Category: Michael O’Brien

Killer Simon Hall: Bristol University’s “Post Conviction Activist” Michael Naughton Aka Empowering The Innocent, Educating Rita, Facilitating & “Empowering” Actually, Factually Guilty Psychopathic Murderers, Exploitation & A Lack Of Accountability – Part 19©️

Michael Naughton

Michael Naughton who works at Bristol university and who was referred in Part 17a here, Part 17b here, Part 17e here, Part 17f here and from page 11 of the criminal cases review commissions statement of reasons here (Under the title of UoBIP = university of Bristol innocence project) submitted his PhD thesis in 2003 entitled Miscarriages of justice : exception to the rule?.

Th following year the BBC reported under the header Injustice network to be launched some of the below excerpts;

Victims of miscarriages of justice are combining with academics to help people who have been wrongly convicted.

The UK Innocence Network will also be actively involved in research into wrongful convictions.

The network is designed to help those convicted of criminal offences who have exhausted all appeal processes.

Dr Michael Naughton, a lecturer in criminal law at Bristol University, is pioneering the new group in the UK.

There are already similar networks in the US and Australia.

He said the criminal justice system is in “crisis” because it cannot cope with the number of people who believe they have been wrongly jailed.

“I do not think that all those prisoners who say they are innocent are necessarily innocent, but there is nothing in the system to address this massive problem,” he said.

The organisation will bring together victims, campaigners, academics and politicians.

Dr Naughton said the organisation hoped to change the legal system, which he said was currently “balanced in favour of the prosecution”.

Excerpts from a BBC article headed Injustice network to be launched dated the 2nd of September 2004

Michael Naughton went on to tell David Clensy he apparently “fell in love with education” and referred to himself as “another Rita”, as can be read in the following excerpts which were published in an article headed Fighting for simple justice;

“Remember Educating Rita? Well I was another Rita”

“I’d come out of school with hardly any qualifications, but as I got older I began to realise how much I could become engrossed in the academic world despite my working class background”

Michael fully immersed himself in his studies and was rewarded with a first class honours, which in turn led to a scholarship to fund a Phd in his chosen area of interest – miscarriages of justice

”But I was still very naive when I joined the department as a paid member of staff in order to found the independence project”, he admits

”Back then I still thought that all we had to do was, with the students’ help find the truth in the forgotten pieces of evidence, place the truth before the CCRC and say hey look, we’ve got the evidence needed to get this poor bloke’s case overturned”

”I thought the prosecution lawyers would be the ones that would be our enemies. I thought the barristers who were meant to defend these people in the first place, would be keen to try to get their convictions overturned

”But I’ve learned a lot about defence lawyers since then. Of course they don’t want to see their clients have their convictions overturned. They don’t want to see some smart students come along and find pieces of evidence they failed to find, and in so doing show them up for their professional inadequacies

Excerpts from David Clency’s article headed Fighting for simple justice dated the 7th of March 2012

Exploitation, Lack Of Reasoning Or Accountability

When Michael Naughton founded the UK innocence network (INUK) he also put together a set of protocols which were meant to be adhered to by him, and all those involved with the network.

The following INUK protocols were once published here but have since been deleted from the World Wide Web (WWW);

9.12 INUKs position on media enquiries is to decline to discuss details of particular cases unless/until a case is overturned as a result of innocence project involvement or referred to the CCRC/SCCRC or to the Home Secretary for consideration for a Free Pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, and then simply to confirm if/when asked that a case is under investigation/been referred if that is the case, but this must always be done in liaison with the clients permission.

9.13 INUK recognises that member innocence projects may wish to become involved in media interviews about individual cases, for example in the interests of seeking new evidence, but this must always be done with the express permission of the client.

Excerpts from Michael Naughton’s innocence network UK protocols (Original source here)
Gabe Tan former INUK assistant director (Left) alongside Michael Naughton founder of the now defunct INUK (Photo by Jim Naughten for the Observer)

A day after the criminal cases review commission announced they would be referring Joan Albert’s actually, factually guilty killers murder conviction to the court of appeal, Michael Naughton published the following (Originally published here, and like with the INUK protocols since deleted from the WWW);

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) announced yesterday that it has referred the case of Simon Hall to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) who was convicted of the murder of 79 year old Joan Albert in February 2003.  

Since 2006, Simon’s case has been investigated by the University of Bristol Innocence Project (UoBIP) and five students from the UoBIP investigating Simon’s case was the subject of the last BBC Rough Justice documentary in April 2007.

