Robin Garbutt says Horizon system was used to frame him for wife’s murder

Darat

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Darat
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...system-was-used-to-frame-him-for-wifes-murder

Was going to start a thread about this - it's already been raised in the PO miscarriage of Justice thread but I think it warrants its own thread.

This could be yet another example of an issue in the E&W justice system since 1999 when the rule on digital evidence was changed so it was to be considered reliable unless show not to be.

One really must hope that the PO did disclose to the prosecution and defence in this case the issues with Horizon evidence surely, they can't have not done so? Yet the report indicates the evidence was used and wasn't challenged, whether he killed his wife or not I think there has to now be grounds for his case to reconsidered and checked to see how the jury was directed.

...snip....

With no DNA evidence to link him to the murder or the metal bar used to kill Diana, Garbutt was convicted in part after the jury heard evidence from a Post Office investigator using data from the Horizon system. This purportedly showed he was stealing money from the Post Office and then killed his wife to cover up his theft.

The prosecution claimed Garbutt concealed his theft via a series of false declarations about the amount of money in the Post Office safe. The investigator told the jury the pattern of high overnight cash declarations was one “I have seen replicated across many Post Office Limited fraud cases in the past”.

The jury was told he may have staged the armed robbery to cover up the losses, killing Diana either to make it look “real” or because she had found out what he was doing and he needed to silence her.

...snip...
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Indeed, the case is (as I stated in the general Horizon thread) an extremely weak one, lacking any evidence connecting Garbutt to the killing and any motivation for the killing (the allegations of marital problems don't hold up and the fraud "evidence" is drivel). The police contaminated the alleged murder weapon and ignored the finding of a firearm and balaclava.

There is a specific site for Garbutt's supporters here.
 
how not to collect evidence

The Guardian reported, "North Yorkshire police officers lost key evidence, including a clump of hair found on the pillow in the couple’s bedroom. The hair, which was a different colour to both Diana’s and Robin’s, was never taken for forensic analysis and was lost. A gun and balaclava were found behind a pub in Thornaby, 30 minutes away from the post office, but police quickly decided it was irrelevant. The murder weapon, a metal bar, was only found several days after the murder, on top of a high wall nearby. The jury heard it was contaminated by the police officer who handled it, and may have sneezed on it." Fingerprinting the murder weapon should have been done automatically, and the hair could have been used for DNA testing after being examined microscopically. One cannot solve a crime if one does not manage the crime scene properly, then collect and test the evidence, a point I made recently in the Skakel (Martha Moxley murder) thread.
EDT
It would be helpful to know why the police thought that the gun and balaclava were irrelevant. If it was just a hunch, then the investigation became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
 
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jeremyp said:
Whilst I agree that the conviction was unsafe, after reading the Guardian article, I'm thinking that he killed his wife.
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Perhaps but there was clearly insufficient evidence for a conviction.
Show a jury a murder without a motive and they tend not to convict.
 
DNA on the murder weapon

Bill Robertson wrote an essay which mainly covered the DNA evidence on the murder weapon and the pillow but also mentions the hair that was not profiled. His article discussed DNA evidence implicating a police officer. It also mentioned that the verdict was based upon a 10-2 majority. Although Mr. Robertson may not completely understand DNA evidence (analysis/interpretation of a mixture is more complicated than of a single donor profile), he raised troubling points.
 
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the alleged murder weapon and the time of death

The Justice Gap reported, "Now, newly discovered unaired footage from Tyne Tees Television, filmed after the murder but before the murder weapon was discovered on top of Nixon’s Garage’s boundary wall, shows no metal bar where the police allegedly found it."

