HC Deb 01 November 1968 vol 772 cc440-50

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ernest G. Perry.]

3.53 p.m.

Mr. Dennis Hobden (Brighton, Kemptown)

I wonder whether I might seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker. Although I am due to start the Adjournment, a spokesman from the Ministry does not appear to be present. Should I continue?

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Member must continue. I am not responsible for the actions of the Minister. Nor is the hon. Member.

Mr. Hobden

I want to draw to the attention of the House what I regard as a gross miscarriage of justice to two of my constituents, Mr. Brian Pullen, and Mr. John Weaver. I have to say—I have no pleasure in saying it—that the name Weaver, in Brighton, immediately conjures up association with the criminal fraternity, but even members of the criminal fraternity are entitled to justice. The possession of a criminal record should not mean that a criminal is always guilty whenever he may be apprehended or held on suspicion. He could be equally innocent. It is up to the courts of justice to decide otherwise on the evidence available, and taking into account all the relevant factors.

Nothing I say today should be interpreted in any way as criticism of the police so far as the collection of evidence goes. My complaint is in regard to the evidence of witnesses and the way in which an identity parade was convened.

Mr. Weaver, with Mr. Pullen, was arrested on 19th June, 1967, in connection with robberies from electricity meters. Mr. Weaver immediately asked for an identity parade to be held—not, I would have thought, the action of a guilty man. Curiously, the police took the view, and this is admitted by the Home Office in a letter to me of 23rd April, 1968, that an identification parade was not necessary. I repeat the word "curiously". It is strange, in view of the type of case this was and the large number of people involved at witnesses, that an identity parade should not have taken place at once, particularly as the evidence of witnesses was, as I shall show, unsatisfactory.

No identity parade took place until 20th September 1967, precisely three months later, when counsel briefed on behalf of the prosecution expressed the opinion that identification parades should be held and the police accepted this advice. I regard that action three months later as indefensible, and the noble Lord who is in charge of the Home Office section which is concerned with this matter was, in my opinion, thoroughly complacent.

It is no salve to anybody's conscience to state, as he has done in his letter, that the delay in holding the identity parade was clearly brought out to the jury and that the recorder referred to it in his summing-up. At that point, in my opinion, the case should have been stopped, for, while the identity parade three months later did not prevent Mr. Weaver from being found guilty, it could at an earlier stage have proved his innocence.

Let us examine the proceedings of the identity parades. Here I am speaking of the results and not the methods used, and only about Weaver. Two identity parades took place, one on 20th September, 1967, the other on 4th October, 1967. On 20th September, six witnesses attended the identity parade and nine prison inmates with Mr. Weaver constituted the line-up. Of these six witnesses, four failed to identify Mr. Weaver, one witness identified a person who could not possibly have been connected with the crime and the remaining witness, Mrs. Mack, correctly identified Mr. Weaver.

Here again occurs a curious set of circumstances, for one of the witnesses who failed to identify Mr. Weaver was Mrs. Mack's daughter. Mrs. Mack claims that she saw Weaver once on the day of the offence and was able to recognise him, yet her daughter saw him twice on that day, once on her way to the shops when he was seated in a maroon car, and again on her return home when he walked into her home and she recognised him again. Yet the daughter, who saw the man twice, was unable to recognise him, whilst her mother, who saw him once, was able to recognise him three months later, even though the mother's description of the man contradicted that of the daughter.

There is another objectionable feature of the proceedings and one which is a disgrace to British justice. The only person to have identified Mr. Weaver on the occasion of the first identity parade, Mrs. Mack, was at the committal proceedings, and she therefore recognised the accused, Weaver, at the identity parade because she had seen him at the committal proceedings.

Another curious event occurred that afternoon. Another person at Mrs. Mack's house that day, in addition to Carol Mack, was Mrs. Janet Mack, and she said that the man who came in was Brian Pullen. So we have the situation where Mrs. Mack states that the caller is John Weaver, Mrs. Janet Mack says that it is Pullen, and Carol Mack cannot identify either.

We come now to the second identity parade, held on 4th October, over three months later than the original offence, when nine inmates of Lewes Prison, including Weaver, formed the line-up. One woman witness was brought before the parade and failed to identify Weaver. The officer in charge of the parade said to Mr. Weaver that he proposed to bring another witness on to the parade, but on legal advice Mr. Weaver refused to accept this. Here is a further curious feature in this case, for the woman proposed to be brought to identify Mr. Weaver was a woman who, to quote her own words at the committal proceedings on 4th July, said of Mr. Pullen, Mr. Weaver's co-defendant, "I know of a man called Brian Pullen. I recognise him in court today as the other accused man."

