In the early hours of 24 December 1990 I was taken into Hammersmith police station. I was drunk, extremely tired and unable to make it to my home. I was not particularly annoyed with the police for having arrested me, nor was I unduly upset with my situation. I trusted the police and was pleased to be taken to a safe place where I could "sleep it off".
On entering the station I was taken into the custody suite where all my possessions were taken from me. This consisted of a bunch of keys, packet of Benson & Hedges cigarettes, cigarette lighter, comb, six foot long woollen scarf, watch, aerosol mouth freshener, some loose change and £77 cash. The two policemen who had taken me in to the station then briefly searched all my pockets to make sure I hadn't kept anything back.
I was taken down a corridor leading from the custody suite and put in a large cell known as "The Tank". I don't remember much about the cell, other than it was dimly lit. I did not notice any other person in the cell as I sat down on a bench and fell asleep almost immediately.
In my drunken sleep I heard shouting and the banging of a metal door. I was awoken by a commotion in the cell and somebody knocking into my legs. Two men seemed to be fighting; one of them was quite clearly a policeman. I instinctively got up and tried to separate them. I was struck on the side of my forehead and told "Keep out of it." The blow knocked me out and I fell back onto the bench.
When I came round I saw a man lying on the floor in front of me. I called out to him - "are you okay?", "are you alright?", "come on, get up." I nudged his chest and shoulders with my foot, walked round him and tried to lift him up several times. He did not respond at all. I did not think he was dead, it never crossed my mind. I thought he had been beaten up. In my drunken condition I couldn't think clearly, I was unable to figure out what was going on. My thoughts did not go beyond trying to revive him and eventually I gave up.
I did not notice any blood on the man or the cell floor. I was very tired and hardly able to keep my eyes open. All I can remember is that the man was wearing greyish brown clothes. I wanted to call out for help. But I was frightened. I had seen a policeman attack the man, and I had been attacked myself.
I was upset by what I had witnessed. But most of all I was afraid and worried for my own safety. Nothing was making much sense. My drunkeness was my only explanation for being unable to understand what was happening. I sat down on the bench and passed out again.
After what seemed like a short time, I was woken up by three police officers in my cell. Two stood either side of me and the third one knelt down and took my trainers off. They got me up from the bench and stood me up, leaned me over the body on the floor and one officer said "You did this", and another said "You did it."
I was moved from the Tank cell and placed in another. After a short while I was moved to yet another cell and told to strip off all my clothes. I was made to stand naked on some brown paper bags while policemen and women paraded by to stare at me. I don't know if this was all designed to humiliate me, or police officer's curiosity simply got the better of them. Whatever the reason, I was vulnerable, and all the self composure I was struggling to attain was quickly disappearing. At some stage I recall a doctor coming into the cell. He told me to turn round, said "He's Okay" and then walked out again.
After about half an hour I was given a white paper boiler suit to wear and moved to another cell. The cell door was left open and an officer sat outside guarding me. I was moved twice more to clean cells, with different uniformed officers outside on guard. By this time I was traumatised, disoriented, confused, terrified, and in a complete state of shock. All I could think was "My God, this is a police station, how can this be happening?"
Throughout the night I had no opportunity to sleep. From the beginning I said that a policeman had been responsible for what happened. I kept asking to see a senior officer and a solicitor. I never saw a senior officer, and it was several hours before I saw a solicitor.
At about 8.30am I was taken with my solicitor to an interview. It was a small room, smaller than a cell, and crowded with a table and four chairs in it. I was interviewed by Superintendent Swinburn and Detective Sergeant McAleenan. The interview was recorded. From the beginning, and throughout, I made the firm allegation that I had witnessed a policeman fighting with a man in the cell and that I had been hit by the policeman when I tried to intervene.
On beginning the interview I hoped my nightmare would be sorted out by senior officers. However, nothing could have been further from the truth. It began to dawn on me that I was the one being accused and Swinburn and McAleenan were not in the least interested in what had really happened. In retrospect, it was clear to me that they wanted to find out how much I knew and what I would be saying.
