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11/06/93
- Evidence 'withheld' at sisters' trial
BY RICHARD DUCE
Times
IMPORTANT evidence withheld by police, together with sensationalised
press coverage of a murder trial, led to the wrongful conviction
of two young sisters, the Court of Appeal was told yesterday.Counsel
for time of the sisters said the trial was not told that a crucial
prosecution witness, Dr Michael Unsworth-White, had written to
the victim's employer to ask about reward money before he gave
evidence.
Dr Unsworth-White, who placed Michelle Taylor. 22, and Lisa Taylor,
19, at the murder scene, had first told police one of the two
women was black. Both are white. Richard Ferguson QC, for Michelle
Taylor, said that only detective work by junior defence counsel
had tracked down the new evidence in the last days before the
sisters' appeal against conviction for murdering.
Alison Shaugnessy,21 , a Barclays Bank clerk, at her home in Battersea,
south London, in June 1991. She was stabbed 54 times. Mr Ferguson
said that the evidence of Dr Unsworth-White was crucial to the
prosecution case at the trial in July last year because it placed
the sisters leaving Mrs Shaughnessy's flat at the material time,
about 5.45pm.
But the trial was not told that, in an interview with a police
officer on the day before he made a written statement, Dr Unsworth-White
said he believed one of the women was black. He retracted that
description in his statement. Mr Ferguson told Lord Justice McCowan
and Mr Justices Douglas Brown and Tuckey if he was right that
there had been a "material irregularity", the judges
might feel that would secure the appeal.
John Nutting, for the Crown, said he conceded that failure to
disclose an inconsistent description was "manifestly a material
irregularity". Mr Ferguson also detailed how, after the trial,
he had found correspendence between Dr Unsworth-White and Barclays
Bank about the possibility of reward money for the information
he provided to police.
Mr Nutting said that while the trial jury had not been aware of
this, they had been told that the doctor's girl friend had made
an enquiry on his behalf. Mr Ferguson said the sisters were originally
granted leave to appeal because the trial judge said she was troubled
by the "unremitting, extensive, sensational, inaccurate and
misleading" media coverage during the trial.
He said that during the case a video was shown on television dealing
with Michelle" Taylor's attendance at Alison and John Shaughnessy's
wedding, but that film had never been part of the evidence and
was not shown to the jury.
Several national newspapers not only showed stills from the video
but froze one of the frames so that what was clearly on the video
— a peck on the cheek between Michelle Taylor and Mr Shaughnessy
— appeared in the press to be a kiss on the mouth.
He said The Sun headlined it "Cheat's kiss" on the front
page and referred to Michelle Taylor as Mr Shaughnessy's mistress.
The Daily Mirror referred to "The murder case mistress at
her lover's wedding". Baroness Mallalieu QC, for Lisa Taylor,
said. "The coverage was certainly, in my experience, unprecedented.
It went far beyond the evidence which was in court."
The hearing continues today. |
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