Stock, Anthony (1/2)

Mr Stock was convicted of robbery on 17 July 1970 at Leeds Assizes and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The prosecution case was that Mr Stock and three others had attacked employees of the Tesco store in the Merrion Centre in Leeds with iron bars, and stolen over £4,000 that was being taken to a night safe.

In February 1971 Mr Stock’s first appeal against conviction was dismissed. His application for leave to appeal to the House of Lords was refused later in 1971 and in 1974, the European Commission of Human Rights decided that Mr Stock’s application under the European Convention on Human Rights was inadmissible.

In March 1979, following the confession of a police informant to the same robbery, the Home Office asked police to make enquiries as to the safety of Mr Stock’s conviction. Following receipt of the police report in 1981, the Home Secretary decided not to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.

However, 10 years later, Mr Stock’s application to the Home Secretary was renewed and the case was referred back to the Court of Appeal. Mr Stock’s second appeal against conviction was dismissed in July 1996.

In January 1998 Mr Stock applied to the CCRC and his conviction was referred back to the Court of Appeal.

The CCRC’s investigation raised a number of significant issues. The most important of these was what the CCRC considered to be the unfairness caused to the trial process arising from the police’s failure to follow the correct procedures relating to identification.

This included the showing of photographs to the main identification witnesses and the police’s failure to disclose relevant witness statements to the defence.

The CCRC referred the conviction in July 2003.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in July 2004.