Police `oppression' blamed for false confession

A VULNERABLE teenager, whose false confession led to three murder convictions, was maltreated by detectives who used "oppressive treatment and questioning", the Court of Appeal was told yesterday.

Darren Hall was 18 in 1988 when he was at times handcuffed to a radiator during repeated questioning and was initially denied access to a lawyer, the court was told.

The "confession" was central to the prosecution's case against Hall and two others he implicated - Michael O'Brien, now 31, and Ellis Sherwood, now 30 - and led to the conviction of all three on a charge of murdering newsagent Philip Saunders. The trio - known as the "Cardiff Newsagent Three" - were jailed for life more than 11 years ago.

They were released on bail last December after the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred their case back to the Court of Appeal. Their first appeal against conviction was turned down in March 1990.

Mr Saunders died in hospital five days after being robbed the back yard of his Cardiff home. He had been hit over the head with a shovel and was never able to identify his assailants to police.

The three men convicted of the killing sat behind their lawyers in court yesterday as Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Hall, opened the new appeal hearing.

He told Lord Justice Roch, Mr Justice Keene and Mr Justice Astill that Hall, now 30, had retracted his confession and his evidence at the trial, and wished "to apologise to all those concerned, including the court and his co-defendants, for his part in bringing about a miscarriage of justice".

His original statement said that he acted as lookout for the other two and that they attacked Mr Saunders. The appeal judges are expected to hear evidence that he was emotionally unstable, of below average intelligence and an attention-seeker given to fantasising.

Mr Fitzgerald said there was now a body of evidence from independent witnesses and experts showing that Hall suffered from a mental disorder to such a degree that his evidence was unreliable.

The case continues.