Jonathan King
They used to kill witches if they swam or floated. If they drowned, they were innocent.
They used to ban humans from using toilets if their skins were too dark.
The global judicial system is currently as bad as those laws were.
23 years ago I agreed to become Global Chairman of EMI Records, the British music label. At £5 million a year on a 10 year contract. But in November 2000 I was arrested by Surrey Police, charged, convicted of a few minor offences of historical sex crimes and given, in 2001, a seven year sentence. I served three and a half years, refusing to do courses as I was innocent but was released half way through, unheard of in that time; you HAD to admit guilt to get early release.
Why was I let out? Because prison officers told the Parole Board I should be released. They felt I was innocent and were also disturbed that, in my time inside, I had caused appeals to be granted to a dozen other inmates whose papers I had read whilst locked up and spotted errors by lawyers in their trials.
The man behind my case was Surrey resident and Public Relations person, Max Clifford, who had specialised in revealing the affairs of top footballers to the tabloids for large sums of cash. He taught police how to Trawl By Media. He was a friend to several EMI executives who I would have fired, had I become Chairman. But that is only my suspicion. Karma kicked in for Max.
The investigative journalist Bob Woffinden investigated my convictions and became convinced I was totally innocent. Indeed, he wrote and published a book in 2016, The Nicholas Cases, on the Ten Worst Miscarriages of Justice in the previous thirty years. I was one chapter. Andrew Malkinson was another.
There were many reasons for Bob’s conclusions. One was the changing of dates by the Prosecution during the trial. When we provided evidence in court that the dates of the allegations were impossible (always lowering the ages of the claimants), they applied to the Judge HHJ Paget to change the Indictment. Fair enough, but my team was not given a single second to investigate and possibly establish alibis for the new dates. One false accuser had to change the dates TWICE.
This, and several other gaping gaps in the way the trial was conducted, are detailed in Bob’s book. But the main reason for his conclusions was that he researched, thoroughly. Police and prosecutors rarely do.
I applied to the CCRC several times. They glanced at the reasons and refused me access to the Court of Appeal, as they do with 98% of applications, including Malkinson.
My 2001 trial was divided into three separate trials. At the second, a few months after the first, I was acquitted. The Judge told the CPS not to pursue the third trial and sentenced me for the first trial conviction, which had involved five men. After the publicity for the Jimmy Savile scandal in 2012, Surrey Police decided to have another go at me - in 2018, I was not only acquitted of those allegations but the CPS request for any retrial was refused by the Judge - HHJ Taylor. Both police and CPS behaviour were heavily criticised. For “misleading the Court” and, more seriously, for Failing to Disclose vital evidence.
One of those pieces of concealed evidence in 2018 was the medical history of the main accuser from 2001 (the client of Max Clifford) which revealed he had been resident in 29 different mental institutions and rehab units in the last Century without ever mentioning my name to anyone before he had contacted Clifford. This had not been disclosed to the defence in 2001.
Another was the transcript of an interview with a News of the World journalist in 1997 when the main accuser in the 2001 trial had tried to sell his story to the paper for £250,000. The paper had rejected him out of hand. His story then had been totally different to his later tale to the police and Court. The defence were not given the transcript. It had been, it appears, deliberately hidden.
Just some of the fresh evidence submitted again to the CCRC in 2017. After examining it all, in 2023 they have once more rejected my application. We are fighting that decision. The problem is funding. Judicial Reviews cost a fortune. Both sets of lawyers demand huge fees. If it fails the CCRC demands costs repaid, putting people off. Thank God for Crowdfunding and for friends.
The CCRC did not investigate the claimed fresh evidence. But they decided it would not pass the “real possibility” test. As they did with Andrew Malkinson, several times before incontrovertible DNA evidence was found, by a small charity doing the CCRC's job for it.
The CCRC is NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE. They hardly ever investigate. They “consider” without sufficient research. There are eight other of Bob Woffinden’s innocent victims of the broken judicial system from The Nicholas Cases still languishing in jail or dead.
But there are HUNDREDS of others without energy or funds to keep fighting, who have accepted the inevitable and have given up the battle, often falsely admitting guilt and doing the stupid courses, in order to get out early.
False Allegations “vanishingly rare”? Rubbish. Google Carl Beech, Jemma Beale, David Bryant.
By Jonathan King
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