Here we have a situation where a woman who knows Mr. Pullen—

It being Four o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ernest G. Perry.]

Mr. Hobden

We have the situation where a woman who knows Mr. Pullen sees him sitting in the dock handcuffed to Mr. Wheeler. Yet, within about three months, she is brought to identify Mr. Weaver in Lewes Prison. In my opinion, Mr. Weaver was right to refuse this witness and ought never to have been placed in that situation.

A further curious piece of evidence came from a painter named Mr. D. E. McKenna. He said in his evidence, referring to Mr. Weaver: He was knocking at the door when I first became aware of him. I had my back to him so I did not actually see him. He went on, in his evidence: I see that person in court today. It is John, there—John Weaver. I know him, but when he first called, it did not dawn on me that it was him. Then he said: I had not by that time really realised that the man who called was John Weaver. I realised that it was him later on after having a conversation with another resident of Nuthurst Road. In other words, at the beginning his back was towards Mr. Weaver and he could not have seen him. Then he said that he knows him, but did not know him when he called. This, again, is quite startling, and in my opinion ought never to have been admitted.

This case was about two men seen using a maroon car, one of them carrying a brief case, attempting to seek entry into premises in the Whitehawk area of Brighton pretending to be electricity meter collectors and then stealing the contents of the meters. It is a petty enough matter calling for no great brain power, and a shabby affair altogether. However, Brian Pullen is known in the district and has lived in it. Is it likely that he would commit a crime of this sort where he is well known and would be instantly recognised in broad daylight? I refuse to believe it.

In spite of everything and all the jiggery-pokery of the identity parades, both men were convicted and sent to prison. Mr. Weaver is still there. Mr. Pullen has been released. From the beginning, both have protested their innocence, and I believe them. I might mention here that Mr. Weaver was refused leave to bring an appeal out of time.

One would have thought that that would have been the end of the matter, with both men in prison and out of the way. However, it was only the begin- ning. With both men in prison, certain items began to appear in local newspapers. On 31st May, 1968, the Brighton Evening Argus carried the headline: Two ran when asked questions. The report tells how two men, both fitting reasonably the description given in the Brighton case, tried to get into a lady's home in Bognor Regis by posing as council officials. They ran away to a red car—could it have been a maroon car, I wonder—when she asked questions. One of them carried a briefcase.

On 22nd April of this year, the Brighton Evening Argus carried the headline, "Bogus meter men alert". It reads: Brighton police issued a warning at the weekend for householders to be on their guard against bogus collectors from gas and electricity meters. Months after Pullen and Weaver had gone to prison it was obvious that somebody was still involved in robbing meters.

The Evening Argus of 8th April, 1968, stated: There has been a spate of such cases in East Sussex in the past week. Again, they involved two bogus officials.

It was reported on 5th April that police at Hastings had issued a warning to the public not to admit to their homes men posing as officials. On the same date, the same newspaper reported that two men at Worthing had robbed an old man of his life savings by posing as corporation officials.

I believe that what happened in White-hawk on the day about which I am speaking was that there were two other men in the area unbeknown to Pullen and Weaver, and that it was those two men who were responsible for these crimes. Pullen and Weaver, because of their records and a small amount of circumstantial evidence which was not very strong, were apprehended. Then followed the ghastly miscarriage of justice with regard to the identity parades.

My hon. Friend will recall that on 21st April of this year the Sunday Times reported that the National Council for Civil Liberties had sent to my hon. Friend a dossier, in which it was proved that men charged or convicted for a criminal offence had been wrongly identified, in addition to which this House heard, in March, of five proven cases where men had been wrongfully charged or convicted through wrong identification.

In my opinion, the case that I have raised today is in an even worse category. Justice is a gossamer thing. It not only has to be done; it has to be seen to be done. The phrase is now almost a cliché. This matter discloses serious shortcomings in the administration of justice. I urge my hon. Friend to make a fresh study of this case. It is not too late to undo the harm done to two men whom I consider to be innocent.

It is not enough to state, as was done in the Home Office letter of 23rd April, that the Home Secretary cannot act as a further court of appeal. I would urge him to exercise his rights of remission of sentence in respect of Mr. Weaver, for I believe that I have demonstrated the exceptional circumstances he claims are required. In respect of Mr. Pullen, I ask that he should consider the possibility of a free pardon.

