A New Variant of Miscarriages of Justice

	Sign In Sign-Up

If you found this file in an archive use the keyword "nutteingd" in a search-engine to find an updated version or related files.
Despite official government sites linking to these files there are still corrupt persons knocking out my sites, so for the purposes of searchengines cross-linking them, files no longer available on the original web hosting sites were on http://www.nutteing.50megs.com/dnamoj.htm , http://www.nutteing.freeisp.co.uk/dnamoj.htm, http://nutteing.no-frills.net/dnamoj.htm and http://nutteing3.no-frills.net/dnamoj.htm (last 2 due now to host failure)
http://www.nutteing.batcave.net/dnamoj.htm , http://home.graffiti.net/nutteing/dnamoj.htm,
The following would appear to be a new variant of miscarriages of justice. The common denominator is only DNA 'evidence'.
In Ireland such a case the defendent would be acqitted if it gets to court eg
http://www.online.ie/news/viewer.adp?article=%203040050
Frederick Howe,October 2003
Should have been the situation in England after the R v. Watters appeal.

Rawson Watson

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/3044458.stm
Rawson Watson
I followed ,as far as reported in the Press,the prosecution of Rawson Watson. Nowhere did I see reference to the damming DNA evidence being re-tested on different loci. Not just re-testing with the regular SGM+ but some other supplementary set of test loci. The 'expert' who made mention of a possibility of a random false match as being "billion to one against", is tantamount to perjury.
The only other evidence against Mr Watson, seemed to be conjectured, that he obtained a forged passport or passport control stamps. Why someone should forge a passport and deliberately not choose a date showing he was in Toga at the time of the supposed heist just beggars belief. Unless there is incontravertible evidence, I am not aware of, his prosecution should be appealed.

Colin Waite

Another case where the only 'evidence' of any import was a matching DNA profile.
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/content_objectid= 13635652_method=full_siteid=50002_headline=-Waite---I-did-not-know-Nicola--n ame_page.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/vmyq
18 Nov,2003
Quote
Waite said he had never seen Nicola Dixon before police showed him her photograph, and said he did not know her. Opening cross examination Mr Raggatt asked about DNA evidence from a forensic scientist, which stated the odds of semen found at the crime scene coming from anyone other than Waite was a billion to one. "You say that despite the DNA it is not your semen?" asked Mr Raggatt. Colin Waite responded: "Yes that's correct." Mr Raggatt said: "That there is some other person in the world who was also in Sutton Coldfield on New Year's Eve 1996 who has precisely the same DNA as yours?" .. more ......
End Quote

"billion to one" - "precisely the same DNA as yours" - out and out dangerous bollocks.
DNA profiles are not unique.
Without independent corroborative evidence a DNA 'match' is just a coincidence until further evidence puts a defendent at the scene of a crime, especially as 7 years previously. I bet, yet again, no extended-loci test of both SoCo sample and defendent. I would not want to rely on family for alibi ,let alone ex-family. My daughter wrote a proveably perjurous witness statement to get me prosecuted (failed of course). So I can speak from personal experience.
This is the only definitve DNA 'evidence' I could find reported, 14 Nov 2003
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/page.cfm?objectid=13623196&method=full&siteid=50002 Part Quote
Forensic scientist Fay Southam explained that what is known as SGM Plus testing looks at ten sites on strands of DNA to identify 20 'numbered components' which are compared to an identical test carried out on a suspect's DNA. If any single component does not match, then the two samples cannot have come from the same person, but if they do match, a statistical analysis is carried out on the odds against it having come from anyone else. In 1997 she initially carried out the SGM test which was used at the time on four of the internal swabs. But last year, before Waite had been arrested, she carried out the more advanced SGM Plus testing. Of the tests on vaginal swabs, Mrs Southam told the court: "There were 19 definite components out of 20. The 20th was present, but there was some uncertainty as to whether it was one of two different numbered components." After Waite's arrest she tested his DNA, and found the same 19 components plus a possible match to the one she had not been able to identify and there were no differences. She told Tim Raggatt QC, prosecuting, the chance of it being from someone else was one in one thousand million.
End Quote
19 point match, not 20 IMHO the 20 th could be due to trying to match a 'fractional' variant allele say 18.2 to 18 or "spontaneous mutation" event (see main dnapr.htm file).
There are no allleles too rare to not come through the analysis. Looks suspiciously like a fudge to me. I did not notice any DNA profile expert called by the defence. It looks suspiciously like this Fay Southam swung a 19 point match/ 1 point mismatch past the defence. A single point mismatch, without full investigation to verify a mutation between buccal cells and sperm-cells, is exculpatory evidence not evidence of guilt. This Fay Southam probably works for Birmingham FSS who still think one of the 10 markers they use in SGM plus is D6S502 on chromosome 6 whereas it is in fact D8S1179 on chromosome 8. Just as well the death penalty is not still in the UK.