Gabe Tan  has headed the investigation throughout its time with the UoBIP and has personally committed many hundreds of voluntary hours to produce various submissions to the CCRC over the years on the  limitations of the fibre evidence claimed to link Simon to the crime scene and the possible utility of new DNA techniques on biological samples found at the murder scene. 

She has unearthed information (which for legal reasons cannot be disclosed at this time) in previously unused evidence that may conclusively prove Simon’s factual innocence.  

Michael Naughton – 15th October 2009

On the 18th of October 2009, killer Simon Hall instructed Michael Naughton and the INUK to seize all work on his fraudulent public relations campaign and case but Michael Naughton chose to break his INUK protocols.

Excerpts from an article published to Bristol university’s news and features page of their website )on the 20th of October 2009) under the header University of Bristol Innocence Project case referred back to Court of Appeal read;

A murder case that has been under investigation by the University of Bristol Innocence Project (UoBIP) has been referred back to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

The referral is the first for an innocence project case in the UK. 

Simon Hall was convicted of the murder of 79-year-old Joan Albert in February 2003.

His conviction hinged almost solely on the basis of black flock fibres found at the scene, in his vehicle and at his parent’s home.

Excerpts from an article headed University of Bristol Innocence Project case referred back to Court of Appeal dated the 20th of October 2009.

A copy of the criminal cases review commission’s statement of reasons regarding why they chose to refer the murder conviction to the court of appeal can be read by tapping on the button below;

The Criminal Cases Review Commission’s Statement of Reasons On Their Referral Of Simon Hall’s Murder Conviction To The Court Of Appeal Dated 14th October 2009

As had already pointed out throughout the The Truth Behind Killer Simon Hall & His & His Deceitful Enablers Innocence Fraud Phenomenon Scam blog series, killer Simon Hall’s conviction for his murder of Joan Albert “hinged” on a wealth of circumstantial evidence, including the Hall families lies and concoctions.

Michael Naughton was also behind an article written by Heather Mills and published by Private Eye magazine on the 13th of November 2009 (Edition number 1249).

Below is a copy of the Private Eye magazine article;

Copy of Private Eye magazines article from page 29 of their 13th-26th November 2009 Edition
(number 1249)

Link to Part 19a here

Killer Simon Hall: Sandra Lean, Rebranding Guilty Killers Into Innocent Victims, Toxicity, Triangulation, Projection, Informal Fallacies & Innocence Fraud Killers Sion Jenkins & Michael O’Brien – Part 18d©️

Sandra Lean

Under a September 2008 blog headed Sion Jenkins and Michael O’Brien Sandra Lean stated;

We need to wake up.

Every innocent person is imprisoned on our behalf – yours and mine.

Is that what any of us really want?

Rather than live with the discomfort of knowing that the police haven’t found the real perpetrator of a terrible crime, we’ll settle for the fake security that “someone has been caught”

Your son or daughter? Your husband, wife, mother, father, brother, sister? And meanwhile, the real killer is walking amongst us, undetected and undeterred.

Sandra Lean – 1st of September 2008 here

Joan Albert’s killers murder conviction was referred to the court of appeal (CoA) by the criminal cases review commission (CCRC) on the 14th of October 2009, as mentioned in Part 15 of this blog series, which can be read by tapping on the link below;

PART 15 – The Grift & Grifters Of The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), Helen Pitcher, Richard Foster, John Curtis, Euan Smith, James/Jim England, Julie Goulding & Simon Spence For Suffolk Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), The Court Of Appeal Judges & Cherry Picking

It is still not known how the CCRC were able to be seen to magic away the Hall families concocted evidence, which Graham Parkin described to the jury in his closing speech as follows;

We did not know that his defence would include some material, and I’m going to say this, I’ll use the word deliberately and explain to you why I say it in a moment. We couldn’t know that his case was going to involve material, which has been concocted. Made up. If you find it so to be you’ll have to ask yourselves the question why has it.
Because concocted means deliberate and dishonest. To be woven into the general framework of the case, the general framework of his movements on that particular weekend of his lifestyle and those of his family generally.
It is a serious submission that I make to you. That Simon Hall aided by members of his family his rehearsed story, which they know in important parts not to be true. He’s done it for an obvious reason the Crown say to escape proper justice. To stave a conviction for murder.

Excerpts from the prosecutions closing speech by Graham Parkin – Read here

David Jessel, a journalist and CCRC commissioner, appeared on TV on the 14th of October 2009 to announce the news of the murder conviction referral. And then on the 21st of January 2010 Jon Robin’s wrote an article for The Times headed Criminal Cases Review Commission comes under fire.

