Police officers among 22 held over quashed murder convictions

Twenty-two former police officers and members of the public, including several prostitutes, have been arrested as part of one of the biggest inquiries into a miscarriage of justice.

Twenty-two former police officers and members of the public, including several prostitutes, have been arrested as part of one of the biggest inquiries into a miscarriage of justice.

The case into the botched investigation of the murder of a Cardiff prostitute 17 years ago could result in criminal prosecutions against officers and witnesses involved in the jailing of three innocent men.

The internal inquiry, which began 20 months ago, is into how officers from South Wales Police were able to obtain evidence and confessions that led to three men being wrongly given life sentences for murder.

In one of the most notorious miscarriages, Steven Miller, Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris, who became known as the Cardiff Three, were jailed in 1990 for the murder of Lynette White. The 20-year-old prostitute was stabbed more than 50 times in a frenzied attack in a flat above a betting shop in Cardiff's Butetown area on Valentine's Day 1988.

The three were cleared on appeal in 1992 in a case that became a cause célèbre.

In 2003 the real murderer, Jeffrey Gafoor, was jailed for life for the crime. The breakthrough was due to new DNA techniques used on evidence taken from the crime scene.

After the new conviction, South Wales Police announced an inquiry into the case, which is being overseen by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

In the latest round of arrests, four retired officers from the South Wales force - two men and two women - were detained at their homes on Thursday. One of the four retired officers has been working with the South Wales force as a member of police staff. They were later released on bail.

The move follows similar arrests last week of five other retired officers. All the ex-officers were arrested for offences of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, false imprisonment and misconduct in a public office.

A further 13 people, including former Cardiff prostitutes and pimps, have also been arrested as part of the inquiry. The civilians have been questioned about evidence and information they provided that incriminated the Cardiff Three.

The current inquiry is re-examining the murder investigation that led to the miscarriage.

Within days of the killing, South Wales Police had their first suspect. Several witnesses had seen a white man wearing bloodstained clothing in a distressed state outside the victim's flat shortly after the murder.

But 10 months later, the investigation dramatically changed tack. Although the white man had not been eliminated, eight other people, seven of them black, were arrested. Three were released and five blacks were charged with murder.

All the defendants were known to the police. The main evidence against them came from two prostitutes, friends of White. After 42 hours in police custody, they claimed they had seen five men murder her.

In 1990, three men, Mr Paris, Mr Abdullahi and Mr Miller, were convicted of White's murder after a trial that lasted 117 days. Two of the other men named as the killers were acquitted. Mr Miller, then 26 but with a mental age of 11, was "bullied and hectored" for 13 hours during a "travesty of an interview", before giving a confession implicating the two other men, said Lord Taylor of Gosforth when he was the Lord Chief Justice.

At the men's appeal in 1992, the judges ruled the convictions were unsafe and unsatisfactory because recorded police interviews of Mr Miller should not have been put before the jury. Mr Miller - Ms White's former boyfriend - who had an IQ of 75, had denied the offence more than 300 times.

In 1999, South Wales Police began a new inquiry. Thanks partly to advances in DNA analysis, they were able to uncover the evidence that would help to convict the real killer, Gafoor, a security guard of Llanharan, near Bridgend, South Wales.

In February 1988, Gafoor went to Cardiff docks to find a prostitute and paid £30 to White. But when they got back to her flat he changed his mind and asked for his money back. A row started and Gafoor pulled a knife and stabbed his victim more than 50 times, cutting her throat, slashing both wrists, cutting, stabbing and slashing her face, arm and torso.

Gafoor was linked to the killing during the new investigation after DNA was discovered on a piece of cigarette wrapping found near White.

Gafoor's blood was matched after a family member gave a DNA sample and was found to have a similar profile.

Gafoor pleaded guilty to the murder in 2003 and was given a life sentence.

A team of 22 officers is currently working on the case and further arrests are expected. Officers from Wiltshire, Dorset, Avon and Somerset and Gloucester are also giving support.