The photograph above is of Tom before he met Mr Cummins. There was no sign of the psychosis he was diagnosed with in 2015. The one below is Tom after having known Mr Cummins for about a year; he was exhausted, barely spoke, believed dead foxes were speaking to him, had attempted suicide and had distanced himself from his family and friends. I believe that the violent, coercive behaviour of Mr Cummins, witnessed by many, caused this.
I have thought long and hard before writing this. No doubt I will be accused of ‘victim blaming’ or being blind to the guilt of a much- loved son, but if I don’t defend him who will? He certainly wasn’t defended in court. There was nobody to speak for Tom and now, to add to our agony, we are convinced that the prosecution persuaded an expert witness to mislead the jury. Is this what passes for justice, now, in the 21st century? Any dirty trick permissible so long as someone is convicted?
There is also a question of why one of the nurses changed her statement. Tom has a copy of both. The first declaring that Mr Cummins was struggling to sit up, was red and puffy in the face and had difficulty speaking. Both the nurse and Tom advised Mr Cummins to allow them to call a doctor. He refused.
The second statement reads that the nurse had no concerns about Mr Cummins. Why a 180 degree change? Was she advised to change it by the prosecution? I’m sorry if I sound cynical, but reading through the other cases on CCRC Watch has made me so. ( Add to that the recent scandals, involving once venerable institutions such as the NHS and the Post Office and I’ve come to believe that the British public is held in utter contempt by everyone in authority.)
My son definitely deserved a prison term for what he did. Nobody would argue with that, mentally ill or not, but why isn’t it the duty of the justice system to find out the truth of what happened? I have been left with the uncomfortable feeling that if my son had been an ’important person’, not on legal aid, the trial would have been longer than eight days and there would have been no stone unturned in order to try and acquit him, nor would the bulk of the cross examination have been left to a junior barrister, presumably to cut her teeth on a lost cause.
All of the cases described on CCRC Watch are depressingly familiar. Poor mental health care. Tom begged his GP for help but was dismissed with a pack of antidepressants. Despite there being a, highly distressed, witness at the surgery, (who of course wasn’t called by the defence) his doctor told the jury that he couldn’t remember Tom saying he had attempted suicide.
The adversarial method is used in trials instead of the inquisitorial criminal investigation process described by Bill Robertson. Serious cases where the defendant could be jailed for 30 plus years should not be a theatrical event. If the jury is to make a reasoned decision they have to know the facts, not ‘an alternative truth’ delivered by an amateur actor and his accomplice.
Expert witnesses who are either not as expert as they think or who deliberately mislead the jury.
Of course, now I cannot believe that Professor Venezis couldn’t find a definitive cause of death. The fact that he has a history of misleading a court of law and being less than rigorous with regard to post-mortems should have been a red flag to the CCRC. We know, for instance, that he ignored the sharps bucket at the side of Mr Cummins’ bed. This would have shown he was still injecting steroids (steroids have killed several fit and healthy young men, never mind someone as ill as Mr Cummins).
The jury was also told that he was refusing to take all of his medication, dropping selected pills into a pot at the side of his bed. His doctor wasn’t asked to explain the possible consequences of this. Professor Venezis was obliged to list the many ailments of Mr Cummins, he even said that any one of them could have been fatal. He then tried to muddy the waters by saying that he might have been killed by stabbing, which he must have known was impossible, a suggestion quickly dismissed by the other pathologist. He then tried again by saying that he, ‘couldn’t rule out that he had had his throat cut’, again dismissed by his opponent, before slyly dropping the idea that Tom could have ‘gently smothered him so as not to leave any marks’.
However, Professor Venezis did not say how Tom could have accomplished this, given he was 14 stone lighter than (an extremely violent) Mr Cummins and the other pathologist wasn’t given time for his opinion as the judge immediately called on the jury to withdraw.
Is there no one who can see that this couldn’t possibly have been a fair trial? And, why, after numerous other cases, is Professor Venezis still allowed to appear for the prosecution? Why hasn’t he been charged with perjury or perverting the course of justice?
I’m sorry if I have repeated myself here, but I strongly believe that Professor Venezis was successful in persuading the jury that a murder had been committed even though there was no evidence of it.
In Tom’s case it is important to remember that there was no evidence of murder. It was assumed that Tom had murdered Mr Cummins because of what he did to the body post mortem. Without the knowledge that Tom was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia what was the jury meant to think?
It is also worth mentioning here that Tom never used his illness as a mitigating factor. In fact, he didn’t even know what was wrong with him until 2015. (The hallucinations Tom experienced, which he kept secret from his family, are outlined in great detail in his medical records and make horrific reading). Tom believed, as did we all, that the justice system was honest and incorruptible. He assured us that, once a post-mortem had been performed, they would find the cause of death. Stupidly, I urged him to tell the truth.
Every lawyer we have spoken to has said that Tom’s illness wouldn’t have made any difference because he pleaded not guilty. The fact that the prosecutor finished his summing up by asking Tom, ‘If you didn’t kill him, why did you do what you did to the body?’ showed that it mattered very much indeed what his state of mind was. Surely, if there is no physical evidence and a jury has to make its mind up based purely on circumstantial evidence then the jury should be told all of the circumstances? The verdict might have been the same but at least I would feel that Tom’s defence team did the best they could.
In 2013,Tom was very ill and had had a psychotic episode whilst on remand. His barrister knew this and told Tom that he should plead guilty with diminished responsibility. Tom decided to trust the justice system, after all, he knew they wouldn’t find any evidence of murder, and they didn’t.
Maybe, I grew up watching too much television, but I always believed that the jury was told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Why should it be that a prosecutor can, for all intents and purposes, make up stories and present them as fact? This isn’t or shouldn't be a game in which lawyers get to parade their amateur dramatic skills; peoples’ lives are ruined, not least the lives of the family of the supposed victim. How does it benefit them to believe their family member was murdered?
No one who knows Tom well believes he murdered Mr Cummins. He had spent five years trying to keep him alive and well, on his own apart from the nurses, and was looking forward to the opening of the gym he had invested £1000 in, which, I reiterate, wasn’t revealed to the jury either. In fact, nothing that could have helped Tom was declared, and because Tom or his barrister should have brought it up at the trial the CCRC told us it wouldn’t be admissible now at the CoA. Why are the parameters so narrow? There is no new evidence that the CCRC hasn’t dismissed outright. I would argue that the defence was so poor it amounted to a dereliction of duty and that must count for something.
In her summing up, the judge said that nothing Tom did made any sense. Did no one have the wit to wonder why?
I would like to add that in this whole sorry mess, the only individuals worthy of any praise are those in the prison service. It was they who recognised the extent of Tom’s illness and got him help and they have been nothing but kind and courteous throughout our thirteen year ordeal.
I would also like to add my name to the call to end majority verdicts. It cannot be right that anyone is jailed for life when the jury isn’t one hundred percent convinced of their guilt. Why isn’t our human rights Prime Minister addressing this? Or is it better that ten innocent people are jailed rather than one guilty one go free?
Finally, why would anyone go on protesting their innocence for years unless it was true?
By Diana Lyddon, Mother of Tom Dunkley
For more on the case of Tom Dunkley see: "Mother of Thomas Dunkley expresses her concerns with the CCRC's handling of her son's application for his conviction for the murder of Shaun Cummins be be referred to the Court of Appeal": https://empowerinnocent.wixsite.com/ccrcwatch/post/mother-of-thomas-dunkley-expresses-her-concerns-with-the-ccrc-s-handling-of-her-son-s-application-fo
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