One applicant contacted 51 law firms claiming to support CCRC applications, received just four replies, only one could help – and they £3,800 just to look at the files.

Justin Plummer believes he was framed by the police: 'I was doing that many burglaries, I reckon somewhere along the line I did a high-ranking copper’s house or a KC’s and they said to Bedfordshire Police get this sorted out because “he’s taking the piss”.’

‘It will be interesting to see how Court of Appeal responds to what seems to be a more expansive approach by the CCRC. The CCRC has rightly been criticised for its failings, but the Court of Appeal played its part too.' Dr Hannah Quirk, reader in Criminal Law at King’s College

During 6m of research, 1/3 of Old Bailey’s courts occupied by JE trials. 'Cost is staggering: across 17 trials, 54yrs spent on remand, inc. 19 years by individuals not convicted or not sentenced to custody. Remand for this group alone is estimated to have cost between £1- £2.2m.'

Inspectors found ‘thriving elicit economies of drugs, mobile phones and weapons’ at Manchester and Long Lartin. In January, Charlie Taylor called for urgent actions to tackle drones. It was ‘highly alarming’ police and prisons had ‘ceded the airspace’ to organised crime gangs.

Prof Angela Gallop, co chair of Westminster Commission, said, 'commoditisation and fragmentation' has led to the 'dumbing down' of forensics.

@kimjohnsonmp.bsky.social, chair of the APPG on miscarriages of justice: ‘These cases are not isolated incidents but symptoms of deep, systemic failings in our criminal justice system.'

Government is never going to fix problems at CCRC unless MoJ changes KPIs - see Lord Ponsonby's depressing response to how MoJ assesses 'performance' in light of Sullivan: 'CCRC has a target of completing 85% of cases within 12 months of receiving them...'

A shabby day for British justice: An extended version of this article by Duncan appeared in PROOF #4: thejusticegap.com/wang-yam-app...

Love that pic. On the site, we have a default pic that is selected when there's no image chosen for a story. For some random reason it was this pic - so it was all over the site for about a year...