Jon is currently crowdfunding on CrowdJustice to release a special issue of Proof magazine on the importance of legal aid.
Jon Robins is a journalist who has been writing about issues of justice – and miscarriages of justice - for 20 years, including for the major broadsheets and as editor of the Justice Gap. Jon spoke to CrowdJustice about some of the incredible stories he’s reported on, and the state of UK justice today.
Why did you launch the Justice Gap?
The site was launched late 2011. The idea was for an online magazine about law and justice and run by journalists. We are aimed at the public, not lawyers. I run the site with the help of others. Brian Thornton, senior journalism lecturer at Winchester University and former BBC producer, and Miranda Grell, barrister and development officer at Hackney Community Law Centre. Brian and Miranda are commissioning editors.
The site was launched as the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Bill was making its way through parliament which removed £350m publicly-funded social welfare advice from the legal aid scheme. Introducing LASPO, the then-justice secretary Ken Clarke said seemingly without irony: 'I genuinely believe “access to justice” is the hallmark of a civilised society’.
It seemed a particular low point in our justice system – and a good a time to launch the Justice Gap. The first article we ran had the headline: ‘Access to justice: what the f*** does that mean?’ The Justice Gap, as a title, contains an implicit criticism. It is a recognition that the system isn’t working. That many people struggle to secure ‘justice’ - not just vulnerable sections of the community or those without money.
In an article for the site, Michael Mansfield QC defined the Justice Gap as ‘the increasing section of the public too poor to afford a lawyer and not poor enough to qualify for legal aid’. But for me the idea of the Justice Gap is wider than that. It’s about the law and justice – and the difference between the two.
Do you think that reporting on justice and injustice can make a difference in the practice of law and justice?
Yes - of course – and if you didn’t think that, what would be the point? The site has had a sharp focus on miscarriages of justice. We have had some of the most brilliant journalists of the last 20 to 30 years write for us. We don’t have an editorial budget so we’re grateful for their support (and that of all our contributors).
As a result of their dogged campaigning, innocent people have been able to leave prison with their names cleared. That is a hell of an achievement. But their campaigning journalism also contributed to shocking the public out of its complacency about the supposed infallibility of our justice system. Ultimately it was that public outrage that led to massive reform and, in particular, the establishment of the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 1997. Now some would say that reforms didn’t amount to much - but that’s another story.
So, yes, I believe that journalism can make a difference.
The shame is that mainstream journalism has retreated from some difficult ‘justice’ areas. To risk a generalisation, I don’t think the media has covered itself in glory when it has come to covering the difficult issue of miscarriages in recent years – certainly when it comes to the uncovering deeper, systematic issues.
Tell us about one of the more difficult issues/cases you’ve reported on
I’d flag up the scandalous lack of support for the victims of miscarriage of justice. It’s one of those issues that I just mentioned that has failed to catch the attention of the press for whatever reason. Shockingly, the Coalition government’s last year slashed eligibility for compensation for victims of miscarriages to only those who can demonstrate their innocence ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. This is now an impossible hurdle to overcome unless they have, for example, DNA evidence - and maybe even then.
Victor Nealon spent 17 years in prison protesting his innocence before having his conviction overturned after a DNA test pointed to the likelihood of another attacker. Victor left prison with just three hours’ notice, £46 in pocket and a train ticket to Shrewsbury. It was widely and wrongly reported that he spent his first night of freedom on the streets.
What happened was that he travelled to Shrewsbury where his friend from prison lived and with whom he was hoping to stay. However his pal went to the Royal Courts of Justice in London to pick him up. He didn’t know Victor had been following the hearing from prison via videolink – so they missed each other. Victor would have had to sleep rough, except some journalists covered his B&B – in exchange for an interview.
This issue has a bit of history.
New Labour scrapped an ex gratia compensation scheme – when Charles Clarke was home secretary and without any consultation - in a move described by Professor John Spencer, fairly, as ‘monstrous’. It’s self-evidently a hugely important issue. As a society we should be looking after people like Victor who have been so badly damaged by the state – and the trauma of being innocent in prison is well documented. Plus, it is vitally important for the integrity of the justice system that when things go wrong, mistakes are acknowledged.
But it has never been a story that has attracted any coverage in the mainstream press (Private Eye have been on the case for years). I don’t recall seeing one article in the newspapers about the scrapping of the ex gratia scheme. It’s an issue we have followed on the Justice Gap – mainly, thanks to the tireless work of Victor’s solicitor Mark Newby. I write for the Independent on Sunday. They ran my interview with Victor on the front page.
