Party Vibe

Friday, 28 September 2007

Two South Wales Police officers have been arrested on suspicion of drugs offences following a raid in Pontarddulais, near Swansea.

The force said the unnamed officers had been suspended from duty pending further investigation.

The force, which will not comment on the rank of the officers, said the arrests came after police used search warrants to enter two properties.

Det Supt Stuart Anderson said both had been released on police bail.

He said the raids were part of an ongoing drugs investigation.

In a statement, Mr Anderson said: “Both officers have been arrested on suspicion of drug offences and released on police bail while further enquiries are conducted.

“South Wales Police expects high standards and professional conduct from all officers and staff and the public can be reassured that if and when those standards are not met positive action will be taken.

“Due to the ongoing nature of this investigation it is not appropriate to comment further at this time.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/7017875.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/5272536.stm

Police arrested over web selling

Two South Wales Police officers have been arrested for allegedly selling police property on the internet.

The pair – a man, 31, and a woman, 27, who are both constables – are accused of selling clothing and equipment.

They were arrested earlier this month and have been bailed pending an investigation, South Wales Police said.

A spokesman said the force was investigating “the misappropriation of police property and possession of controlled drugs”.

The spokesman added: “A 27-year-old female and 31-year-old male have been arrested on suspicion of these offences and have been released on police bail pending further inquiries.

“Both individuals are serving police officers and have been suspended from duty while South Wales Police’s professional standards department carry out a full investigation.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=403815&in_page_id=1770

Christian faces court over ‘offensive’ gay festival leaflets

By STEVE DOUGHTY – Last updated at 08:48am on 6th September 2006 ]Evangelical Christian Stephen Green handed out ‘offensive’ leaflets

A police force was caught up in a freedom of speech row after its officers arrested an anti-gay campaigner for handing out leaflets at a homosexual rally.

South Wales police admitted evangelical Christian Stephen Green was then charged purely because his pamphlets contained anti-gay quotations from the Bible.

Mr Green faces a court appearance today charged with using ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour’ after his attempt to distribute the leaflets at the weekend ‘Mardi Gras’ event in Cardiff.

A spokesman for the police said the campaigner had not behaved in a violent or aggressive manner, but that officers arrested him because ‘the leaflet contained Biblical quotes about homosexuality’.

The arrest of Mr Green by the South Wales Minorities Support Unit provoked a furious row. Church of England evangelicals said it represented ‘an onslaught on freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression’ and Tory MPs called it ‘disturbing’.

[SIZE=-1]15 October 2000 Guardian[/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]’Corrupt’ force in firing line[/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]

Pressure grows for South Wales police to face inquiry over misconduct and wrongful imprisonments, reports Tracy McVeigh[/SIZE]

Britain’s worst case of institutionalised corruption involving a single police force is set to burst into the open this week as pressure mounts on the Home Secretary to launch a public inquiry.

Jack Straw is to be formally asked by the Welsh Assembly to investigate the action of South Wales Police, which for almost two decades has been at the centre of allegations that at least 19 people have been wrongfully imprisoned.

Nine murders remain unsolved after those originally charged walked free amid accusations of faked police interview notes, false or missing evidence, bribes and intimidation.

The estimated cost to the taxpayer of 10 cases highlighted by campaigners, in court costs and probable compensation payouts, is £20 million. Campaigners will also be asking Straw to overhaul the compensation process under which none of the claims of those wrongfully convicted in the past two decades in South Wales has been settled.

With no hard and fast rules on compensation, it is down to the Home Secretary to decide who should receive a payout.

Up to 30 South Wales police officers have been subject to temporary suspensions since 1982, although no disciplinary action has resulted. Some, like former Detective Inspector Stuart Lewis, have taken early retirement on full pension despite a catalogue of complaints against them.

Lewis was involved in at least five major cases, including two murder investigations, where police faced allegations of serious misconduct and where convictions were later quashed. A coroner took the unusual step of openly criticising him over the investigation of a suicide.

A court heard evidence of Lewis handcuffing Darren Hall, then 18, to a hot radiator and denying him access to a solicitor. Hall, now 31, along with Michael O’Brien, 33, and Ellis Sherwood, 30, served 11 years for the 1987 murder of newsagent Philip Saunders.

The case against them centred on a confession by Hall, suffering from a personality disorder, who said he was lookout for a robbery that went wrong. The prosecution’s own expert said Hall’s confession – later retracted – was ‘at risk of being unreliable’.

The Criminal Cases Review Body said South Wales police had shown a ‘systematic disregard’ of proper procedure. The convictions were quashed last year.

Since then O’Brien has been spearheading the campaign for an inquiry with Adrian Stone, acquitted with four others in 1982 of involvement in a Welsh nationalist bombing campaign after a jury heard how a police officer had planted evidence in his home.

Stone said: ‘We have been fighting against what is effectively a whitewash. When reviews have been made after cases went wrong, they have never been made public, how do we know that police have learned the lessons.
‘In O’Brien’s case the prosecutor said “clearly monkey business” had occurred with police notes. In interrogation I was offered £10,000 to testify against an innocent man.

‘I welcome that people are beginning to listen to us as our meeting last week with Welsh Assembly members proves.’

