CCRC refers more Shrewsbury pickets to the Court of Appeal
This is tremendous news for the pickets and their families who have suffered greatly from this miscarriage of justice for over 40 years.
Following four new applications from the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign we are pleased to announce that the Criminal Cases Review Commission has now referred their convictions to the Court of Appeal. Supporters will remember that on 4 March 2020 the CCRC finally referred the convictions of eight pickets and invited applications from any others. From the beginning of the campaign we had tried to involve all the convicted pickets but many did not want to make an application because of the demonization that they had experienced in 1973-74 which led to many of them being blacklisted.
We are delighted that the families of four deceased pickets, Alfred James, Samuel Roy Warburton, Graham Roberts and John Kenneth Seaburg asked us to have their names cleared. The Campaign’s solicitors’ Bindmans, submitted applications on their behalf and these have been accepted by the CCRC and join the other eight. The Campaign now represents 12 of the 22 convicted pickets (two were acquitted in 1974):
Des Warren, John McKinsie Jones and Ken O’Shea (Trial 1); Malcolm Clee, Alfred James, Michael Pierce and Samuel Warburton (Trial 2); Kevin Butcher, Terry Renshaw, Graham Roberts, John Kenneth Seaburg and Thomas Bernard Williams (Trial 3).
The CCRC’s press release also states that Arthur Murray and Ricky Tomlinson, who had withdrawn from the Campaign and the legal case in 2017, have now independently resubmitted their names to the CCRC. This was on the back of the success of the original eight pickets whose cases were referred to the Court of Appeal on 4 March 2020.
Due to the Court of Appeal’s backlog and the added impact of coronavirus on the listing of cases we do not expect an appeal hearing until the end of the year. We will keep all our affiliates updated.
The CCRC’s latest press release is here: https://ccrc.gov.uk/commission-refers-a-further-six-shrewsbury-24-convictions/
For more details go to the website: www.shrewsbury24campaign.org.uk
The Story of the Shrewsbury Pickets
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