The star witness now admits he was drunk – so why is Jason Moore still behind bars?
After he was tracked down by an investigative journalist, the only witness for the murder of Robert Darby admitted he was drunk and does not know if he identified the right person. Now Jason Moore’s family is mounting a fresh bid for justice after 11 years behind bars, Amy-Clare Martin writes
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Towering at 6ft 5 with tousled dark hair, Jason Moore cuts an imposing figure. So when he was accused of murder - despite the only eyewitnesses telling police the killer was between 5ft 10 and 6ft with a shaved number two haircut – things simply did not add up.
Passerby Abdul Ahmed had discounted Jason in an identity parade in the aftermath of the 2005 stabbing of Robert Darby outside a pub in London’s east end. No forensic evidence has ever linked him to the crime.
But seven years later the same witness was asked to look again and picked him out of a police photo ID parade that only showed his head and shoulders – masking his distinctive height.
In the trial that followed, a jury found Jason guilty of murder after being told the killer was the taller of two men at the scene.
Then in an astonishing admission last year, Mr Ahmed revealed to an investigative journalist he was drunk when he witnessed the stabbing.
“It was the blink of the eye,” he said. “I was passing by. How could you remember things like that? And I was drunk!”
The revelation is the basis of a fresh bid to overturn Jason’s conviction after his lawyers lodged the new evidence with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
Strikingly, the victim’s brother is backing Jason’s campaign for freedom, insisting the wrong man is being punished for the murder.
His case has won the support of a string of high profile supporters, including cricket legend Sir Ian Botham, miscarriage of justice expert Lord Nicholas Manson and the Revd Dr Joanne Grenfell, Bishop of Stepney.
But after a series of damning scandals at the CCRC, including failures in the wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson for rape, Jason’s family have their doubts over whether the ailing review body will be able do the right thing.
As Jason’s sister Kirstie mounts a fight for justice ahead of the eleventh anniversary of his conviction, The Independent has examined: Is the wrong man behind bars?
The murder of Robert Darby
Shortly before midday on 24 August 2005, Robert Darby, 42, suffered a stab wound to the heart in a daylight altercation with two men outside the Valentine pub in Gants Hill, east London.
Jason knew Robert and admits he was the passenger in a car at the scene, but insists he is innocent and never left the vehicle during the attack. In a move he has regretted ever since, he fled abroad afterwards, fearing reprisal attacks from Robert’s family. Jason’s parents also relocated after police said they could not keep them safe.
In a trial mounted on his return to the UK eight years later, Jason was jailed for life with a minimum of 18 years after being convicted of Robert’s murder.
The memory of the colour draining from her brother’s ash-white face as the guilty verdict was read out in 2013 is one Kirstie has relived a thousand times.
However, when he was sentenced, the victim’s older brother Tim approached Kirstie outside the Old Bailey. He told her: “I know your brother didn’t do that.”
The remarkable conversation was the start of a decade-long campaign for justice from the unlikely allies, who are determined to see justice for both Jason and Robert.
Jason, now 53, knows that without admitting guilt and expressing remorse he may never be freed from HMP Oakwood in Wolverhampton. But he refuses accept responsibility for a crime he insists he never committed.
Key witness was ‘drunk’ and ‘unreliable’
In a statement to police two weeks after the stabbing, passerby Mr Ahmed described the attacker as a bulky man aged 30 to 40, with short dark hair shaved to number two length wearing a blue jacket.
A second witness, who was driving past, estimated the knifeman was the same height or an inch taller than the victim - who she described as 5ft 10. At post-mortem, Robert was measured as no taller than 6ft.
“Jason had long hair, he didn’t have a number two hair haircut. And most importantly - he’s 6ft 5,” Kirstie told The Independent. “And they just ignored that evidence.”
Mr Ahmed discounted Jason in an identity parade shortly after the murder, instead picking out a shorthaired volunteer.
But in a highly unusual move, he was asked to carry out a second identity parade seven years later, having already seen Jason’s picture. This time he selected Jason, a former professional gambler, who was arrested and charged as a result.
A team of private investigators which reexamined the evidence in 2020, led by former Metropolitan Police detective superintendent Steve Hobbs, said this video identification procedure used an image of Jason from the waist up that concealed his distinctive height and stature. In court, both witnesses gave evidence from behind screens so they never saw the him in the flesh.
Kirstie hit out at “countless missed opportunities” by her brother’s defence team to raise the discrepancies at trial.
During cross-examination, she claims his barrister failed to go over the fact that the description that Mr Ahmed gave on the day of the murder did not match the defendant.
“He mentions almost in passing that he had previously picked out someone else,” Kirstie said. “There’s so many things he could have raised and he didn’t.”