The next line of Jon Robins article read ‘What, if anything, does it say about our criminal justice system that undergraduates are sorting out judicial errors that lead to innocent people being locked up?’. (The CCRC’s statement of reasons can be read here)

Simon Hall’s then wife Stephanie (Hall) barely used the Internet around this time, as she relied on libraries or Internet cafes for access to the World Wide Web until she was given an old laptop quite sometime after the October 2009 CCRC referral.

Sandra Lean and Billy Middleton, who would later go on to announce (In early November 2010) they were in a relationship, drove around parts of the UK in 2010 in an old red post office van.

Sandra had stripped the seats out of the back of the van and made the space into a sleeping area. Billy Middleton referred to the van on Facebook as ‘Hotel Justicia’.

This was commented on by someone using the alias Con on an Internet forum. They stated;

Well from what I can read online, which is not bound by disclosure, both Sandra Lean and Billy Middleton seem to be touring around like Cliff Richard from Summer Holiday on a big red bus which they have named Hotel Justicia. So from that I can assume they are sleeping in the bus.

Quite what they are doing is not clear because they keep posting that they are in undisclosed places in UK but they were at Simon Halls hearing and not at Luke Mitchells hearing. So if as Lydia says, Mrs Mitchell is ill and possibly could not attend then Luke Mitchell was left on his own at his appeal while his campaigners run around in a red bus in England.

Simon Halls hearing was a procedural hearing, as was Luke Mitchells. Yet the campaign for Luke Mitchell is shoved into second place or lower in their priorities. Which is appalling when you think of it, because he is a 21 year old boy who needs as much support as he can get yet his supposed biggest supporter who would indeed have known the date of Mitchells appeal could simply not be bothered to be there. Yet could travel to England for an appeal.

Makes me wonder what their motives really are in this field of work.

Con – 12th of March 2010

A preliminary appeals hearing was announced with a date set for the 10th of March 2010.

Stephanie Bon Photo courtesy of DailyMail

Following on from this announcement Stephanie Bon* posted a statement to her website here.

*Stephanie Bon is referred to in Part 2 of the Quite A Hall Tale blog series here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 7 here, Part 9 here, Part 9a here, Part 9b here and Part 10a here, Part 11 here, Part 12 here, Part 12a here, Part 14 here, Part 16 here, Part 17c here, Part 17d here, Part 17e here, Part 17f here, at page 52 of the criminal cases review commission’s statement of reasons here and in Part 3 of The #InnocenceFraud Scam of Jodi Jones🌻 Sadistic & Psychopathic Schoolboy Killer & His Abusive Enablers blog series here.

Stephanie Bon stated the following;

UPDATE on Justice 4 Simon – March 2010

Dear all,

I hope this finds you all well.
It seems like a lifetime since I last wrote for this website (J4S) but I feel that the time has come to update everyone. 

You will all be aware that Simon has been granted his appeal and has his first Directional Meeting on the 10th of March 2010. The actual Appeal should follow soon after.

The legal system is all-powerful and it takes nothing short of human miracles to overturn wrongful convictions. The pressures to surmount are huge and people rarely know how to act or cope with the consequences attached to Miscarriages of Justice.

I am extremely proud of the years I spent fighting with Simons Mother to try and overturn his conviction but unfortunately, after so long, the pressures and frustrations got to us all and abruptly brought our alliance to an end. 

This was a very sad and difficult time for us. After Simons conviction, I believed the experiences wed been through would seal us all together forever. 

Luckily for us all, the wheels of justice were in motion by then and we had established such a powerful legal and support team for Simon that I could rest a little in the knowledge that it was then only a question of time before he came home. 

On the day that Simon was granted his appeal by the CCRC, the emotions were so powerful that the pressures and disagreements the family and I encountered seemed to evaporate.

Our shared goal brought us back together and we congratulated each other on our achievement. None of us had ever taken our eyes off the ball and it could only end this way. 

Since the announcement was made in Oct 2009, Simons mother and I have worked very hard at reigniting the flame that was between us when we gave up our lives to fight for justice. Did it ever really go out?
Im not sure but the most important thing is that we are getting ready to unite again and support each other for the final hurdle.

Simon Hall was convicted for a crime he didnt commit, and that is the reason why his family, friends and I fought so hard for so many years. I believe that we reached a point where Simons credibility was restored and where he was finally recognised as an innocent man by much of the public. How far we have come..

