The pardoning of Michael Shields by the Justice secretary, Jack Straw creates an extremely dangerous precedent.
Shields was convicted in Bulgaria of the attempted murder of a barman and sentenced to 10 years in custody. He exhausted his legal remedies in Bulgaria, his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights was dismissed, and in 2006, presumably under a prisoner transfer arrangement, he was returned to serve the remainder of his sentence in the UK.
The basis of Shields' defence was that he was not responsible for the injury. Indeed, one Graham Sankey confessed to the offence, though significantly did not give this evidence under oath before the Bulgarian courts. It has never been tested.
The basis of Straw's decision to pardon appears to be based on another "confession". I don't suppose we'll ever know more about the bizarre circ umstances if this, but according to the report
"I [Straw] was told that in the course of the visit that man made an oral confession to the crime in front of several other people.
And that enabled the Justice Secretary to conclude that Shields was
"morally and technically innocent"
Such an untested hearsay confession, would never be acceptable in any English court.
Just imagine the rumpus if a Bulgarian citizen having been charged and convicted of a serious offence in England, returned to his home, then pardoned in similar circumstance to Shields. Or if the Libyan authorities were to declare Megrahi innocent and pardon him.
Shields was tried and sentenced by a foreign court, which in itself is cast-iron proof of innocence for many British nationalists. But it's not just that -- he's associated with Liverpool FC, which seems to guarantee privileged treatment by the law.
http://tinyurl.com/mh92c9
Posted by: Peter Harvey | 09 September 2009 at 03:25 PM
I imagine that we need some kind of procedure to deal with new evidence in cases involving transferred prisoners. Presumably? none was available to Mr Straw or to the defence lawyers. Even if he did act judicially and was genuinely convinced, I think he was foolish to lay his reasoning open to public discusion. We are getting dangerously near the democracy of the People's Court. I should like to believe that Mr Straw is as upright as Mr McAskill. Can I?
Posted by: Ronnie | 11 September 2009 at 05:42 PM