in which he used a hammer, was charged and convicted, but in 2001 the
conviction was overturned and a retrial set. He was convicted again
principally on the evidence of a fellow inmate who told the jury how
Stone had confessed to him by using pipes in their respective cells as a
method of communication. There was, however, little in the way of
supporting evidence. Principally, for one reason or another, there was
no identification evidence of the attack and crucially, it might be
thought, there was no DNA evidence.
At the retrial in October 2001, the reconvicted Stone appealed a
second time on the grounds that the evidence of the fellow prisoner was
unreliable. It must be fair to say that without the man, Damien Daley, a
heroin addict—a matter he denied before the second jury—there could
have been no conviction and probably no case at all.
The Court of Appeal, dismissing the appeal, said it was impressed by
the sincerity of Daley who had told the jury, ‘I just felt guilty, sort of
thing, towards that little girl’. Rose LJ spoke of ‘Daley’s repugnance of
what had happened to the Russell family’. The fact that he had lied
about not being a heroin addict did not impair his evidence because the
jury knew he was a deeply flawed character.
With respect to their Lordships, their decision is a worrying one. It
may well be that Stone was guilty, but whether the evidence was
sufficiently reliable to convict him is another matter. Those of us who
have dealt with heavy criminal cases over the years are rightly deeply
suspicious of the co-accused who gives evidence against his fellow
defendants or of the prisoner who suddenly has a flash of light before
him and is so appalled that he feels he must tell the authorities.
The reason why prisoners and co-accused decide to cooperate with
the authorities is that generally, somewhere along the line, there is
something in it for them. There is the possibility of a discount on a
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