Rowe, Raphael

Raphael Rowe was convicted in February 1990 of robbery, causing grievous bodily harm and murder. Mr Rowe received a sentence of life imprisonment.

Mr Rowe was convicted alongside his co-defendants, Michael Davis and Randolph Johnson.

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

Following investigation, the CCRC concluded that the prosecuting authorities had failed to disclose significant material to the defence.

This included information that a key prosecution witness had been a police informant.

If this had been disclosed, there was a real possibility it would have led the jury to reach a different verdict.

By the time of Mr Rowe’s first appeal the case of R v Judith Ward had been decided.

In Judith Ward, the court ruled that all “Public Interest Immunity” claims asserted by the prosecution (used as justification for withholding the information) should be considered by the trial judge.

In the case of Mr Rowe and his co-defendants, the prosecution had withheld material without recourse to the judge.

The CCRC referred the conviction in April 1999.

By the time of the second appeal, following the CCRC’s reference, two of the appellants had received a ruling at the European Court of Human Rights that their right to a fair trial under Article 6(1) of the Convention on Human Rights had been violated due to “the unfairness caused at the trial by the absence of any scrutiny of the withheld information by the trial judge.”

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in June 2000.