There is also contradictory information about Diane's time of death, as reported by the Justice Gap and The Guardian.
 
gun and balaclava found elsewhere; lamps

Mojo said:
"Relevant to what?"
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To the murder. They were found at a distant location, but I was wondering if they were not considered relevant for any other reason. There was other potential evidence that might or might not have been relevant to the case that was not picked up for a week. There were also bloody lamps in the bedroom that were knocked over but were never tested. I prefer not to express an opinion about the case overall, but the investigation may have been beset with tunnel vision, and the failure to test some of the evidence (in particular the hair) is difficult to understand.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
The Justice Gap reported, "Now, newly discovered unaired footage from Tyne Tees Television, filmed after the murder but before the murder weapon was discovered on top of Nixon’s Garage’s boundary wall, shows no metal bar where the police allegedly found it."

There is also contradictory information about Diane's time of death, as reported by the Justice Gap and The Guardian.
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The pathologist was an idiot, as demonstrated by subsequent cases.
 
catsmate said:
Perhaps but there was clearly insufficient evidence for a conviction.
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I'm pretty sure that I agreed with that statement in the post to which you responded.

Show a jury a murder without a motive and they tend not to convict.
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He had a motive. He was covering up apparent losses of thousands of pounds. The prosecution case was that he murdered his wife because she found out about his plan to fake a robbery. It seems to me that you might fake a robbery to cover up the stealing of funds or simply the unexplainable disappearance of funds.

There seem to be lots of reasons why the verdict was unsafe, but the Horizon system isn't one of them.
 
jeremyp said:
I'm pretty sure that I agreed with that statement in the post to which you responded.



He had a motive. He was covering up apparent losses of thousands of pounds. The prosecution case was that he murdered his wife because she found out about his plan to fake a robbery. It seems to me that you might fake a robbery to cover up the stealing of funds or simply the unexplainable disappearance of funds.

There seem to be lots of reasons why the verdict was unsafe, but the Horizon system isn't one of them.
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I disagree. The Horizon system is proven to have been corrupt so the prosecution (i.e., the Post Office) case to the court that Garbutt staged the robbery because of a massive shortfall falls under the Brady v Maryland principle of withholding exculpatory evidence. It knew at the time and ever since the trial roll out of the IT system that it was full of bugs (plus hundreds of sub post office masters having reported issues). So whilst it is quite possible Mr. Garbutt staged the armed robbery and had a deadly row with his wife leading to her death with the plan of using the safe money to repay the - possibly bogus - shortfall, nonetheless the trial has to be deemed unsafe as 'new evidence' shows there may not have been a shortfall at all and thus he had nothing to hide that would cause such an act of tragic desperation and even if it did - as some did try to make good with their own savings - the prosecutors failed to disclose key exculpatory evidence, i.e., that Mr Garbutt was not ipso facto of a criminal bent as implied by £16,000 being supposedly missing.

Likewise, the evidence of the pathologist was deemed unsafe as she varied the time of digestion from case to case, meaning she likely shoe-horned her estimated time of death to fit the prosecution's times. After all, it seems a clear cut case insofar as the court assumption that 'the Post Office Horizon computer system never lies' and the safe is timed to only open at 8:30, so what a coincidence the armed robber appeared then. But if Mr. Garbutt was driven to a dreadful crime because of the Post Office Horizon systemic IT corruption then that is a terrible human tragedy. There needs to be either a retrial or an annulment to a lesser charge owing to balance of mind issues thanks to the PO aggravation and negligence, together with a duty of care to its sub post office managers, in significant part. Or a complete overturning of the conviction, with time served.
 
indicators of the time of death

More on the stomach contents and related matters here. "At the trial, the jury heard that Diana’s body was already exhibiting signs of rigor mortis and hypostasis when it was discovered at around 8.30am." It might be possible to use hypostasis to develop a range for the TOD.
 
