Michael Brown

Michael Brown, Anthony Taylor, and Kevin Martin were convicted of robbery of a London jewelery shop, and immobilizing the store owner with a stun gun. Security camera footage revealed three men carrting out the raid. The men were in and out in about 90 seconds, used a stun gun on the owner and escaped with property worth about £6,000. Police officers recognised the defendant’s after they appeared on Crimestoppers. The shop owner and assistant attended identification parages and the shop owner picked out Taylor and Brown (the assistant also picked out Taylor and Brown but the Crown had to abandon his evidence when he had to concede that from where he was he could not have seen the robber that the Crown alleged was Taylor). Nine months after the robbery, a stun gun was found in Martin’s house. He claimed it had been planted there. A palm print of Martin’s was also lifted from the shop despite him saying he had never been there. On appeal, new material was available showing corruption in the police force that carried out the investigation. The court concluded that the jury would not necessarily have reached the same conclusions had the new material been known to them, and allowed the appeal.

View Press (www.theguardian.com)