Paul Blackburn
Paul Blackburn was convicted of attempted rape and attempted murder of a 9 year old boy. There were numerous descriptions of the attacker (although note these did not match Blackburn). When Blackburn was first interviewed by police (at 15 years old), he stated that he had been home all afternoon on the day of the attack. Nearly three weeks later he was interviewed again with no family or solicitor. Later he was interviewed under caution and confessed. He wrote out a statement admitting the offence and the officers claimed he wrote this uninterupted and independently. On appeal, evidence was presented from linguistics experts who stated that it cannot be the case that Blackburn wrote the confession independently. This meant Blackburn’s admissions were wrongly admitted into evidence, and the officers had lied on oath. On this basis the conviction was found to be unsafe and was quashed.
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- Jurisdiction: England & Wales
- County: Greater Manchester
- Ethnicity: White
- Gender: M
- Years in prison: 25
- Offence convicted of: Attempted Murder, Attempted Rape
- Year of crime: 1978
- Year of initial conviction: 1978
- Year conviction was overturned: 2005
- Age when imprisoned: 15
- CCRC Referral: Y
- Tried with others: N
- Link to full case: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2005/1349.html
- Type of fresh evidence at appeal: Evidence undermining the reliability of a confession
- Compensation: Yes
- Link to compensation: https://mojoscotland.org/paul-blackburn-still-no-apology/
- Crown argued case at CofA: Yes
- Retrial: No
- Previous appeals: Application for leave to appeal dismissed in 1978 and 1981. In 1996 the Secretary of State refused to refer the case to the Court of Appeal