§ 12. Mr. John Robertson (Glasgow, Anniesland)If he will make a statement on police procedure for investigating unsolved murders in cases where the original conviction has been overturned. [98768]
§ The Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety (Mr. John Denham)The police will review the evidence available and any comments or findings made by the court in cases where convictions are overturned. As with other unsolved crimes, it is for the police to decide in individual cases whether the evidence justifies reopening the investigation.
§ John RobertsonI thank my hon. Friend for his answer. He will be aware of the case of one of my constituents, Robert Brown, who spent more than 25 years in jail for a murder he did not commit. He was finally released in November. He will also be aware of the case of Stefan Kiszko, who was released from prison in 1992 on the basis of an unsafe conviction. He had 19 served 16 years in prison. It has recently been announced that in that case the original murder is being reinvestigated due to new DNA evidence.
Will my hon. Friend tell me why it is that in cases such as the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, and the case involving one of my constituents, the police failed to find the real perpetrators and were all too ready to see convicted the people who were charged?
§ Mr. DenhamWe must take every miscarriage of justice extremely seriously. I think that in every instance 20 that my hon. Friend has mentioned, the cases were brought to court originally before the protections that now exist in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Those protections have been important. If there is a case, however old, where a conviction is overturned and it becomes possible for the police to reinvestigate, and the evidence is there to enable a reinvestigation, I would hope that the police would take that course. That must he a matter for the police to decide in the light of the evidence that is available to them.