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- Transcript of GMTV
GMTV
COMMENTATOR
This weekend was the first taste of freedom for the two
sisters freed from jail after their sentence was quashed
for the murder of the young bride Alison SHAUGHNESSY. MICHELLE
and LISA TAYLOR were released on Friday at the Court of
Appeal after two years in jail. The court found that police
had withheld vital evidence and criticized sensational and
misleading press coverage of the trial. MICHELLE and LISA
join us now, along with their mother Ann. They now want
to give their side of the story in their first full interview.
The Court of Appeal quashed those convictions, as I said,
but there will be people watching you this morning, watching
this programme this morning, who think that you're guilty
of what you were convicted for in the first place. What
would you say to people like that?
MICHELLE
People are entitled to their own opinion, and they always
will be, but the people are so naive to what the papers
do, and unless you've been through it yourself...
LISA
You wouldn't understand, you'd believe what you read, unless
you've been through it.
COMMENTATOR
Do you feel at all that you've any chance that the arguments
for your innocence will receive similar profile as the arguments
that were used to try and convict you?
ANN TAYLOR
No.
LISA
You don't?
ANN TAYLOR
No I don't because of what the judges actually did on Friday,
obviously the press don't like it very much. The girls were
only released Friday and they still can't leave it alone.
I mean yesterday in a certain newspaper, I was supposed
to have been touting outside the house to sell the girls'
story, and in fact I've actually got the letter here that
the journalist put through the door with his card.
COMMENTATOR
And what does that letter say Ann?
ANN TAYLOR
"Our Newspaper is prepared to offer a substantial sum
of money for your exclusive story".
COMMENTATOR
And that's from The News of the World?
ANN TAYLOR
"The story will be told in your own words. I am outside
your door at the moment".
COMMENTATOR
Okay, fair enough. Are you going to sell your story?
MICHELLE
No, we're not.
LISA
No.
ANN TAYLOR
No.
COMMENTATOR
Why not?
MICHELLE
Because after what the papers have done to us we're not
selling our story to no-one.
LISA
I mean they gave that and then in yesterday's paper they
printed something about me which is a total lie, all of
it is, yet they still printed it.
COMMENTATOR
Okay, is this the end of it or do you want this case re-opened?
LISA
We want it re-opened.
ANN TAYLOR
Yes.
COMMENTATOR
Well, the police say they're not looking for anyone else
in connection with the murder, how does that make you feel?
ANN TAYLOR
What else would you expect them to say?
LISA
Exactly.
ANN TAYLOR
They've been found out again that they've done something
wrong. If we hadn't had the barristers that we had that
found this information, the girls would probably still be
inside and it would be down to the police.
COMMENTATOR
MICHELLE, do you feel you were convicted of the murder or
for having having an affair with John SHAUGHNESSY?
MICHELLE
For having an affair. And now in the papers they're saying
he's denying having an affair, but I feel that's what I
was on trial for, 'cos that's all they was printing about
and they just hyped that up to be something it wasn't.
COMMENTATOR
And it was this picture in particular at John and Alison's
wedding, this was the kiss, the Judas kiss as it was called.
MICHELLE
Hm mm.
COMMENTATOR
You regret the whole affair do you?
MICHELLE
I do yeah, the whole thing now because I mean everybody,
it's an everyday occurrence, I mean there's loads of people
that are having affairs but mine is just taken out and hyped
up into a big story.
COMMENTATOR
But you wouldn't deny the newspapers' right to use that
sort of picture, television's right to use that sort of
picture?
MICHELLE
The picture was, they took the video, they made a still
of it and turned it into something it wasn't. It was a peck
on the cheek and they turned it into a different...
COMMENTATOR
I mean in their defence, for instance, The Sun said on Saturday,
it was a picture which best illustrated an undisputed fact,
namely that you were at the wedding of the woman you were
charged with murdering.
LISA
Yeah but it wasn't used in the evidence in court.
ANN TAYLOR
Yes she was at the wedding, but if you think about it we
had some decent newspapers, newspapers that did not cover
the trial, we had the Observer who did a brilliant piece
for us, and we'd like to thank David ROSE very much, but
he was able to take a photograph as the video was moving
and print it exactly as it was.
