Hanged 'Little Caesar of Lime Street' may have been innocent

George Kelly was a smalltime crook blamed for a brutal crime that shocked post-war Britain. Nicknamed the "Little Caesar of Lime Street", Kelly and Charlie Connolly were accused of a bungled robbery in which a cinema manager and cashier were shot dead.

The case caused a sensation in 1949 and led to the biggest murder investigation on record then, with 65,000 people questioned. The 13-day hearing at Liverpool Assize Court was the longest criminal trial in English history.

Kelly, 28, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in February 1950. He was hanged after an appeal was dismissed. Now, the case is due back in court. Lawyers for the Kelly family are confident the Court of Appeal will clear him and rule his conviction unsafe.

Next month's hearing is the culmination of more than half a century of campaigning by the Kellys. The lawyers will claim the conviction, referred to the Appeal Court in London by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which examines possible miscarriages of justice, is flawed because it relied entirely on unreliable witnesses who were rewarded with reduced prison sentences. Crucial evidence, including the inducements to the witnesses, was not disclosed to the defence, the court will be told.

Put simply, the case was considered a "fit-up" by police who were under tremendous pressure to obtain a conviction by whatever means. Apart from the witness statements there was no corroborating evidence and no scientific evidence to link Kelly to the shootings.

The double murder was committed on a Saturday evening in March 1949 during a robbery at the Cameo Cinema in the Liverpool suburb of Wavertree while the audience watched the black-and-white thriller Bond Street.

As the manager, Leonard Thomas, 44, counted the night's takings in his office on the first floor, a man in a brown coat, trilby hat and mask burst in and shot the manager in the chest at point-blank range. His assistant, John Catterall, 30, appears to have walked in on the crime and was shot in the hand. A second bullet hit him in the chest and as he sank to the floor a third was fired into his back. The masked man fled empty-handed, leaving cash scattered around the office.

In the massive inquiry, as well as 65,000 people being questioned, 9,000 homes were visited and 1,800 people fingerprinted. An anonymous letter claiming to know the killers would lead to Kelly. The authors, Jackeline Dickson, a prostitute, and James "Stutty" Northam, her pimp, agreed to help police if they were given immunity from prosecution. The police, via a notice published in the Liverpool Echo, agreed. The couple claimed Kelly and Connolly, then 26 and known as a hard man, had met them on the evening of the murders in the Beehive pub and Kelly had shown them a loaded gun. They said he borrowed an apron to use as a mask and a brown coat.

Kelly is also said to have confessed the killings to Northam. The letter-writers provided additional details to police, saying they had forgotten them when making their original statements. Kelly, a labourer and petty crook known to police since he was 10, was arrested with Connolly. Both denied the charges and gave alibis.

The other "witness" the prosecution would later rely on was a man called Robert Graham, a proven liar with a psychiatric history. Graham claimed that while on remand at Walton prison, Kelly admitted the shooting and said Connolly acted as a look-out. As a reward, Graham was given an early release from prison from a sentence for dishonesty. Kelly and Connolly were tried at Liverpool Assizes but the jury was unable to reach a verdict. A fresh trial was ordered and the judge agreed the defendants should be tried separately.

In the second trial, Kelly was convicted of murder. But Connolly, to save his life, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of robbery and criminal conspiracy and was sentenced to 10 years. Kelly was executed and buried at Walton jail in March 1950, after the Home Secretary at the time, James Chuter Ede, refused a reprieve.

Before Connolly's death in 1997 aged 73, he was plagued by the thought that his plea condemned an innocent man. He said they had been framed.

Robert Makin, the Kelly family lawyer, said: "This case is an indictment of the appalling justice system and policing ... in Britain immediately after the war. The police and the courts believed it was more important to secure a conviction to reassure the public than to properly investigate a crime."

Reports at the time had grossly exaggerated Kelly's criminal career, giving him the "Little Caesar" tag after the title of the ganglord classic book by W R Burnett, which was made into a film with Edward G Robinson.

Kelly's daughter, Kathleen Hughes, wants him to be reinterred in a Roman Catholic cemetery.