This is a situation, like so many others, where it is very difficult for anyone to understand the dynamics and motivations unless they have themselves been through it. Before I met Simon Hall, I had no idea that Miscarriages of Justice happened.

I am disappointed that my relationship with Simon has broken down as far as it has but I have to take into account the fact that he has been isolated for so long and may have a limited understanding of our reality on the outside. I hope Simon realises that nothing has changed and that we all still want justice.

I am not trying to take away from Simons suffering or the fact that he has been the one locked up for so many years now. However, I believe that there is more than one victim when Miscarriages of Justice happen.

Lets not forget Mrs Albert. I pray that the police finally start looking for the real criminal so that she can rest in peace. She and her family were always in our hearts when we ran Justice 4 Simon.

I had no contact with Simon since leaving his campaign and then on the news of his appeal, I wrote to him to congratulate him on this and his wedding.

I felt very sad when I received a phone call a few days ago from Simons new wife, requesting that I do not attend the appeal and still wonder about the reasons behind this. The words you have hassled Simon and injunction were mentioned and I was completely taken aback by these comments.

I will be announcing the date of the appeal on Insidedoubt and hope to see as many familiar faces there as I can. It has been a long and rocky road and we can finally see the end. The appeal hearing is the final stage and I know I speak for all of Simons supporters when I say how glad we will be when his day comes. 

Everything that is about to unfold in front of us is down to all of us. Fighting this awful Miscarriage of Justice has been an incredible experience and I pray that the next few months reveal the truth and nothing but. 

I have no doubt in my mind that Simons conviction will be quashed on the day of the appeal and that he will be free to live his life again. 

Steffie

Thank you all again for your support over the years and below is my personal list of thanks.

I couldnt have done it without you all

Thank you to, my Family, Mum, Dad, Oli, I love you more than words can say 
My friends, Andy, Danya, Steve, all the kids/family, you are my world and I wouldnt be here if it wasnt for you.
Carl, our baby angel in the sky for showing me light. 
Mr D, my saviour, my inspiration, my force, my Ray Winston J. 
Keith and Barri, for giving me hope. Ill never forget your day in court. 
Paul B, I love you forever
Mike OBrien, my wonderful Welsh friend 
Thank you to Simons family, we had some great times and there are more to come 
Lee, you understand me
Phoebe, supa gal, love you baby girl
John Hatton aka tonton John, you had faith in me from the word go, youre amazing, amazing, amazing!
Andrew and Ann at Innocent, so much advice, so much comfort and support.
Mr Campbell Malone, no words can describe you or how grateful I am
Mr Peter Bull, the forensic for dummies really helped, thank you for everything
Mr Allan Jamieson, a generous and kind man.
Chris Mole, Bob Russell and Chris Magee, for the support, the work, the faith and the credibility
Mr Naughton, my moody mate J and the students for their hard work
Mr Michael Mansfield, Simon does not look like Beckham! 
Nick Rigby, my pal at the BBC
Danielle Nutall, a tough cookie to crumble. Like me
My old colleagues and my boss Sue, for letting me do work when I needed to and for all the support.
To every single supporter who ever wrote to me and comforted me, trusted me and in turn, Simon, thank you.

Stephanie Bon via her now defunct website called Inside Doubt

Joan Albert’s killer Simon Hall appeared at the court of appeal on the 10th of March 2010 for a preliminary appeals hearing. Sandra Lean and Billy Middleton attended the hearing.

Link to Part 18e here

Keeping Perspective – Continue the Fight for Miscarriages of Justice by Dr Dennis Eady (Originally published by Jon Robins of The Justice Gap 6th Sept 2013)

Having today (16th July 2019) checked The Justice Gap site run by Jon Robins, after some 6 years, it would appear he has also now removed Dennis Eady’s article Keeping Perspective – Continue the Fight for Miscarriages of Justice

For continuity purposes only Dennis Eady’s article, along with the original comments at the foot of his innocence fraud article, has been reproduced below:

Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

Reproduction Of Dennis Eady’s September 2013 Innocence Fraud Phenomenon Nonsense Below

In December 1999, I took a two week vacation at the Court of Appeal. Appeals were taken a little more seriously in those days – two full weeks of argument then was a far cry from the tendency today to dismiss matters in a few hours, preferably with the prisoner only ‘present’ on a video link. The ‘Cardiff Newsagent Three‘ Appeal was a strange ‘holiday’; fortunately it had the best ending of all holidays – freedom and justice for Mike, Ellis and Darren.