Hammersmith Police Station
The police account
On the evening of Sunday 23 December 1990, PCs Anthony Trinkwon and Michael Millar were assigned to take PC James Northway to his home in Surrey after he had been injured in the afternoon. Millar drove Northway's car and Trinkwon followed in the Area Car. Just outside Hammersmith police station, Trinkwon was flagged down by a member of the public who drew his attention to a drunken man who had just fallen over.
Trinkwon got out of his car and called for assistance to deal with the man. Sergeant John O'Donnell drove a police transport carrier the 200 yards along Shepherds Bush Road to the scene and asked probationary officer, PC Paul Giles, to attend the incident with him.
Giles arrested the man for being drunk and incapable at 11.05pm and Trinkwon assisted him put the man in the carrier. O'Donnell remained in the carrier and took no part in the proceedings. Trinkwon followed the carrier back to the station in the area car and helped Giles take the man from the carrier to the Hammersmith custody suite. Trinkwon then immediately drove off to catch up Mellor and Northway. O'Donnell did not get out of the carrier at the station and immediately drove away after Giles and his prisoner got out.
Sergeant Peter Bleakley was the Hammersmith custody officer that night. Giles processed his prisoner and found a vaccination card in his possession containing his name, Patrick Quinn, and address. Giles checked the address and discovered that a man called Edward Marshall lived there. He then incorrectly checked the name in police records. He found the name of a Peter Edward Marshall and recorded that man's date of birth as belonging to Quinn, and identified Quinn as Marshall.
Giles placed Quinn in cell 5, known as "The Tank", on the floor on a mattress. At 11.50pm Giles took the force medical examiner, Dr Wilkes, to look at a head wound Quinn had to the back of his head. A half inch laceration to the back of the head was recorded and Quinn was declared fit to be detained.
In December 1990, Fulham police were also operating out of Hammersmith police station. Malcolm Kennedy was arrested at a relative's home by Fulham officer PC Anthony Mellor with PC Michael Carr in attendance at 00.45am, for being drunk and incapable. Kennedy's Aunt had called the police after a family argument.
Sergeant Edward Henery was the Fulham custody officer. He booked Kennedy into the station at 1.00am. Kennedy was searched by Mellor and Carr and then put in the Tank cell with Quinn.
At 1.30am Sergeant Bleakley made a routine check of all his prisoners. He entered the Tank and saw Kennedy sitting on the bench and Quinn asleep on the floor.
Henery set out to check his prisoners 15-20 minutes later. At 1.50am he looked into the Tank cell and saw Kennedy standing up without his shoes and coat on. Quinn was lying on his back in a pool of blood. Henery turned and shouted out to Bleakley "Did you know your prisoner is covered in blood?" before opening the cell.
Henery opened the cell door and asked Kennedy what had happened. Immediately behind him was Bleakley, with Sergeant O'Donnell and the duty inspector, Michael Dell. Kennedy did not answer Henery, and Henery arrested him for assaulting Quinn. Bleakley looked at Quinn and shouted out for Dr Wilkes before going to the communications room to call for an ambulance. O'Donnell and Dell removed a mattress from cell 3, so that Kennedy could be transferred to an empty cell. Dell then assisted Henery escort Kennedy to the cell, where they removed all of his clothes.
At about 1.50am, DC Sharon Wheatley, a Fulham detective, happened to call in at Hammersmith police station with PC Jeffrey Ives. O'Donnell immediately told Wheatley about the incident and she accompanied him to the Tank cell. Dr Wilkes pronounced Quinn dead at about 2.00am and then examined Kennedy.
Wheatley took charge of the situation, she ordered an officer to guard the Tank and keep a log of everybody entering the cell; she instructed Ives to seal Kennedy's clothes in a bag; she closed both the Hammersmith and Fulham custody suites; she took possession of Quinn and Kennedy's custody records and telephoned senior officers.
After examination by the doctor, Kennedy was transferred to cell 8.
At about 3.00am, DS Paul McAleenan, a Hammersmith detective, arrived at the station and as the senior CID officer present started preparing for a murder investigation.
