Authored By: Sofia Lamri
Middlesex University Dubai
Introduction:
The police play a key role in the criminal justice system (CJS), however, it is useful to first consider what the CJS aims to achieve. Ideally, its main purposes are to detect crime, convict offenders, protect the innocent from wrongful conviction, and maintain public order, among other aims.[1] The police are often people’s first point of contact with the CJS, as they are responsible for investigating crimes, gathering evidence, and deciding whether to bring charges.[2] However, there are instances that show that this is not always the case. This article will look at the current policies in place to ensure an effective CJS and minimal miscarriages of justice as well as the cases where police investigative process errors have led to miscarriages of justice that resulted in the current policies in place.
Legal Framework:
In response to miscarriages of justice, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) was introduced. Section 66 of PACE sets out Codes of Practice (A–H) to regulate police powers and provide safeguards for both suspects and the public in England and Wales. Another key reform was the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, which established the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) under section 8. The CCRC is an independent body tasked with reviewing potential miscarriages of justice in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Its work has received both praise and criticism. Some critics argue the CCRC has limited impact, as it refers less than 4% of the 13,000-plus applications it received from alleged victims of wrongful convictions for appeals.[3] Nevertheless, since its establishment, the CCRC has referred 788 cases to the appeal courts, with 539 resulting in overturned convictions.[4] This demonstrates a clear improvement compared to the previous system, where appeals went directly to the Home Secretary and only 4–5 cases were referred each year out of approximately 700 applications.[5]
Judicial Interpretation:
Miscarriages of justice can occur when innocent people are wrongly imprisoned or when offenders avoid accountability and sometimes commit further crimes.[6] In some cases, such as the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the miscarriage involves the death of an innocent person. De Menezes was followed by undercover police officers as he boarded public transport and once on the train, he was pinned down and shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder by officers trained to stop suicide bombers, who mistakenly believed he was involved in the failed bomb attacks of the previous day.[7] After the incident, the Met Police Commissioner initially claimed that De Menezes had ignored orders and that his behaviour and clothing raised suspicions. However, once identified, the Commissioner admitted that the police had made a “serious mistake.”[8]
While De Menezes demonstrates how errors in high-pressure operations can lead to fatal consequences, other miscarriages of justice have occurred as a result of failures in the investigation process. In R v Maguire and Others, commonly known as the Maguire Seven, they were wrongfully convicted of handling explosives during a bombing investigation.[9] Their appeal succeeded under section 2(1)(c) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 after it emerged that the prosecution had failed to disclose key documents to the defence, which, under section 3 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996, prosecutors must disclose all relevant material, even if it undermines their case.[10]
The issue of unreliable evidence and mistreatment of suspects is also seen in R v McIlkenny and Others, usually referred to as the Birmingham Six. Six Irish men were convicted in 1975 for the Birmingham pub bombings but had their convictions quashed in 1991.[11]This case relied heavily on forensic evidence and confessions, which the defendants said were obtained through violence and threats by police. However, despite strong evidence of mistreatment, the prosecution argued it happened in prison rather than police custody. The confessions were also inconsistent and revealed no real knowledge of the bombings.[12] Nevertheless, the defendants spent 16 years in prison before being cleared, showing how coerced confessions and poor investigations can produce devastating outcomes.[13]
A similar pattern emerged in R v Richardson and Others, known as the Guildford Four where four men were wrongfully convicted in 1975 for pub bombings in Guildford and spent 14 years in prison before being exonerated in 1989. Their convictions collapsed after it was revealed that police had engaged in serious misconduct, including suppressing and altering evidence that could have cleared them.[14]
Critical Analysis:
The case of Jean Charles de Menezes exposed serious flaws in communication and decision-making as the officers who fired the shots believed that De Menezes had been positively identified by surveillance teams, when in fact he was not. Allowing him to enter public transport under the mistaken assumption that he was a suicide bomber also placed civilians in significant danger, raising questions about whether the police fulfilled their duty to maintain public order and protect the public.
