Yam, Wang

Wang Yam was convicted for the murder of Allen Chappelow in Hampstead, London in 2007.

Mr Yam pleaded not guilty to murder and to related charges of burglary, theft, handling stolen property and obtaining a money transfer by deception.

He was convicted in March/April 2008 of handling stolen property, obtaining a money transfer by deception and theft; the jury were unable to reach a verdict on charges of murder and burglary.

Following a retrial, Mr Yam was convicted of murder and burglary and, on 29 January 2009, he was sentenced for all convictions to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years.

Mr Yam appealed against his convictions and sentence in 2010. The handling stolen goods conviction was quashed but the appeals in relation to the other convictions were dismissed. Mr Yam also pursued proceedings in the Supreme Court and in the European Court of Human Rights.

He applied to the CCCRC for a review of his conviction in July 2012.

Having conducted a comprehensive investigation of the case, the CCRC decided to refer Mr Yam’s murder conviction to the Court of Appeal because it concluded there was a real possibility the Court would find the conviction unsafe.

The referral was based on new evidence relating to the failure by police to reveal to the Crown Prosecution Service, and consequently to deprive Mr Yam’s defence of, material which might have assisted the defence and/or undermined the prosecution case.

The material in question related to police records about an incident which took place near to, and within months of, Mr Chappelow’s murder in which someone was threatened in circumstances with features relevant to the case against Mr Yam.

The incident arguably could have formed the basis for the defence to propose the existence of an alternative suspect.

The existence of the incident first came to light as a result of an article that appeared in The Guardian newspaper in January 2014. The CCRC subsequently found that police records of the incident were not made available to the defence during the disclosure process.

The CCRC referred the murder conviction in April 2016.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in September 2017.