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SAPTAL RAM and two friends visited a restaurant in November 1986. While there, an altercation broke out among Ram and his two friends and another group of six people also in the restaurant. The argument, which was initially over Asian music being played on the restaurant's radio system, became a physical fight. Ram said that he stabbed one of the party of six, Clarke Pearce, in self-defense after Pearce attacked him with a broken bottle. Pearce was taken to hospital with knife wounds and later died. Consequently, Satpal Ram was arrested for murder and convicted in 1987.
Saptal will talk about 'The Importance of Supporting Prisoners'
Prof ALLAN JAMIESON,
Director of the Forensic Institute Edinburgh and Examiner at Kings College, London (Forensic Science) and Hendon Police College.
‘Over a thousand cases a year are referred to the CCRC of which an overwhelming number have forensic evidence as an issue in the case.’
Prof JAMIESON has a forthright approach often amusing and the opportunity to have access to someone with his knowledge and standing is rare.
TRUDI BENJAMIN has been an active campaigner for Jeremy Bamber for the last 7 years. She is Director of JB Campaign Ltd, a not for profit private limited company.
Trudi, mother to four children and two stepchildren and is studying for an under -graduate degree in law.
Trudi says that Jeremy Bamber has protested his innocence for 32 years and despite a wealth of evidence that shows that his schizophrenic sister Sheila Caffell killed her family and then committed suicide,
Supporters believe that Jeremy’s case is one of the most unsafe that the UK has ever seen. What still lies at the heart of this case after over 32 years is the withholding of vital alibi evidence by Essex Police. Numerous attempts have been made to gain disclosure of this evidence without success.
MICHELLE NICHOLSON was convicted of killing her father in 1995. This is a conviction she has always denied and for the first time in 25 years she has spoken out in her explosive story ‘Without A Voice’. Michelle Now campaigns for change not only for herself but for other people who have met the devastating hand of a miscarriage of justice.
Michelle went on to become the founder and Director of KeyChanges-Unlocking Women’s Potential which aims to support women with experience of the criminal justice system. The scheme includes the innovative ‘What Women Want’ Salon which offers a unique way out of the criminal justice system and supports women into training and employment.
MICHELLE FEATHER is the mother of Andrew Feather who maintains that he was wrongly convicted of nothing more than a police theory under a 300-year-old Joint Enterprise law.
Michelle says that::
On the night in question, a proven detailed statement of Andrews whereabouts was given.
There was no DNA.
The police stated that it was gang-related yet could not place Andrew as part of a gang.
Andrew was used as a Scapegoat because the real get-away driver could not be found.
Andrew was sentenced to 26 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
DR DENIS EADY, a long-standing friend of United Against Injustice, is from Cardiff Law School he works as Case Consultant to the Innocence Project at Cardiff University Law School and has been an active campaigner on miscarriage of justice issues for 25 years with South Wales against Wrongful Conviction (formerly South Wales Liberty). He has many years of experience on the topic of miscarriages of justice including the appeal process, particularly the CCRC and applications to them. In January 2015, he gave oral evidence to the House of Commons Justice Committee's review of the CCRC (Criminal Cases Review Commission) in support of Cardiff Law School Innocence Project’s written submission.
DR HOLLY GREENWOOD has recently completed her doctoral thesis, which looked at the development and operation of innocence projects in the UK and their role in investigating miscarriages of justice. Holly worked on the Cardiff Law School Innocence Project for 8 years as a team leader and caseworker and has been a member of South Wales Against Wrongful Conviction for around 4 years. She has recently been appointed as a lecturer at Swansea University where she is helping to run a student Miscarriage of Justice C linic.
JOHN CURTIS is a barrister MA with the Criminal Cases Review Commission, where, as a case review manager he advises on appeals relating to serious crime. John studied Drama at the University of Warwick and was a member of the National Youth Theatre before undertaking post-graduate qualifications in Law at Leicester and in London. He was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1996.
DAVID JAMES SMITH Criminal Cases is a Review Commissioner with the CCRC
David is an award-winning journalist and author. He has written extensively about crime and criminal justice issues, conducting detailed investigations into some of the most high-profile cases of recent years. He has written five non-fiction books including The Sleep of Reason – The James Bulger Case and Supper with The Crippen’s about the Edwardian murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen. David’s long-form journalism for The Sunday Times Magazine won him Broadsheet Feature Writer of The Year at the British Press Awards in 2011 and again in 2012.