I’m of the opinion Dr Michael Naughton won’t openly debate Simon Halls confession because it calls into question cases like that of Michael O’Brien who’s murder conviction was overturned based on ‘confessional evidence’ and it will open up a can of worms he quite clearly wants to avoid at all costs; as it appears do many others.
Empowering the Innocent (ETI)
@EmpowerInnocent
It is shameful that Cheshire police refuse to apologise to Paul Blackburn for his 25 years in prison, but they have no shame. They simply don’t care: “Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction.”
Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction
Evidence of Cheshire force that led to 1978 imprisonment of Paul Blackburn ‘absurd’
theguardian.com
5:54 AM · Jan 14, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmpowerInnocent/status/1216961832625287168
The Paul Blackburn case reminds me in parts to that of Stephen Downing. The police appear to be suggesting there aren’t other suspects?!
However Michael Naughton needs to look at his own behaviour before casting aspersions. The fact he chooses to not publicly discuss ‘innocent fraud’ suggests to me his personal agenda/s outweigh the truth!?
A doctor calls -- Dr Eric Shepherd, a man who can suss the psychology of the police station - 23 February 1994Excerpt:
‘And while Dr Shepherd has become to the police 'the man they love to hate' (according to the Police Review), he may soon turn into 'the man they can't forget' to the legal profession.In conjunction with members of the Law Society's criminal law committee, Dr Shepherd has just produced a large training package on police station skills for solicitors' representatives.Its publication could not have come at a more opportune time, with research from the University of Warwick purporting to show a woeful inability on the part of legal advisers to counteract dubious police interviewing tactics.But what really gave the profession a kick in the pants was the Legal Aid Board's decision that all non-qualified legal representatives (except trainee solicitors) should pass a test and be registered by early next year if they were to continue to receive payment from public funds.Dr Shepherd's expertise was commissioned and the end result was Police Station Skills for Legal Advisers.
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/a-doctor-calls-dr-eric-shepherd-a-man-who-can-suss-the-psychology-of-the-police-station-/19495.articleREGINA V BLACKBURN (Paul)Introduction
1. On 18th December 1978, in the Chester Crown Court before Bristow J, the appellant, Paul Blackburn, who was then aged 15, was convicted of attempted murder and attempted b....ry. On the first of those counts he was sentenced to detention for life, with a two year concurrent sentence of detention for the other offence. An application by him for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence was refused by the single judge and a renewed application to like effect was dismissed by the Full Court on 17th March 1981.
2. In 1996 the Secretary of State refused to refer the case to the Court of Appeal under section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 ("the 1968 Act").
3. The appellant was eventually released in March 2003, having served over 24 years.
4. His conviction now comes before this court as a result of a reference dated 9th August 2004 by the Criminal Cases Review Commission under section 9 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995. By virtue of that same section the reference is to be treated as an appeal by Mr Blackburn under section 1 of the 1968 Act.
The factual context
5. The charges faced by the appellant arose out of a vicious assault on a nine year old boy, "L". There was no doubt that someone had carried out such an assault. The issue at trial was whether it had been the appellant.
6. The attack took place on the afternoon of Sunday 25th June 1978, probably at around 4.30 pm. The victim, L, was walking by a canal near an area known as Seven Arches, Great Sankey, Warrington, when he was accosted by a youth who threatened him with a knife. L was made to go with the youth to a nearby disused sewage works, where he was forced into a brick shelter. There he was made to remove his clothes and to perform oral sex on the youth, who then attempted to commit anal rape on him, ejaculating down the victim's leg. The victim was then kicked repeatedly and stabbed before being covered with a board and a large quantity of heavy bricks.
7. When the victim failed to return home the police were informed and a search commenced. The following day, some 28 hours after the attack, he was found still concealed in the disused sewage works. He was alive but badly injured. It was patently a horrific attack.