At 3.30am, DI Philip Swinburne, a Hammersmith detective, arrived at the station and was appointed to investigate Quinn's death. At about 3.45am, Sergeant O'Donnell opened a custody record for Kennedy with regard to the Quinn murder charge and five minutes later, Quinn's body and the scene in the Tank cell were photographed. At 4.30am non intimate body samples were taken from Kennedy and intimate samples taken at 4.55am. At 6.15am forensic scientists started collecting evidence in the Tank.
Swinburne and McAleenan eventually interviewd Kennedy at 8.11am with a solicitor present. Kennedy denied assaulting Quinn in the interview and alleged a police officer assaulted Quinn and himself.
It was 9.30am, nearly eight hours after the alarm had been raised, before a pathologist entered the Tank cell.
A "sloppy" case...
The prosecution's case against Kennedy is that he was the only person in the cell with Quinn and he must have killed him. They have relied on forensic evidence - Kennedy's bloodied footprints on Quinn's clothing and blood spattered on Kennedy's trousers and shoes - to support their case. By way of motive, the only suggestion made by the prosecution was that Kennedy, mild mannered and inoffensive, was in debt and this caused his character to radically change.
Kennedy's case, on the other hand, is that Quinn was assaulted by police officers and he was was charged with murder as a scapegoat. The defence has relied on the discrepancies in the forensic evidence (blood inexplicably inside Kennedy's shoes, the absence of skin tissue and hair from his shoes and an injury which he could not have caused), irregularities in the police investigation and contradictions in the police's statements to support their case.
At Kennedy's appeal in February 1993, Counsel for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Timothy Langdale QC, admitted to the Court of Appeal that police officers were "sloppy and made mistakes" and contradicted each other in court. But he insisted this did not amount to a cover up. The prosecution has maintained throughout that a cover up is inconceivable because it would have required a conspiracy involving every Hammersmith police officer on duty that night.
All the officers in Hammersmith police station on the night of 23 December 1990 say it was a quiet and uneventful night, despite the exceptional incident in cell 5. A remarkable feature of this case are the poor accounts given by individual officers of where they were at specific times and what they were doing.
Anthony Trinkwon and Michael Millar
PCs Trinkwon and Millar started work at 10.45pm and were assigned to take PC Northway home. They left Northway's home after a cup of tea at about midnight (which was highly irregular because they were in Hammersmith's only Emergency Response Vehicle and out of radio contact) and arrived back in the Hammersmith area for patrol duties at about 00.30am. Their first recorded incident was dealing with criminal damage to a car at 1.10am. They returned to Hammersmith police station at 2.00am when they were informed of Quinn's death and that the custody suite was closed.
John O'Donnell
Sergeant O'Donnell was the section sergeant responsible for parading the night relief in the station at 10.45pm on 23 December. He responded to PC Trinkwon's call for assistance and took PC Paul Giles with him in a transport carrier. He did not get out of the carrier to help Giles and Trinkwon and did not deal with Quinn at all. After Quinn was taken from the carrier, O'Donnell drove away. O'Donnell cannot remember what he was doing between 11.15pm and 1.15am. He recalls being with Inspector Dell some of the time. He returned to the police station at 1.15am and was in the custody suite with Sergeant Bleakley and Inspector Dell when Sergeant Henery discovered Quinn's body. O'Donnell became Kennedy's custody officer at 3.46am and spent the rest of his shift in the police station. At 7.40am he started writing his statement with Dell, and booked four hours overtime; 6.45-10.00am.
Paul Giles
There is much dispute over PC Giles' movements that night. His activities have attracted the most attention because of the discrepancies in his account, records which contradict his story and the sheer incompetence he displayed. Giles maintains that after he arrested Quinn he remained involved with the case until 11.57 when he was writing notes after having taken Dr Wilkes to examine him at 11.50pm. (Dr. Wilkes cannot remember who the officer was who escorted him to see Quinn.) He claims he was on patrol with PC Emlyn Welsh when he went to answer an emergency 999 call at 12.50am and arrested Billy McKenzie, also known as Sharpe, for assaulting his girlfriend, Samantha Wilson. They returned to Hammersmith station at 1.05am and booked McKenzie in with the custody officer, Sergeant Bleakley. Giles looked into the Tank cell shortly after the discovery of Quinn's body and then commenced writing up notes of McKenzie's arrest.
