Foran, Martin

Martin Foran was convicted in June 1978 of four counts of burglary and received a sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in January 2013.

In 1977 and 1978, Mr Foran was questioned by officers of West Midlands Police Serious Crime Squad over a number of robberies. Officers later gave evidence that Mr Foran had made verbal admissions to the offences, something which he denied at trial.

On two of the counts there was some identification evidence against Mr Foran, although this was relatively weak. On the remaining two counts Mr Foran was convicted solely on the evidence of the officers who had interviewed him under caution.

The CCRC’s review centred upon the reliability of the verbal admissions said to have been made by Mr Foran in relation to these counts, and thus upon the credibility of the police officers who gave evidence that he had done so.

Two of the interviewing officers, both members of the Serious Crime Squad, were subsequently the subject of criticism by the Court of Appeal in other cases.

One of the officers also had two disciplinary findings against him, one of which was for falsehood. All of these matters were unavailable at the time of Mr Foran’s trial and appeal.

The CCRC therefore considered that there was a real possibility the Court of Appeal would consider the conviction unsafe on the basis of this new information.

The CCRC referred the case in January 2014.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in October 2014.