Wrongful Convictions

The past fifty years have been marked by appalling miscarriages of justice – from the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six to the cases of Victor Nealon and Sam Hallam. Despite successive legal changes, and the creation of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the system is still failing to reliably and swiftly identify and rectify miscarriages of justice.

The last few years have seen a number of wrongful convictions quashed many years after they should have been rectified, including the Post Office and Shrewsbury 24 cases and, latterly, our client Andy Malkinson.

We know that there are many more who have been wrongly convicted and imprisoned.

The vast majority of these individuals are unable to get access to legal help. The CCRC recently confirmed that a third of applications it received used to be supported by a solicitor, that is now down to 3%. It is virtually impossible to find a criminal defence specialist who will take on such cases.

APPEAL takes on these cases, working with specialist investigators, lawyers and experts to identify the errors and bring the cases to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) or the CCRC.

We’re experts in investigating, uncovering new evidence and fighting for our clients. We take cases to the courts and use the flaws they expose to campaign for fundamental change at the highest level.

Alongside our casework we work with others to find solutions to these problems, for as these cases demonstrate, there is a need for urgent and sweeping reform of the criminal appeal system, so that wrongful convictions can be accurately recognised and rapidly remedied.

No justice system is perfect, but we’re fighting for a better one – a truly just system that we all deserve.