Knapp, Robert

Robert Knapp was convicted on 19 July 2002 at the Central Criminal Court of the murder of Mohammed Raja in July 1999.  He received a sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years.  

The prosecution’s case was that Mr Knapp had been one of two men who had gone to Mr Raja’s home and committed the murder. 

Mr Knapp’s application for leave to appeal his conviction was refused by the Court of Appeal in October 2003.  He applied to the CCRC in February 2020.

The issue of whether the alternative verdict of manslaughter should be left to the jury was considered by Mr Knapp’s trial judge and raised on appeal.  

However, new case law raised a real possibility that the Court of Appeal would consider that manslaughter should have been an available verdict in this case and that, since it was not, the conviction of murder was unsafe.

The CCRC referred the conviction in December 2025.