A bad year for justice in Sussex

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Sussex other cases were unfolding...

• Sheila Bowler was fighting her conviction for a murder she did not commit. On 26 February her case was referred to the Appeal Court for a second time. In July 1997 Sheila Bowler's conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal.
• Linda Watson and her step-daughter had been wrongly charged with murder by Sussex police who, despite the absence of evidence, were pushing desperately ahead with trying to construct a case against the two women.

Two high-profile cases were collapsing. The force's reputation was very publicly at stake.

For most of 1997 and early 1998 Sussex police were simultaneously investigating the Watson case and the Jenkins case, using common systems and methods. In both cases, under the glare of media publicity, the quest for a successful prosecution was a priority.

The Watson case collapsed in June 1998, in the same week that Siôn Jenkins' trial came to court.

In July 1998 Paul Whitehouse, in his report to the Sussex Police Authority, explicitly linked the Watson case with the Jenkins case, stressing "that both were investigated with the same high degree of integrity and professionalism..."

This was reported across the county in PATROL, the force's newsheet.

• Then there was the Gilchrist factor. Stephen Gilchrist was a solicitor whose activities in Sussex during the 1990s were known to be questionable. There was documentary evidence of malpractice. In September 1997 a complaint was lodged with Sussex police by two men he had represented earlier in the decade. Both men had been convicted of murder ; both were serving life sentences ; both had always protested their innocence .

The decision was made to investigate the complaint internally. Gilchrist was never questioned. Identified witnesses were never interviewed. Yet within a short time came the announcement that there was 'insufficient evidence to prosecute Gilchrist.'

The statement was made by Jeremy Paine.

Because the investigation was an internal one, the Police Complaints authority was not involved, and the findings did not have to be passed on. The report of that investigation has never been seen by anyone outside the force. This is alarming, considering that the Sussex police force has since been investigated 3 times in one year by other forces and the PCA, and each time was castigated for its lack of integrity and rigour.

Today, both men who lodged that complaint in 1997, Stephen A Young and Colin Waters , are fighting their convictions through the courts. Gilchrist has been suspended by the Law Society a number of times, most recently for a 3 year period in 1999.

Colin Waters' conviction was referred to appeal by the CCRC on 4 November 2003.

Something was deeply wrong in Sussex policing at that time. A Det. Supt Foster of Sussex police said in 1993 that in murder cases the pressure is on the police and they will 'do everything they have to' to secure a conviction : a disturbing statement when viewed in the light of these five cases, in which the accused have fought, and some are still fighting, to clear their names.