Why does David James Smith ‘always cite’ this when it’s not true?
Carol Ann Lee - Mail on Sunday - 11th July 2015
‘….the psychiatrist engaged by Bamber’s defence team said that his very real belief that he had not committed the murders was a prime reason for diagnosing him as a psychopath.’
‘If ever there was a psychopath, it’s Jeremy Bamber.’
David James Smith worked for the CCRC reviewing Criminal convictions.
If he’s wrong on this what else has he been wrong on?
David James Smith July 2021 speech given at the University of Sussex’s crime and research centres annual public lecture is quite interesting
It can be found here
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/crime/newsandevents under the photograph of DJS where it reads,
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Click here for transcript of David James Smith talk: Barriers to Investigating Miscarriages of Justice’On page 3 of the transcript it states,
‘I met my first victim of a miscarriage of justice many years ago, when I wrote about him for the Sunday Times Magazine. I went to see him in a high security prison where he was serving a long sentence after being convicted of blasting his girlfriend’s parents to death with a shotgun at close range.
I would usually counsel against making judgments like this – because I don’t really think you can tell who is capable of murder or can believe someone who tells you they haven’t committed a murder when the law says they have. I think you should judge on the facts and the law and not on gut instinct. But a less likely murderer than Jonathan Jones is almost impossible to imagine.
Jones was a mild-mannered and softly spoken young man, perhaps a bit unworldly and disorganised. He said he had been in Kent when the parents of his girlfriend, Cheryl Tooze had been killed with a shotgun at their remote home in South Wales in July 1993In February 2017 via The Justice Gap online magazine owned and run by Jon Robins, David James Smith stated, under the bold byline, ‘
Factually innocent’
‘I know people say it’s always the quiet ones and that we all have it in us, in the right circumstances but, really, a less likely murderer than Jones it is difficult to imagine. Even the trial judge thought so, and, controversially, said so.https://www.thejusticegap.com/proof-magazine-truth-justice-like-truth-journalism-indivisible/Having done a ‘deep dive’ into the material available online - I’m of the firm view Harry and Megan Tooze were murdered by Jonathon Jones who went on to marry Harry and Megan’s daughter - Cheryl Tooze - now known as Cheryl Jones.
http://www.homepage-link.to/justice/jones/index.htmIt was Cheryl who ran the public campaign to overturn Jonathon Jones murder conviction.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/tenacious-fiancee-triumphs-as-her-lover-is-cleared-of-farmhouse-shotgun-killing-1306788.htmlWill be interesting to see if David James Smith appears in the forthcoming Mindhouse TV docu series. He was involved in the BBC’s doc on the murder of Jill Dando, which apparently was made to mark the 20th anniversary of her death.
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David has a close interest in criminal justice and served five years (2013-2018) as a Commissioner at The Criminal Cases Review Commission, appointed by HM The Queen to oversee investigations into miscarriages of justice. http://www.davidjamessmith.net/about/
