December 1, 2022:
Article by Felicity Stryjak Definitions of “Victim” – 1) A person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action, Or 2) A person who has come to feel helpless and passive in the face of misfortune or ill-treatment. In July 2022, an ex-teacher was tried for sexual […]
January 15, 2022:
The tragic story of Antony Broadwater’s wrongful conviction is essential reading because, although it took place in the USA, there are important lessons for our own justice system. Mistaken Identity In 1981 Alice Sebold, an 18-year-old student in Syracuse University in the US, was violently raped in an underpass amongst broken beer bottles and dead […]
May 13, 2021:
FACT has known for a long time that the appeal system in England is failing those who have suffered the worst abuse the state can inflict on a citizen, a wrongful conviction. The catastrophic failure of justice that led to over 550 post office workers being wrongly accused of stealing may have been a shock […]
December 20, 2019:
A doctor who was wrongfully accused of sexual assault of a female patient had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal last week. He had already served his full prison sentence and been struck off the medical register. While he was in prison his family instructed a new legal team who uncovered fresh evidence […]
September 7, 2019:
In 2009 Mark Barlow and Mark Newby delivered their seminal paper on challenging past historical allegations of abuse at a conference which brought together all sides in the Criminal Justice System. They are the guest speakers at our Autumn Conference and the title of their presentation will be “The last 10 years of historical abuse […]
February 8, 2019:
Gareth Jones was a care worker who was convicted of sexual assault in 2008. Gareth who has learning difficulties was working in a care home and called for help because a woman with dementia was bleeding heavily. He was arrested the following day. He had only been alone with the woman for four minutes while […]
September 28, 2018:
This is a very scary book. However, most people who read this book review on FACT website will already have some experience of how the legal system is malfunctioning. The Secret Barrister (a junior barrister specialising in criminal law and named Independent Blogger of the Year in 2016 and 2017) begins by tracing the history […]
July 15, 2018:
Chris Saltrese is a solicitor specialising in the defence of those accused of sexual offences. He is a member of our advisory group. He has submitted written evidence to the Justice Committee ‘Inquiry on Disclosure of Evidence’. The full submission is available here. The following are extracts from his submission summarising the problem and his […]
December 10, 2014:
In 2012, Cardiff became the first university innocence project in the UK to successfully have a case referred to the Court of Appeal after submission to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). Today, after almost ten years of investigative work by students and academics on dozens of cases in innocence projects in more than twenty […]
November 15, 2014:
James Bird, 53, was arrested at his desk and subjected to an 11-month court ordeal over the claims, dating back more than a decade old, that he abused a pupil.The church-goer, who now works at another school, was even prevented from being alone with his 13-year-old daughter in that time.