Mark Newby reveals how a fantasist with serious psychological problems was wrongly convicted of murder.

When Ian Lawless was first arrested in 2001 accused of being a participant in the murder of Alf Wilkins he became an actor in a play which he had written himself. As someone who suffered from a psychological syndrome which required him to make up stories for attention, inevitably exacerbated by an alcohol problem, he stood out like a sore thumb or at least you would have thought so.

As the very witnesses who later became the prosecution witnesses in the case noted, “that was Ian all over”.That being so , the fact that it took 8 ½ years to secure his release is even more disturbing; showing how the criminal justice system remains ill equipped to recognise and deal with those who suffer from serious mental health vulnerabilities .

A system which operates by pigeon holing defendants cannot easily adapt and assess the safety of the trial process as it relates to men such as Ian Lawless. An assessment of the Lawless case will demonstrate how easily someone vulnerable can fall into this trap and become convicted of the most serious of crimes.

Ian Lawless knew Alf Wilkins, they had drank together, and he and others all talked about Alf and knew of the allegations he had faced. In that culture of early 21st Century Britain Alf soon found himself on the wrong side of paedophile frenzy and was subjected to a campaign of hate and harassment by certain individuals, which ultimately he didn’t deserve.

It was easy for Ian Lawless to become involved in the pub culture that was occurring at that time in the local area and the discussions that were taking place, after all, he knew Alf after all and his need for attention meant he had to be at the forefront of those discussions.

When the terrible events of 21st February 2001 unfolded, matters took a decidedly unpalatable turn for Ian Lawless. Bound to the atmosphere and the events it was impossible for Ian to resist the consequences of his illness and he began to target what was a major event in the locality to suggest to his friends and associates that he knew something about it and had been involved.

It wasn’t long before his wild assertions were being bandied about and there was little wonder that in due course a police enquiry under pressure to solve the murder was able to bring Ian Lawless into the frame based exclusively on those confessions.

One of the problems for the Crown was of course that all of those who gave evidence knew Lawless and
about his frailties, they referred to them in their witness statements. One might have thought this would have set alarm bells ringing with the police, instead Lawless was charged and remanded into custody.

Disturbingly and surprisingly, shortly thereafter a “cell mate “ surfaced purporting that Lawless had made admissions to him , he however was someone who was well known to the police and was seeking a discount to his sentence for this ‘information’. It was hardly the recipe for a sound prosecution.

Despite the “confessions”, Ian Lawless was strong and resolute in his denials of the matter during police
interviews and described himself as an idiot for making confessions which were not true. Perhaps the most striking aspect of these confessions was that they did not contain any shred of case detail at all, nothing Ian Lawless could say disclosed any accurate knowledge of the offences. The devil here was in the lack of detail he could offer to the police.

Put simply, he was claiming to act as a lookout because he didn’t actually know anything about the offences and it was little wonder a co-accused told the police that there was an idiot bragging that he was involved in the offences. He of course wasn’t an idiot; he was a man who clearly presented serious psychological problems which those concerned were ill equipped to recognise.

If the police investigation was concerning, the failure of his trial team not to seek psychological evidence
appears lamentable. The original defence team were content to rest Mr Lawless’s mental evaluation on a
passing conversation with a “prison psychiatrist “whom none of the team can now even identify.
There was in reality no formal assessment of Ian Lawless’s mental functioning undertaken despite references from the prosecution witnesses themselves that he had problems and was a fantasist.
Of course he wasn’t someone suffering from a classic mental health illness, it was at his psychological level that his behaviour and reasoning was flawed yet the signs were patently evident from the accounts of the witnesses.

These were very concerning confessions and it was not in the least surprising that the Jury carefully
deliberated for many days. The Trial Judge did the best he could in raising concerns over the confessions, but without any clear expert assistance over why a man would make such false confessions, and particularly why he could have done so appearing to be distressed , the jury were left in an invidious position .

They were left to convict Ian Lawless on his own evidence and were not even aware of the comments of the co-accused that Ian Lawless wasn’t even involved due to restrictions at that time on the law of hearsay. So it was that Ian Lawless was convicted of murder and started on the road of serving 8 ½ years for an offence which in the strongest possible likelihood he never committed.

The nature of the appeal process meant his 2002 Appeal on technical matters from the original trial failed and he was consigned to hoping a new legal team and the Criminal Cases Review Commission might be able to help him.

The Commission isn’t always universally applauded for the way in which it reviews cases. This case however exemplifies that when the Commission listens and does see real concerns with a case it can make a significant contribution and meet all the aims for which it was set up.

Submissions by Ian Lawless’s new legal team and the Commission’s own review coincided with the same
view that potentially the failure to obtain psychological evidence was a fundamental error, and that such
evidence could potentially address the central issue in the case to be determined by the jury; namely whether there was a reason why Ian Lawless made those confessions which would support a view that he was not responsible for those offences.

The Commission instructed Gisli Gudjonsson, the eminent forensic psychologist who has made a significant contribution to the plight of many wrongfully convicted vulnerable individuals over many years.

He carefully weighed up Ian Lawless over a number of interviews and as a result of that work reached a
conclusion that he was suffering at the material time from an attention syndrome which required him to be the centre of attention by making up stories and accounts.

