The new head of the miscarriages of justice watchdog has said the body is ‘not there to tick a box’ but that a change of working culture is needed to improve outcomes.
Dame Vera Baird, who was appointed head of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) this June, said that case review managers at the body must ‘believe the applicant’. Speaking to Inside Time, she said ‘I want our case workers to look at each application believing it is a miscarriage of justice, and look for flaws, statements invented or added to, leaving the applicant’s statement to one side as the person who completed the form is not a lawyer. We must believe the applicant, look at the whole case and see it through until we know it is invalid.’
Asked about the ‘test’ that the CCRC relies on when referring cases back to the Court of Appeal, Baird said ‘I don’t like the test, but that is not the problem’. Currently the body’s remit states it should only refer cases to the appeal court if judges are likely to overturn the conviction.
Baird also criticised the approach that has been taken previously with regards to cases that couldn’t be pursued, in particular considering how many high-profile cases have been eventually overturned after being rejected several times by the CCRC. She said, along with her commissioners, she will look at how applicants are informed about their cases not progressing, ‘if the snippy letters we now send out are reflective of how we think about rejections, that needs to change.’
Dame Vera took over after a shocking collapse in the number of cases the CCRC was referring to the Court of Appeal, and their disastrous handling of the case of Andrew Malkinson. The previous chair, Helen Pitcher, claimed she had been ‘scapegoated’ for the organisation’s mistakes.