4.6 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan)

May I, first, express my regret, and tender my apologies to you, Mr. Speaker, and to my hon. Friend, for not being in my place when my hon. Friend rose to speak. I fully appreciate the concern that has caused my hon. Friend to raise this case—concern about the procedure followed with regard to the identification of the two accused men, which may have resulted in an injustice to them.

Having said that, I should like to make it clear that it appears to me, from what my hon. Friend has said, that he is labouring under the misconception that identification was the sole basis of conviction in this case. I trust that I will be able to show the House that this is not so. I very much regret that my hon. Friend should have seen fit to attack my noble Friend the Minister of State, than whom few men have greater concern for justice. I particularly regret it since he had previously given no information that he did not accept what my noble Friend wrote to him on 23rd April.

I am, to say the least, surprised that, if my hon. Friend had seriously believed that the police notice of 22nd April and the report of 31st May, of further offences of this nature having occurred in the Brighton area, did throw doubt on the guilt of his constituents, he should not have brought these matters to our notice until now. As my hon. Friend has indicated, he raised this matter earlier in the year with my noble Friend the Minister of State and I can assure him that it was very thoroughly and carefully considered.

The conclusion reached then was that there were no grounds on which my right hon. Friend would be justified in recommending any interference with the decision of the court, and I am bound to say that, after further study of the facts, we have found no reason to depart from that conclusion.

The facts of the case very briefly are that on 19th June last year in the Whitehawk district of Brighton a man called at a number of houses, purporting to be an Electricity Board meter reader. From a meter in one house he removed the sum of £6 5s. He returned to the householder a rebate of 8s. but did not ask her to sign for it, and this made her suspicious. At a second house, he gained admission, but because the occupier stood over him while he inspected the meter he withdrew on the pretext that he had not the right keys with him and would have to go to get them.

At a third house he was not admitted because he was not in uniform. From descriptions given by the householders of these premises, the figure emerged of a man of about 30, of medium height and build, wearing glasses and dressed in non-matching check jacket and trousers, and carrying a brown briefcase. The same afternoon such a man was seen in that area by a number of other witnesses. One saw him near to a stationary maroon car, in the driving seat of which was a man in shirt sleeves. Another was asked by a man answering the same description in such a car whether her parents were in.

A third, a Mr. Dale, saw the man in the check coat and trousers emerge from the house where the meter had been emptied and, on hearing the suspicions of other witnesses, went to look for the car which had been described to him. He found a maroon car registration number TKR 835 parked a short distance away. He thereupon notified the police, who located the car outside another house and spoke to the two men. The police officers were not satisfied with their explanation of their movements during the afternoon and they arrested the two men.

One of the two men was wearing a check jacket and non-matching trousers and a distinctive pair of black horn-rimmed spectacles. That was John Henry Weaver. The other man, Brian Alfred Pullen, had no jacket on but was wearing a shirt buttoned to the neck and light-grey necked trousers. There was a brown briefcase in the car.

On the basis of those facts, Brian Alfred Pullen and John Henry Weaver were charged on 28th June with breaking and entering 19 Nuthurst Road and stealing £6 5s., with breaking and entering 139 Whitehawk Crescent with intent to steal, and with attempting to enter 2 Fletching Road with intent to steal. At that time, the police took the view that no identification parade was needed, and the examining justices found the evidence without a parade sufficient to justify committing the two men for trial. However, when counsel was briefed for the prosecution, he expressed the opinion that an identification parade should be held in the case of Weaver, and the police accepted his advice.

On 20th September, 1967, therefore, an identification parade was held at Lewes Prison at which Weaver was paraded with nine other prisoners. He was identified by only one of six witnesses, the occupier of the second house which was entered. A second parade involving two further witnesses was arranged on 4th October, 1967. One witness failed to identify anyone, and Weaver refused to be paraded before the second witness, Mr. Dale, that is, the gentleman who had originally located the car and passed the message to the police. The defence were present on the occasion of both parades.

At the trial at Brighton Quartet Sessions on 10th–13th October last year, the point was clearly made by the defence, and repeated by the learned recorded in his summing-up, that the only witness who had identified Weaver at the identification parade had in the meantime seen him in court during the committal proceedings. It was also put to the jury that no meter key and no money was found either in the car or on the persons of the accused, nor did the meters yield any fingerprint evidence, not even of innocent people.

