Brown, Robert

Robert Brown was convicted in October 1977 of murder and received a sentence of life imprisonment.

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

The conviction had been based primarily on a confession statement.

Mr Brown’s position at trial was that the confession (which was not tape recorded) was never made and that it had been written by police officers and not, as the police had alleged, dictated by Mr Brown.

During review, the CCRC obtained new expert linguistic analysis which indicated that the confession statement had been produced, at least in part, by a process of question and answer before being converted into a monologue.

This significantly undermined the police’s account of the interview.

In addition, the CCRC found that one of the police officers involved in the case had been later convicted of perverting the course of justice as a result of misconduct, undermining that officer’s credibility.

There had also been non-disclosure to the defence of a significant forensic report which linked a clothing fibre from the victim’s body with another individual.

A witness had previously picked this other individual out as the culprit in an identification parade.

The CCRC referred the conviction in June 2002.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in November 2002.