Hallam protest petition goes to Parliament
ON 15 June 1215, King John of England signed Magna Carta at Runnymede. Chapter 40 promises: “to no-one will we refuse or delay right or justice”.
The only problem is that some 800 years later, justice for Britain’s innocent prisoners continues to be delayed and denied. The government has announced that funding of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – the independent body empowered to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice – is to be cut.
Even before this latest decision, the CCRC was seriously under-resourced, having suffered previous government cutbacks. Staffing levels have fallen significantly at a time when applications from convicted people pleading innocence have continued to rise. As a result, applicants suffer excessive delays before their cases are investigated.
One such applicant is 21 year old Sam Hallam from Hoxton, currently serving life imprisonment at HMP Bullingdon in Oxfordshire. Sam Hallam has consistently protested his innocence of the 2004 murder of Ethiopian refugee Essayas Kassahun.
Following his conviction and unsuccessful appeal, Sam’s family, neighbours and supporters began a campaign to secure his release and exoneration. On 8 February 2008, an extensive dossier of new evidence supporting his innocence was submitted to the CCRC. None of this evidence has ever been considered by any court.
It was not until late September 2008 that a CCRC caseworker was even allocated to begin to examine his case. More recently, Sam was advised that CCRC staff will visit him in prison for the first time to discuss his case – some 14 months after his application was submitted.
Like many applications to the CCRC, much of the evidence in Sam Hallam’s case relies on the recollection of witnesses. It almost goes without saying that witness testimony may become less dependable with the lengthy passage of time. For prisoners like Sam Hallam, justice delayed may literally mean that justice is denied.
Campaigner Jane Mair said: “Some of the delay in Sam’s case has been caused by other factors such as relevant agencies dragging their feet on providing information and documentation.
Nevertheless, the fact that thanks to Government cutbacks, Sam had to wait almost eight months before a caseworker could be found even to begin looking at the evidence supporting his innocence is truly shocking. The Commission’s annual budget amounts to less than the cost of just two days additional policing at the recent G20 protests.
“The Government should be thoroughly ashamed of the way it ignores the plight of innocent men and women suffering the nightmare of wrongful imprisonment”.
The Sam Hallam Campaign has organised a petition protesting against the cuts, to be presented to the House of Commons on 15 June 2009 – the anniversary of Magna Carta – by Hackney North MP Diane Abbott.
Attending in support will be former miscarriages of justice victims including Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four, Patrick Maguire of the Maguire Seven and Billy Power of the Birmingham Six. Challenged to justify cutting back the CCRC at a time when the number of prisoners claiming innocence is increasing, a Ministry of Justice official responded that the Commission must make “efficiency gains”.
Meanwhile, Sam Hallam and other prisoners wait year after year for new evidence to be considered. Sam’s mother Wendy Cohen said: “It breaks my heart to visit my innocent young son in prison, time after time, with no news of when the injustice inflicted on him will finally come to an end.”
King John may well have missed a trick when he failed to make his promise of prompt “right and justice” for everyone dependent on the achievement of ‘efficiency gains’. Even in 1215, it was recognised that justice delayed is justice denied. It’s time the Government delivered on the promises made at Runnymede.