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Prologue

The punishment of a criminal is an example to the rabble;

But every decent man is concerned if an innocent man is condemned.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE LES CARACTÈRES, DE QUELQUES USAGES

On 10 November 1949, 1-year-old Geraldine Evans was strangled to death, but it was not her father, Timothy, who tightened the ligature around the baby’s neck. Timothy Evans was executed for a crime he did not commit.

On 23 August 1961 Michael Gregsten was killed by a shot to the head, but is was not petty thief James Hanratty who pulled the gun’s trigger. James Hanratty was executed for a crime he did not commit.

On 5 October 1975, Lesley Molseed was abducted and stabbed to death. Stefan Kiszko was innocent of her murder. Stefan Kiszko was imprisoned for sixteen years, for a crime he did not commit.

The terrible price of innocence.

The twentieth century has produced a significant number of cases in which innocent men have been convicted of murderous crimes of great repugnance. At least two men, Evans and Hanratty, paid with their lives for miscarriages of justice.

Consideration of such miscarriages tends to focus, almost exclusively and with much justification, on the innocent man. But to follow this path is to ignore those other people, equally innocent of any wrongdoing, who pay a high price for the failings of others. The families of those guiltless men whose lives are decimated by the imprisonment (or execution) of their loved ones, who then give years to clear the innocent’s name. Iris Bentley, Anne Whelan, lives devoted to a single struggle. The victims are buried and forgotten to all but their relatives but how can they rest in peace whilst their killers live on unpunished? What rest is there today for the family of Michael Gregsten and the parents of Carl Bridgewater? And of Lesley Molseed?

Each time the scales of justice are unbalanced, by police misdemeanour, by inadequacies in the legal system or by the dishonesty of others, the implications extend far beyond the man or woman who has been wrongly convicted of the crime. Publicly there is criticism of ‘the System’, ‘the Police’ or ‘the Law’ but, as is evident from the case with which this book is concerned, such criticism has not resulted in positive change. Changes to systems have not eradicated miscarriages of justice, and there is little will to punish those who contribute to such miscarriages. The fact that innocent individuals, who have been convicted and punished for crimes they did not commit, have received compensation payments or pardons should bring little comfort to society, for each one of us remains at risk of wrongful accusation until the will for change and the momentum for change grow strong.

There lives today a man who took the life of Lesley Molseed. That he enjoys his liberty, his freedom and his life is cause enough to abhor the repercussions of the wrongful conviction of Stefan Kiszko. That he remains unpunished is reason enough for the family of Lesley Molseed to feel that justice has not been done. That he may kill again is quite sufficient for all to look at the case of Stefan Kiszko with anxiety and unease.

The Kiszko/Molseed case revealed painful truths about the inadequacies of the English legal system, and few of those truths have been adequately addressed more than twenty years after Kiszko was convicted. Many questions still remain unanswered:

 Why is there still no independent authority responsible for objective assessment of evidence prior to criminal charges being brought? Why has the procedure of ‘Old Style Committals’, whereby evidence may be assessed prior to Crown Court trial, been abolished, so that there are fewer, not more safeguards in place?

 The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 made failure to permit a suspect detained by the police access to a solicitor a ‘breach of the Codes of Practice’ which might render a confession inadmissible. Why, instead, did it not make it a mandatory requirement that such a suspect have legal representation, whereby any failure to provide such representation would render any confession obtained inadmissible?

 Why is the Court of Appeal still reluctant to make incompetence of counsel a valid ground of appeal?

 Why is there still no truly independent body to examine and take action on alleged miscarriages of justice?

This book is not about the innocence of Stefan Kiszko, nor the innocence of Lesley Molseed. It is not about the innocence of the families of that man and that child. It is about a series of events in 1975 and 1976 which destroyed the innocence of so many people.

And it should serve as a reminder that innocence remains a precious commodity, which can still be stolen.

As the twentieth century draws to a close, the innocents still suffer, the guilty still walk free.