Foster, Geoffrey

Geoffrey Foster was convicted in April 1986 of murder and received a sentence of life imprisonment.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in September 1997.

Over the course of six days, Mr Foster had been interviewed by police ten times without the support of a legal advisor or appropriate adult.

A social worker was allowed to see Mr Foster at his final interview, after he had intimated to police officers that he was prepared to make a confession statement.

The social worker’s statement to the CCRC strongly suggested that they had been brought in to “validate” the confession rather than to give any support or advice to the suspect.

Mr Foster retracted his confession shortly after it was made.

During review, the CCRC obtained new expert psychiatric evidence indicating that Mr Foster would have been vulnerable in police interview.

There were therefore significant concerns around the reliability of the confession evidence presented at trial.

The CCRC also considered that there had been breaches of the Judges’ Rules.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 was in force by the time of trial and it would have been open to Mr Foster’s counsel to apply for exclusion of the police interview evidence.

No such application was made when, applying the statute, it should have been.

The CCRC referred the conviction in November 2000.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in November 2002.