Blog entry 11th November 2014
Since my last blog I've sent a letter to Gavin Rose, who is conducting my appeal case at Wells Burcombe Solicitors, making it very clear that unless he starts answering my letters and doing the work necessary to progress my case I would lodge my concerns with his boss David Wells.
That letter was sent to Mr Rose on October 20th. He still hadn't answered by November 10th, so I wrote to Mr Wells and lodged a formal complaint regarding Mr Rose's unresponsiveness and lack of action in my case. I now await Mr Well's response to this unacceptable situation. In fact, since the instructed barrister produced the positive preliminary advice for my appeal at the end of May I have written to Mr Rose nine times regarding the work that is vital to ensuring I receive a successful appeal. He has never answered one of these letters.
In light of the Home Office's recent admission that prosecution employed forensic 'expert' witnesses having been giving juries 'inaccurate and misleading' evidence in complex DNA cases Lord Thomas, England and Wales' most senior judge has called for the governments forensic science regulator to be given powers to make scientific experts comply with quality standards. This call is backed by Lord Woolf (The Times, November 3rd 2014).
Currently British court presented forensic evidence is regularly produced by exceeding internationally accepted safety thresholds and juries are not made aware of this crucial factor. This occurred in my own case. The forensic tests on the crucial DAR/6 & 8 samples did not produce evidential reading when tested using normal testing parameters. Chapman, the prosecutions forensic scientist massively over-amplified a second set of tests. Because he over-amplified the test runs; far outside of internationally accepted limits, the readings that were eventually produced gave a number of possibilities. Chapman then 'cherry-picked' readings that best suited his prosecution pay-masters' needs, giving no reason or explanation why he selected those readings over the additional and just as credible readings (that did not match me) that were also produced by the over-amplified test procedures used in the latter test runs.
Yet again, the prosecution withheld all of this evidence until two years after my conviction.
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