It gets better though. Initially Shane Mitchell gave a statement which led some support to his brother being home, however, after being warned by the police as to the punishment for perjury, he changed his statement. He gave evidence to the trial along the same lines as the second statement. He also revealed that his mother Corinne Mitchell had influenced his initial statement, you know, the one he later changed.
It is now more than 16 years since the trial ended and Luke Mitchell was convicted by majority verdict of murdering Jodi Jones. His brother has never publicly spoken about the case nor has he exibited any public support for the innocence campaign. You could be forgiven for asking yourself, why not...what is he scared of?
I'm afraid the reader has to draw his or her own conclusions but I know that if it was my brother who was wrongly accused I would be leading the campaign for justice.
Except this isn’t how it happened. If you are going to ask people to make a judgement at least furnish them with the facts.
Shane gave a statement on the 3rd of July and was cursory. He said he thought he’d got home at 3.30, his usual time and couldn’t remember what he had for his dinner. He also couldn’t remember when he went out again, giving only a rough estimate. However a friend reminded him that he had helped fix his car on the 30th so would have been home late .His mum also reminded him of the burnt pies, as he had no recollection of this. He duly changed his statement to clarify.
While making his statements at no time was he warned that he should not perjure himself.
On 14th of April Shane was stopped by the police and surrounded by 4 or 5 police cars. They dragged him out of his car, while screaming and shouting, and laid him out on the road. He was then taken for questioning and told that he couldn’t have access to a solicitor. He was told he was being questioned about an attempt to pervert the course of justice but was not told what that attempt entailed. There then followed a six hour interrogation of relentless questions, an interrogation that the judge at trial said would have been unfair if Shane had been a suspect, which of course at this point he was, for perverting the course of justice.
In court Shane argued repeatedly that the investigation would not accept his answers, that they were putting words into his mouth and altering the responses he gave. He told the court that he did see Luke when he came down for tea but the police would not believe him because he had not said so in his first statement.
Context is everything.