When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Jane Hamilton?

Part 2. A response to ‘A killer’s supporters want to ruin my life – I’ll never let them win.’  by Jane Hamilton, published 19 May 2024 in The Sunday Times.

Those with an interest in miscarriages of justice will know that the powerful do not like to admit their mistakes. The graver the error, the harder the fight.  Now more than ever, we should be alert to potential miscarriages of justice, as the provision of legal aid has been stripped back to crisis point. 

Unlike Jane Hamilton, I fear the killer of Jodi Jones has yet to be brought to justice. Like many in Scotland, I fear Luke Mitchell is the victim of a grave miscarriage of justice.  This should make my motivation clear but for those in doubt, I will clarify that it is not about Jane Hamilton. 

I do not condone abuse of any kind to anyone, no matter where they sit on this case. I especially do not condone attacks or threats on family members. I do, however, expect journalists to withstand some of the scrutiny they subject others to. I would also expect Jane Hamilton to see that, regardless of innocence or guilt, when cases are mishandled as this one was, many lives are ruined. Mark Cane was cast as a suspect and died young, without the closure a full investigation should have given him. Corinne Mitchell was convicted of no crime but nonetheless her abuse was state sanctioned and could easily have directly resulted in her death. There may be many more who did not have a choice and did not profit.

It is necessary to go back to 2003 when Luke Mitchell found the body of his girlfriend Jodi Jones, hours after she had been brutally murdered. They were both fourteen. Even when the tabloids viewed Mitchell as the grieving boyfriend, their attentions were intense, but they became unrelenting when they viewed him as a murderer. 

Much of the case against Mitchell was not proof so much as character assassination.  Personality aside, Luke Mitchell could have been a disturbed kid. He could have been violent, selfish and spoiled. He could have been all of these things and it would not prove that he murdered his girlfriend.

Mitchell was a child denied a lawyer throughout two lengthy interrogations. The case that sees him in jail over twenty years later was built upon interrogations that would now be illegal.  

Mitchell displayed the classic symptoms of shock and later PTSD but those symptoms, especially those of emotional shut-down, were viewed as proof of guilt by many, including Jane Hamilton.

Before trial, did you know the names and faces of Brianna Ghey’s killers?  Most likely you did not. We are familiar with the need to protect children and that trials should not be prejudiced by the media. But if you look, you will indeed find that this was not the case with Luke Mitchell.  Before trial, tabloid readers in Scotland were familiar with his face, his home and even his bedroom.  Neil Mackay of the Herald states that he received a call from a senior police officer, telling him that Mitchell was guilty.  Mackay wondered if this was purely on the basis of lifestyle.

Time passed, documentaries were made, appeals failed but questions kept being asked. Many shifted to a position of silent unease, but Jane Hamilton did not. It was once very easy to sit wide-eyed before ‘The Trials that Shocked Scotland’ TV series and talk about Mitchell’s lack of emotion, as Jane Hamilton did. Very easy, when your subject is muzzled in prison. 

It is not so easy now. 

Many young people do not survive Polmont Young Offenders but then most civilized countries don’t put children in prison.

Readers in Scotland may know the name Joe Steele. When Steele said of Mitchell, ‘That wee boy’s innocent.  He’s got no one, just him and his wee ma.’  Many sat up and took notice, for no one knows more about malicious prosecutions than Joe Steele.

The Doyle family were killed when their home was firebombed during the infamous Glasgow ice cream wars of the 80s.  We may never know who killed them, but Joe Steele and TC Campbell served eighteen years for their crime. Joe Steele was an escape artist who glued himself to Buckingham Palace gates. Steele’s escapes were not about escaping justice, he fought to raise awareness of an injustice and five years ago, he spoke out for Luke Mitchell.

There are now hundreds of men who have served time or worked in prison with Luke Mitchell. Many who have witnessed and perhaps dealt out the violence that visited him daily in his first two years in Polmont; sugar in the kettle for an agony that clings, a can in a sock as a slingshot to the face and being held at knifepoint.  It is one thing to see and hear these things when you believe it’s justice. Quite another when you come to believe, as so many since have, that this was wrought upon the head of an innocent child. Therein lies the trouble for Jane Hamilton and there is only one solution to it, a full independent investigation.

The impression given by Jane Hamilton, that this is a safe conviction, challenged by an uninformed mob is demonstrably false. The denial of legal advice shocked the legal profession at the time. The complete lack of forensics shocked forensic pathologist Dr Maria Cassidy in 2005. Professor Allan Jamieson continues to confirm that there is, from the point of view of The Forensics Institute in Glasgow, an ‘insufficiency of evidence’ to support innocence or guilt. This is unusual given the brutal frenzy of the attack that resulted in over 300 injuries and catastrophic blood loss.  Back in 2003 Professor Jamieson was consulted on the case but had nothing to look at.  He states that he would not be surprised if material wasn’t disclosed as he considers the disclosure regime of Police Scotland to be the poorest in the civilized world. 

I can assure Jane Hamilton that I think very often of Jodi and other young woman failed by the Scottish justice system.

I urge readers not to see Mitchell’s case in isolation – but as a prism for other failures in the Scottish justice system. 

Is it possible that Jodi’s killer walks free because the police allowed him to?  Just as they did with Emma Caldwell’s killer. Police knew of many allegations of rape and violence against Ian Packer, police knew he had taken Emma Caldwell to the remote place where she was found murdered.  Did they exclude the guilty to pursue the innocent in both cases?  Given what we know about the investigation into Emma Caldwell’s death, these are reasonable questions from an entirely reasonable position.

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  The Doyle family did not have justice in the 80s and when murder convictions were overturned there was no enquiry into what went wrong.  We might have learned something about malicious prosecutions and how disclosure in Scotland might allow them to go unchallenged. We might have faced the sad truth; that professions like the police will always appeal to those who wish to abuse power.  We might have brought in safeguards. We might have protected our most vulnerable.  But we didn’t.

What was the cost of investigating these cases, bringing innocent men to court and keeping them in jail?  How many schools and hospitals might we finance if we could take that money back?  Instead those resources were condensed into a great legal machine that dragged against its own weight.  Every cog of that machine was paid handsomely to fail us spectacularly. If we do not speak out, it will continue to do so.

It’s not enough to believe in a fair and just society. A country that is naïve and complacent enough to think it'll never have to fight for justice will soon fall to corruption, if it hasn't already.

And no Jane Hamilton, it is not about you.