The cases have devastated bereaved relatives who believed that the killers had been imprisoned only to learn later that the wrong people were convicted. Many feel let down by the police and the judiciary.

This week Johnny and Myra Jones will lay flowers on the graves of their daughter Diane and granddaughters, Shauna, two, and one-year-old Sarah-Jane on the fifth anniversary of their deaths.

In 1997 Annette Hewins and her niece Donna Clarke, a petty thief, were jailed for the arson attack on a Merthyr Tydfil flat which left the three dead.

The murder trial was the second-longest in Welsh legal history and cost £2m. The convictions were quashed within two years.

Hewins was pregnant when she was first jailed. Her son Joshua was taken from her when he was nine hours old.

‘Even now he is not the same as my other three children. He is the only one who will not come into our bed in the mornings for a cuddle,’ she told The Observer.

Hewins was convicted of buying the petrol used in the arson attack. The garage’s CCTV footage shows that the petrol she bought that day was leaded, but the fire was started with unleaded petrol.

‘So many people have suffered wrongful convictions, the mental scars go deep.

‘I have no respect for South Wales police. I hate every one of them. They are given a job to investigate crimes fully. But again and again they had tunnel vision.

‘They targeted one person and built a case around them. They convinced themselves someone is guilty and ignored any evidence that points to other perpetrators. That is a strong pattern with all the cases. Yet innocent people, and the victims’ families, have their lives ruined.’

Wayne Darvell, 35, and his brother Paul were jailed for life for the 1985 murder of Swansea sex shop assistant Sandra Phillips, 38. Wayne had a history of confessing to offences he could not have possibly committed. The pair were cleared in 1992. Three South Wales officers involved in the case were later charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Tony Paris, Yusef Abdullahi and Stephen Miller were sentenced to life in 1990 for the murder of Cardiff prostitute Lynette White. Two others who were charged spent months in jail on remand before being acquitted at the trial. Investigative author Satish Sekar exposed serious concerns about the police inquiry and the three were released by Court of Appeal judges in 1992.

In 1994 Jonathan Jones was convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s parents, Harry and Megan Tooze, at their isolated farmhouse. His conviction was ruled ‘unsafe’ in 1996.

‘What took place still has a big influence on my life,’ he said. ‘All those certainties about honesty and integrity and our police force being the best in the world are shattered.’

He believes the campaign for an inquiry may soon succeed. ‘It would be difficult for the Home Secretary to ignore a cross-party group of assembly members,’ he said.

One lawyer told The Observer : ‘When you are seeing people walking out of the Court of Appeal on such a regular basis it’s got to merit a public inquiry. The legal community here has been very concerned for years about a general attitude of contempt for justice by certain officers, and we all knew who they were.’

LAWYERS: PROBE POLICE OVER MURDER SCANDAL

BRITAIN’S top lawyers yesterday called for a public inquiry to investigate how three innocent men were wrongly jailed for the brutal murder of a prostitute.

Security guard Jeffrey Gafoor is beginning a life sentence for slaying vice girl Lynette White – a killing the trio known as the “Cardiff Three” were jailed for.

The three spent more three years behind bars for the murder on Valentine’s Day 1988 before their convictions were finally overturned.

The Bar Council, which represents lawyers across the country, supported calls from barristers involved in the case for a probe into the South Wales police team that originally investigated the murder.

Tony Paris, one of the three jailed, said: “The police should have done their job properly – instead they have destroyed me and my family.

“It’s a scandal that it’s taken 15 years to rectify a wrong which should never have happened.”
Andrew Taylor, for the Bar Council, said: “We would like to see a full scale public inquiry presided over by a High Court judge.

“It would just not be acceptable for South Wales police to investigate themselves. The public would not have sufficient confidence in their inquiry.

“There were many disturbing elements about how evidence was gathered. Very serious questions need to be asked about how police found that evidence.”

Gafoor, 38, admitted the murder of prostitute Lynette White, 20, after brilliant police work by a new detective team using the latest DNA techniques.

Gafoor was not on the computer records but police were given 600 names of people across Britain with similar but not exact profiles.

One profile was a close but not exact match to Gafoor’s 14-year- old nephew who wasn’t even born when the murder was carried out.

DNA swabs from his family were taken and Gafoor was trapped.

Gafoor told police: “Just for the record, I did kill Lynette White. I’ve been waiting for this for 15 years. Whatever happens to me, I deserve. I sincerely hope I die.”

John Charles Rees QC defended Gafoor as he pleaded guilty. He had also defended the Cardiff Three in the original trial.

After the case, Mr Rees called for the inquiry into the “thoroughly unsatisfactory” handling of the case for the original trial.

He said: “We call upon the South Wales police to be as thorough and professional in an inquiry – preferably public – into the way they investigated the 1988 case.”

Fellow lawyer Michael Mansfield, who represented Cardiff Three member Steven Miller in the Court of Appeal, described it as “one of Britain’s worst legal scandals”. The third man was Yosef Abdelha.

Police have refused to apologise to the Cardiff Three – but say an inquiry will be carried out together with the CPS into the original case.

Detective Chief Supt Insp Wynne Phillips, head of South Wales CID, said there would now be an inquiry into the trial which led to the conviction of the Cardiff Three.

He added: “Clearly, there’s more work to do over the original trial.”