Vixen said:
I disagree. The Horizon system is proven to have been corrupt so the prosecution (i.e., the Post Office) case to the court that Garbutt staged the robbery because of a massive shortfall falls under the Brady v Maryland principle of withholding exculpatory evidence. It knew at the time and ever since the trial roll out of the IT system that it was full of bugs (plus hundreds of sub post office masters having reported issues). So whilst it is quite possible Mr. Garbutt staged the armed robbery and had a deadly row with his wife leading to her death with the plan of using the safe money to repay the - possibly bogus - shortfall, nonetheless the trial has to be deemed unsafe as 'new evidence' shows there may not have been a shortfall at all and thus he had nothing to hide that would cause such an act of tragic desperation and even if it did - as some did try to make good with their own savings - the prosecutors failed to disclose key exculpatory evidence, i.e., that Mr Garbutt was not ipso facto of a criminal bent as implied by £16,000 being supposedly missing.

Likewise, the evidence of the pathologist was deemed unsafe as she varied the time of digestion from case to case, meaning she likely shoe-horned her estimated time of death to fit the prosecution's times. After all, it seems a clear cut case insofar as the court assumption that 'the Post Office Horizon computer system never lies' and the safe is timed to only open at 8:30, so what a coincidence the armed robber appeared then. But if Mr. Garbutt was driven to a dreadful crime because of the Post Office Horizon systemic IT corruption then that is a terrible human tragedy. There needs to be either a retrial or an annulment to a lesser charge owing to balance of mind issues thanks to the PO aggravation and negligence, together with a duty of care to its sub post office managers, in significant part. Or a complete overturning of the conviction, with time served.
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Nope.

If Horizon was reporting a loss, whether that loss was real or not it provides a motive as to why he might want to stage a theft to cover up his loss.
 
Darat said:
Nope.

If Horizon was reporting a loss, whether that loss was real or not it provides a motive as to why he might want to stage a theft to cover up his loss.
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I disagree. People like 'Mr. Bates' were confident it was an error. People less sophisticated in how accounting systems work can and did panic, especially when confronted with the likes of a Post Office 'investigator' such as Stephen Bradshaw, who tried to coerce them into accepting a charge of false accounting or they would be charged with the more serious offence of theft. As quite a few were driven to suicide by the shame of this, by the same token it is quite feasible others were driven to other acts of desperation such as murder, especially if their spouse was accusing. Yes, Mr Garbutt might have wanted to stage an armed robbery to cover up his loss, as you say, but police found no money in the safe, so what did he do with it and it was still some £16K short, according to Horizon. Some depleted their life savings to avoid the shame. So whilst being accused of theft as a supposedly respected member of your community is extremely stressful if you did not do it, that doesn't follow you had a motive for faking an armed robbery (to also cover up murder of your spouse). The PO prosecutors could argue that was a motive and indeed they did argue this but if the money was not actually missing but a software error (duplications of entries and Horizon personnel remotely making adjustments whilst denying under oath they had access to accounts) then the magnitude of motive surely decreases exponentially. Imagine a shopkeeper gives you too little change. There is a big difference in attitude if it was a genuine error from when it was a deliberate act, say you threatened to call the police.

IMV even if Mr Garbutt did stage an armed robbery and coshed his wife after a row because of the alleged Horizon shortfall but the Post Office failed to disclose that alleged shortfalls were a common error on Horizon as per listed call references by hundreds of sub post office masters then the court protocol erred in that Mr Garbutt had this key evidence withheld from him as a mitigating factor by the PO prosecution and as a rebuttal that he was a common thief. Given it was a majority 10 - 2 non-unanimous verdict of guilt by the jury based on the prosecution case - and it looks bad prima facie for Mr Garbutt - then the fact of the level of mens rea changes quite significantly if one reasonably considers there may not have been any shortfall at all - and Horizon was totally unreliable in this respect - and Mr Garbutt conducted his business with proper due diligence.

IOW if Garbutt had no intention to steal or commit a crime then he has less motive to cover up what never happened. If the Post Office draconian behaviour (cf Stephen Bradshaw) drove people to suicide, armed robbery and murder then it has to take a share of the culpability for causing these acts.
 
jeremyp said:
I'm pretty sure that I agreed with that statement in the post to which you responded.