Emlyn Welsh
PC Emlyn Welsh was rostered to work with PC Giles. He was due to start work at 10.30pm and arrived late at 11.00pm. This could explain why Sergeant O'Donnell and PC Giles went to assist PC Trinkwon with Quinn. Welsh's first recorded work incident was attending Riverside Studios at 11.25pm. Welsh recorded different times for dealing with the McKenzie incident with PC Giles, but maintains it was between midnight and 1.00am. Following his return to the station with Giles, he interviewed Samantha Wilson and Sarah Dennis about the assault, finishing at about 1.40am. He cannot remember what he was doing after 2.30am; he told Thames Valley Police complaints investigating officers that he was out on patrol, but retracted that evidence during the second retrial. He finished work at 8.00am and booked one hour overtime.
Anthony Mellor and Michael Carr
PCs Mellor and Carr were Fulham officers. At 00.40am they went to arrest Malcolm Kennedy and returned to the police station at 1.00am. Mellor was the arresting officer and wrote up his notes at 1.10am. At 1.15am, PCs Albert Robinson, Paul Crowley and Stephen Bull called briefly at the station having spent one hour and fifteen minutes dealing with a relatively minor incident. They left again with Carr in answer to an emergency call at 1.20am and returned to the station at 2.10am, when they were told about Quinn's death.
Peter Bleakley and Edward Henery
As Hammersmith and Fulham custody officers, these two sergeants were in the police station throughout the night. Bleakley was responsible for Quinn and Henery for Kennedy. The two sergeants were in the custody suite with Sergeant O'Donnell and Inspector Dell for the half hour leading upto the discovery of Quinn's body. They both continue their custody officer duties until Henery is relieved at 3.45am. He then wrote a statement about his arrest of Kennedy and added to it at 6.30am. Bleakley wrote a statement before he finished duty at 8.00am.
Michael Dell
Inspector Dell cannot remember what he was doing between parade at 10.45pm and 1.15pm when he was in the custody suite with sergeants O'Donnell, Bleakley and Henery. He was with Bleakley and O'Donnell when Henery discovered Quinn's body at 1.50am.
As the most senior officer on duty when Quinn's body was discovered, he should have taken charge of the situation. Instead, he helped O'Donnell empty a cell for Kennedy and stood by and watched while Henery gave Ives Kennedy's clothes. Dell wrote his statement in the canteen with O'Donnell at 7.40am and also booked four hours overtime.
With the exceptions of custody sergeants Bleakley and Henery, all of the officers involved in the arrests of Patrick Quinn and Malcolm Kennedy give poor accounts for their absence from the station at various times. Welsh was late for work; Millar and Trinkwon drank tea; O'Donnell and Dell could't remember where they were; Giles and Welsh contradict themselves over the time of McKenzie's arrest; nothing is known of Mellor and Carr's movements before they go to arrest Kennedy, and Carr leaves the station immediately after he was placed in the Tank; and other officers seemed to spend a lot of time on trivial matters.
In 1990, Christmas Day fell on a Tuesday and many work places closed on the Friday, allowing Christmas festivities to start early. On Sunday 23 December, did officers turn up late for work, or skive off duty to join families and friends for a Christmas drink, and then cover up for each other? Alternatively, this was the last shift this particular relief worked together before their Christmas break. Was there an officers' Christmas Party in the police station, and did officers fabricate accounts of their movements to cover this up? Was there indeed a conspiracy involving all the officers on duty in Hammersmith police station that night, as Langdale claimed must have been the case if what the defence was saying was true? Not to cover up a police assault on Kennedy, but to hide the fact that virtually every police officer had grossly neglected their duties?
