Sam Hallam

Last updated

Sam Hallam (born 1987), from Hoxton, London, [1] is one of the youngest victims of a UK miscarriage of justice after an appeal court quashed his murder conviction in 2012. [2]

Contents

Background

In 2004, aged 17, Hallam had been sentenced to serve a minimum of 12 years in prison for the murder of a trainee chef, Essayas Kassahun, during a street brawl in Old Street. [3]

Two witnesses claimed to have seen him at the scene, but their evidence was unreliable, with one witness attempting to go back on his statement in court, and another saying, "I just wanted someone to blame on the spot, really." No other evidence, forensic or otherwise, existed to link him to the scene, and Hallam always maintained he was not there, although he had no alibi to prove it. [4]

The campaign

Friends and family of Hallam asked veteran human-rights campaigner Paul May to set up a campaign to prove his innocence. [4] May mounted a legal appeal for Hallam and arranged numerous events and media interviews to publicise the case. [4] [5]

Actor Ray Winstone presented a TV documentary which was screened in 2010 which outlined the flaws in the case against Hallam [6]

Playwright Tess Berry-Hart created a verbatim theatre play Someone To Blame as part of the campaign to raise awareness of the case. [4] Directed by David Mercatali, the play used verbatim court transcripts, witness testimony and first-person interviews from the original case and ran at the King's Head Theatre Islington in February 2012. [7] [8] [9]

First appeal

In 2007, there was a failed appeal with the judges holding that the evidence of the witnesses could still be relied upon. The case was then referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which spent three years examining his case. Thames Valley Police was instructed on their behalf to examine the original Metropolitan Police investigation. [10] Based on their findings, the case was sent back to the Court of Appeal. [11]

Second appeal

In May 2012 after only three hours hearing, the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to defend the conviction, and the three judges led by Lady Justice Hallett granted temporary bail. Hallam walked out the front doors of the Court of Appeal and was drenched in champagne. [12] The next day, Hallam attended court with his mother, Wendy Cohen, to hear his murder conviction formally overturned. [13]

After Hallam's release, Someone To Blame was updated for a weekend run at the King's Head to celebrate his freedom. [14] [15] Hallam's father and grandmother had both died while he was imprisoned. [16]

Later events

Hallam launched a legal challenge in January 2015 challenging the law that prevents him from receiving compensation for the years he wrongly spent in prison. [17] The case was unsuccessful, causing a debate over whether the UK compensation system was incompatible with the presumption of innocence. [18]

In July 2023 Hallam took his case for compensation for wrongful imprisonment to the European Court of Human Rights. The judgment is expected to be heard some time in 2024. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were the collective names of two groups of people, mostly Irish, who were wrongly convicted in English courts in 1975 and 1976 for the Guildford pub bombings of 5 October 1974, and the Woolwich pub bombing of 7 November 1974. All the convictions were eventually quashed after long campaigns for justice, and the cases, along with those of the Birmingham Six, shattered public confidence in the integrity of the English criminal justice system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miscarriage of justice</span> Conviction of a person for a crime that they did not commit

A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.

Barry Michael George is an English man who was found guilty of the murder of English television presenter Jill Dando and whose conviction was overturned on appeal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Cannings</span> British woman, wrongfully convicted of murder

Angela Cannings was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the UK in 2002 for the murder of her seven-week-old son, Jason, who died in 1991, and of her 18-week-old son Matthew, who died in 1999. Her first child, Gemma, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in 1989 at the age of 13 weeks, although she was never charged in connection with Gemma's death.

David Harold Eastman is a former public servant from Canberra, Australia. In 1995, he was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. A 2014 judicial inquiry recommended the sentence be quashed and he should be pardoned. On 22 August of the same year, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory quashed the conviction, released Eastman from prison, and ordered a retrial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather Hallett, Baroness Hallett</span> English judge (born 1949)

Heather Carol Hallett, Baroness Hallett,, is a retired English judge of the Court of Appeal and a crossbench life peer. The first woman to chair the Bar Council and the fifth woman to sit in the Court of Appeal, Hallett led the independent inquest into the 7/7 bombings. In April 2019, she was appointed Chair of the Security Vettings Appeal Panel. In December 2021, she was announced as the chair of the public inquiry into the UK Government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. On 29 June 2022, the Government accepted Baroness Hallett's proposed terms of reference for the inquiry, with minor changes suggested by the devolved administrations.

Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Cases of wrongful execution are cited as an argument by opponents of capital punishment, while proponents say that the argument of innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.

Tess Berry-Hart is a British playwright and novelist writing for adults, young adults and children. Novels and theatre plays deal with themes such as the European migrant crisis, LGBT rights, mental illness, genetic engineering, and the sex-positive movement. Berry-Hart has also written fiction and verbatim theatre pieces for stage to support human rights campaigns and to raise funds for the refugee crisis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Teresa De Simone</span> 1979 murder of an English woman

Teresa Elena De Simone was murdered in Southampton, England, in 1979. Her murder led to one of the longest proven cases of a miscarriage of justice in English legal history. The murder occurred outside the Tom Tackle pub and was the subject of a three-year police investigation which resulted in the arrest of Sean Hodgson. Hodgson was convicted of the murder by a unanimous jury verdict in 1982 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. After serving 27 years in prison he was exonerated and released in March 2009. DNA analysis of semen samples that had been preserved from the original crime scene showed that they could not have come from him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Linda Cook</span> 1986 murder in Portsmouth, England

The murder of Linda Cook was committed in Portsmouth on 9 December 1986. The subsequent trial led to a miscarriage of justice when Michael Shirley, an 18-year-old Royal Navy sailor, was wrongly convicted of the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1992 his case was highlighted as one of 110 possible miscarriages of justice in a report presented to the Home Office by the National Association of Probation Officers and justice groups Liberty and Conviction. His conviction was eventually quashed in 2003 by the Court of Appeal after the DNA profile extracted from semen samples recovered from the victim's body was proven not to be his. Cook's murder took place shortly after six sexual assaults had been committed in the Buckland area of the city, and the killer was initially dubbed the Beast of Buckland by the news media. When police revealed that footprint evidence had been recovered and launched a search for matching shoes, the case became known as the "Cinderella murder". Because of the brutal nature of the murder and the preceding sex attacks, Hampshire police were under public pressure to quickly make an arrest.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in Canada.