He had a motive. He was covering up apparent losses of thousands of pounds. The prosecution case was that he murdered his wife because she found out about his plan to fake a robbery. It seems to me that you might fake a robbery to cover up the stealing of funds or simply the unexplainable disappearance of funds.

There seem to be lots of reasons why the verdict was unsafe, but the Horizon system isn't one of them.
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:rolleyes: Except the supposed, Horizon determined, defecit may not have existed.
 
I don't think this is very likely, but it's possible that he decided to stage a robbery to cover up the phantom shortage, and that his wife refused to go along because she believed he was guilty of stealing money.
 
SpitfireIX said:
I don't think this is very likely, but it's possible that he decided to stage a robbery to cover up the phantom shortage, and that his wife refused to go along because she believed he was guilty of stealing money.
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It can indeed be speculated thus, as the Post Office prosecutors did exactly that. However, the issue here is did Mr. Garbutt get a fair trial if the Post Office knowingly withheld key evidence that Horizon was known to be faulty. In addition, all sub-post office managers sign a contract in which they agree they have to make up any shortfall in the accounts. Therefore, you could speculate there is no motive to steal the cash as they are liable to pay it back regardless.

As the jury seem unable to have agreed over a reasonable period of time that it went to a majority verdict (10 - 2) it is compelling to consider that had the court been made aware that there may not have been a real shortfall but a gremlin in the computer software (thus, Mr Garbutt is not proven to be a thief based on the evidence presented to the court) then he may well in all probability have been acquitted.

The claim he faked a robbery to cover up a massive shortfall and that his wife had been on dating apps (jealousy being another strong possible motive for partner murder) sounds all very convincing but correct court protocol is that the burden of proof is on the prosecutor. ISTM they wilfully abrogated the duty to disclose exculpatory evidence in order to secure yet another conviction whilst misleading the court into believing 'Horizon is never wrong'.
 
potential pieces of evidence

Was there a CCTV camera nearby, and was it checked? Did someone take the temperature of Diana Garbutt's body, in order to determine TOD? Were Ms Garbutt's fingernails checked for DNA? These potential pieces of evidence, along with the hair clump, might have made for a compelling case, one way or another.
 
Vixen said:
It can indeed be speculated thus, as the Post Office prosecutors did exactly that. However, the issue here is did Mr. Garbutt get a fair trial if the Post Office knowingly withheld key evidence that Horizon was known to be faulty. In addition, all sub-post office managers sign a contract in which they agree they have to make up any shortfall in the accounts. Therefore, you could speculate there is no motive to steal the cash as they are liable to pay it back regardless.

As the jury seem unable to have agreed over a reasonable period of time that it went to a majority verdict (10 - 2) it is compelling to consider that had the court been made aware that there may not have been a real shortfall but a gremlin in the computer software (thus, Mr Garbutt is not proven to be a thief based on the evidence presented to the court) then he may well in all probability have been acquitted.

The claim he faked a robbery to cover up a massive shortfall and that his wife had been on dating apps (jealousy being another strong possible motive for partner murder) sounds all very convincing but correct court protocol is that the burden of proof is on the prosecutor. ISTM they wilfully abrogated the duty to disclose exculpatory evidence in order to secure yet another conviction whilst misleading the court into believing 'Horizon is never wrong'.
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The issue with the dating apps was addressed in the trial, it was extremely weak, hence the emphasis on the alleged shortfall.