The reliability of Mr Ahmed’s evidence was central to Jason’s 2017 application to the Court of Appeal and his first application to the CCRC in 2021. Both were unsuccessful after the appeal judge included factual errors about the eyewitness evidence in their conclusions, which were then repeated in the CCRC’s refusal, the family claim.
In the end, it was left to Newsquest’s investigative journalist Charles Thomson to track down Mr Ahmed. Astonishingly, he admitted in a recorded interview last year that he had been drinking and he is not sure he picked the right man.
Jurors were never told he was drunk when he witnessed the attack.
He said: “It was the blink of the eye! I was passing by! How could you remember things like that? And I was drunk! I was drinking. I drank before I came that area.”
Asked if he believes he picked the right person, he replied: “No. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
‘Seismic errors’ and ‘sickening’ failures
The recording of Mr Ahmed’s admission, which was passed to Jason’s legal team, has now formed the basis of a fresh application to the CCRC which was submitted last October.
However, a year later the independent review body tasked with investigating potential miscarriages of justice has yet to even speak to Mr Ahmed.
Kirstie hit out at the “sickening” failures by the beleaguered body, which was slammed in a report earlier this year over a catalogue of failures it its handling of the case of Andrew Malkinson, who spent over 17 years wrongfully imprisoned for rape.
Following the damning case, justice secretary Shabana Mahmood called for the CCRC’s chair Helen Pitcher to resign, but she refused. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said a formal process to consider her position is ongoing.
Figures show the CCRC’s backlog of open cases has grown from 700 to 1,010 over the past four years, with only 19 cases referred to the appeals court last year.
Kirstie said dealing with the CCRC is like “hitting your head against a brick wall” after his last application was refused despite alleged errors in their findings. The decision means all the evidence in the bid can never be brought again.
She also claimed it was clear from their response that a 30-page report from the team of former Metropolitan Police detectives, submitted as part of his application, had not even been read.
“The CCRC is supposed to protect you from the British justice system that has failed you,” she said. “But they are looking at ways to stop you going to the Court of Appeal rather than looking at new evidence that would get you to the Court of Appeal.”
Mr Thomson, who spent a year reinvestigating the murder, said both the appeals court and CCRC had made “fundamental, seismic factual errors” in their dismissals of Jason’s case.
“You are talking about a man’s life, you are talking about a man’s freedom,” he told The Independent. “So you go to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal make mistakes in the judgement. Not small mistakes, the kind of mistakes that if I made as a journalist I would be pilloried for it. Fundamental, seismic factual errors. So the Court of Appeal lets you down and you go the CCRC.
“And the CCRC made the same fundamental, seismic factual errors in its judgment and then you can’t use the evidence again, because they’ve thrown you out on the basis of their own mistakes.”
Asked about the issues in Jason’s case, a CCRC spokesperson said: “We have received an application in relation to this case and a review is underway. It would be inappropriate for us to discuss the application or make any further comment at this stage.”
‘United’ in the fight for justice
Tim Darby branded the investigation into his brother’s murder “shambolic”, adding: “It should not have happened. They had no evidence on Jason Moore, they had nothing on him at all.
“You don’t bang someone up for something they haven’t done. He has been there 11 years now for something he had nothing to do with.”
He vowed to continue in the fight for justice after they learned the key witness was intoxicated, describing the fiasco as a “muck up right the way through”.
He also hit out at the CCRC insisting they were “not fit for purpose”. “They are supposed to be independent of the justice system,” he added. “It’s broken and they are not fixing it. It’s not broken – it’s shattered – and nobody wants to pick up the pieces.”
Meanwhile Kirstie revealed the devastating toll the conviction has had on Jason and the family - including her parents who are now in their 80s - leaving her mother fearing she won’t live to see her son exonerated.
Kirstie said: “In the process of Jason being wrongfully convicted I have lost five aunts and uncles. It’s absolutely devastating because every single one of them was 100 per cent behind Jason.”
But campaigning together, Tim and Kirstie have won the support of high profile supporters, including cricket legend Sir Ian Botham, miscarriage of justice expert Lord Nicholas Manson and the Rt Revd Dr Joanne Grenfell, Bishop of Stepney.
Bishop Joanne has written to the justice secretary, calling for her to “urgently” intervene in Jason’s case and expressing concern’s about the CCRC’s recent failures. She said it was “deeply troubling” that time after time miscarriages of justice were only being uncovered thanks to the tireless efforts of campaigners.
She said she was “blown away” when Kirstie arrived on her doorstep with Tim and told them Jason’s story.
“I think what felt really, really unusual was that the victim’s family and prisoners family were utterly united in their understanding of the evidence, the details and their belief that there’s no evidence that Jason did this,” she told The Independent.
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