The innocent prisoner's dilemma, or parole deal, is a detrimental effect of a legal system in which admission of guilt can result in reduced sentences or early parole. When an innocent person is wrongly convicted of a crime, legal systems which need the individual to admit guilt — as, for example, a prerequisite step leading to parole — punish an innocent person for their integrity, and reward a person lacking in integrity. There have been cases where innocent prisoners were given the choice between freedom, in exchange for claiming guilt, and remaining imprisoned and telling the truth. Individuals have died in prison rather than admit to crimes that they did not commit.

Andrew Evans is an English soldier from Longton, Staffordshire who was wrongfully convicted and served 25 years in jail after confessing to the 1972 murder of Judith Roberts, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from a village close to the northern outskirts of nearby Tamworth. Evans was stationed at Whittington Barracks near Lichfield – an army base in close proximity to Tamworth – when Judith was dragged from her bicycle and battered to death in June 1972. He later confessed to the crime after seeing the girl's face in a dream.

Robert Brown is a Scottish man who spent 25 years in jail for a crime he did not commit, the murder of worker Annie Welsh.

The New Zealand Criminal Cases Review Commission is an independent Crown entity that was set up under the Criminal Cases Review Commission Act 2019 to investigate potential miscarriages of justice. If the Commission considers a miscarriage may have occurred, it can refer the case back to the Court of Appeal to be reconsidered.

Andrew Malkinson is a British man who was wrongfully convicted and jailed in 2003 for the rape of a 33-year-old woman in Salford, Greater Manchester.

Alan Hall was convicted of murdering 52 year old Arthur Easton in 1985 in what has been described as one of New Zealand's worst miscarriages of justice. In August 2023, the Government agreed to pay him $5 million in compensation, the largest payout for wrongful conviction in New Zealand history.

Simon Hall was a British murderer who was the subject of a lengthy campaign by miscarriage of justice activists to overturn his conviction, only for him to go on to confess to the murder he was convicted of. Hall stabbed 79-year-old pensioner Joan Albert to death in her home in Capel St Mary, Suffolk in 2001, and was convicted of her murder two years later. Subsequently, the high-profile miscarriage of justice programme Rough Justice took up his case and aired a programme campaigning for him. Several MPs, Bristol University's 'Innocence Project' campaign group, his mother and his girlfriend Stephanie Hall were also involved in campaigning for him, and the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred his case to the Court of Appeal in 2009. However, the appeal court dismissed the appeal and he subsequently confessed his crime to prison authorities in 2013, before committing suicide in prison in 2014. His case was said to have gravely undermined the claims of many prisoners who claim their innocence and embarrassed miscarriage of justice activists, having proved that they had campaigned for a guilty man.

References

  1. ↑ "I need time to recover from the last seven years": Man Jailed for Murder has Conviction Quashed, independent.co.uk. Accessed 5 December 2022.
  2. ↑ Sandra Laville (16 May 2012). "Sam Hallam released after seven years in prison". The Guardian.
  3. ↑ "Sam Hallam murder conviction finally quashed after seven years in prison". The Daily Telegraph. 17 May 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Sandra Laville (16 May 2012). "How a community's outcry led to campaign for justice for Sam Hallam". The Guardian.
  5. ↑ Sam Hallam- Young. Innocent and inside GMTV. YouTube. 20 April 2011.
  6. ↑ Sam Hallam Part One. YouTube. 20 April 2011.
  7. ↑ "Someone to Blame". WhatsOnStage.com. 26 March 2012.
  8. ↑ "News, comment and reviews from the Hackney Citizen – hackneycitizen.co.uk". Hackney Citizen. 16 March 2011.
  9. ↑ "Play probes 'miscarriage of justice'". islingtonnow.co.uk. 7 March 2012.
  10. ↑ Sandra Laville (16 May 2012). "Sam Hallam to appeal against murder conviction". The Guardian.
  11. ↑ Duncan Campbell (3 August 2011). "Sam Hallam murder case sent back to court of appeal". The Guardian.
  12. ↑ "Sam Hallam freed from murder sentence after seven years as court hears of 'serious miscarriage of justice'". The Daily Telegraph. 16 May 2012.
  13. ↑ "Sam Hallam Appeal: Convicted Murderer To Hear Verdict After Insisting Innocence". The Huffington Post UK. 17 May 2012.
  14. ↑ "News, comment and reviews from the Hackney Citizen – hackneycitizen.co.uk". Hackney Citizen. 1 June 2012.
  15. ↑ "Someone to Blame review – Entertainment Focus". entertainment-focus.com. 4 June 2012. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  16. ↑ "Sam Hallam freed on bail in murder conviction appeal". BBC News. 16 May 2012. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  17. ↑ "Wrongly convicted men launch new case against the Justice Secretary". The Independent. 18 January 2015. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  18. ↑ Robins, Jon (31 January 2019). "Innocent, jailed and uncompensated: these are the men our system fails". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  19. ↑ Hattenstone, Simon (7 November 2023). "At 17, I was jailed for a murder I didn't commit – and spent seven life-changing years in prison". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 15 November 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.