Could this explain why so many police officers lost their notebooks that night? Their notebooks would have recorded what they had been doing. PC Welsh claimed that his notebook was hidden in his notebook holder for two years, and he had to endure humiliation in the Court of Appeal when he couldn't show how. Was all this to hide the fact he arrived for work 30 minutes late?
...or a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice?
Conspiracies, by their very definition are secretive, they only involve those who need to know and people who don't need to know are excluded. Contrary to being a quiet and uneventful night, as all the officers claimed, 23 December 1990 was exceptional for two reasons, it was Christmas time and a man was found dead in cell 5. Many officers might have covered up their pre-Christmas excesses, but as far as Quinn's death was concerned, they will have had very little to do with it. They did not need to know about a conspiracy and are probably unaware of one to this day.
Of equal significance to officers poor accounts of their movements is the behaviour of the officers, Sergeants Henery, Bleakley and O'Donnell and Inspector Dell, who were first on the scene. Henery takes immediate control of the situation by arresting Kennedy; Bleakley leaves the scene and calls an ambulance; O'Donnell draws DC Sharon Wheatley's attention to the situation and she takes overall charge while Dell watches. Also present in the custody area at that time were PCs Giles (Quinn's arresting officer), Mellor (Kennedy's arresting officer) and Welsh (Giles' partner). And Dr Wilkes was present. An equally feasible explanation for the absence of officers from the station between 1.00 and 2.00am is that some of the officers present in the station at that time were engaged in a conspiracy to cover up an assault on Quinn, and were keen for everybody else to be out of the way. The fact that Christmas excesses threw the whole situation into confusion, with every officer having to cover their own backs for one reason or another, was a perfect smokescreen for a conspiracy. In the cases of O'Donnell and Dell, more weight is added to this possibility considering their inability to account for their earlier movements and their finding time later to write their statements together.
We are not saying here that each of these seven officers were involved in the assault on Patrick Quinn, nor that they were equal co-conspirators. Our point is that on the police's own accounts, without considering the defence's case, and bearing in mind that police officers engage in conspiracies to cover up their crimes for various reasons, an equally valid reason for the inconsistencies in the police case is that it amounted to a cover up.
The prosecution's description of the police case as sloppy suggests that its weaknesses are inexplicable rather than amounting to police officers using Kennedy as a scapegoat to cover up their own crimes. If Patrick Quinn had died at any other time of the year, there would not have been a relatively innocent explanation for their "sloppiness and mistakes". Everybody knows that work slackens off at Christmas, we hold works parties, acquaintances drop by with a bottle and management is a bit more lenient. But police officers can never admit that Christmas celebrations interfere with their duties, i) for fear of disciplinary or even criminal charges and ii) admitting to being under the influence of alcohol would have seriously damaged the prosecution case. Officers were asked in court if they had indulged in pre-Christmas festivities, and this was denied. This placed the defence in a difficult position, they could not emphasise the Christmas issue because to do so would retract from its case that the inconsistencies amounted to a cover up, not drunkenness. This strengthened the prosecution's hand, without having to admit to dereliction of duty, they knew the jury would have to draw its own conclusions about what had been going on in the police station.
Juries have a duty to be sure beyond reasonable doubt to convict. For the juries at both trials to convict Kennedy, they must have decided that Christmas slackness was more likely to have been the reason for discrepancies in the police case, and dismissed the defence's case that the inconsistencies amounted to a cover up. But this is not a case proved beyond reasonable doubt. The juries must have disbelieved officers' denials that they had indulged in Christmas festivities, and decided on the balance of probabilites that this was the sole reason for the discrepancies and not the equally viable possibility that there was a cover up.
Discrepancies in the police evidence
The Patrick Quinn case is extremely complex; Malcolm Kennedy's second retrial lasted 11 weeks. We cannot hope to go through all of the evidence, nor can we describe all of the many irregular police practices that took place that night. Kennedy does not know who killed Quinn, and we do not claim to know. But we don't need to know and, by law, he did not need to prove he was innocent. All we intend to show in this pamphlet is that by looking at particular discrepancies in the police evidence, the way in which the police investigated Quinn's death and the manner in which the CPS conducted this prosecution, there must be reasonable doubt about the safety of Kennedy's conviction.
