MANY OF YOUR LETTERS TO KEV HAVE BEEN RETURNED TO YOU BY HMP WOODHILL STATING THAT HE IS NO LONGER AT THIS ESTABLISHMENT. KEV IS STILL AT HMP WOODHILL. IF YOUR MAIL IS RETURNED TO YOU IN THIS MANNER PLEASE WRITE DIRECTLY TO GOVERNOR NIGEL SMITH WITH YOUR COMPLAINT.
KEVAN THAKRAR …… A VICTIM OF multiple HEARSAY AND JOINT ENTERPRISE
On 28th August 2007 at around 9.30pm Keith Cowell, Matthew Cowell and Tony Delieu were shot dead at the Cowells’ home in Bishop’s Stortford. Two women Christine Jennings and Claire Evans, who were present at the house were stabbed and injured.Claire Evans sustaining superficial wounds.
A description given at the time of the incident was of a black, paki, Asian shorter than 5 foot six with a balding shaved head, clean shaven, wearing a long sleeve white shirt with a collar and unhealthily skinny. Kev has olive skin, is almost 6 foot tall and at that time was around 12 stone and wore his hair in a French crop. He always wore a distinctive diamond earing (as can be seen on ear on photo skin) but was told to remove this by police prior to taking part in the viper I.D. parade.Not one witness mentioned seeing anyone with an ear piercing.
Ian Jennings, son of Christine Jennings went on the run from Police and later told them he was £300,000 in debt to the Dulieu family for cocaine. Police confiscated a car belonging to Ian Jennings and a large sum of money found under his bed. Police allowed Ian Jennings to plead guilty to 2 charges of conspiracy to supply one kilo of cocaine and half a kilo of cocaine with no evidence in order to create motive to be used to convict Kev. He received a 7 year sentence. No drugs were ever found. It has been rumoured that Jennings made a deal with Police in order to have his car and money returned to him as well as witness protection for life with the rest of his family all receiving regular payments.
Kev was arrested at Heathrow Airport on 2nd September 2007 as he was about to board a flight to Northern Cyprus. He had heard his brother Miran was in some trouble and feared for his life. He wanted to find out more and help if he could. His arrest came just 6 days after the incident and police claimed he had been evading justice when in fact he had just been living his life as normal until he received a phone call from his scared brother, Miran, who stated that he had been threatened at gun point and it was not safe for him to return home. There was evidence of him using his credit card as normal during this time as well as cell siting showing him at home.
He was taken to the Police Station and accused of three counts of murder, two of attempted murder and one firearms offence. After being charged Kev states that police officers told him when he was taken out for exercise, “we know you didn’t do it but if you don’t help us we will make sure you serve 50 years”.
While being held at the Police Station Kevan was taken for I.D parades even though witnesses had already positively identified two other suspects and he did not fit the description of the suspects the police were looking for.
Ian Jennings, whose questionable evidence provided background and motive for the case picked numbers 5 and 6 from the line-up. He claimed Number 6 was the gunman. Number 5 being a volunteer and number 6, Kev. After the parade there was a conversation between Jennings, his solicitor and an officer. In evidence Jennings could not remember the conversation but thought that both suspects were on the same parade. Ian Jennings claimed that he had never met Kev when in fact there was satellite navigation history and cell cite analysis to show that he had been at Jennings address on 26th August 2007 with Miran, Ian and Christine Jennings. When questioned during the trial Ian Jennings said of the I.D parade “my head was up my arse. I just picked any two numbers.” Jennings veiwed a second I.D. parade and identified another as the gunman which meant that Kev could not be responsible. However, due to crown prosecution failures and a corrupt defence solicitor this information was not obtained in time to be used.
Under the Turnbull guidelines, identification evidence may be so poor and unsupported by other evidence that the trial Judge should withdraw the case from the jury. This “protects a jury from acting upon the type of evidence which even if believed, experience has shown to be a possible source of injustice.
It has long been recognised that uncorroborated identification evidence is inherently unreliable. A notorious example was media interviews given by eye witnesses immediately after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell station in July 2005. Although witnesses gave what they sincerely believed were honest and factually accurate accounts, CCTV footage showed that their recollections were wrong in almost every detail
Christine Jennings viewed four I.D. parades. On the first, she said she was “positive” of her choice of number 5 which was a volunteer. On the second she was again “positive” and picked another man who had been arrested before Kev and was being questioned over the murders as No.2. On the third parade she said she couldn’t be sure and on the fourth she picked Kev as being the other man. During trial when she was told the first positive I.D was a volunteer and the second was not charged with this offence she said she could not be sure that the I.D of Kev was correct.
Claire Evans viewed an I.D parade in which Kev was present and claimed that no-one in the parade was present at the house at the time of the incident. She had given a statement describing the man who first entered her bedroom as “shorter than 5′ 6″, “smaller than Mike”. Kev stands taller than Miran at 5’10”.
