The watchdog that examines potential miscarriages of justice has “unimpressive” leadership and is “incompetent”, said its new chair as she takes up her role.
Dame Vera Baird has been appointed to head up the Criminal Case Review Commission (CCRC), which currently has serial child killer Lucy Letby’s appeal in its inbox.
The CCRC is an independent public body that reviews possible miscarriages of justice in the criminal courts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland and refers cases to the appeal courts.
The commission has had four critical reviews in the last 10 years, which Dame Vera said “all find the same thing”.
Speaking to Sky News after her appointment was announced, she said: “They don’t communicate with applicants, are reluctant to challenge the Court of Appeal, they look for reasons not to refer rather than to refer and are quite often incompetent.”
Dame Vera is now charged with turning things around. She cites the example of Andrew Malkinson who was wrongly convicted of rape and spent 17 years in jail, when for most of that time DNA evidence had emerged that could have cleared his name.
He had applied three times to the CCRC but was rejected twice on cost-benefit grounds.
It’s one of several cases leading to calls for “root and branch” reform of the CCRC from the Justice Committee, which said the watchdog “has shown a remarkable inability to learn from its own mistakes”.
An inquiry by Chris Henley KC also found that case workers missed multiple opportunities to help Malkinson.
The previous chair, Helen Pitcher, was forced to resign in January and chief executive Karen Kneller told the committee of MPs they needed a strong replacement.
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Ms Kneller said in April: “We don’t have that figurehead and without that figurehead I think it is difficult for the organisation.”
But that replacement did not think much of her evidence to MPs.
“I didn’t find her impressive,” said Dame Vera, who will be meeting her new colleague next week.
“I was really quite concerned about, first of all, the kind of fairly sketchy way in which she even allowed that they got it wrong in Malkinson, and these assertions that she was sorry that people only judged them by the mistakes, and they all took them very seriously, but actually they were otherwise doing a very good job.
“My fear is that the attitude in the case of Malkinson and others, points to there being an attitude that’s not positive, that’s not mission-driven, that is not go-getter in other cases. So, are they getting it done properly?”
A month later, a committee of MPs said Ms Kneller’s position was no longer tenable.
Committee chairman Andy Slaughter said: “As a result of our concerns regarding the performance of the CCRC and the unpersuasive evidence Karen Kneller provided to the committee, we no longer feel that it is tenable for her to continue as chief executive of the CCRC.”
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In February, the CCRC received an application from Lucy Letby, the former nurse convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others. It’s a high-profile, complex case, arriving at a significant moment of flux.
Asked if she thought the CCRC could deal with it, Dame Vera said: “Remember I’m quite new to it. It will need complexity. It will need a team. It will need the readiness to commission reports, I would guess from what’s been said about the lack of scientific value in some of the things that were asserted.
“So it’s going to be a very complex task.”
In the Baird Inquiry into Greater Manchester Police last year, Dame Vera strongly criticised the force. She has a reputation for exposing hard truths to institutions, but now she is the institution. She will need to drive the changes.