We look at four areas of concern:
· The arrest of Patrick Quinn
· PC Paul Giles movements
· Placing two prisoners in the Tank
· The discovery of the body.
The arrest of Patrick Quinn
PC Northway said that he left Hammersmith police station after 11.00pm with PC Millar, and PC Trinkwon following in the area car.
However, the computer aided despatch (CAD) readout puts PC Trinkwon's call for assistance to deal with Patrick Quinn at 10.49pm. This would normally be when the night relief is paraded by the section officer. That night it was Sergeant O'Donnell.
O'Donnell has given three different accounts of what he was doing when Trinkwon called for assistance. At the first trial, O'Donnell said in evidence he did not parade the relief that evening, but assisted PC Giles. Alternatively, he did not say anything in his first statement, written six hours after Quinn's death, about attending Quinn's arrest. In another statement written a month later, he said he was driving a police van with PC Giles when at 11.04pm he received a call to attend an incident in Shepherd's Bush Road. Giles supported O'Donnell's version at the first trial saying they learned about Quinn while still inside the police station.
O'Donnell said that he decided to take Giles with him to deal with the Quinn arrest because he was a probationer and needed the experience. But at the scene, O'Donnell said he did not supervise Giles, he remained in the vehicle and left everything to Trinkwon and Giles. He said he did not participate in Quinn's arrest or detention in any respect other than drive the vehicle. He has been unable to say anything about Quinn's arrest.
At 11.35pm, Giles wrote his first account of Quinn's arrest in the station Incident Report Book. He made no mention of Trinkwon or O'Donnell being present at Quinn's arrest.
Neither Trinkwon nor Giles have stated at any time that Quinn was troublesome. But Trinkwon found it necessary to drive the 200 yards back to the station and help Giles take Quinn into the custody suite, while O'Donnell watched. Some ten minutes later, Giles said he was able to place Quinn on a mattress on the floor in the Tank cell, without assistance. Unless Quinn was being aggressive, why did Trinkwon return to the station? Especially as he had already been delayed.
The CPS chose to ascribe these discrepancies to the passsage of time, and officers forgetting minor details when giving evidence. Giles was unable to remember much about what happened in the first trial, gave a bit more information at the Court of Appeal hearing and spent three days in the witness box at the first re-trial in Sptember 1993, and was not called at all for the second re-trial.
Later on that morning there was to be another twist in the story. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), requires that custody officers are not involved in any respect with the alleged offences of suspects, so that they can be relatively independent. Contrary to this rule, Superintendent Kelly appointed Sergeant O'Donnell as Kennedy's custody officer following his arrest by Henery for assaulting Patrick Quinn. Why didn't O'Donnell inform Kelly that his attendance at Quinn's arrest disqualified him? Moreover, why didn't O'Donnell refer to his attendance at Quinn's arrest in his notes, written with Inspector Dell at 7.40am.
If that wasn't enough, PC Millar took four days sickness leave after completing his shift, and when he returned to work he had made the effort to have his trousers dry cleaned over the Christmas period.
One of the questions to be asked about the arrest of Quinn is - was he arrested by Giles, or someone else? And, what were O'Donnell, Trinkwon and Millar up to, that caused them to disappear for so long after the event? Finally, by the end of the night relief, it is clear that officers did not manage to get the time to sit down and write their notes together. Were some officers still working out who to say was involved in Quinn's arrest? It would certainly appear so.
PC Paul Giles' movements
All of the Hammersmith and Fulham police officers accounts of what they were doing on the night of 23 December 1990 are significant. The evidence of PC Paul Giles is of crucial importance - i) records show he was the principal police officer dealing with Quinn between 11.05pm when he arrested him, and 11.57pm when he was writing up his notes after having taken Dr Wilkes to examine his head wound and ii) evidence contradicts his claim to have attended Samantha Wilson's home to arrest Billy McKenzie after midnight on the morning of 24 December 1990.