I saw no independent corroboration eg friction ridge fingerprint match, rare tattoo/s etc. Lying about fore-knowledge of a crime scene area would be entirely normal for an accused as well as courtroom rage for being stitched-up.

This following statement, un-attributed, was probably just a reporter adding gloss, based on someone's 'recollection' , it was not referred to in court AFAIK. 'believed' and 'understands' ,'understood' are journalistic weazel words
Quote
The man charged with the murder of Nicola Dixon is believed to be the best friend of one of Nicola's former boyfriends, and had been living in Australia until recently. The Sunday Mercury understands that Colin Waite, 41, was arrested shortly after returning to the UK. He is understood to have been the best friend of James Winfield, a former boyfriend of Nicola, who was a policeman at the time of their relationship. Both Mr Winfield - who later left the force and went on to be convicted of robbery at a petrol station - and Waite were understood to have been questioned about the murder shortly after it had taken place. Waite later left Britain for Australia and recently returned to the UK, where it is understood there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
End Quote
In other words IMHO a totally unsafe conviction

Joe James

from
http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/Content/news/story.asp?datetime=20+Nov+2003+18% 3A06&tbrand=ESTOnline&tCategory=News&category=News&brand=ESTOnline&itemid=IP ED20+Nov+2003+09%3A06%3A55%3A920
Quote
It wasn't me - it was the wind November 20, 2003 18:06 A THIEF who claimed his DNA could have been blown 80 miles to the scene of his crime is today facing the prospect of prison. Joe James had denied stealing antique weapons valued at around Ł2,000 during a burglary at Landguard Fort in Felixstowe. The 22-year-old claimed during his defence that a cigarette butt with his DNA on might have ended up at the fort because the wind had carried it from his home in Watford. Although he said he had a real explanation for how the fag end had got inside the fort, he also offered the option that it could have been placed there by some one with a grudge against him. Yesterday a jury at Ipswich Crown Court convicted James for the burglary in January, for which he had pleaded not guilty.
End Quote
If he had half decent defence counsel - DNA profiles are not unique - it was probably not his fag butt anyway

John Duffy

http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2222270
Quote
Tue 25 Nov 2003 3:34pm (UK)
'I Was in the Pub' Says Double Rape Accused By John Bingham, PA News A Glasgow Rangers soccer fan accused of raping two step-sisters at knifepoint in a park four years ago was busy drinking after an "Old Firm" derby match on the night in question, a court heard today. Glasgow-born John Duffy, 23, of Knaphill, Surrey, denies two counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault in Goldsworth Park, Woking, Surrey, on November 7, 1999. No one had been charged in connection with the case despite a national appeal on the television programme Crimewatch until Duffy was asked to produce a routine DNA sample after being suspected of drink-driving earlier this year. The court was told last week that Duffy's DNA profile was consistent with a previously unmatched sample taken from blood found on the victims' clothes and fingernails after the alleged attack. But Duffy told Guildford Crown Court today that he was drinking in a pub with family and friends on the night in question. When asked about his movements by police after his arrest Duffy had been unable to recall where he had been that evening but said he later realised that he had been watching the Rangers-Celtic match - a clash he always watched. Duffy told the court that the Old Firm derby was "the biggest match in the Scottish league" - on that occasion Rangers won 4-2. Duffy was able to recall the score as well as details, including an injury to a Celtic player. He said he then remained in the pub, during a Leeds-Wimbledon clash shown afterwards, which ended with a score of 2-1 and was later picked up and driven to the home he shared with his girlfriend. When asked by defence counsel David Barnes what state he would have been in after the night in the pub, Duffy said he he would have been "very merry". The prosecution says the step-sisters, then aged 16 and 18, were out for an evening stroll when they were approached from behind by a stranger armed with a knife. He steered the teenagers towards a copse near the park's lake where he indecently assaulted and raped them, it is alleged
End quote
Yet again a prosecution case made on ONLY DNA 'evidence' AFAIK. Is there no competent defence counsel in this blighted country? Without independent corroborative evidence a DNA 'match' is just a coincidence until further evidence puts a defendent at the scene of a crime, especially as 7 years previously. I bet, yet again, no extended-loci test of both SoCo sample and defendent.

