A student who was put on trial for rape after police failed to disclose evidence which proved his innocence has condemned an official review into the case.
Yesterday the Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) apologised to Liam Allan, 22, who spent two years on bail awaiting a trial that collapsed on the third day at which point the case against him was dropped.
A joint review said that there was no evidence that the messages from his accuser’s phone, which proved his innocence, had been withheld deliberately and concluded that no officer or prosecutor should face disciplinary action.
Mr Allan was “disappointed that the report fails to address the true failures of this case”. He said it was clear that someone had looked at least a month before his trial at the messages which proved his accuser had lied.
“The issue I feel which is lost is who decides what assists and what undermines a case,” he said. “It appears to me that it will always be in the interests of the police and the Crown to select messages which assist their case and it is this issue that I wish to be redressed.”
Advertisement
The failure to disclose evidence has prompted a review by the CPS of all rape and serious sexual offence cases in England and Wales.
The joint review said that there was no evidence that the mobile phone messages were withheld deliberately. It blamed a “combination of error, lack of challenge and lack of knowledge”.
The report says that Detective Constable Mark Azariah, the officer in charge of the investigation, had assured a senior officer and prosecutors that the 57,000 text and social media messages from the woman’s phone contained nothing relevant to the case.
Commander Richard Smith, who oversees all Met rape investigations, said that he had personally apologised to Mr Allan, a criminology student from Beckenham, southeast London. “It is clear from our review that both the Met and the CPS did not carry out disclosure procedures properly in this case,” he said. “Although we are confident there was no malicious intent in this case, it was important that we carried out this urgent review and learn lessons from it.
“Those lessons will now be adopted across not only the sexual offences teams but across the Met. There are important lessons for us to learn from this case. Equally, there are important lessons for the criminal justice system.”
Advertisement
Mr Allan’s lawyers had asked the CPS last June for any text and social media messages from the woman’s phone relating to their relationship. The review found that Mr Azariah had not carried out a check of social media and had refused the defence request, saying that it was not “proportionate or necessary”.
Commander Smith said that Mr Azariah would not face disciplinary action.
“The officer is unable to explain why he failed to make a record of the searches [of the messages] conducted,” he said. Commander Smith said that there was no evidence that the woman who made the allegations against Mr Allan had committed any criminal offence.
An extra 120 officers have been allocated to review all 600 rapes cases awaiting trial in London. The CPS has allocated 11 lawyers to the review.
Commander Smith said that caseloads for officers investigating rape cases were “higher than we want them to be” but denied that there was a shortage of funding. The review recommends disclosure training for police officers and the appointment of “disclosure champions” in the CPS.
Advertisement
Claire Lindley, chief crown prosecutor for south London, said that she knew that there had been “issues” with some other cases already reviewed.
“My view is that the cases we are seeing show we are not making decisions quickly enough when material comes to light,” she said.
Asked if innocent people could have been jailed because of disclosure failures, she replied: “If any defendant feels they are wrongly convicted they must appeal in the normal way.”
Ms Lindley said that Mr Allan’s case had “highlighted some systemic and deep-rooted issues that have been apparent to those working in the criminal justice system for some time”.
She added: “The prosecutors involved in this case did not sufficiently challenge the police about digital material. That meant that it took longer than was necessary to drop Mr Allan’s case. It is vital that lessons are learnt from this case and others which have come to light over recent weeks where disclosure obligations have not been met. It is incumbent on all parties in the criminal justice system to ensure that these issues are addressed . . .”