A few weeks later they ran another interview of mine with Sam Hallam and, again, gave it some prominence. Sam was just a teenager when he was sentenced to life in 2005 for a gang-related murder. He always protested his innocence. His conviction was quashed in fairly dramatic circumstances. A Thames Valley police investigation interviewed more than 30 witnesses who were present at the murder scene. Not one had seen Sam. His father killed himself when he was in prison. The way we have treated people like Victor and Sam is a scandal. ‘Scandal’ is an over-used word but, in this context, it seems about right.
###Do you ever feel personally involved in the subject matter?
Yes – if you didn’t you would be brain-dead or heartless.
I have just written a book on the Tony Stock case. Tony spent most of his long life fighting to clear his name in connection with an armed robbery in 1970. His case went to the Court of Appeal on four separate occasions and the European Court of Human Rights.
It’s a hugely complicated case. However to offer a brief taste of it: an armed robber – a member of the Chainsaw Gang - admitted to the robbery in 1979. He went to the Appeal court to in 1996 to say ‘I did it, Stock didn’t’. As convincing as his evidence was – South Yorkshire Police had no problem with it, nor did Tom Sargant of JUSTICE - the court didn’t buy it. They said his account of the gang’s exit journey from the robbery was so illogical that his evidence was not credible.
It would seem hard to argue with that – except the court hadn’t bothered to check out an A to Z. His account made total sense – a fact later acknowledged by the same court on 2004. They didn’t apologise. Everyone knows Tony didn’t do the robbery – everyone except apparently the Court of Appeal. I started writing the book in 2011 with Tony’s help – also with the support of Tony’s solicitor of 20 years standing Glyn Maddocks and former head of investigation at the CCRC, Ralph Barrington. Ralph, an ex-head of Essex CID, has given up some of his retirement to investigate a truly shocking case of someone who always claimed he was fitted up by corrupt police officers. Tony died in 2012. He spent 45 years banging his head against brick wall of our justice system. It’s fair to say we all felt strongly about that.
What do you see as the most pressing problem faced by the UK justice system at the moment?
On the miscarriage front, there are any number of alarming problems: the chronic underfunding of the CCRC, concerns about the ‘dragnet’ application of joint enterprise and the safety of historic sexual abuse convictions.
More generally, we have a PM who wants to scrap the Human Rights Act and for whom the prospect of giving prisoners the vote, makes him want to throw up. Dark days, indeed.
What do you think is the most forward-looking or positive aspect of the UK justice system – in other words, what is it that lawyers or courts are doing well?
Hah, now you’re asking. I’d say the arrival of the Justice Alliance and their brilliant work at forming a coalition of concern about the legal aid cuts wider than lawyers; the resourcefulness of the Law Centre movement to withstand the LASPO onslaught; and the emergence of the likes of Inside Justice and more recently the Centre for Criminal Appeals in the miscarriages field.
What are your views on what’s happening with legal aid?
The first article I wrote about legal aid was in the run up to what would become New Labour’s Access to Justice Act 1999. All the lawyers I spoke to thought it was the end of the world.
I interviewed the then director of the Legal Action Group who told me that the proposed legislation was like ‘rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic’.
It’s been a long time coming but – sadly – maybe the boat finally went down April 2013 with the LASPO cuts.
As far as crime is concerned, the defence profession has been dangerously under-funded for years. I interviewed Lord Carter of Coles, the government fixer who was tasked by New Labour to look to bringing about market-based system in defence services in 2006. He said he was ‘shocked… by the clear impoverishment’ of the profession. Obviously, it has got a lot worse since then – not least with the imposition of an 18.5% fee cut. The concern has to be around the quality of representation for vulnerable people.
Jon Robins is a freelance journalist and editor of the Justice Gap. Jon has written for the Times, Guardian, Observer and Independent on a regular basis. He has written a number of books, including The first miscarriage of justice: the unreported and amazing case of Tony Stock (Waterside Press, 2014); The Justice Gap: Whatever happened to legal aid? (Legal Action Group, 2009 – with Steve Hynes) and People Power: how to run a campaign. (Daily Telegraph and LawPack, 2008). More on www.jonrobins.info
The Justice Gap will be publishing its next collection of essays “Justice in a time of Moral Panic” next September
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