The CPS to pay-out a “significant amount” to man acquitted after serving six years in prison
Lawyer slams CPS for knowingly and repeatedly withholding evidence
Case calls into question public confidence in the criminal justice system and the legal profession, says lawyer
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has agreed to pay a “significant amount” in damages to 50-year-old Conrad Jones following his acquittal at the Court of Appeal of conspiring to pervert the course of justice during the murder trial into the death of Clinton Bailey. During the appeal it emerged that the CPS had failed to disclose critical evidence which undermined the case against Mr Jones during his prosecution.
The undisclosed settlement comes just days after the Court of Appeal cleared two of the men charged in the murder of Clinton Bailey in Coventry in 2005.
In 2014 Mr Jones had his conviction quashed on appeal. He had served six years of a 12-year sentence for perverting the course of justice by attempting to bribe, threaten and intimidate a central female witness from giving evidence that would implicate his friends in the murder of Mr Bailey.
Clinton Bailey was shot dead in 2005. The witness, Ms Maria Vervoort, had been in a relationship with one of the suspects at the time of the murder and claimed to have witnessed a number of critical and incriminating incidents relating to the lead up to and aftermath of the murder. She gave evidence at the trial in which five men were convicted. She also reported to West Midlands Police a series of attempts by Mr Jones to intimidate and bribe her into not giving evidence, leading to Mr Jones being arrested and charged.
Mr Jones had always strongly denied the charges against him. However, based on the evidence disclosed at that time, and intensive cross examination of witnesses giving evidence for the defence (suggesting they were lying), he was convicted; albeit after lengthy jury deliberations and a majority verdict (the trial previously having resulted in a hung jury). He was given a lengthy sentence due to the serious nature of the charges and the vulnerability and apparent extreme distress caused to Ms Vervoort. He tried unsuccessfully to appeal his sentence.
He was released on license in 2012, still protesting his innocence. It was only as a result of a subsequent arrest for conspiring to pervert the course of justice, an offence he was acquitted of, that it fell to different lawyers to review the disclosure that had taken place back in 2006/7. They came across surveillance material which in their view undermined the original prosecution and should have been disclosed back at that point in time. The substance of that material was then disclosed (the actual material being subject to public interest immunity).
Mr Jones sought retrospective permission to appeal his original conviction, relying heavily on that evidence. The ‘new’ material showed, in essence, that there was no way that Mr Jones could have been in Nottingham, as alleged, within the timeframes provided by Ms Vervoort to bribe and threaten her. That was highly significant because it was the only face-to-face meeting she alleged and if that had not taken place, not only was the ‘central plank’ of the prosecution case undermined, it also seriously undermined Ms Vervoort’s credibility more generally, something on which the rest of the case depended.
The Court of Appeal allowed Mr Jones’s appeal even though it was out of time. On acquitting Mr Jones, Lord Justice Pitchford was harshly critical of the Crown’s decision not to disclose the vital information at the time of the 2007 trial, and of their attempts to argue at the appeal that the timing of the meeting between Mr Jones and the witness was not relevant.
Pitchford LJ concluded: “We can only regard the failure to make the disclosure in early 2007 that was subsequently made in June 2013 as a lamentable failure of the prosecutor’s obligations.”
Sasha Barton, civil liberties solicitor at London law firm Hodge Jones & Allen was then instructed by Mr Jones to bring a claim against the CPS for misfeasance in public office through their willful failure to disclose vital evidence. Mr Jones also claimed that his right to a fair trial had been breached.
Liability was denied on the basis that, aside from the surveillance material, Mr Jones could still have been convicted based on other evidence, namely the rest of the witness evidence of Ms Vervoort. This was not accepted by Mr Jones or his legal team and a confidential settlement was negotiated and apology received.
As a result of Mr Jones’ acquittal, and of the new evidence that had emerged, two of the men convicted of the murder of Clinton Bailey, James Dunn and Gary Higgins, whose convictions had rested heavily on the testimony of Ms Vervoort, applied to appeal against their murder convictions. In the course of that appeal, it emerged that there had been multiple further serious disclosure failures relating to Ms Vervoort’s credibility, described by Davis LJ as “regrettable and serious”. As a result of these failures, which the judge stated “also bear directly on the actual fairness of the trial and appeal process”, the convictions were found to be unsafe and both men were acquitted on 23 September 2016 after serving 11 years in prison.
Sasha Barton says: “It is clear that the CPS and prosecution counsel had in their possession, both while my client remained on remand in prison awaiting trial and at the time of my client’s trial, surveillance material which showed he could not realistically have met with and bribed Ms Vervoort not to give evidence. They knew it was relevant, they knew it undermined the prosecution case and strengthened Mr Jones’ defence and they knew that the law required them to disclose it.
“Not only that, we now know, only following the Court of Appeal’s more recent judgment, that they had other highly relevant material which they knowingly failed to disclose relating to Ms Vervoot’s credibility, which again seriously undermined the prosecution case and strengthened my client’s defence and destroyed any remnants of the case against my client.
“My client was sent to prison for 12 years, serving six years of that sentence in high security conditions with devastating consequences for him and his family. He has always protested his innocence. He now knows that throughout his prison ordeal, the CPS had in their possession, but willfully failed to disclose material that seriously undermined the case against him and had it not been for a second prosecution, many years after his conviction, he would never even have known about it.
“Our criminal justice system requires prosecutors to disclose certain relevant evidence so that defendants know the case against them and can have a fair trial, and so that juries have the full facts at their disposal to enable them to reach a verdict. To discover years after the event that the CPS, on the advice of highly experienced lawyers, has knowingly and repeatedly failed to comply with the criminal law on disclosure is shocking and raises very serious questions which go right to the heart of public confidence in the criminal justice system and the legal profession.”
Conrad Jones says: “This has been a truly-horrendous ordeal for me and for my family. As a result of being locked-up for six years’ for something I did not do, I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder which has had a real impact on my day-to-day life.
“I’m grateful to my family and friends who have supported me through this ordeal and continue to support me, in particular my wife and two sons. I’d also like to say a huge thank you to all those people who have worked so hard to ensure that the truth came out about the way the CPS has behaved. They should never have purposefully withheld evidence and been able take away six years of my life.
“I am damaged by what has happened but I want to put it all behind me now and get on with the rest of my life in peace.”
Joel Bennathan QC of Doughty Street Chambers acted for Conrad Jones in his criminal appeal and in his civil claim. His colleague, Jude Bunting also represented Mr Jones in his civil claim.
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