At the first trial in September 1991, Kennedy's defence knew of Billy McKenzie's arrest. But according to police records he had been arrested on 24 December and little attention was paid to the incident. The defence were also aware that Samantha Wilson and her friend, Sarah Dennis, were being interviewed in the station by PC Welsh between prior to 1.40am. Wilson and Dennis's statements were not disclosed by the CPS to the defence and they were unable to trace the two women to interview them before the trial.
Granada Television's World in Action documentary programme worked closely with Kennedy's legal representative, Tim Cooke of Powell Spencer and Partners, following his murder conviction. They managed to trace Wilson and Dennis who featured in a programme broadcast on 27 April 1992.
According to Wilson and Dennis, McKenzie returned to Wilson's Hammersmith home from the pub at about 11.30pm and a fight broke out almost immediately. The two women then walked to a public phone and dialled 999. Giles and Welsh arrived within 10 minutes and arrested McKenzie for assaulting Wilson after 5-10 minutes.
Welsh took these details from Wilson and Dennis in an interview within two hours. If their timings had been out by an hour he would have corrected their statements. Other evidence supports Wilson and Dennis's accounts. Most importantly the Crime Report Sheet on the incident, completed by Welsh, records Wilson's 999 call at 11.30pm and police attending at 11.50pm. The Domestic Violence Log records the incident as having happened at 11.20pm, which corresponds with the 11.30pm 999 call.
Police evidence which contradicts these timings was i) Giles maintains he took Dr Wilkes to see Quinn at 11.50pm, supported by Sergeant Bleakley's statement (although Wilkes did not record who it was, and cannot remember if it was Giles), and was writing his notes at 11.57pm, ii) Giles recorded the McKenzie incident at 00.50am in his notebook, countersigned as an accurate record by Welsh, iii) McKenzie's custody record was opened by Bleakley at 1.05am and confirmed the later times and iv) the CAD printout, which was lost for three years until it dramatically reappeared in the first retrial; to which we return later.
These contradictions in the police's evidence, and the additional evidence provided by Wilson and Dennis, were the main reasons for the Court of Appeal ordering a retrial in February 1993. The judgement, delivered by Lord Chief Justice Taylor stated "we consider the whole of the evidence, including the further material we have received, merits the consideration of a fresh jury."
Giles and Welsh were directly implicated by these inconsistencies in the police's evidence. Where was Giles? Was he dealing with Quinn or McKenzie? Why did Welsh record different times for the McKenzie incident? Was there an incident in the station which Giles and Welsh wanted to distance themselves from?
The defence's discovery of Giles' discrepancies had even greater significance than securing a retrial. Mindful of the need to show a motive for a police assault on Patrick Quinn, the defence took a closer look at PC Giles and discovered he had strong anti-Irish republican views and a history of violence.
Placing two prisoners in the Tank
In December 1990, Hammersmith and Fulham police officers were operating out of Hammersmith police station. With two separate custody suites there was bound to be some confusion.
There are nine cells in the station. Cell 5. the Tank, is the largest and furthest away from the two custody suites (see plan). Metropolitan Police guidelines state that prisoners should be placed in separate cells whenever practically possible.
Quinn's custody record, filled in by the Hammersmith custody officer, Sergeant Bleakley, states he was put in the cells at 11.15pm, it does not say who by. In a statement, written some time later, he said it was PC Giles. According to Giles, he placed Quinn in the Tank on a mattress on the floor. He has been unable to explain how he managed to do this on his own. Particularly as he required PC Trinkwon's assistance to take Quinn to the custody suite and he stated "he [Quinn] could not stand on his feet."
Giles says he chalked Quinn's name on the board beside the cell door and wrote the details again on the board at the end of the cell passage in the Hammersmith custody suite.
At 11.38pm, Nigel Mills, who had also been arrested for drunkenness, by Fulham officers, was placed in a cell on his own.
Kennedy was brought into the Fulham custody suite by PCs Anthony Mellor and Michael Carr at 1.05am and presented to Sergeant Henery. All three officers describe him as a difficult and unco-operative prisoner who threatened to sue the police. However, it only took three minutes for Henery to record his details and belongings in the custody record, for Mellor and Carr to search him and place him in a cell at 1.08am, and by 1.10am Mellor was writing up his notes.
