I can't comment on the Park case as I'm not up to speed but as far as the CCRC directly commenting on innocence fraud goes, I think that would be against their remit.
The scale of the innocence fraud they deal with can only be imagined by the large volume of cases they reject but the proof of that IF remains confidential. I suspect the CCRC would dearly love to answer their critics by publishing their statements of reasons.
What makes you sure the CCRC are familiar with innocence fraud? If they were or are - what’s the 10 year long review into the murder conviction of Gordon Park all about ?
Appreciate you saying you can’t comment on the Park case but ‘the large volume of cases they reject’ to which you refer may be grounded in some other type of deception or maybe deception isn’t involved at all - maybe it’s a misunderstanding on behalf of the applicant..
The CCRC have never been transparent re the varying reasons why they knock back applicants
This is an excerpt from their website:
“However we may decide that your case cannot be reviewed. That might happen because we think that your application does not raise any significant new points that might allow us to send your case for an appeal. If we think this is the case with your application, we will write to you to explain why and ask you to tell us about anything which you think might change our minds. We will give at least 28 days for you to get back to us and we will not make a final decision in your case until we have carefully considered what you had to say.
If your case goes to a Case Review Manager for a more detailed review, the decision about whether or not your case can be referred will be taken at the end of the investigation stage.
If the Case Review Manager believes that there is no prospect of the case being referred for appeal, they will ask a Commissioner to look at the case. The Commissioner can either make the decision not to refer, or if they consider it appropriate, they can direct that the case be referred to a decision making committee.
If the Case Review Manager believes that the case should be referred, or thinks that for other reasons that a decision making committee is needed, the decision will be made by a committee of at least three Commissioners.
In either case, if the decision of a single Commissioner, or a committee of three Commissioners, is that a case cannot be referred, we will if appropriate issue a provisional decision not to refer the case. This provisional decision will be explained in a Provisional Statement of Reasons and the applicant will be given a period of time in which to respond. A final decision will not be made until any response has been carefully considered.
In some cases where the Commission’s decision is not to refer, and where no purpose would be served by issuing a provisional decision to the applicant, we will send the applicant a final decision document explaining why it has not been possible to refer their case.
If a committee of Commissioners decides that there are grounds on which the case can be referred a final Statement of Reasons will be issued, explaining our reasons for this, and the case is sent to the Court of Appeal for a new appeal to be heard. https://ccrc.gov.uk/making-application/how-it-works/