Chris_Halkides said:
Was there a CCTV camera nearby, and was it checked? Did someone take the temperature of Diana Garbutt's body, in order to determine TOD? Were Ms Garbutt's fingernails checked for DNA? These potential pieces of evidence, along with the hair clump, might have made for a compelling case, one way or another.
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There was some CCTV, for example the are where the alleged murder weapon was found.
The time of death evidence was dubious at best.
 
temperature and TOD

Burkhard Madea wrote, "The current gold standard for death time estimation is a previously established nomogram method based on the two-exponential model of body cooling." link Given that the temperature was presumably controlled in the bedroom, a temperature-based method should have been the first method to be considered. Stomach contents are not useless, but historically they have been abused as a method, as I believe happened in the Steven Truscott case in Canada.

Regarding CCTV, the minutes when Mr. Garbutt claimed that the robbery took place were critical. However I recall from one of my previous links that Mr. Garbutt was apparently being followed the evening before the alleged robbery as he ran errands. It struck me as odd.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
Was there a CCTV camera nearby, and was it checked? Did someone take the temperature of Diana Garbutt's body, in order to determine TOD? Were Ms Garbutt's fingernails checked for DNA? These potential pieces of evidence, along with the hair clump, might have made for a compelling case, one way or another.
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No, it was only a little village (Melsonby in Yorkshire in 2010). The supposed armed robber/s entered via the back and left that way, according to Mr. Garbutt. There were two alarms, one by the safe and one by the counter, that connected with the central police station. Mr. Garbutt claims he didn't press them because he did not realise they were silent alarms.

The paramedic who gave evidence said that she was already in a state of rigor mortis and there was blood stasis around the heart (stains that leak out to where the body lies). Mr. Garbutt called 999 as soon as the supposed robber departed. It seems the paramedic stated at the scene that it appeared to be the case she had been dead for some time and that Mr. Garbutt disputed this at the time, which was held by the police to be evidence against him. However, if he was telling the truth, then he would dispute it and it is not necessarily an attempt to subvert the truth. She was supposedly asleep in bed at the time and was coshed about the head so there were no self-defence injuries or markers.
 
catsmate said:
The issue with the dating apps was addressed in the trial, it was extremely weak, hence the emphasis on the alleged shortfall.


There was some CCTV, for example the are where the alleged murder weapon was found.
The time of death evidence was dubious at best.
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Agreed. The prosecution case relied heavily on the fact the pair had marital difficulties. Given that 42% marriages these days end in divorce or separation it is hardly a compelling reason for spouse murder.

The prosecution brought in an expert witness financial economist to look at Mr. Garbutt's financial affairs and she claimed the pair were £44,000 in debt. It is not sure whether she included the £40K still outstanding on their mortgage, in which case a secured debt agreed to be repaid over 25 years is hardly what the average person regards as 'in debt'. Plus she claimed the pair had expensive holidays in places such as York and Bolton (yes, train fares are extortionate but this claim is absurd) and the fact they had arranged a £3,000 trip to the USA. Hardly living beyond means as Diana Garbutt had close family in the USA, sister and grandparent, so not so extravagant in that light. Plus seven credit cards between them. Not particularly unusual post-2008 crash when credit cards were being foisted on people.

Add in the fact that places like sub-post offices and betting shops were/are (?) popular targets for would-be robbers - as compared to robbing high security banks - it is not such a fantastical notion, given Garbutt claimed there had been a robbery attempt a year earlier (also held against him as his trying to cover up supposed shortfalls).
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Burkhard Madea wrote, "The current gold standard for death time estimation is a previously established nomogram method based on the two-exponential model of body cooling." link Given that the temperature was presumably controlled in the bedroom, a temperature-based method should have been the first method to be considered. Stomach contents are not useless, but historically they have been abused as a method, as I believe happened in the Steven Truscott case in Canada.

Regarding CCTV, the minutes when Mr. Garbutt claimed that the robbery took place were critical. However I recall from one of my previous links that Mr. Garbutt was apparently being followed the evening before the alleged robbery as he ran errands. It struck me as odd.
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Mrs Garbutt supposedly last ate, fish and chips, around 8:30 pm. AIUI as a casual browser, it can take up to twelve hours to digest food and as little as two hours, there is a wide variation depending on circumstances and individual variations. The pathologist gave a time of death circa 3 - 4 am, some four hours earlier than the claimed robbery but in other cases the same pathologist changed the parameters of how long digestion takes so seems to have - probably unconsciously - fit in her expert opinion with that of the suspicious police officers. Her testimony is deemed to be unsafe.

