The Overturn brings listeners into the real-life battles of people fighting on behalf of loved ones they believe have been victims of grave miscarriages of justice.
The series goes shoulder-to-shoulder with those on the outside as they campaign for those on the inside.
In the face of a dysfunctional criminal appeals system, they refuse to stop fighting to clear their loved ones’ names.
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From families contesting the convictions of teenagers jailed for conspiracy to murder over group-chat messages, to a former police officer who alleges he’s been stitched up by colleagues, to relatives of four men claiming a corrupt undercover sting led to their terrorism convictions, The Overturn brings their fight for justice to the forefront with journalistic resolve and critical urgency. The series highlights potential police corruption to secure dodgy convictions, the discredited testimony of prison cell snitches, and murder convictions so dubious even the victim’s family believe the wrong man went down.
But above all, it highlights the courage – and loneliness – of fighting a broken justice system.
These are the stories of people who maintain they’re innocent and yet remain in prison, fighting unimaginable odds to win justice in a system that – many would say – is rigged against them.
Every year, about 1,500 people write to the Criminal Cases Review Commission claiming to be innocent. That is the only organisation with the power to send a case back to the Court of Appeal. But last year, only 1.5% of those cases got sent back to the courts; and of the tiny number of wrongful convictions which are actually overturned, almost all are refused compensation.
These are the stories of people who maintain they’re innocent and yet remain in prison, fighting unimaginable odds to win justice in a system that – many would say – is rigged against them.
This podcast tells the stories of those on the outside, fighting to free those on the inside. The Overturn is produced and hosted by Marnie Duke with support from The Future Justice Project.
Praise for The Overturn
The Overturn has been commended as one of the Guardian’s top culture picks: “Following the families fighting for loved ones who they feel have been victims of miscarriages of justice, this moving series highlights the worrying fractures in the justice system and the often lonely journey to resolution.”
Writing in The Observer, Miranda Sawyer praised the “gripping” new podcast, saying “listening to The Overturn can make you feel as though every institution is designed to preserve the power of the powerful at the expense of the little person.”
Episodes
Robin Garbutt and his wife Diana lived a quiet life – running a post office in the idyllic village of Melsonby, North Yorkshire. That was until 2010, when Diana was murdered in their home. Robin Garbutt was convicted of his wife’s murder in April 2011. He has always protested his innocence, and the Criminal Cases Review Commission is currently investigating the possibility that this is true. No forensic evidence linked Garbutt to the murder, and his conviction was also tied up with his supposed thefts from his Post Office based on the now discredited evidence of the faulty Horizon accounting system that was behind hundreds of sub-postmasters’ wrongful convictions.
In this episode, we attempt to uncover what really happened, and question whether findings from the Post Office Inquiry could shed new light on the case.
Listen below, or via Spotify.
In 2017, four men were jailed for life for planning a terrorist attack after being caught in an undercover police operation. Their lawyers insist that their case continues to raise troubling questions about the behaviour of the police, whose text messages revealed during the trial the ludicrous extent to which they had bungled the supposed sting.
One of the convicted men’s sisters has been campaigning on their behalf ever since. In this episode, we travel to Birmingham to find out why.
Listen below, or via Spotify.
In 2009, Mark “Ozzy” Osbourne was convicted of murder, despite the fact that he was in prison for an unrelated lesser offence when the killing occurred. The shambolic evidence of a prison snitch helped secure the conviction, which could see him jailed for a total of 30 years.
The case is currently with the Criminal Cases Review Commission as they try to secure new evidence about the snitch’s character that could see the case overturned. In this episode, we speak to Ozzy’s childhood neighbour Julie about what she believes really happened, and her fight to clear his name.
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In 2013, Alex Henry was sentenced to a minimum of nineteen years under joint enterprise for a stabbing he didn’t execute. Joint Enterprise convictions have long been a source of dodgy convictions, with campaigners decrying a racially biased ‘legal dragnet’ that has seen, in particular, young boys locked up for murders they didn’t commit.
In this episode, we speak to Alex’s sister Charlotte Henry about the case against her brother, and her fight to overturn it.
Listen below, or via Spotify.
In 2022, ten teenage boys were jailed for plotting ‘revenge attacks’ in response to the murder of their friend. The boys, some of whom were only present in the chat where an address was shared for a matter of minutes, were convicted of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm and conspiracy to commit murder. A narrative was created by the prosecution that the boys were members of a violent criminal gang, one that a lawyer representing one of them is driven by ‘institutional racism’.
In this episode, we speak to a campaigner about why she believes the boys’ grief was co-opted and constructed into something it wasn’t.
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Former police officer Danny Major was sentenced to 15 months in jail after being found guilty of assault in 2006. He served a four month sentence, and the police officers who actually assaulted the man in their custody walked free. He has since blamed the Criminal Cases Review Commission for their ‘hugely damaging’ decade-long delay in reinvestigating his case.
In this episode, we find out how an investigation by a neighbouring police force could shed new light on the case, and why Major might finally have the chance to clear his name.
Listen below or via Spotify.
Jason Moore was jailed for life with a minimum term of 18 years after being found guilty of murdering Robert Darby in 2005.
In this episode, we find out why the family of the victim believe the wrong man is in prison for his murder and are calling for the conviction to be overturned.
Listen below or via Spotify.
Justin Plummer was convicted in 1998 for a brutal murder. It didn’t take a jury long to convict him, he had been a prolific burglar in the local area, but he always protested his innocence for the killing. Having slept on the floor of his cell in protest at his conviction, he is now not only a free man, but an innocent one.
Plummer had his conviction overturned in July 2025 after an almost three-decade fight for justice – and one that came with one massive setback: Being wrongfully convicted of the same crime for a second time. We met Justin and his lawyer 6 months after his release.
In a bonus round-up episode, Marnie Duke talks to the human rights lawyer and criminal appeal specialists Glyn Maddocks KC and Dr Jon Robins, executive producer on the series – and journalist and lecturer in criminology at Brighton University. They talk about where the stories covered in the series came from and why they are so difficult to resolve – if they ever are. They highlight the failures in the justice system and pay tribute to the heroism of campaigners who dedicate their lives to getting justice in a system where there so often is none. Glyn and Jon are directors of the Future Justice Project which sponsored the series.
The Overturn is produced and hosted by Marnie Duke. Executive producers are Jon Robins and Calum McRae. The series has been supported by The Future Justice Project, a charity set up by Glyn Maddocks KC, Barry Sheerman MP and Jon Robins in 2021 as a result of growing concerns about miscarriages of justice. All interviews by Marnie Duke are original. The cases in this series have all featured over the years on the Justice Gap (www.thejusticegap.com) and (in the case of episodes 3 and 7) in Jon’s book Guilty Until Proven Innocent (Biteback, 2018).
Marnie Duke won silver Best New Producer at the 2025 Audio Production Awards and is the silver Rising Star at the British Podcast Awards 2025. Her work has been shortlisted for the International Women’s Podcast Awards and the Independent Podcast Awards.
