Man jailed on 'crack' charge freed

A MAN who claimed that officers from Stoke Newington police station in north London planted 'crack' cocaine on him was cleared by the Court of Appeal yesterday after the Crown dropped its opposition to his appeal.

The court quashed Cyrus Baptiste's conviction for possessing the drug with intent to supply and set aside his six-year prison sentence and a money confiscation order.

Mr Baptiste, 33, of Palmers Green, north London, was jailed at Snaresbrook Crown Court, east London, in November 1991 and ordered to forfeit pounds 3,200. He was freed on bail, pending appeal, in January this year.

Yesterday Lord Taylor, the Lord Chief Justice, said that two other men arrested on drugs charges in separate incidents around the same time as Mr Baptiste's arrest were eventually acquitted at Snaresbrook after trials which took place a year after his trial.

In those two cases, the credibility of three police officers - the same three whose evidence had helped to convict Mr Baptiste - was challenged.

The Crown now conceded that, had the material presented in those cases been available at Mr Baptiste's trial, he might well have been acquitted - indeed, the prosecution would not have gone ahead.