About

Empowering the Innocent (ETI) was established in September 2019 by Dr Michael Naughton, a leading academic expert on miscarriages of justice and the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of innocent victims. He has considered the

inherent failures of the criminal justice system in causing wrongful convictions and the criminal appeals system and Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) in failing to assist innocent victims of wrongful convictions to overturn their convictions in a number of academic books, peer-reviewed academic articles and other publications.

​

Empowering the Innocent (ETI) builds on this body of work and on previous innovative projects that were established by Dr Naughton, namely Innocence Network UK (INUK) and the University of Bristol Innocence Project, reflecting on both the successes and achievements of those projects as well as the lessons learnt.

​

This time, however, rather than providing pro bono casework assistance to alleged innocent victims of wrongful convictions in terms of applications to the CCRC as under the innocence project model, Empowering the Innocent (ETI), instead, highlights failings of the criminal justice system as a precursor for widespread reforms to prevent wrongful convictions from occurring or allow for them to be overturned when they occur.

 

Overall, the emphasis of the criminal justice system must be on the pursuit of truth in alleged crimes and cases of alleged wrongful conviction.

 

Only then can true justice prevail for victims of crime and victims of wrongful convictions alike.

​

​