Two Bob William Peel

My Two Bob Investigation

This week highlights the case of William Peel from Edinburgh, He writes:

William Peel Edinburgh V SCCRC
This was found on the BBC.Co/Action network, web site

"I have just had my application to the SCCRC rejected.
I doubt that they are deliberately biased.
They probably have the blinkered view that many professionals have – they cannot believe there is anything wrong with the System that has nurtured them. The Commission gave every appearance of conducting a thorough, diligent review of my case.
However, I did lose confidence when it reported on a document I sent as evidence. The reviewer of the document made a significant misinterpretation of one of the facts that suggested he had given it no more than a cursory glance.
In my case, I believe the SCCRC were unable to see the wood of justice for the trees of legal minutiae.
They considered my case solely on the basis of its legal merits and seldom appeared to apply rational, logical thought and common sense to the process. Perhaps lawyers think that Justice is achieved through the application of legal procedures.
For myself, I suspect that Justice, if it happens, is often no more than a by-product, a sort of bonus, of the legal process.
There were 3 main problems with my case, which was to do with a motoring ‘incident’ manufactured by three civilian witnesses, one of whom knows a serving policeman (I was framed): First, the Crown withheld evidence from the Defence – I did not know until the trial that the Crown witnesses would claim that a van had broken down at the site of the ‘incident’.
The Commission dealt with this by referring to a number of legal precedents, including the recent case of the Libyan Al Megrahi.
It concluded, "The appeal court will therefore require to be persuaded that the additional evidence is (a) capable of being regarded as credible and reliable by a reasonable jury, and (b) likely to have had a material bearing on, or a material part to play in, the determination by such a jury of a critical issue at the trial.
" It did not think the information would have had a material bearing on the decision of the Sheriff (there was no jury).
Second, one of the witnesses was unable to identify me in the dock, until firmly instructed to do so by the prosecutor.
The Commission raised the case of Holland v HMA, saying that "in that case, the broad submission that evidence derived from a witness identifying the accused in the dock was, by its nature, so unfair as to be incompatible with the appellants right to a fair trial under article 6(1) of the European Convention of Human Rights was rejected.
"All this legal obfuscation, and there were reams of it, meant little to me. However, it was when I presented the third plank of my argument that I saw how the SCCRC appeared to have had a common sense by-pass.
Long after the trial, I persuaded the police to release an Incident Log.
This showed that two of their officers had attended a broken down van near the scene of the alleged incident.
The Log placed the van at a distance of 1.5 kilometres from the site, and some 40 minutes later.
I wrongly supposed that these discrepancies would cast serious doubt on the reliability of the Crown witnesses.
I was in for a surprise: "It is not clear to the Commission why this would suggest that the witnesses were lying in describing the incident which they spoke to in evidence.
The information does not clearly undermine the witnesses' reliability…""
By william peel in Edinburgh, City of - on 28 Mar 2007 at 14:25

The above was posted on my BBC site last year.

Would SCCR have acted in this way in the case of Megrahi ?

I have never been able to contact William Peel so if anyone out there knows him, ask him to give us a call at the forum just to let us know how he is progressing with his case.