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SYSTEM WILL TRY TO KEEP ME CAGED UP
by EAMONN O'NEILL

The Scottish prisoner at the centre of the UK's longest-running miscarriage of justice case, has condemned the "insidious and devious" system he believes will continue to oppose his liberty.

Robert Brown, 45, will this week face a crucial appeal hearing that could lead to his freedom after 25 years in jail for a murder he says he did not commit, following the emergence of new evidence.

Speaking exclusively to Scotland on Sunday, Brown, from Glasgow, said he hoped the Crown was not still going to argue that his conviction should be upheld, or "cover up" the reasons why he was found guilty.

"If they cover it up I won't be surprised because it's a very insidious and devious system," he said. "Although they've got scapegoats if they want to use them, and although they've conceded that Mr Butler [the police officer involved in his conviction] was dishonest and corrupt, I think they're still going to try their damnedest to prove the conviction is safe.

"After what I have been through you cannot possibly look at the system and give it the benefit of the doubt."

Brown finally won leave to appeal after a damning report by the Criminal Cases Review Commission in June found multiple grounds for doubts in the safety of his conviction.

He was jailed in October, 1977, for the murder of 51-year-old Manchester factory worker Annie Walsh. Throughout the trial the then 20-year-old Scot maintained his innocence, alleging he'd been beaten by Greater Manchester Police detectives during questioning and that the resultant confession he signed - and the chief plank of the case against him - was false.

Central to Brown's claims are allegations of brutality and dishonesty levelled against former Detective Inspector Jack Butler.

Butler was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court in 1983 of charges of corruption and perverting the course of justice after a trial unrelated to the Annie Walsh case. He served four years in prison for his offences. Sections of the review commission report looking into the Brown case, published earlier this year, revealed that Butler's 1983 conviction related to crimes he committed in the 1973-5 time frame, pre-dating Brown's 1977 trial.

The jury at Brown's 1977 trial did not know that Butler had committed crimes between 1973 and 1975, nor were they aware that an array of separate criminal allegations of dishonesty, corruption and perverting the course of justice also existed against him.
But the judge, Mr Justice Milmo, who presided over the Brown trial, told the jury that deciding who they believed in the case, the police or Brown, was "the principal issue" they'd have to deal with in their deliberations.

They chose to believe the GMP detectives, including Butler, whose signature was on the bottom of Brown's alleged confession.

Brown was found guilty and sentenced to a minimum 15 years behind bars. Although eligible for parole over a decade ago Brown, now in his 26th year of imprisonment, has always refused to admit his guilt.

In another significant development in the case, the official Crown arguments in defence of the safety of Brown's murder conviction are known to concede two major areas which Brown's legal team believe could see the Scot freed this week.

Brown's legal team remain adamant that the presence of the disgraced detective throughout the original investigation taint numerous sections of the entire case and therefore render Brown's murder conviction unsafe.

Further support for Brown's case has come from a newly-traced witness, William Brown - no relation - from Manchester. He also alleged in a recently-broadcast BBC documentary that he was assaulted and pressured to admit guilt for a crime he did not commit during a violent encounter with Butler in a Manchester police station in an unrelated inquiry in the early 1970s.

Brown says his preparation for release from prison after a quarter of a century has been minimal. He has spent the past few years in Kirkham prison near Preston, where officials were told by the Home Office to "rapidly resocialise" him.
Before a recent six-day unescorted trip on licence back home last week, his only previous trip outside was an escorted outing to Blackpool to eat in a public restaurant and buy some clothes.

No spare cash was given to Brown to finance his trip back to Glasgow. His transport costs were donated by Paddy Hill, the former Birmingham Six miscarriage of justice victim and now chairman of the charity group Miscarriage of Justice Organisation (MOJO).

Scottish MOJO leader John McManus has been Brown's only helper in Glasgow. "People are just now beginning to realise the treatment innocent people are having in the prisons," McManus said.

While he was inside prison Brown lost both his father and sister. In 1992, he had to hug his dying sister in hospital while wearing large metal chains which the officer present refused to unlatch.

Brown is unsure what his future holds even if he is freed. "I want to take it as it comes," he said. "I've lived existentially for 25 years, imagining a moment at a time.

"I've cherished the moments I've had with certain people who showed me humanity and a little bit of kindness."

He's not sure whether he'll raise his hands above his head in celebration if he is set free.

He says he thinks he will allow himself, after 25 years, a moment or two of emotional release. "But it won't be for me," he says steadily, "Get this clear: It's for my mother."

This article:
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=647&id=1251242002

Robert Brown leaves the Court of Appeal, London on November 13th 2002. He is flanked on left by his lawyer Robert Lizar and myself, Eamonn O'Neill, on right.

Newspaper Links

SYSTEM WILL TRY TO KEEP ME CAGED UP

THERE WAS NO APOLOGY

FREEDOM FIGHTER

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: TIME WON'T HEAL: AN INVESTIGATION

Television Links

For links to BBC Scotland's Frontline Homepage – scroll down list and click on link for each programme: :

Frontline: ‘True Confessions' (April 2004)

Frontline: ‘The Case That Jack Built': (Sept 2002)

Frontline: ‘Free At Last': (Nov 2002)

Below is the link to BBC Scotland's main News page which carries the most recent revelations about this case which is still causing controversy to this day. After reading this please click on the links on the right hand sidebar for previous coverage on the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3697544.stm

Robert Brown (centre) and myself (left) and the legal team (inc. Robert Lizar, lawyer, back centre, and Ben Emmerson QC, front right) gather barely one-hour after his release. Despite the smiles, the reality was that Robert had no money; no apology; no pre-release aid; and apart from his 26 year-old prison number, no 'identity' in the normal sense. The UK government would later bill Robert for 'Bed and Breakfast' + domestic (toilet rolls; soap etc) expenses he allegedly 'incurred' whilst wrongfully locked up for a quarter of a century. He is refusing to pay this.

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