As one of the leading lawyers who represented Iraqi civilians against abuses at the hands of British soldiers Martyn Day believes that justice is yet to be achieved. He joins Jon Robins to discuss the quiet settlement of compensation claims by the Ministry of Defence and the issues surrounding his work with fellow lawyer Phil Shiner. Dami Ojuri interviews Clive Baldwin of Human Rights Watch to get his take. www.thejusticegap.com
Dec 02, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Frances Crook believes ‘politicians are still stuck in the 1950s’ when it comes to our criminal justice system. For 35 years, she has been at the helm of the Howard League for Penal Reform, trying to innovate and change the UK’s approach. Her time in charge is, this month, coming to an end. So in the latest episode of the Justice Gap Podcast, Frances joins Calum McCrae to look back at her time as CEO of the charity, the current state of the penal system in the UK and her hopes for the future. ww...
Oct 07, 2021•22 min•Season 1Ep. 16
The Grenfell tower fire in summer 2017 was perhaps one of the most devastating events of modern Britain. 72 lives were lost and countless families torn apart by the fire directly. The first stage of the Grenfell inquiry report said the victims paid “a terrible price for a catastrophic failure of industry and Government”. Beyond the fire itself, Grenfell has caused a miserable ripple effect to those living in buildings that shared similar cladding. Cladding we now know accelerated the fire. The T...
Jul 15, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Yesterday the convictions of Courtney Harriot, Paul Green and Cleveland Davidson were overturned by the Court of Appeal. They made up half of a group of wrongfully convicted men known as the Stockwell 6. Davidson described the conviction they received in 1972 as a 'total stitch up'. They were accused by the late and now disgraced police officer Derek Ridgewell of attempting to rob him while travelling on the tube from Stockwell station in London. Last year we reported on the Oval 4’s case, a rem...
Jul 06, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 15
‘Kill the Bill’ is the rallying cry of a new movement resisting the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Gracie Bradley, interim director of Liberty, discusses this with Lucy Brisbane in the latest episode of the Justice Gap podcast. They examine why resistance to this Bill, and the broader attack on human rights and civil liberties in this moment, is so urgent and vital. www.thejusticegap.com
Jun 18, 2021•24 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Daniel Morgan is a name many will know. It's likely you'll have heard about the private investigator who was assassinated in a pub car park in South London. His unsolved murder has prompted a hit podcast series, a book and a three part channel 4 documentary. Daniel’s case is one of grisly complexity, police corruption and press manipulation, this podcast won't delve into those details. Instead, we’ll focus on the inspiring 34-year campaign for justice and answers with Daniel’s brother Alastair M...
Jun 09, 2021•22 min•Season 1Ep. 13
A learning disabled woman is, on average, likely to die 27 years before her non-disabled peer. The figure is similar for men. This episode features a conversation with George Julian, an open justice journalist who wants to change what she sees as often preventable premature death. She brings awareness to these cases, by live tweeting coronial inquests. ‘My role is to amplify and broadcast and get what happens out there so there is that public record of what happened’. In this powerful conversati...
May 26, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 9
It's probably unlikely that, by now, you won't have heard of the so-called 'SpyCops Scandal'. Central to the complaints of the core participants in the ongoing inquiry into undercover policing was the 'systemic sexism' within the police. Among many other women, Kate Wilson was deceived into a relationship with an undercover cop. The officer she formed a relationship with was called Mark Kennedy, but he posed as Mark Stone and infiltrated a meeting for the mobilisation against the G8 summit in 20...
Apr 29, 2021•16 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Oliver Campbell spent 11 years in prison for a murder he and many others, including one of the real perpetrators, say had nothing to do with him. In 1990, Baldev Hoondle was murdered while working at his convenience shop in Hackney, East London. Campbell's baseball cap was found near the scene and he later made a confession while being questioned by police. But expert after expert have deemed Oliver’s case an open and shut, black and white miscarriage of justice. He has learning disabilities, wh...