For two weeks, the Crown and their barrister Gerard Elias QC did all in their power, dragging up every conceivable argument and some inconceivable ones as well, in order to keep three innocent men in prison. The three had been released on bail a year earlier pending the appeal, and the thought of them being taken back into custody at the end of a failed appeal was a horror that haunted every moment.

I had invested five years campaigning for the Newsagent Three. I realise now that this was not long in miscarriage of justice terms, but nonetheless it was an emotional investment and the stress I personally felt over those two weeks would have been almost unbearable were it not for the presence of so many great people who supported the case in various capacities.

But hold on: it was not my freedom that was at stake; not me who was being labelled with malicious lies and injustice. What could Mike, Ellis and Darren be going through? How were they dealing with the stress? It occurred to me that I didn’t have their strength of character; that in their position I could understand why someone might give up; how sometimes fighting the intransigent powers of the prosecution was so stressful and frustrating that it might even be easier to throw the towel in and give up the fight, even if the truth was lost on the way.

Simon Hall’s confession has brought these thoughts back into focus for me. I am not saying that his confession is false, but I am saying that if it is I can just begin to understand why he may have made it. I am not suggesting that I can begin to imagine what miscarriage of justice victims really go through: the sense of injustice, the loss of freedom and life, the pressure from psychology and offender management personnel to admit guilt. We know that extreme psychological pressure can produce false confessions and even false memories.

False comfort
We know also that people who have been damaged psychologically and emotionally can self destruct and they sometimes do this just at the time things are beginning to look more hopeful for them. We know of the difficulties victims of injustice face even (some say even more so) when and if they are finally cleared – the high rates of psychological problems, drink and drug abuse and the shocking number of early deaths. Most people with serious illnesses or disabilities fight to maintain their lives; occasionally some have just had enough and literally lose the will to live. It is far from inconceivable that victims of miscarriages of justice can reach a parallel psychological position and lose the will to fight.

The confession of guilt – true or not – in such a high profile case, believed for many years by many people to be an obvious miscarriage of justice, is of course potentially immensely damaging to innocent people fighting their case, as so many do with incredible courage and tenacity. It plays into the hands of those who would wish to cover up injustice and hide behind disingenuous reasoning and it reassures the public with a false comfort that all is well, when in reality much is seriously wrong.

I hope however that no one will be deterred from supporting miscarriage of justice cases by Simon Hall’s apparent confession and that it will not be used to justify more judicial and bureaucratic intransigence.

Despite my somewhat presumptuous attempts to try to explain why this might have happened and why we must be cautious of how it is interpreted, the most important thing for everyone involved in trying to resolve miscarriages of justice is to know that this is, as far as I can see, an unprecedented event.

In 20 plus years of studying miscarriages of justice, while there may have been a few cases where people have for a short time maintained innocence before admitting guilt, I can think of no other high profile, widely supported case where the person has maintained innocence over many years and pursued the case through legal avenues (CCRC, Court of Appeal) and then admitted guilt.

It has happened the other way round, of course, with false confessions later retracted but never in my experience has there been any other case of this happening in a comparable way.

I do not know Simon Hall or what has happened to lead him to this position. I hope he will soon be well enough or honest enough to provide a full explanation. I have however met many victims of miscarriages of justice, some cleared, some still convicted, whom I believe to be innocent. For them, the struggle needs to go on more intensively than ever.

  • Author: Dennis Eady

Dr Dennis Eady is founder of South Wales Liberty (now South Wales Against Wrongful Conviction) and case consultant at Cardiff Law School Innocence Project

One response to “Continue the fight for miscarriages of justice”

  1. Kate says:November 11, 2013 at 1:10 am “In 20 plus years of studying miscarriages of justice, while there may have been a few cases where people have for a short time maintained innocence before admitting guilt, I can think of no other high profile, widely supported case where the person has maintained innocence over many years and pursued the case through legal avenues (CCRC, Court of Appeal) and then admitted guilt.It has happened the other way round, of course, with false confessions later retracted but never in my experience has there been any other case of this happening in a comparable way.I do not know Simon Hall or what has happened to lead him to this position. I hope he will soon be well enough or honest enough to provide a full explanation. I have however met many victims of miscarriages of justice, some cleared, some still convicted, whom I believe to be innocent. For them, the struggle needs to go on more intensively than ever.……………………………………..Maybe it’s time to research Psychopathy?

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