There was a similar case a few years earlier (Heap Bridge? Levenshulme?) in which some guy bludgeoned his wife with a tyre lever which attracted nationwide coverage at the time, so maybe that was still fresh in the mind of northern detectives as Garbutt being some kind of 'copy cat' of that one.
 
witness statement

Vanessa Golding wrote, "I would also like to highlight that I refused to sign my written statement written for me by the police. I told the police that I couldn't sign it as it was peppered with detrimental wording throughout and things that I did not say were added to it at a later date. I requested a copy of my tape interview, which was denied. This would’ve proven that the statement was not my original. I wonder how many more were adjusted to suit the case against Robin?"

The Justice Gap wrote, "A number of witnesses told police they had seen a blue car driven erratically around Melsonby on the morning of the murder. CCTV footage also showed a car following Garbutt in eight different places in the course of his journeys to pick up stock the night before. That car had been sold by the end of the week." The significance of the car or cars is uncertain, but apparently some CCTV footage was taken and checked.
 
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The case is looking less and less reasonable. As is the behviour of the police....
 
Vixen said:
Mrs Garbutt supposedly last ate, fish and chips, around 8:30 pm. AIUI as a casual browser, it can take up to twelve hours to digest food and as little as two hours, there is a wide variation depending on circumstances and individual variations. The pathologist gave a time of death circa 3 - 4 am, some four hours earlier than the claimed robbery but in other cases the same pathologist changed the parameters of how long digestion takes so seems to have - probably unconsciously - fit in her expert opinion with that of the suspicious police officers. Her testimony is deemed to be unsafe.

There was a similar case a few years earlier (Heap Bridge? Levenshulme?) in which some guy bludgeoned his wife with a tyre lever which attracted nationwide coverage at the time, so maybe that was still fresh in the mind of northern detectives as Garbutt being some kind of 'copy cat' of that one.
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Stomach contents are a feature in many cases, in the Lundy case there were undigested chips with a crown case setting death at 3 am. Completely impossible for many reasons.
Meredith Kercher also died way before Amanda Knox could be involved based on stomach contents.
 
CCTV and other evidence

Barry Conache, a friend of the Garbutt couple listed some of the investigatory failures: "There was CCTV footage of a car following Robin on his cash and carry trips. People put names of possible suspects forward after being informed by recognised criminals. Cars identified speeding away on the morning of the murder."

Jane Metcalfe wrote an open letter in which she listed some of the problems in the investigation:
"CCTV from the night before the murder, shows the same car is seen following Robin on his journey to and from the cash and carry.
Evidence of 3 known criminals in the village on the morning of the murder.
A Crimestoppers report was received within a day or two of the murder from someone giving the name of the person who had committed the murder and robbery. Police responded by saying they had said suspect under surveillance so it couldn't have been him. Despite constant requests from the defence, evidence of this surveillance has never been supplied."

I am not sure whether the car following him the night before is related to the crime or not. Yet some of the other points raised are worth pondering in their own right.

Individuals interested in having more insight into the behavior of the CCRC (which has recently received attention after the Andrew Malkinson case) may also find portions of these essays to be quite interesting.
 
The major difference in this case from that of other sub-postmasters/mistresses is that the prosecutor was the Crown (CPS) as opposed to the Post Office Limited. But a similar problem appears here in that in Garbutt's case, once again we have the Post Office as 'victim' (the armed robbery thanks to Mr. Garbutt's alleged theft of their rightful funds), the Post Office as the star witness as to motive (although it should be said, motive is not a legal requirement to convict) and also the Post Office as key investigator. It appears the police never considered that anyone other than Mr. Garbutt could be the killer.