Further and significantly he was able to identify two matters; firstly the symptoms of the syndrome would mean that he would be distressed at the time he delivered these accounts – a feature relied upon by the Crown to support the “truthfulness“ of the accounts. Secondly, that once he realised the consequences of his actions it would be perfectly normal for him to then make clear the accounts were untrue – he did not suffer from suggestibility which would leave him vulnerable to undue pressure from the police.

It was clear that this squarely answered therefore the circumstances of the confessions being given, why they seemed plausible and the reason why Ian Lawless distanced himself from the accounts immediately at interview.

As to the Cell Confession, the position was either that this was an entirely false account and the men never had access to each other ( as Ian Lawless would advance ) or the position was as suggested by the Commission that Ian Lawless was suffering from the same syndrome in custody and had access to alcohol at HMP Wolds . Either way this was really secondary to the crucial factor in this case , the psychological evidence.

And so the case was referred. It is disappointing that the pressures on the system meant that whilst this case was sent to the Court of Appeal on 15th October 2008, it wasn’t actually heard until 16th June 2009,especially as the Crown had conceded the case by March of this year.

Nonetheless the 16th June proved to be a remarkable day as the conviction of Ian Lawless was finally
quashed and few wouldn’t have been moved to see him re-united with his daughter and family on the
doorsteps of the Court of Appeal.

What then does this whole episode demonstrate to us? Ian Lawless joined a select band of notorious
wrongful convictions of men who were vulnerable and found themselves on the wrong end of a conviction – cases such as Barry George, Sean Hodgson and Stefan Kiszko to name but a handful.

The treatment and handling of those who are vulnerable remains a considerable problem in our system.
Whilst no reliable statistics have been published concerning the numbers of persons going through the prison system with mental health issues, it is fair to expect that for example of those in custody it amounts to not less than 10% of the prison population. And if you actually then go on to consider
Psychological conditions such as the Lawless case it is likely to be considerably higher. This demonstrates
the scale of the problem.

There remains a considerable lack of connected support services for those in the community, those in the criminal justice system and those who find themselves currently in custody. As a result, often those who need urgent assistance or diversion when accused of criminal offences never have the benefit of such help and support due to lack of resources and an inconsistent and comprehensive approach to mental disability in the criminal justice system.

Responses to the Government’s Consultation “Improving health, supporting justice” demonstrates how deep the problem runs and a shared view amongst many organisations that responded to the consultation is that there is a substantial lack of resources and joined up services for those in the criminal Justice system either pre or post trial .

This has recently been added to by the Independent Report of Lord Bradley published on 30th April 2009, whilst some of the recommendations of this report can be applauded the ultimate test will be whether the Government can now provide joined up thinking in addressing mental vulnerability and provide sufficient investment to ensure such issues are tackled comprehensively in the future.

Put simply, how many more cases like Ian Lawless do we need to have before real change in mental health support services is achieved?

Mark Newby, Solicitor Advocate Jordans Solicitors LLP – Solicitor for Ian Lawless

It is hoped that the review will provide an opportunity for several people wrongfully convicted to have their cases overturned , although time will tell on whether the 240 cases identified is about right and importantly what percentage of those might give rise to a fresh look by the Court of Appeal .

The Court concluded that the secretary of state had underestimated the significance of the impact of the notification requirements on offenders; for those who travelled frequently, sometimes at short notice, the notification requirements were more than merely an inconvenience. The aim of the notification requirements regime was to assist in the prevention and detection of sexual offences: no purpose was served by keeping on the Sex Offenders Register a person of whom it could confidently be said that there was no risk that he would commit a sexual offence. The police database should not include offenders who no longer presented a risk of sexual offending. The inclusion of a right of review of indefinite notification requirements would not render the scheme as a whole unviable; on the contrary, the lack of a system to review those who were no longer a risk might adversely affect the efficacy of the system, as police forces became burdened with notifications from an ever-increasing number of offenders. The risk of the floodgates opening could be avoided if Parliament set the threshold for review at a suitably high level, both as regards the time when an application could first be made, the frequency with which applications could be made, and the matters to be proved if the notification requirements were to be varied or discharged. (2) The case for holding that the absence of a right of review of indefinite notification requirements rendered s.82 incompatible with art.8 was even stronger in the case of young offenders, R. (on the application of Smith) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] UKHL 51, [2006] 1 A.C. 159 applied. (3) The notification requirements were not a formality equivalent to an exit visa; art.4(2) of the 2004 Directive was therefore not engaged. Nor did they amount to a prohibition on travel in breach of art.4(1) interpreted in the light of Directive 73/148 art.1 and art.2 . They did not prohibit a person from leaving the country; at most, they might inhibit departure in the relatively few cases where it was not possible to give 24 hours’ notice. The notification requirements did not infringe the 2004 Directive.

What now needs to be seen is the legislation which will be enacted in its final form and how high the bar will be set for such a review . It is to be hoped that the deciison will be taken to be realisitc removing those who are no longer a realistic risk and allowing the police to concentrate their resources on where they are actually needed .

Mark has regularly contributed to the National Media on miscarriage of justice issues .