Charles Edwin Clarke

Charles Clarke was convicted alongside co-defendants of conspiracy to cause GBH to two London gangland figures. According to police, co-defendants had made incriminating remarks. A prisoner also provided evidence that Clarke’s co-defendants had confessed to him. On appeal, it was shown that interview notes were not checked for accuracy with the defendants and that one of the key interviews could not have been recorded in the time and manner claimed. The Court found that this information would have caused jurors to look more closely at evidence from other interviews too, and so all convictions were found to be unsafe. The prison informant also retracted his evidence, but this was not key since the confession would not have been sufficient evidence without police interview evidence in any case.