Kennedy maintains that his six foot long woollen scarf and heavy stainless steel Seiko wristwatch were taken from him. A custody sergeant would certainly be expected to retain all possessions which could be used to cause injury, particularly if a prisoner was unco-operative. And Henery stated at trial that he did remove Kennedy's property for this reason, but he did not itemise them in the custody record, and he said on oath he allowed Kennedy to keep his scarf and watch, both of which were capable of causing injury.
Mellor and Carr made their notes about Kennedy's arrest separately. They both claim not to have seen Quinn, a big man, on a mattress on the floor in the Tank. Kennedy himself says he did not see Quinn and went straight to sleep on the bench. Mellor claimed to look in the cell and push Kennedy in; Carr wrote Kennedy's name on the blackboard outside, we assume beside Quinn's name. It was only when Mellor saw the board at the end of the cell passage, with another prisoner entered in the Tank, that he realised there was somebody in there but he did nothing about it.
Mellor and Carr do not say anything in their statements about Kennedy's scarf. But they have both said in evidence that his scarf was thrown in the cell after him.
Kennedy's scarf was later photographed draped over Quinn's body and his bloodied watch was on the floor beside him, resting in its "display" position. Both Mellor and Carr made statements identifying the watch as the same one that Kennedy was wearing when they searched him.
Why these discrepancies over a simple mistake like putting two men in the same cell? The imagination can run wild in search of explanations. Was Giles Quinn's arresting officer? Did Giles place Quinn in the tank on his own? Was Giles somewhere else when he claimed he was with Dr Wilkes examining Quinn in the Tank at 11.50pm? Did Wilkes examine Quinn? Was Quinn in the Tank when Kennedy was pushed in? Was Quinn placed in the Tank after Kennedy, and was this the sound of banging doors which Kennedy said disturbed his sleep? Had Kennedy been singled out as a scapegoat for injuries to Quinn before he had been put in the Tank? Were Kennedy's scarf and watch added to the scene as an afterthought by officers?
Discovery of the body
All of the police officers on duty that night maintain it was a quiet and unevenful night. Sergeant Bleakley checked the cells, including the Tank, at 1.30am and reported everything normal. Dr Wilkes examined Samantha Wilson in the surgeon's room, which is two doors from the Tank, at about 1.40am, and neither heard anything untoward. No incidents were reported before Sergeant Henery went on his rounds at about 1.50am.
The police maintain that Quinn's body was discovered at 1.50am by Sergeant Henery, with Sergeants Bleakley and O'Donnell and Inspector Dell in close pursuit.
At the time of the first trial, Kennedy's defence did not have the details of Samantha Wilson's interview by PC Welsh.
At the Court of Appeal hearing in February 1993, Welsh said in evidence that while he was interviewing Wilson, "There was a knock on the interview room door and Sergeant Bleakley told me there had been an incident in the custody suite." That must have been before 1.40am. Bleakley flatly contradicted Welsh by asserting "I deny ever entering the interview room. I did not know about the death until after the body was discovered at 1.50am."
On the basis of this conflicting evidence, Michael Mansfield QC, Kennedy's counsel, asked the Court to quash the murder conviction. They declined to do this and ordered a retrial.
Samantha Wilson also remembers an interruption when she and Sarah Dennis were being interviewed. She said that PC Giles came into the interview room, probably sometime between 00.30am and 1.00am. After a whispered discussion, Welsh told them there was a problem in the station and he left with Giles. When he returned he was no longer wearing his tunic and hurriedly completed the interview.
The time of the discovery of Quinn's body is extremely important to this case. The police claim it was at 1.50pm. The defence claim it must have been earlier and officers bought some time to put a cover up into operation. Contrary to police claims that there were no incidents in the station that night, all of the prisoners held in custody say there was. Responsibility for sifting through this conflicting evidence rested with DI Philip Swinburne in charge of the Quinn murder investigation. In Chapter 4 we look at how the police investigation progressed and the conduct of the CPS.
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