On Monday 27 October the Future Justice Project hosted a public meeting on behalf of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justice with a fantastic guest panel of speakers, chaired by co-chair of the APPG, Lord Edward Garnier.
The panel explored the use of expert evidence in criminal trials, covering the misuse of statistics in medical murder cases, the exorbitant fees paid by prosecution teams to ‘industry experts’, and how shoddy forensics can lead to miscarriages of justice.
Professor Carole McCartney drew on her experience of working with the APPG’s Westminster Commission on Forensic Science, while Tom Hayes was able to share his experience of being wrongfully imprisoned in a complex financial crime conviction that was quashed earlier this year. Former coronor officer, Stephanie Davies, spoke about her experience investigating equivocal deaths, and the challenges of working inquisitorially within an adversarial system. Professor John O’Quigley, an academic statistician, spoke movingly about cases in which poorly interpreted and presented statistical evidence has led to miscarriages of justice, and described how he believes this has taken place once again in the conviction of Lucy Letby.
The meeting was attended by interested criminal justice practitioners, members of the House of Lords, the new interim head of the Criminal Cases Review Commission and family justice campaigners.