The prosecution argued, on the other hand, that it was too great a coincidence for two other men of comparable descriptions and in a similar car to have been committing offences in the area where Pullen and Weaver were found at the time when they were found. The jury were out for half an hour and returned with a verdict of guilty on all three charges. Pullen was sentenced to a total of 18 months' imprisonment and Weaver to a total of two years in prison.

Both men subsequently sought leave to appeal against their convictions. Weaver, in particular, drew the attention of the Court of Appeal to the fact that only one witness had identified him at the identification parades and she had seen him in court at the committal proceedings and that these parades had not been held until more than three months after the date of the arrest. He argued that, since this was not in accordance with accepted practice, his conviction should be quashed.

The applications were considered by a single judge of the Court of Appeal on 26th January this year. That judge found no gounds for granting leave to appeal. Both prisoners then abandoned their applications although they had a right to ask for them to be considered by the full Court of Appeal.

My hon. Friend has referred in strong language to the injustice which can arise from mistaken identification by honest witnesses. I assure him that I have looked with great care into that aspect of the case. The delay in holding the identification parade until after the committal for trial was certainly unusual. I have consulted the Chief Constable of Sussex on this point. The events in question took place before the amalgamation of the Brighton Police Force into the present Sussex Police Force, but the Chief Constable takes the view that any identification parade should have taken place before committal proceedings, and I agree.

Quite apart from the delay, a parade held after committal proceedings is open to the objection, which was made at the trial against the evidence of the one witness who identified Weaver, that the witnesses will by then already have seen the accused at the magistrates' court.

But it is fair to say, I submit, on the other side that the interval of three months between the holding of the parade and the incidents which led to the prosecution made it all the more difficult for witnesses to pick out one bespectacled man from a number of others of similar appearance. The prosecution case—I stress this again—by no means rested on the identification parade; it was based, as I have shown, on a good deal of other evidence supporting the identification and tending to link these men with the offences.

I have had inquiries made into the reasons underlying the warning issued by the Brighton police in April, to which my hon. Friend referred. I understand that this arose not from any offence committed in the Brighton area but elsewhere in the County of Sussex.

I do not know whether my hon. Friend is aware of the fact but crimes committed by people falsely representing themselves to be some or other type of official are only too common. The police throughout the country are aware that offences are being committed by men, often operating in pairs, representing themselves to be gas board officials, council employees, persons concerned with rate rebates, bank officials, and so on, as a means of gaining entry to houses for purposes of theft or fraud. These offences have been taking place over a long time and over a wide area. The mere fact, therefore, that they should continue to occur in a place as populous as Brighton after two such offenders were already in prison is not, in my submission, in the least surprising, although I am informed that only two offences of this kind have been reported in the town this year.

As to the report in the Evening Argus of 31st May this year, I am informed that this related to an incident which occurred in Bognor Regis—not Brighton—when two men in a red—not maroon—car called on an elderly lady representing themselves to be from the county hall, but when the householder showed herself to be suspicious of their credentials they drove away. The description of these two men were very unlike the descriptions of the men who were operating in the Whitehawk area of Brighton the previous June.

The considerations to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention were fully before the jury together with all the other evidence, but the jury was evidently satisfied that the case was proved. Then the whole question came under scrutiny again on the applications for leave to appeal, and the judge of the court of appeal considered the matter and came to the view that there were no grounds for intervention by that court.

As I am sure my hon. Friend realises, it is not the function of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to review evidence which has already been considered by a court or to act as a further court of appeal. It would be both presumptuous and dangerous for him to purport do so. The trial court has the inestimable advantage, not open to those of us who see only the depositions and transcripts of evidence long after the event, of being able to assess just how much credibility individual witnesses should command not only by what they say but from their demeanour—their candour or their evasiveness, as the case may be. The most minute scrutiny of the documents of the case affords no adequate substitute for such testimony.

There are, of course, cases—I do not say that this is one of them—where one must inevitably feel doubt whether, on the evidence, one would oneself have come to the same view of the case as the jury, but neither I nor my right hon. Friend—nor my hon. Friend—is entitled, in my submission, to set our judgment against that of the jury which saw and heard the witnesses.

It is only where some new consideration has come to light which was not before the courts that my right hon. Friend can properly consider the possibility of recommending the exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy or of referring the case for the further consideration of the court of appeal under Section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act, 1968.

This case has been considered most carefully from that aspect, but I am afraid that I have been unable to discover, either from our earlier correspondence or from what my hon. Friend has said today, any new factors which would justify such action by my right hon. Friend.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes past Four o'clock.