| The Dream Solution
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12/06/93
- Police got it wrong, so sisters go free
By Stephen Farrell
Today
TWO sisters were freed from jail yesterday after their murder
convictions were quashed because police had withheld vital
evidence. Michelle and Lisa Taylor threw themselves weeping
into the arms of thier mother Ann before appearing on the
steps of the High Court, their arms held aloft in victory.
Appeal judges declared their convictions for the murder of
bank clerk Alison O'Shaughnessy to be "unsafe and unsatisfactory"
and attacked police for suppressing vital documents.
After the verdict, Michelle said: "We have spent two
years protesting our innocence and only now has the deliberate
mistake of the police come to light. "We will not say
by our; release that justice has been done because we should
not have been put in this position in the first place."
The 22-year-old has been in jail since her arrest on August
7, 1991. Alison, 21, was stabbed 54 times at her flat in Battersea,
south London, the previous month. At the trial, prosecutors
claimed hospital cleaner Michelle committed the murder, helped
by Lisa, now 19, because she was having an affair with Alison's
husband John.
But defence lawyers were not told that key witness Dr Michael
Unsworthwhite had applied for a £25,000 reward offered
by Alison's bosses and changed his story. "My two statements
did differ," said the doctor, who works at a south-west
London hospital.
"I said I saw a white woman and a black woman leaving
the scene of the crime. "The following day I altered
my statement." Lord Justice McCowan said: "It would
he understandable if having initially said that one of the
girls might be black he had then altered that to say she was
a dark-skinned brunette."
But he switched to say they were both blonde, which was a
very remarkable change of story." He ruled that police
were wrong to withhold the evidence. The judge also allowed
the second ground of appeal, that press coverage was prejudicial
to the trial.
He ordered newspaper material, including a video still of
Michelle with John O'Shaughnessy at his wedding, to be considered
by the Attorney General for contempt proceedings. Delighted
mum Ann kept repeating: "I'm just very pleased."
Their lawyer Michael Holmes said he was happy but surprised
at the speed of the judges' decision. He added: "The
Crown really gave up towards the end of the first day and
collapsed this morning. A constant stream of vistors called
to welcome the sisters home last night.
But the pair were reported to have found the sudden attention
all too much and shut themselves away in a bedroom. John O'Shaughnessy's
elderly mother was furious at the decision to free them. "Somebody
now needs to say who were the two girls seen coming out of
Alison's flat," said Florrie O'Shaughnessy from her home
in Ireland.
Police refused to say whether they would reopen the murder
case. Fighting back tears last night, Alison's mother Breda
could only say: "Nothing will ever atone for Alison's
death." |
| Contact : bernard.omahoney@bernardomahoney.com |
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