Vaithilingham Balachandran

Prosecuted as a result only of a DNA trawl and even the victim averred he was not one of the perpetrators at Wembley.
Trial July /August 2001
http://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/archive/display.var.104783.0.woman_62_sexually_assaulted.php
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_360912.html
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_366258.html

Edwin Hopkins

http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100localnews/content_objectid=13977591_method=full_siteid=50002_headline=-Naomi-killer-plans-appeal-name_page.html
Naomi killer plans appeal Feb 22 2004
The man convicted of murdering teenager Naomi Smith may appeal after sadistic killer Andrew Dexter was jailed for life for torturing his girlfriend to death.
Edwin Hopkins, from Ansley Common in Nuneaton, is serving a life sentence for the murder of schoolgirl Naomi in 1995 but has always maintained his innocence.
The 15-year-old was sexually mutilated and stabbed to death in a playground just yards from her home in Ansley Common in 1995.
Dexter, also from Ansley Common, received two life sentences last week for the manslaughter of girlfriend Sharon Franklin.
But the Sunday Mercury discovered that the evil 33-year-old had once been a prime suspect in Naomi’s murder.

Nick Keall

Au pair's rapist jailed
4 August 2003
A rapist who attacked an au pair outside a church 14 years ago was jailed for eight years today. Under the cover of darkness mini-cab driver Nick Keall, 41, pounced on the 21-year-old woman from behind before dragging her into the grounds of a church in north London and raping her in May 1989. The father-of-three, of Carpenter Gardens, Winchmore Hill, north London, choked his struggling victim as he attacked her in an alleyway and then punched her repeatedly, Wood Green Crown Court was told.

Andrew Fitzherbert

Feb 25,2004
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8784025%255E2702,00.html
... enough question marks hung over the DNA evidence presented at the landmark trial to give grounds for Attorney-General Rod Welford to release the samples.
However, no Australian legislature has grappled yet with the question of who owns DNA samples, and whether those implicated by them have the right to access them after the appeal process.
Fitzherbert, whose conviction is heralded as the first in Australia based on DNA evidence alone, has maintained his innocence of the savage knife murder of veterinarian and Cat Protection Society president Kathleen Marshall.

Steven Shepherd

"Crown had presented DNA evidence, which they believed (by) "irrefutable.""
His DNA profile matched a spot of blood at the murder scene, 20 years earlier.
Murder conviction appeal
Quote
TUESDAY 30/12/2003 13:51:05
( Northern Ireland ) murder conviction appeal
A murder confession found in a huge bundle of police documents could lead to a man being cleared of murdering an 82-year-old church organist over 20 years ago.
The confession was discovered following the conviction of Steven Shepherd (48) for the murder of Vera Waring in her home at Bushmills, Co Antrim, in 1981....End Quote

William Kenealy

According to a relative convicted solely on 'evidence' of 6 loci DNA profile match. http://www.freewebs.com/justiceforbillykenealy/
http://www.thisisessex.co.uk/essex/archive/1998/11/27/NEWS10.3ZM.html
First published on Friday 27 November 1998: More tragedy for Basildon mum A Basildon mother raped along with her nine-year-old daughter on Christmas night was today facing up to life without her other child. The woman has suffered a week of intolerable tragedy. On the day her attacker was sent to jail for life the 55-year-old mum learned her other daughter, aged just 20, had been found dead in a London fountain after apparently taking her own life.
Now a prisoner at HMP Whitemoor who was convicted in 1998 on the basis of a "fair or conservative," DNA test match across six-markers after an initial DNA test failed to match and in what appear at first sight to be extraordinarily suspicious circumstances featuring many classic elements of a miscarriage of justice. I've not seen transcript of the so-called evidence but my reading of "fair or conservative" is it implies not a full match - maybe even exclusionary evidence. 6 loci is discredited as inclusionary evidence anyway even if a full 12 point match.