Despite the Met Police admitting to their mistake and making public statements acknowledging their error, no officer was held accountable. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) ruled that there was “insufficient evidence” for a conviction, and the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) chose not to pursue disciplinary action.[15] Instead, accountability was limited to an organisational level as the Metropolitan Police Service was prosecuted under health and safety legislation and fined £175,000.[16] Critics noted that while it was unsurprising that the CPS avoided prosecutions, the use of health and safety law was an unusual choice.[17]
Another case that revealed failures in investigative practice as well as a culture of institutional self-protection is that of the Guildford Four. This case highlights the dangers of an overreliance on confessions, particularly when obtained under duress, and reflects a wider judicial tendency at the time to place undue weight on police testimony. As Lord Lane acknowledged during the appeal, the extent of police dishonesty called into question the credibility of the entire prosecution case and raised wider concerns about the willingness of law enforcement to lie in order to secure convictions.[18]
Similarly, the case of the Birmingham Six exposes how judicial deference to police accounts and expert testimony created an environment where the rights of defendants were subordinated to the need for swift convictions. This demonstrated that systemic bias, coupled with a failure to properly scrutinise evidence, could produce miscarriages of justice. The Maguire Seven also underscores the flaws in both police investigation and the court system as well as the fundamental importance of disclosure, as the fairness of a trial rides on the defence being able to challenge the prosecution’s evidence, which they could only do if all the material documents have been disclosed to them. These cases also show how the broader political climates created conditions where expediency was prioritised over procedures and protocols.
Recent Developments:
Despite the policies implemented following the cases mentioned above, miscarriages of justice are still happening.
Peter Sullivan was a British man wrongly convicted of murder in 1987 and sentenced to life in prison, and his conviction was based on a retracted confession and circumstantial evidence.[19] In 2008 the CCRC rejected an application for Sullivan’s conviction to be reviewed, and his application to the Court of Appeal in 2019 was also rejected. However, In 2021, tests showed that Sullivan’s DNA was not present in the samples taken from the crime scene.
His conviction was quashed in the Court of Appeal on 13 May 2025, and he became eligible for immediate release from prison. As of 2025, Sullivan is the longest-serving known victim of a miscarriage of justice in British history, having served 38 years in prison before being released at the age of 68.
Suggestions/Ways forward:
Based on the data at hand, some suggestions can be made:
- Procedures and protocols must be followed regardless of the circumstances to ensure the investigations as well as court trials are made as fair for the defendant as possible to avoid a wrongful conviction.
- Appeal cases must be properly reviewed before being dismissed with reasons being given regarding the rejection of an application and whether or not the case might be reviewed at a late time if the technology to reinvestigate evidence is not available at the time.
Whilst it can be argued that these recommendations would take up a significant percentage of the resources available and allocated to the CJS, these cases have individuals’ freedoms at risk, with some being innocent, therefore, with stakes this high, investigations and processes need to be nuanced and meticulous instead of efficient.
