Malone consulted Philip Clegg, who had been Waddington's junior at the July 1976 trial. Clegg had expressed his own doubts about the confession and conviction at the time, and over the next two years, Clegg and Malone prepared a petition to the Home Secretary. The draft was finally ready to be sent on 26 October 1989. On the same day, by coincidence, Waddington was appointed Home Secretary. 16 months passed before a police investigation into the conduct of the original trial could begin. Waddington resigned as Home Secretary in November 1990 to take up a peerage and to serve as Leader of the House of Lords; he was replaced by Kenneth Baker.