Cardiff murder appeal man 'beaten over head verbally'
One of three men who claim they were wrongly convicted of murdering a Cardiff prostitute wept in the dock yesterday as the Court of Appeal heard a tape recording of police - in the words of his QC - 'beating him over the head verbally'.
Stephen Miller, aged 26, became distraught as the officers were heard graphically describing the murder of his former girlfriend, Lynette White, and challenging him aggressively over his denials of any involvement in the crime.
At one point during the one-hour tape, Mr Miller was heard to shout back at them: 'If I have to sit here for 50 billion years, I tell you I wasn't there.'
Mr Miller, Tony Paris, aged 35, and 30-year-old Yusuf Abdullahi - the Cardiff Three - were convicted and jailed for life at Swansea crown court in November 1990 for murdering Ms White, aged 20, who was found dead in February 1988 in the flat in James Street, Cardiff, where she worked.
Mr Miller's counsel, Michael Mansfield, QC, said the officers bullied his client, who has a low IQ, over four days of questioning in order to 'mentally strip him down'.
Lord Taylor, the Lord Chief Justice, sitting with Mr Justice Popplewell and Mr Justice Laws, said he was concerned with the 'method and tone' of the interrogation and the fact that the part which reduced Mr Miller to tears was not played to the crown court judge when he adjudicated on legal points before the trial.
'It's very unfortunate the judge did not hear it. It just shows how important it is to hear the tapes.
'One can read the transcript where they are talking and shouting together without getting any flavour at all of what the emotions were,' said Lord Taylor.
Mr Mansfield has argued that the evidence of prostitutes Angela Psalia and Leanne Vilday, which helped convict the trio, was 'shot through' with inconsistencies and lies.
The trial judge, he said, was wrong to admit the evidence of Mr Miller's police interviews contained on the tapes because it was tainted by the officers' 'oppressive' conduct. The interviews were not a search for the truth but a police attempt to achieve - by any means short of violence - a concurrence between Mr Miller's account and Ms Vilday's.
The hearing continues.