Conclusion:
Miscarriages of justice tend to expose flaws in the CJS, which range from poor communication and evidence tampering to coerced confessions and failures of disclosure. These failures point to systemic weaknesses, including a culture of institutional self-protection, judicial deference to police evidence, and insufficient safeguards in appeals. However, despite reforms such as PACE and the creation of the CCRC, miscarriages of justice continue to occur, often with devastating consequences. And while preventing every miscarriage of justice may be impossible, the stakes demand a system that places justice above expediency.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Legislation:
Criminal Appeal Act 1968
Criminal Appeal Act 1995
Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
UK Case Law:
R v Maguire and others 94 Cr App Rep 133
R v McIlkenny, Hunter, Walker, Callaghan, Hill and Power (1991) 93 Crim. App. R. 287
R v Richardson and others [1989] 10 WLUK 234
Secondary Sources
Journal Articles:
Clancy C, ‘Criminal justice system still fails the innocent’ [2012] Socialist Lawyer 6
McCulloch J and Santas V, ‘The Killing of Jean Charles De Menezes: Hyper Militarism in the Neoliberal Economic Free-Fire Zone’ (2006) 33 Social Justice 92
Wistrich H, ‘Jean Charles De Menezes’ [2009] Socialist Lawyer 12
Craig K, ‘Death at the hands of the state – will police officers ever be held to account?’ [2009] Socialist Lawyer 14
Textbooks/Publications:
Allbon E and Kaur Dua S, Elliot & Quinn’s English Legal System (21st Edition, Pearson 2020)
Kelly D, Slapper and Kelly’s English Legal System (19th Edition, Taylor & Francis 2020)
Websites:
BBC, ‘Profile: Jean Charles De Menezes’ (BBC News, 10 June 2015) < https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33080187> accessed 24 August 2025
Brown M, Siddique H and Adu A, ‘Peter Sullivan has murder conviction quashed after 38 years in jail’ (The Guardian, 13 May 2025) < https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/may/13/peter-sullivan-jail-murder-conviction-quashed-diane-sindall> accessed 27 August 2025
CCRC, ‘CCRC marks 25 years of investigating miscarriages of justice’ (CCRC, 31 March 2022) < https://ccrc.gov.uk/news/ccrc-marks-25-years-of-investigating-miscarriages-of-justice/> accessed 26 August 2025
CCRC, ‘How it all began’ (CCRC, -) < https://ccrc.gov.uk/how-it-all-began/> accessed 26 August 2025
Haroon Siddique and James Sturcke, ‘The Stockwell Shooting’ (The Guardian, 2 December 2008) < https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/08/menezes.terrorism1#:~:text=The%20inquest%20into%20the%20death,under%20health%20and%20safety%20laws.&text=The%20IPCC%20announces%20that%20none,will%20face%20a%20disciplinary%20tribunal> accessed 24 August 2025
[1] David Kelly, Slapper and Kelly’s English Legal System (19th Edition, Routledge 2020) 349.
[2] Emily Allbon and Sanmeet Kaur Dua, Elliot & Quinn’s English Legal System (21st Edition, Pearson 2020) 459.
[3] Caroline Clancy, ‘Criminal justice system still fails the innocent’ [2012] Socialist Lawyer 6.
[4] CCRC, ‘CCRC marks 25 years of investigating miscarriages of justice’ (CCRC, 31 March 2022) < https://ccrc.gov.uk/news/ccrc-marks-25-years-of-investigating-miscarriages-of-justice/> accessed 26 August 2025.
[5] CCRC, ‘How it all began’ (CCRC, -) < https://ccrc.gov.uk/how-it-all-began/> accessed 26 August 2025.
[6] Kelly (n 1) 340.
[7] BBC, ‘Profile: Jean Charles De Menezes’ (BBC News, 10 June 2015) < https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33080187 > accessed 24 August 2025.
[8] Jude McCulloch and Vicki Santas, ‘The Killing of Jean Charles De Menezes: Hyper Militarism in the Neoliberal Economic Free-Fire Zone’ (2006) 33 Social Justice 92.
[9] R v Maguire and others (1991) 94 Cr App Rep 133.
[10] Ibid.
[11] R v McIlkenny, Hunter, Walker, Callaghan, Hill and Power (1991) 93 Crim. App. R. 287.
[12] Allbon and Kaur Dua (n 2) 454.
[13] Ibid.
[14] R v Richardson and others [1989] 10 WLUK 234.
[15] Haroon Siddique and James Sturcke, ‘The Stockwell Shooting’ (The Guardian, 2 December 2008) < https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/08/menezes.terrorism1#:~:text=The%20inquest%20into%20the%20death,under%20health%20and%20safety%20laws.&text=The%20IPCC%20announces%20that%20none,will%20face%20a%20disciplinary%20tribunal> accessed 24 August 2025.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Harriet Wistrich, ‘Jean Charles De Menezes’ [2009] Socialist Lawyer 12.
[18] Richardson and others (n 14).
[19] Mark Brown, Haroon Siddique and Aletha Adu, ‘Peter Sullivan has murder conviction quashed after 38 years in jail’ (The Guardian, 13 May 2025) < https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/may/13/peter-sullivan-jail-murder-conviction-quashed-diane-sindall> accessed 27 August 2025.