Mar 25, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 10
As a human rights lawyer, Harriet Wistrich knows all too well of the importance of protecting defendants rights in criminal trials. But dwindling prosecutions of rape in the last few years has led her to believe we have ‘virtually decriminalised’ the offence in the UK. In January, the Centre for Women’s Justice (CJW), representing the End Violence Against Women Coalition, brought a judicial review agains the CPS. In this week’s episode, Harriet, who is the founder and director of the charity, te...
Mar 11, 2021•20 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Last month the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of the so called Stansted 15. In handing down its judgment, the Lord Chief Justice said 'there was, in truth no case to answer'. The group were convicted in late 2018 under legislation intended for terror related incidents. They're crime? A peaceful protest against the 'brutal' practice of chartered deportations laid on by the Home Office. The excessive charges were authorised by the Attorney General, not questioned by the trial judge and th...
Feb 18, 2021•21 min•Season 1Ep. 8
The Truth About Modern Slavery , by Emily Kenway argues that the framing around modern slavery has been used as an emotive political tool to conceal the damage done by policies moves such the hostile environment. In this episode of The Justice Gap Podcast , Emily spoke to Jon Robins about that and how the political tool, as she puts it, legitimises big brands' exploitation of the poorest workers and oppressing sex workers. The book provides a vital and timely discussion and you can pick it up fr...
Feb 11, 2021•21 min•Season 1Ep. 7
In the week where the Court of Appeal reconsiders the case of the Shrewsbury 24, one of the men convicted and imprisoned back in 1973 speaks to The Justice Gap Podcast. Ricky Tomlinson is probably best known as the idle, but loveable patriarch, Jim Royle, from TV’s the Royle family or as Brookside’s Bobby Grant. But you may not have known that he started his career as a construction worker and played an active role in the first and only ever national construction strikes. Ricky’s involvement in ...
Feb 02, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 6
In the early morning of September the 28th, 1985, armed police raided 22 Normandy Road in Brixton. The lead detective Douglas Lovelock had been drinking the night before, they entered with a false sense of danger and the inevitable happened. As Cherry Groce rose from bed to see what was happening, she was shot, leaving her paralysed for the rest of her life and sparking the Brixton uprising of 1985. In this episode of The Justice Gap Podcast Lee Lawrence, the author of the award winning memoir '...
Jan 27, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences have been described as a 'stain' on the criminal justice system. Those were the words of Ken Clarke. The architect of the scheme, David Blunkett expressed regret for the injustices caused by them. So why are there still over 2000 prisoners serving time on these sentences? And why is the despair they cause still not properly acknowledged in the face of such clear evidence? In this episode, Jon Robins speaks to Deborah Coles, executive director of...
Jan 20, 2021•17 min•Season 1Ep. 4
In this episode you’ll hear from the indefatigable and charismatic human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield QC. Called to the bar in 1967, Mansfield quickly built a reputation for standing up for the voiceless. He’s represented victims of tragedies and atrocities, from Hillsborough to the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. Michael has worked to free many of the UK’s most notable victims of wrongful convictions, such as the Birmingham 6, the Cardiff 3 and Judith Ward to name a few. He became seen as such a f...
Dec 17, 2020•39 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Dave Smith's path into the construction industry was clear; all of his male relatives had followed the same one. Once ensconced within the industry, he became a union rep, and then the work dried up ‘in the middle of a building boom’. He’d been the victim of an illegal practice known as blacklisting. In the second episode of The Justice Gap Podcast, Dave Smith tells Calum McCrae that, though this was devastating, it wasn’t unexpected. Finding out that undercover police were colluding with the bl...
Dec 09, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Sukhdev Reel is the mother of Ricky Reel, who in October 1997 was found dead in the river Thames after a night out in which he was attacked by racist thugs. The police claimed his death was an accident, but Sukhdev has always believed he was murdered by those same youths who attacked him and his friends that night in Kingston, London. She told The Justice Gap Podcast about how she continues to campaign for justice for Ricky and then how police infiltrated her private life and devastated her fami...
Dec 01, 2020•22 min•Season 1Ep. 1
We are The Justice Gap. We are all about law and justice | And the difference between the two. In this weekly podcast we speak to those at the sharp end of the fight for justice. From fighting institutional racism to righting wrongful convictions. Join the conversation at thejusticegap.com
Nov 26, 2020•46 sec
