The Andrew Malkinson Inquiry Team has now confirmed they will put the content of this petition before the Chair of the Inquiry, Her Honour Judge Sarah Munro KC. She has emphasized that the inquiry will be fearless and robust in considering the lessons the justice system must learn. We are hopeful our contribution will be included in her recommendations.

Please sign the petition now, the more signatures we have, the more impactful the proposals in the petition will be. Please be a part of restoring our justice system to one that is in fact just!

Locking the wrong people up may be good for crime statistics, but it fails the victims, and allows the perpetrators to walk free and commit further crimes. A simple clarification of the existing law on disclosure would would bring an end to these miscarriages of justice. 

If defendants such as Andrew Malkinson, Colin Stagg, Barry George and Sally Clark had full disclosure of all evidence the authorities held after conviction, they would each have been in a position to mount effective appeals, and not been held in prison for many years trying to prove what they knew to be the case all along, that they, and many like them held in prison, were in fact innocent!

Over 2000 victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal would similarly not have had to wait over decade to have their wrongful convictions quashed had they had access to ALL the evidence held by prosecutors after their original guilty verdict had been delivered.

There are hundreds of thousands more like them in the UK. These problems have arisen because of the disclosure Act CPIA1996, and the failure of the authorities to interpret it in the manner intended by Parliament.

As it stands today, when the prosecution makes their assessment as to what material meets the disclosure test, they do so unchecked. This has lead to increased numbers of miscarriages of justice since 1996, not least because prosecutors are incentivised to secure convictions. Therefore being left to decide what material will be disclosed is inappropriate, and certainly not as Parliament intended when it enacted CPIA1996. Why else would the Act be worded to make clear that the restricted disclosure regime set out in the Act ends upon a verdict being returned in criminal proceedings? Thereafter full disclosure must be made if only to restore the publics faith in our justice system, including that of the very defendants the system seeks to convict! This act of transparency is essential to evidence a fair and balanced justice system, as opposed to the opaque system which is currently in use.

The prosecutions duty to self police what they disclose prior to obtaining a conviction, should be fully open to scrutiny by the defendants and the courts in compliance with the Act.

The simple fact is, it is impossible to do so at present. All requests for full disclosure or data under the data protection Act are denied. Defendants, are forced to go to the court of appeal with nothing more than the evidence used to convict them at trial. This situation is obviously flawed. It is the reason we have hundreds of thousands of miscarriages of justice, many not as high profile as Andrew Malkinson or the Post Office. Many who are simply forced to serve their time, and pick up the pieces of their broken lives afterwards in the absence of the evidence and significant resources required to challenge their conviction. This situation is obviously not justice at all.

For fairer criminal justice system, we are calling for full and compliant disclosure of all evidence after a verdict has been delivered in criminal trials, as permitted by CPIA1996 (the disclosure Act). This should be mandated as part of our legal process.

By signing this petition, you will be advocating for change that could potentially rectify flaws within our current system and provide those wrongly convicted with an opportunity to verify compliance with disclosure requirements, a process which is currently opaque.

Full disclosure of evidence in this manner would ensure prosecutors are more diligent when carefully selecting evidence for limited disclosure, and also provide defendants with the means to bring an effective appeal where a miscarriage of justice has occurred. Stand up for justice today – sign this petition!