We could be on our way to the court of appeal!

. . . . .that's how we feel about our chances of winning in this next battle with the judicial system to get Gary and Tony's convictions overturned. Their solicitor Raju Bhatt has been working long and hard to prepare this case and Gary and Tony have full faith in him. He does a very thorough job and we have a good legal team taking us into this next assault.

But we have been here before ... experience tells us that we can never be confident that this time we are going to get a satisfactory or fair result. The experiences at the hands of the Court of Appeal and the House Of Lords are still fresh in our minds The ease with which judges can dismiss what to anybody in the real world would be an obvious reason to throw doubt on their conviction and the integrity of the investigation leaves you bewildered and at the same time frustrated and angry.

The trail so far . . . . . .

Gary and Tony had taken actions at the Court Of Appeal and The House Of Lords, both of which had been thrown out and their convictions were upheld. We were determined not to leave it there. Somewhat amazed at how the courts had accepted much of what we had put forward as evidence that there was not a fair trial and yet concluded that it wouldn't have made any difference to the outcome we looked for new avenues. We had exhausted our options in Britain (the House Of Lords being the highest court in the land ) unless we could find new evidence. But we were not going to let the courts get off with their treatment of the evidence we had submitted to the Courts of Appeal and the House of Lords. we weren�t going to be dismissed that easily.

So, at that point we decided that our only option was to take it to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). We studied the verdicts of the Courts of Appeal and the House of Lords and found that in our view the verdicts had abused Gary and Tony's human rights under the European Convention. Along with Satish, a freelance journalist member of the campaign with considerable legal knowledge, Gary and Tony worked on their grounds for appeal to the ECHR. We only had six months to make our application and many in the legal profession here were saying we had no chance. We kept on and after a lot of hard work by Satish we put forward a number of grounds for appeal and our application was accepted.

We were now expecting a few years of preliminary hearings etc before our case would actually be heard. But in the mean time the British government decided to bring the European Human Rights Act into British Law. This meant that from October 2000 the British courts had to respect European Human Rights and that arguments could now be made on the basis of abuses of those rights.

Our application to the ECHR was put on hold and we started proceedings here once more by applying to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). We argued abuses of Gary and Tony's Human Rights under several sections. On top of this we also included new information about bias in the verdicts. Raju Bhatt had been bought on as the new solicitor and he took over from where Satish had got and we felt things were on the move again.

However we also knew that the CCRC was becoming more and more dismissive of cases and that arguments based on Human Rights were not being considered very favourably. We did not expect them to accept our application and send us back to the Court of Appeal through the High Court, to take judicial review of their decision. What happens is that we can appeal against the CCRC decision. We go before a panel of three judges and we argue the validity of our case and the legal merit of our application and the CCRC have to legally support their reasons for not passing us back to the Court Of Appeal. We have raised six grounds for objection to their decision which covers issues of, Ground A - unfairness (the Court of Appeals duty to ensure that any complaints about the original trial have been (dealt with fairly), Ground B - abuse of process looks at the actions of DI Gladding and other officers), Ground C apparent bias ( Appeal Court Judge Otton being biased by information from his son who was a hostile Gloucester Citizen reporter), Ground D (cause of death), Ground E Stadden's evidence (it is totally unreliable), Ground F - procedural irregularity by the CCRC (their failure to call on expert evidence when reviewing Gary and Tony�s case).The courts accepted that we have grounds but after some maneuvering told us that we could only go forward on two grounds (A & B). We are currently arguing that we should be allowed to use grounds C & E as well. Our barristers opinion has been very encouraging and they think we have a better chance of success than not. If we win we could well be straight back to the Court Of Appeal. In that case then we will really have to build the campaign and pull our fingers out for another big push. We hope you will be able to help us build that momentum.

Set up. for Life! The Campaign to Free, Gary Mills and Tony Poole

Gary and Tony move prisons

After considerable delay and nonsense from the prison authorities Gary and Tony have finally been moved to a Cat D prison of their choice. They have now moved to Springhill near Oxford which whilst being a bit further away than Earlstoke it's a far better place both for them and for visitors. They always welcome a line of support from people, so why not send them a card to brighten up their cell. Write to:

Gary Mills (WM 0469)
HMP Springhill,
Grendon Underwood,
Aylesbury, Bucks, HP18 OT

Tony Poole (WM 1030)
HMP Springhill,
Grendon Underwood,
Aylesbury, Bucks, HP18 OT

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Cinderella case 'killer' could be freed

For 13 years, Michael Shirley has sworn he did not kill Linda Cook.

