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Richardson, Colin

Published:

Colin Richardson James and his co-defendants, John Melnichenko and David James, were convicted on 19 September 1986 at Nottingham Crown Court of grievous bodily harm with intent. Mr James was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, Mr Melnichenko and Mr Richardson to eight years’ youth custody each.

The CCRC referred the case of another co-defendant, Alan Richardson, to the Court of Appeal in 2003. His conviction was quashed in June 2004.

The prosecution case against the four was that they had attacked a British Transport Police Constable in the early hours of 26th October 1985 when he disturbed them as they tried to break into a warehouse.

The youths were arrested on 31 October 1985 and taken to Radford Road Police Station, Nottingham. They were all aged 17-20 at the time of detention.

Mr Richardson had been detained for 43 hours and 31 minutes between his arrest and charge, being interviewed on nine separate occasions without a solicitor or other appropriate adult present.

The main prosecution evidence against them consisted of confessions, given during interviews at the police station, which they later retracted once they were allowed to consult a solicitor on 2 November.

Mr James applied for leave to appeal against both conviction and sentence but abandoned his appeal in March 1987 on the advice of counsel. Mr Melnichenko and Mr Colin Richardson did not appeal against their convictions.

Mr James applied to the CCRC in February 2005 for a review of his conviction, with Mr Richardson and Mr Melnichenko applying in March 2005.

Having considered whether the confessions should have been excluded (applying contemporary standards of fairness) and the lack of an alibi direction by the judge, the CCRC referred the convictions of the three men to the Court of Appeal in January 2008.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in July 2008.