Andrew Russell Again only DNA 'evidence' it would seem
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/23/urape.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/09/23/ixportaltop.html
Schoolboy rapist jailed 16 years after attack
(Filed: 23/09/2005)
A man has been jailed almost 16 years after raping a woman when he was schoolboy. ... Today he was jailed for eight years and put on the sex offenders register for life after being caught through DNA profiling. Russell, now 31, was a pupil at Stockton's Grangefield School when he carried out the midnight rape on the stairwell of a multi-storey car park. The victim, now 42, was on her way to her car after a Christmas meal with workmates in December 1989 when she was confronted by Russell. He approached her from behind, punched her repeatedly in the face and kicked her before forcing her to the ground and raping her. After the rape he told her "I love you" then fled. Six months after the rape, Russell joined the military and served until 1998 when he was given a Court Martial and sentenced to eight months detention for wounding. He was finally caught in November 2004, when his DNA was routinely taken following petty offences. As part of a groundbreaking Home Office initiative to re-examine DNA samples from historic cases, original samples taken during the course of the inquiry were re-examined and their profile was found to match that of Russell. Despite the DNA evidence, Russell, of Arley Court, Prenton, denied rape and another serious sex assault, but was convicted by a unanimous verdict at Teesside Crown Court last month and today returned for sentence. ...

Sharon Houston

A miscarriage in the making ?
16 October 2004
http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=51700&pt=n
Part Quote
Woman's DNA found on UVF cards
A woman who allegedly sent her postman husband a threatening sympathy card signed by the UVF, has been released on bail. Belfast High Court judge Mr Justice Gillen said it was rather "peculiar" that 38-year-old Sharon Houston was living with one of the alleged victims in the case, but added that "there`s probably quite a lot more to come out of this case". Earlier prosecution lawyer Charles McKay told him that Houston`s husband Kevin received a sympathy card on July 12 last year, with the words "RIP" and "fenian scum" written inside and that it was signed "UVF", adding that it was the third time he had received such a card.
End Quote
Couldn't be easier for an enemy getting an envelope from the accused , soaking off the stamp and smearing on a few fresh stamps and sticking to threatening letters.

Martin Joseph Done

Rapists: The Day of Reckoning , BBC1, 22.35, 28 Mar,2006 I found it very disturbing, repeated saying 1 in a billion false match probability. For the case in that prog covered in depth. No mention that the accused/prosecuted donated a sperm sample for confirmation testing, just a buccal (cheek) cell sample from his original arrest.
Something like 1 in 33 of men in the UK are FALSELY accused and then prosecuted and convicted for rape precisely because their DNA profile from the NDNAD national database matches a crime-scene stain DNA profile. This may seem arrant nonsense at first sight.
The DNA profile registered on the NDNAD is usually derived from cheek cells but the crime sample usually consists of germ-cells (sperm). The mutation rates for males and females for some of the commonly used DNA profiling loci is in source, American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) 2002 Annual Report
http://www.cstl.nist.gov/div831/strbase/mutation.htm
The average male mutation rate for the 10 UK SGM plus loci on that table is 0.15 per cent. 20 such datapoints per profile so 1 in 33 such men's DNA profiles are likely to have 1 datapoint different to their profile derived from buccal cells.

The DNA evidence was obtained from a microscope slide where the sperm recovered from a sanitary towel were fixed on the slide and cover with balsam. This slide would then have been stored at ambient room temperature for maybe 15 years before DNA analysis, "cold case" is a bit of a misnomer. No mention in that programme of how many electrophoreogram peaks were used to pronounce a match. Unlikely the full 10 loci/ 20 datapoint because at room temperature storage the 'heavy' fractions progressively fail to amplify giving a forensically unusable result for those loci. They become downs rather than mountain peaks, low and broad, so impossible to resolve them from the baseline machine noise. The first affected, timewise, is D2 followed by D18 and then D16 and FGA about equally. sources, Forensic Science International 143, (2004) page 49 and Recovery of DNA from Aged Bloodstains, M.C. Kline,NIST,2005 For the most robust 7 loci used in the SGM plus system unrelated false matches start occuring after about 5,300 so with a NDNAD of 2.7 million then, due to a square law, about 260,000 such 7 loci false matches. For the most robust 8 loci then matches start after about 14,800 so 33,000 such matches in the NDNAD or 1 in 82. For the most robust 9 loci then 9 loci matches start after about 73,000 and so about 1,400 such matches within the NDNAD. So about 1 in 1,930 of 2.7 million or for the 30 million male population of the UK then about 1 in 16. Even if it was a full 10 loci match then about 80 unrelated false matches in the NDNAD so about 1 in 34,000 or for the 30 million of the UK then about 1 in 270.

The best error rate achievable with single kit analysis, due to a technical problem called False Homozygosity is 1 in 140 , no mention of the DNA analysis being repeated on Cofiler, Identifiler, Profiler etc to check for this; source, FSI 143 (2004) 47-52 You can repeat the tests on crime scene and reference samples as many times as you like, with SGM Plus. But without repeating with another kit, if there is any homozygosity in the profile, (2 numbers at the same locus being the same) you don't know if it is real or an artifice of the system. It makes , say, real (18,21) become false(18,18) each time tested, but you have no way of knowing this is erroneous until repeated with a different kit. It is quite rare for a DNA profile to NOT have homozygosity in at least one locus.