Claire Evans and Nicole Cowell both gave statements to the fact that on the night in question they had seen Miran on his own and he had no weapon. Miran had come to the house alone and was there prior to Ian Jennings, Christine Jennings and Tony Delieu arriving.
During trial preparation it became apparant that confidential information was making it’s way from the defence to prosecution and to the Police. The Judge wrote to the then Governor of HMP Woodhill where all the defendants were remanded to ask how this was happening and what levels of surveillance were being used. LUKE SERGENT, the Governor, wrote back stating that he “could neither confirm nor deny whether covert surveillance was or ever had been used in this case.” This illegal intrusion clearly disadvantaged all defendants.
In March 2008 Kev attempted to have the case against him dismissed due to the fact that there was no case to answer to. Stuart Trimmer QC told a scandalous amount of lies which the Judge used to make his decision to have Kev face trial. After the prosecution case during the trial, the Judge should have discharged Kev, as the only “evidence” was the I.D. which was proven to be innacurate. Again the Judge was not willing to do this and wanted the Jury to decide on guilt based on no real evidence.
THE TRIAL
It took only nine months for the case to come to trial. Howell and Co. Solicitors were employed in April 2008, 2 months before the trial date. The Judge refused to defer the trial to allow time for comlete preparation of defence. One of the main reasons for not being prepared was the CPS failing to meet disclosure deadlines. Another was Kev’s corrupt solicitor Richard Evans who was working freelance for Howell and Co solicitors while simultaneously working for Frisby Solicitors of Stafford,unknown to Howell and Co. Not only was he not doing the work he claimed to be doing, he attempted to be paid for it as well.
During the nine months awaiting trial the story was sensationalised by newspapers printing misinformation fed to them by Police in an attempt to influence the outcome. Any member of the jury would have been aware of the case from these stories and these stories would have influenced their decision.
Key evidence such as evidence of visitors to the victims in hospital and recordings of their conversations by the investigating team mysteriously disappeared.
Two of Kev’s defendants, Jay and Yilay, had both been charged with assisting an offender and accused of helping Kev after the incident which he had no involvement in. Both were found not guilty but this did not stop the CPS using them to make damaging speculative comments in his speech which helped to wrongly convict Kev.
The Judge was aware that this was going on and should not have allowed their charges to stand but the entirety of his action was to write “where is the evidence for this?” in his summing up notes which were never seen by the Jury.
Kevan was atacked by prison officers at HMP Woodhill two weeks before the trial was due to take place.
In June 2008 Kev and his co-defendants were tried at St Albans Crown Court. The trial was restarted three times for the following reasons:
At the first trial it was discovered that a jury member was known to the prosecution Stuart Trimmer QC and they attended the same church. The Judge decided that they did not know each other directly and allowed the trial to continue. Trimmer ran a Christian childrens summer camp which the juror’s children attend every year and Trimmer had even visited the jurors house for dinner on occassion.
At the second trial it was discovered that a jury member worked for the police advising on I.D. parade procedures.
At the third trial it was discovered that a jury member was friends with prosecuting officer, D.C. Hall of Hertfordshire serious and organised crime agency. They played for the same rugby team and had done so for some time. This was stated by the juror prior to being selected but he was somehow still allowed to join the jury.D.C. Hall gave some very suspicious evidence which appeared to suggest he had coached a witness into signing an inaccurate statement which was used to convict.
The failure to discharge the Jury was such a grave failure as to render the trial unfair. It is incumbent upon the defence and indeed the court to ensure that justice is seen to be done. The notion of a “fair trial” includes concepts such as impartiality and independence (something which is clear from European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence) and the relationship of the juror to such a police officer cannot be seen to be in accordance with these concepts. This is made more secure by the fact that 3 juries were clearly not impartial.
Christine Jennings had asked to give evidence via video link for fear of the Delieu family.Tony Delieu having previous for serious criminal offences including the attempted murder of a man,with a hammer, in a pub in Dagenham. The man had refused to pay money owed to Delieu’s family, major drug importers. Jennings gave evidence from behind a screen which gave the jury the perception that she was afraid of the innocent defendants, which was not the case.
Matthew Evans was a known cannabis dealer with a history of violence.
During the trial evidence showed Ian and Christine Jennings to be lifetime criminals, with Christine Jennings having numerous prior convictions which included possession of a firearm. They both admitted telling lies in their statements to Police and while giving evidence at trial yet no charges were brought against them. At one point Ian Jennings stated that he was making up different answers to the same questions as he kept being asked the same ones and he would continue to make up answers like this.
Claire Evans had a previous conviction for wasting Police time.
The Crown Prosecution Service claimed that only one gun was used at the crime scene yet three types of fired bullets were found by police, 8mm, 9mm and rifle cartridges. No firearm was ever found.