8. The appellant's home was about 600 yards from Seven Arches. In fact, in 1978 he was at an approved school known as Red Bank, where he had been sent by court order for offences of burglary and arson. That order was a secure care order and the appellant was in the secure unit at the approved school. But on the weekend of 24th/25th June that year he was on home leave. He was then aged 14. At his home there were four siblings, including a 16 year old brother, Fred. Another older brother, Harry, lived with his wife at another address in Great Sankey which also was within walking distance of the scene of the crime.
9. The victim was found at about 9 pm on the Monday. Tuesday's Daily Mirror reported that he had been found alive but gave no description of the attacker. A local newspaper, the Post & Chronicle, that evening gave a description, including a reference to long gingery brown curly hair, a description repeated in another local paper on the Friday. The appellant at trial denied seeing either of these two local papers. The possible relevance of this was that there was evidence at trial about the appellant having asked to have his hair cut at Red Bank approved school. This evidence came from two members of staff at the school, Mrs Forrester and Mrs Selby, in the form of witness statements taken on 7th August 1978, some six weeks later. Mrs Forrester testified that on Tuesday 27th June the appellant had asked her to cut his hair, which was unusual for him. Mrs Selby's evidence was that this was on Monday 26th June, which would have been before any press report that L had been found alive, but she also said that on the Friday of that week he had requested her to cut his hair again, saying that Mrs Forrester had not made a good job of it.
10. The appellant was first interviewed by the police on 3rd July 1978, just after his fifteenth birthday. He gave a witness statement in which he said that he had been at his home on the relevant Sunday for the whole afternoon. He was again interviewed on 13th July and made a second witness statement in which he stated that he was with a friend, Tony Chadwick, until 1.30 pm and then returned home. He said that later that afternoon he again went out and returned at about 4.10 pm. On 14th July 1978 he was questioned by Detective Chief Inspector White and Detective Inspector Marsh for a period of two hours, not under caution, regarding the discrepancies in his previous accounts and was told that he fitted the description of the attacker. On this occasion he refused to take part in an identification parade or to provide hair samples and was verbally abusive towards the officers.
11. Meanwhile, on 12th July the police had interviewed the appellant's brothers, Fred and Harry Blackburn. Fred Blackburn initially confessed to the attack but retracted his confession shortly after his mother was allowed to speak to him.
12. At other stages in the course of these events two other youths also confessed to the attack but subsequently withdrew their confessions.
13. Then on 21st July 1978, DCI White and DI Marsh returned to Red Bank school to interview the appellant again. By now the officers had information about an apparently somewhat similar attack at Irlam involving the appellant two years before. In his evidence at trial, DI Marsh was to say that by 21st July, the date of this interview, the appellant was the principal suspect, "my number 1". The appellant was interviewed by the officers in the presence of Mr Frederick McVitie, the house warden. There is no evidence that the appellant was told at any stage before or during this interview that he was entitled to legal advice, and no solicitor was present at any stage during the lengthy interview.
14. The interview was conducted in three stages. The first began at 9.30 am. Between then and 11.15 am the appellant made a further witness statement, giving another detailed account of his movements on Sunday 25th June. He and Mr McVitie then signed that statement. At about 11.20 am the second stage began, during which the appellant was questioned by the officers under caution. He was questioned about discrepancies between his statements and between his statements and those of others. Then the officers went on to refer to the Irlam events in 1976, when the appellant and another boy had been convicted of actual bodily harm on two nine year old boys. It was now said to the appellant that the incident had gone beyond a physical assault and had involved forcing the two boys to suck each other's penis and to try to commit b....ry with each other. The appellant was told that the police now had statements from the two boys and another boy who witnessed it. The officers denied, during the course of a voir dire, that they had told the appellant that there might be further charges arising out of the 1976 events, whereas the appellant at the voir dire said that DCI White had been shouting at him and saying that if he did not come clean he would be charged both with the attack on L and with further charges arising from the 1976 incident. Mr McVitie's evidence on the voir dire was that the officers did say that there was a possibility of a further charge arising out of the 1976 incident but he did not get the message that this was a threat.
