Maynard, Robert

Robert Maynard was convicted in June 1977 of murder and received a sentence of life imprisonment.

The CCRC inherited an application for review of the conviction from the Home Office in March 1997.

Mr Maynard had been convicted on the basis of both disputed confession evidence and the evidence of a criminal associate.

The senior investigating police officer had chosen to make a full verbatim written (rather than tape-recorded) record of Mr Maynard’s interviews to assure their authenticity.

Mr Maynard and one of his co-defendants (Reginald Dudley, another CCRC referral) claimed that these interview records had been falsified.

During review, the CCRC obtained new expert handwriting evidence which indicated that it would have been a physical impossibility for any person to have written a verbatim account of the interviews in which the defendants were said to have confessed over the time that those interviews were said to have lasted.

In addition, the CCRC interviewed the associate who had provided evidence against Mr Dudley at trial.

The associate retracted his evidence against both Mr Maynard and Mr Dudley.

The CCRC referred the conviction in June 2000.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in May 2002.