The Judge refused severance for Kev to be given a separate trial from Miran.This allowed multiple hearsay evidence to be used in the trial ginst Kev as well as Miran. The “Hearsay” evidence introduced by Stuart Trimmer QC, prosecuting, and allowed by Lord Justice Jeremy Cooke was unchallengeable. The evidence allegedly came from three witnesses, all living in Northern Cyprus, who did not come to the United Kingdom to give their accounts in person. Kev had never met nor spoken to any of these witnesses. A fourth witness the prosecution did not use as shortly before the trial he gave a truthful statement contradicting his first, which he said had been created by Cypriot Police who forced him to sign it. Unfortunately the other three witnesses could not be located before the rushed trial began. As the statement makers were not present and Miran stated that these were false accounts, it was impossible to defend against them.
Statements had told how Miran Thakrar, brother of Kev had confessed to killing three people. These statements were withdrawn by the witnesses and true statements made after the trial. It was said that two of the witnesses claimed family problems would prevent them coming to the UK, while another was said to be busy planning his wedding. The three witnesses have since stated that the reasons given during trial for non-attendance were untrue and their initial witness statements were falsified. Had the same been before the court in 2008, it is understood that the original statements would not have been relied upon, thus making conviction to be “unsafe”.
The Northern Cyprus authorities, keen to improve relations with European Union countries in the hope of pushing through the reunification of the island, were bending over backwards to help the British police.
A Turkish Cypriot diplomat based in London, Serap Destegur, said: “We don’t want the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to have an image as a haven for criminals”. “Although there is no formal extradition treaty we will co-operate with the British authorities and did so in this case.” They also provided British Police, at their request, with forced false statements from the three witnesses in the absence of their legal team, without which no prosecution would have occurred.
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE ) exists to ensure the treatment of witnesses and suspects and is crucial to the validity of their evidence. Pace not only was not followed in regards to the Cypriot hearsay evidence, the British Police deliberately failed to even meet with these witnesses, thus allowing the Cypriot Police to use their wholly questionable methods in an attempt to secure false statementsand conviction against the innocent.
The British Police never saw these “witnesses”or interviewed these “witnesses”.In fact they never made any attempt to do so. Nor did the “witnesses” appear in court to give evidence.
The only evidence requested by the Jury during deliberation were copies of the hearsay evidence which the judge wanted to give until legal argument forced him not to.However, he did read them out loud again to the Jury. This was after 5 days of deliberation and shows how much weight the jury placed on these false statements.
Multiple hearsay evidence was alleged to have come from English speaking Miran, translating lengthy versions of events through hand signals to Turkish speaking Cypriots who Cypriot Police claimed to have taken the statements from.
The Judge directed the Jury in his summing up in that Ian Jennings was telling the truth when he identified Kev. He also allowed vital disclosure to be received after the closing of the defence case meaning it was useless when in fact it proved that Kev had met Ian and Christine Jennings days before the incident so must have been wrongly identified by them because of this.
An alibi witness who was with Kev at the time of the incident in Enfield, Middlesex was threatened and charged with assisting an offender during the trial.
In at least one notorious miscarraiges of justice case-the Guildford Four, a witness who approached the police to confirm he had been with one of the accused at the time of the murders found himself charged with complicity (and only released when he withdrew his alibi statement).
The final trial lasted three and half weeks including 15 days of deliberation.
The 12th Juror, who was discharged after 5 days deliberation, had been the foreman. He asked to be discharged as he claimed his wife had been ill in hospital for months and he needed to be with her. He wrote a letter to the other Jurors to persuade them to convict all defendants and wanted to leave it with them having given it to the Judge first. Legal argument took place regarding the lawfulness of this. During argument, the Judge, who was adamant the Jury should see the letter stated “I could just return the letter to the Juror and take half an hour to make my decision while the Juror reads it to the Jury.” After the argument the Judge did exactly that. Adjourning the court for 45 minutes before discharching the Juror. Miran was convicted soon after.
Kevan was convicted of joint enterprise by a jury which took over 60 hours of deliberation,15 days. He was convicted by a 10 to one majority, although the Jury were not aware that they could return a verdict of undecided as the Judge refused to inform them, hence such a long deliberation. His case did not have any clear cut evidence. There was no DNA, forensics, ballistics, or cell citing placing Kevan at or anywhere near the scene. False multiple hearsay and two questionable identifications were enough to wrongly convict and sentence to life with a 35 year tariff.
If innocent people are convicted the real perpetrators remain free.
Joint enterprise is a charge used when prosecuting an individual proves difficult or impossible.
APPEAL FOR INFORMATION
IF THERE IS ANYONE WHO CAN PROVIDE ANY INFORMATION REGARDING THIS CASE WHICH COULD HELP KEV PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT KEV AT;
KEVAN THAKRAR A4907AE,
HMP WOODHILL,
TATTENHOE STREET,
MILTON KEYNES, MK4 4DA.
YOU CAN ALSO CONTACT SHAHIDA@COOPERROLLASON.COM