LISA
As it was, not how the rest of the newspapers did it.
MICHELLE
So they purposely done it to make it look different.
COMMENTATOR
Okay, that is what the public, what we all saw in the newspapers,
what did you see Ann, as the mother, these are your two
babies, two girls you gave birth to, you see what the court
didn't see, what the cameras don't see, what the reporters
don' t see, what convinced you thatthey were innocent?
ANN TAYLOR
I just knew, I had known all along. If I'd thought for one
moment that either of the girls had had anything to do with
it, they could have stayed inside. I would have stood by
them, but I wouldn't have fought for their release because
that isn't me.
COMMENTATOR
LISA, how do you pick up the pieces of your life now, do
you think you will be able to lead a normal life?
LISA
Never, I don't think we will, it's really hard at the moment
just getting through the first few days but what the rest
of it's going to be like I just don't know yet.
COMMENTATOR
MICHELLE do you have any desire at all to meet up with John
SHAUGHNESSY, if only to say, look this is what happened,
this is my side of the story?
MICHELLE
No, I wouldn't like to meet up with him at all, I'd like
to just push that past me now. I feel very sorry for him
because he's a very sad person, but 1 wouldn't like to meet
him at all.
COMMENTATOR
And how determined are you in the fight to have this case
re-opened then?
MICHELLE
I think we're gonna push it as far as we can.
ANN TAYLOR
Yeah.
MICHELLE
Go all the way. We've got to prove our innocence still to
them people who believe these comic papers
LISA
Yeah, exactly.
COMMENTATOR
And what's it done to the life of your family so far Ann?
ANN TAYLOR
It's been very hard, it really has, it's been a strain,
but it's not not changed us as a family at all since it
was before, we was always close then and we are now, and
I think that's what's helped us survived.
LISA
Just getting to know each other again now.
ANN TAYLOR
Yes, that's the hard part.
LISA
'Cos we've all changed a lot, 'cos we've been away from
each other for a while.
MICHELLE
We've got to rebuild it again.
LISA
So it's got to be rebuilt again.
COMMENTATOR
Okay, we wish you we well in that, thank you for talking
to us this morning.
MICHELLE
...should not have been put in this position in the first
place.
COMMENTATOR
These two sisters have just been cleared by the Court of
Appeal of a murder they did not commit. They had been sentenced
to life and spent a total of three years in jail. Their
mother wants England's legal system reformed.
ANN TAYLOR
The whole system itself needs to be re-looked at completely.
Where we start I don't know, do you start at the top and
work down or do you start at the bottom and work up? I really
don't know at the moment.
COMMENTATOR
Only last year the TAYLOR sisters were also convicted because
a crucial piece of evidence was not disclosed. They were
accused of killing Alison SHAUGHNESSY at this house in Battersea
in 1991. The main witness against them was Doctor Michael
UNSWORTH-WHITE, who testified that while cycling home he
had seen two white girls leaving the house at the time the
murder must have been committed, but the defence wasn't
told that in an earlier police interview he had said one
of the girls was black.
ANN TAYLOR
There was a docket that UNSWORTH-WHITE had spoken to a police
officer, who was a WDC, that he'd seen two girls, one was
black, and they were walking. When he actually made his
statement to the police officers, they were two white Europeans
and they were blonde, and they were running. Well actually
we've gone from walking to jogging, from jogging to running,
and they obviously took it seriously because the officer
who took the details down said that there was, is it an
IC3? They describe a coloured person living next door and
she was to be eliminated.
COMMENTATOR
If the girls' lawyers hadn't forced police to disclose the
Doctor's suppressed evidence just days before the appeal,
they'd still be in jail.
ANN TAYLOR
I don't believe they should have been convicted, I don't
believe they should have been charged. As I've said before,
if the officers had done their job properly in the first
place then we wouldn't have been in this situation. I was
very proud of my girls when they walked out the Appeal Court
and the statement that they made. They would not say that
by being released justice has been done, because it hasn't.
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