M25 Three - Appeal

Appeal

Following conviction the defendants appealed. The grounds for appeal were based on

• the fact that Johnson had not been identified by anyone including Jobbins, Duncan or Griffin;
• the evidence from eye witnesses about the colour of the attackers;
• the unreliability of the witness who testified that Johnson had confessed to him while on remand;
• the unreliability of Jobbins, Duncan and Griffin;
• the inconsistency between Kate Williamson's evidence and that of the witness who had seen the green Spitfire at the scene of the murder.

The appeal was heard on 23 July 1993, and it was then disclosed that reward money had been paid for information leading to the three men's conviction but not the name or names of the recipients, which their lawyers claimed was vital to their case, since those alleged to have received payments might also have been suspects, and had been promised immunity from prosecution in return for information. It later emerged that Norman Duncan had received £10,300 in reward money from the Daily Mail, which was not disclosed to the jury when he gave evidence at the original trial.

The appeal was rejected, with the court stating: "Taking all the evidence relating to the timing and events on the Thursday night and the succeeding days into account we conclude that, on the whole of the material we have reviewed, there is no basis for saying there is even a lurking doubt about the safety of the convictions of Rowe and Davis, the same applies to Johnson. On the contrary, the case against them all was, and remains, a formidable one."

In 1994, Davis and Rowe made an application to the European Court of Human Rights.