Be that as it may, what was lacking in Mr. Garbutt's trial was Justice. Justice is oft symbolized as a figure wielding a sword, wearing a blindfold and holding a pair of scales. Even the Ancient Egyptians laid great store on judgement after death with the heart weighed in scales in the afterlife, as the Ancients believed the heart was the seat of emotions and reason (not the brain). So, the sword represents truth (the fight for) and the blindfold symbolizes every man being equal in the eyes of the law, a level playing field. Thus, Justice is wholly dependent on finding the facts - the truth - fairness towards the defendant (as the Met likes to say as a modern day cliché, 'without fear or favour'), neither of which can be achieved without the key principle of objectivity. The nearest we have of this model is in the separation of the police from the CPS who in addition is independent of the judiciary, as public bodies. The problem with the Post Office being not only the victim but also the prosecutor and key witness and furthermore collecting the key evidence means Justice in Regina v Robin Garbutt was not at all anything to do with Justice as we commonly understand it.

At the trial, the jury had the accounting records from 2009 onwards. After trial, it transpired that the accounting records went back to 2004. Those records and information regarding variable limits for cash requests were admitted at G’s request at the instant appeal.

G submitted that (1) the pattern of accounting identified in the records from 2009 onwards could not be relied upon as demonstrating theft because a similar accounting pattern was identified in the 2004 to 2008 records which were deemed satisfactory in a 2008 audit, and that if the jury had the earlier records it would have taken a different view of his credibility; (2) the alleged theft from post office funds was put forward as the motive for murder.
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https://neilwilby.com/2020/10/01/case-digest-r-v-robin-joseph-garbutt-2012-ewca-crim-1167/

IOW his accounting record prior to the 'key evidence' period of 2008 onwards was no different in substance than from 2004, which passed the auditors with flying colours.

Whatever one's opinion on did he or did he not kill his wife, Garbutt's case seems to have revolved around shoe-horning the Post Office's crusade like a too-tight shoe onto a case without allowing any possibility of a challenge or defence or rebuttal that the murder might not have anything whatsoever to do with fiddling Horizon and the Post Office, This is why the Case Review Committee must refer the case back for a retrial or overturn the conviction as unsafe.
 
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I wonder if he's managed to get his local MP interested in the case.
 
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Representatives and wrongful convictions

Going on memory here, but one of the Birmingham Six, Patrick Joseph (Paddy Joe) Hill, asked the MP where his prison was to get involved. The MP was, in Hill's telling, of a different social station (and probably political views), yet he read over Hill's copious documentation and was impressed enough to get involved for years. Maybe the notion of getting the help of ones' representative is not completely off base.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Going on memory here, but one of the Birmingham Six, Patrick Joseph (Paddy Joe) Hill, asked the MP where his prison was to get involved. The MP was, in Hill's telling, of a different social station (and probably political views), yet he read over Hill's copious documentation and was impressed enough to get involved for years. Maybe the notion of getting the help of ones' representative is not completely off base.
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The Birmingham Six are not really like-for-like as that case was seen as political from the outset, with the six seeing themselves as political prisoners. So there was a huge amount of public interest with all sorts of campaigning going on. The Garbutt case would have been seen as a run of the mill local crime issue with few MP's getting involved as the judiciary are in theory seen as independent and smoothly running. With the Horizon issue, it has now become quite political and I suppose therein lies Mr. Garbutt's hope for a successful review of his case. He has failed twice before so it will be interesting to see if the new issue will succeed (or at least new in the sense of suddenly being given a lot of media attention, plus the public inquiry revelations of odious corrupt practices). As for MP and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he has already pledged to bring out a speedy Act of Parliament to expedite exonerations albeit in a general sense, although don't be surprised if this was just another feel-good soundbite for a good headline.
 
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