Two Disparate Clients Of Mark McDonald
Mark McDonald has been a barrister for nearly thirty years, so is obviously a highly intelligent individual, in spite of the stupid look on his face below.
He specialises in criminal defence cases including appeals, and in 2007, founded the London Innocence Project. Recently, he decided to take on a new client, convicted serial killer Lucy Letby. While his integrity cannot be questioned, many of those supporting Letby need their common sense questioning. This little monster has been discussed here more than once, most recently on September 11 when the reader was invited to read the judgment of her failed appeal.
Most of the people who claim she is innocent appear not to have done so, or even to have followed her lengthy first trial bar picking out a few details such as arguments over statistics. Some actually go so far as to claim there is no evidence against her. Yes, mistakes were undoubtedly made, as in all criminal trials of any length and complexity, but unless they rise to being more than harmless error, the Court Of Appeal will not interfere.
Another of Mr McDonald’s clients is Michael Stone, Britain’s longest serving miscarriage of justice prisoner. Stone has now been behind bars for more than a quarter of a century, convicted of the Chillenden Murders. There are two websites devoted entirely to his case, this one – which contains massive documentation, and this one – which was set up by true crime buff John Aidiniantz who put his money where his mouth is by financing forensic testing relating to the case, albeit with no success. Yet!
Lucy Letby’s biggest problem is that there is so much evidence against her. Michael Stone’s biggest problem is that there is so little. Let us contrast the confession evidence. It is acknowledged that Letby wrote a series of notes to herself that can be interpreted as a confession. We are told this was for a therapeutic exercise. The confession of Michael Stone is – get this – one he shouted through a prison wall to the man in the next cell while the two were in segregation. And Stone was in segregation because? While he was on remand, other prisoners were making up confessions left, right and centre! In fact, this was the basis of his first appeal. After Stone’s conviction, one of these inmates came forward and admitted he had made up a confession. The Court Of Appeal ruled that his appeal “must succeed” and ordered a retrial. Stone was again convicted, this time on the basis of that one confession. By a man who is now serving a life sentence for murder. There is no other evidence against him, nor that he was ever at the scene of the crime. As the saying goes, you couldn’t make it up. Except they did.
In spite of this legal legerdemain, Michael Stone remains hopeful that he will be exonerated at some point, even though he is now 64 years old and obviously doesn’t have that many good years left. One can only hope for the sake of justice that Lucy Letby remains behind bars for twice as long, however much noise her misguided supporters make.