Now he may be proved right

A sailor who has spent the past 13 years trying to prove himself innocent of murder and rape could soon be freed after vital new evidence was uncovered in a police filing cabinet.

Michael Shirley was a teenager when he was jailed for life in 1988 for what became known as the 'Cinderella' murder - the vicious killing of 24-year-old barmaid Linda Cook. Now a DNA sample found in police stores - together with a witness statement not produced at his trial - could clear Shirley and point instead to a sex attacker who escaped detection and could have struck again.

Shirley was on shore leave in Portsmouth when the murder happened in December 1986. Linda Cook was walking a mile or so between a friend's house in Portsmouth and her home in Southsea when she was raped and then died, yards from a school playground. Her jaw and spine were broken and her larynx crushed by the heel of the killer, who stamped on her body so hard that he left an imprint of the logo from the sole of his shoes. It was the police hunt for the shoes - 250 pairs of which had been sold in Portsmouth that year alone - which led to the case being dubbed the Cinderella murder. And 18-year-old Shirley owned a pair. He was also one of the third of all British males who share a blood group type with the murderer.

The fact that his shoes were at his parents' home in Leamington Spa, and that he had an alibi, a girl called Deena Fogg he had taken out that night, did not dissuade police and they arrested him some six months later.

'I feel there was so much pressure to get a conviction on this crime, not necessarily to solve it, that they fitted the case around me,' said Shirley from Gartree Prison in Leicestershire. He has staged hunger strikes, rooftop protests and sent hundreds of letters in an unflagging attempt to clear his name. 'Knowing every single night you are banged up for something you haven't done and there are people within the system who could even think or suspect you're guilty of that offence - you can't imagine that,' he said. 'It's degrading.'

In 1992 his case named was as one one of 110 possible miscarriages of justice in a dossier given to the Home Office by the National Association of Probation Officers and justice groups Liberty and Conviction. Nothing was achieved despite a report being passed to the chief constable of Hampshire.

He now is pinning his hopes on the DNA sample, which his solicitors had tried to obtain for several years, and on the discovery of Deena Fogg's original police statement which places him half an hour away from the scene at the time of the murder.

'The evidence that Michael Shirley is innocent was always convincing, now it's overwhelming,' said his solicitor Anita Bromley. 'The girl's original statement, which tallied with his account of what happened, was not revealed to the jury but instead she was re-interviewed by police some five months later and somehow the times changed slightly in that second statement.

'Michael has maintained his innocence throughout. Last year he would have been eligible for parole but he won't get it because he will always plead innocent and the sad fact is that those are the people who die in prison.'

Bromley believes there is now a good case for police in Portsmouth to examine their records and look for a serial attacker. 'At the time of Linda Cook's murder the area had seen a spate of vicious sex attacks and there was a feeling that this was a serial sex killer. Police were under enormous pressure to catch the man,' she said.

Bromley is now trying to contact sailors who served on Shirley's ship, HMS Apollo, at the time in case they unknowingly hold further proof of his innocence. The Crime Cases Review Commission has already referred the case to the Court of Appeal after examining the new evidence and a hearing will soon be set - although it is unlikely to be before next year. It is one of only six per cent of the CCRC's caseload which gets that far, and of those around 75 per cent end up being quashed by the appeal judges.

Tracy McVeigh, Observer, Sunday October 21, 2001

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On the Move:

MarkBarnsley to HMP Whitemoor, from HMP Wakefield via HMP Leeds

Jimmy Wright to HMP Parkhurst, from HMP Belmarsh via HMP Whitemoor

Paul Lyons to HMP Whitemoor from HMP Longlartin

Samar and Jawad:

There was a good turnout for the Samar and Jawad appeal, no luck with disclosure, same old story from the Home Office, we don�t want to and the judges said �so be it�.

Giving the whole evidence is still not on, and despite the barristers quoting the Human Rights Act,the judges didn�t bat an eyelid.

They reserved their judgement.

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Dennis Nilsen HMP Whitemoor:

Has won the right to challenge a decision by the prison governor denying him access to a manuscript of his autobiography, which he wants to edit.

Mr Justice Elias granted Nilsen permission to seek a judicial review of the governor's insistence that the manuscript, currently held by his solicitors, must be inspected by the prison authorities before they decide whether it can be returned to him.

Nilsen, 54, wants to publish his book, titled Nilsen: History of a Drowning Man, but insists he neither seeks nor will receive any financial reward. Any proceeds would go to charity, he says.