1 in a billion *!:*!......!!!!

The most signicant phrase, lost on most people no doubt, was stated by a Cathy Turner, Major Crime Advisor, whatever that is. Stating that she had a "very discriminating DNA profile" from the rape evidence, not a "full DNA profile" cue codespeak detector. Translation - less than a full 10 loci DNA profile.

Background
http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=55&ArticleID=1308844
Man, 44 denies cold case rape charge
Olwen Dudgeon A MAN denied yesterday he was the masked intruder who raped a young mother in her home at knifepoint, after threatening her baby, more than 16 years ago . Martin Done, 44, told a jury at Leeds Crown Court the first time he had ever seen the victim was when she entered court for the trial. He said he had never spoken to her or been to her house in Keighley where the attack happened. His counsel Douglas Hogg QC said: "The jury knows you have been charged with a brutal rape on 19 May, 1989 are you guilty of that?" "I am not guilty sir," replied Done, a production operative of Grange Grove, Riddlesden, Keighley. He said on the morning of the rape he was working at the Bee Mill in Oldham although it was so long ago no work records now existed to support that. The jury has heard Done was arrested last year after a cold case inquiry led to a DNA match between the semen recovered after the rape in 1989 and a DNA sample given by Done in 1999 when he was convicted of assaulting a taxi driver. ...
http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=55&ArticleID=1340220
... Solicitor Victoria Johnson of Betesh Fox has applied to have her client's case re-opened by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) following Done's conviction at Leeds Crown Court last month. Done, 44, was jailed for 10 years after a jury convicted him of raping the 22-year-old mother in her home in May 1989. ...

Automatic push-button 'justice'

New developement
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2491514
Part Quote
Article Last Updated: 12/19/2004 01:13:34 AM
Some say parole board sets 'dangerous' DNA precedent
By Stephen Hunt, The Salt Lake Tribune
In recent weeks, Utahns have seen DNA evidence free a convicted murderer and keep an accused serial rapist behind bars. Bruce Dallas Goodman was freed by the courts last month after spending 19 years in prison for his conviction of the rape and murder of his girlfriend. Rudy Michael Romero was about to be paroled for an armed robbery conviction when he was linked to a series of rapes along the Jordan River Parkway in the early 1990s. Based on recent DNA tests, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole revoked Romero's July parole date and ordered he serve at least another 25 years. While DNA cases that free prisoners have become common, the Romero case is raising eyebrows in the legal community - though nobody is rushing to his defense. Utah's parole board acknowledged it has entered "uncharted waters" by keeping Romero behind bars based on evidence of crimes for which he has not been convicted. Romero will never be tried for the Jordan River rapes because the four-year statute of limitations has expired. But the DNA evidence was compelling enough for parole board members to deem Romero a sexual predator who would pose an "unacceptable risk" to the community. Parole Board Chairman Michael Sibbett says that because Romero is serving a five-years-to-life term for aggravated robbery, the board can keep him locked up for the rest of his life. End Quote
No matching MO, no other evidence just the coincidence of a matching DNA profile.

All these were convicted with the aid of Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA profiling which has no validity for use outside of being a neat party trick. see dnapr.htm file. How many of this lot are , in consequence, unsafe convictions ?

Bradley Murdoch
John Humble
Anthony James Ruark
Ian Lowther
Wayne O'Donoghue (LCN implied murder with sexual overtones , rather than manslaughter)
Robert Napper
Andrew Pearson
Gordon Graham
Tony Jasinskyj
Neil Gordon Graham
Lesley Gault
Neil Sayers
David Reed
Stephen Mottram
Terry Reed
Trevor Hamilton
Brendan Gerard O'Connor
Mark Henson
Russell Bradbury
Ulf Olsson
Matthew Hardman
Craig Harman
Mark Wilkinson 
Neil Garmson 
John Barlow
Alan Motion
Stephen Hughes 
James Evans
Michael Scott Wallace (NZ)
Mijailo Mijailovic

Then December 2007 the corruption that is LCN 
started to totter
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article3083217.ece
soon followed by
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7156051.stm

A book worth reading on the general topic of miscarriages of justice including a section on the DNA variant .
Judge for Yourself. By L A Naylor , ISBN 0-9547437-0-9, Roots Books 2004

To return to DNA profiles file