06/10/01 - Hughes vows to fight
on for his freedom
Daily Post Liverpool
CONVICTED murderer and rapist Howard Hughes may take
his fight for freedom to the European Court of Human
Rights, it has emerged.
Last month the Criminal Cases Review Commission rejected
his attempt to take his convictions to the Court of
Appeal.
But yesterday his solicitor, Campbell Malone, insisted:
"We are certainly not at the end of the line.
"We have invited the commission to consider the
matter further. At the moment they say 'not at this
moment in time'. We are exploring our options.
"I said to them that I felt that there were things
that during the current investigation they have not
done that they should have done. They don't agree.
"I am looking at ways to persuade them and if
that does not work I'm looking at alternative courses
of action, like the possibility of appealing to the
European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
"If the European Court of Human Rights declared
that Mr Hughes had not had a fair trial it would be
a case of going back armed with that finding to the
commission.
He added: "The only court that can overturn a
conviction is the Court of Appeal. They have already
dismissed his appeal once.
"So the only way back to the Court of Appeal is
the Criminal Cases Review Commission."
"The commission may say, 'if the European Court
say there has been a breach of his right to a fair trial
that's something we have to look at'."
Mr Malone accepts that the commission will have already
decided that any new appeal would fail when they snubbed
Hughes's bid for an appeal last month.
The solicitor, at Stephensons law firm, Bolton, said:
"In fairness to the commission they would have
borne that in mind in their decision."
Mr Malone insisted that Hughes, convicted of murdering
seven-year-old Sophie Hook in 1995, may not try to take
his case to the European Court of Human Rights.
"I want to make it clear that we have not decided
to do that, " he said.
"We are considering our position in the light
of the recent response."
But Hughes seems determined to explore every legal
avenue to regain his freedom.
He was said to be "very disappointed" when
the CCRC recently turned down his bid to seek an appeal.
Mr Campbell added: "I cannot see him or those people
who are troubled by his conviction giving up the fight."
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