15. In any event, at 12.40 pm during this fourth interview, immediately after these references to the 1976 incident, the appellant dropped his head and began to cry. He said "Yes, it was me -- give me a minute". He then looked at Mr McVitie, who said words to the effect: "It's up to you, Paul, the officers only want the truth".
The submissions of the parties
23. What is said on behalf of the appellant is that his admissions, whether oral or written, were obtained in circumstances which were likely to render them unreliable and they should therefore have been excluded.
Mr Owen QC submits that the court must judge that issue in the light of current standards of fairness and of our present knowledge of the phenomenon of false confessions. He refers to a number of authorities to that effect, including Roberts (unreported, 19th March 1998) and Abid Hussain [2005] EWCA Crim 31.The point was made in the latter case at paragraph 28 that, where there was a breach of the rules in force at the time of trial, the significance of that breach is to be assessed according to the present-day approach. 27. The Crown resisted the appellant's application to call fresh evidence by Dr Eric Shepherd, a consultant forensic psychologist, who has extensive experience of interrogation methods and of their effects. Lord Carlile QC, on behalf of the Crown, did not question Dr Shepherd's expertise, but argued that his evidence was not admissible because it did not address matters outside the range of experience of a jury. Dr Shepherd, said Lord Carlile, would merely be giving general evidence about how 15 year old boys might react to lengthy questioning. Moreover, there was no suggestion here of any abnormal disorder on the part of the appellant, who had not even been examined or interviewed by Dr Shepherd before the latter had written his report. The Crown placed some reliance on a passage from the case of O'Brien, Hall and Sherwood [2000] Crim LR 676, which suggested that, in cases where the expert evidence related to the existence of an abnormal disorder on the part of the accused, the disorder had to be of a kind which might render the confession unreliable.
28. We ruled during the hearing that Dr Shepherd's evidence was admissible and we received it under section 23. His evidence concerns the phenomenon of false confessions and the circumstances in which research has shown that a vulnerable individual, after a prolonged period of questioning, may give what is termed a coerced compliant confession. It seemed to the court that this was a topic which would generally fall outside the normal range of experience of a jury and that it was therefore one on which expert evidence was properly admissible. The case of O'Brien has little bearing on this issue. The passage there relied on by Lord Carlile applies where there is some evidence about an abnormal disorder on the part of the accused. That is not this case. O'Brien was not intended to be a comprehensive statement as to the circumstances when expert evidence will be admissible on the reliability of a confession.
https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5b46f2072c94e0775e7f0c08Conviction unsafe on man who spent 25 years in prison‘
The Court of Appeal did not address the issue of his guilt or innocence yesterday, but Lord Justice Keene, sitting with Mr Justice Newman and Mr Justice Walker, accepted that he did not receive a fair trial at Chester Crown Court in 1978 and that his conviction was therefore unsafe.
Mr Blackburn's lawyer, Glyn Maddocks, said it was a major miscarriage of justice. "It is a disgrace. How can this happen in a civilised society?
"The trial judge said Paul should serve six to 10 years. Well, he was still there 16 years later. He got lost in the system. It is appalling." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1490753/Conviction-unsafe-on-man-who-spent-25-years-in-prison.htmlCCRC
@ccrcupdate
Paul Blackburn's case was referred for appeal by @ccrcupdate in 2004 and his conviction was quashed in 2005. This article and associated podcast about his struggle to get an apology from the police.The Guardian @guardian Jan 13
Police reject judge's call to apologise over wrongful conviction
https://theguardian.com/law/2020/jan/13/police-reject-judges-call-to-apologise-over-wrongful-conviction utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1578896509…
10:41 AM · Jan 13, 2020·Twitter Web App
https://mobile.twitter.com/ccrcupdate/status/1216671705541816320
