The Story of Mallard’s Case
The principles of justice are a set of legal boundaries and guidelines to make sure every accused citizen receives a fair investigation, hearing, and sentence. They are paramount to a fair justice system. When undermined, we see terrible effects, for example the 12-year wrongful imprisonment of Andrew Mallard. He was punished for the brutal murder of Pamela Lawrence in May 1994, in her jewellery shop Flora Metallica. He did not commit this murder, or have anything to do with the crime at all. Several principles of justice were compromised in this tragic case, but the ones that had the most drastic effect were the (undermining of) the presumption of innocence, high quality evidence, and thorough police investigation. These principles were compromised to a shockingly high extent, causing an innocent man to go behind bars.
The presumption of innocence refers to how an accused must be considered innocent before being proven guilty beyond a reasonable level of doubt by the prosecution. This is key to upholding justice in a case, as without it, the trial is biased. If the verdict is unclear, the accused will be punished by default, meaning there is a higher chance of an innocent person going to jail. It was violated several times in the Mallard case. In the eyes of the police, Mallard was guilty long before the trial began. He had numerous mental conditions such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He also was known to dwell around the area of Flora Metallica, Lawrence’s Jewellery shop and the scene of the crime. Additionally, he had a few past crimes, for example, impersonating a police officer to commit theft. The police considered this enough to presume him capable of murdering Pamela Lawrence. It is clear the police felt this way as there were about 140 suspects in total, and several that were just as likely, if not more likely, to commit the murder, but the police focused on Mallard even though there was no physical or forensic evidence tying him to the crime-scene. The compromising of this principle of justice strongly contributed to Andrew’s wrongful imprisonment.
Another principle of justice undermining is the high standard and quality of evidence, referring to how no evidence must be withheld and it all must be fathered truly, fairly, and justly. An example of a compromising of this in the Mallard case is a test carried out on a pig’s head. Essentially, while being interviewed Andrew speculated that the killer used a Sidchrome wrench. When this same type of wrench was bludgeoned to a pig’s head (the same way it was done to kill Pamela Lawrence) the e wound shape was severely different to that on Lawrence’s head. This test was discovered and presented in trial when Andrew was freed, but if it hadn’t been withheld at his trial twelve years prior, he may not have been convicted. The police further violated this principle of justice by tampering with a witness statement: that of Katie Barsden’s. She was 13 years old at the time and being driven home school. From the back seat of the car, she could see into the windows of Flora Metallica while stopped at a red light. She saw a man duck behind the counter in a panicked manner, and impressively remembered his characteristics well when relaying this to the police. Her descriptions of the man clearly indicated the killer could not have been Mallard, as she saw a man with very different characteristics. The police tampered with this statement of Katie Barsden and tweaked it to make Mallard look guilty. Additionally, police left some of their interview with Mallard unrecorded and manipulated him in this off-the-record time, coercing him into falsely confessing. This is a clear undermining of High-Quality Evidence, and contributed to the numerous ways the case failed to uphold justice.
Thorough investigation by the police, yet another compromised principle of justice in this case, is how police must look into all leads, meticulously investigate the scene of the crime, and generally do their job without mistakes or careless errors. The Mallard case saw this breached in several ways. In his interview, Andrew speculated that the killer used a 12-inch Sidchrome wrench to bludgeon Pamela Lawrence to death. Police assumed that this is how he did it, neglecting to investigate whether a wrench of that type was found at the crime scene. If they had they would’ve seen it wasn’t and this would contribute to Mallard’s innocence being proven. On top of that, police neglected to record all of Andrew’s interview, and in the unrecorded parts they beat him and fed him information about the case for him to repeat back while being recorded, and be viewed as guilty. An additional way the police handled this case inadequately is how, when Mallard was released from a small time he spent at a mental hospital, they snatched him up and took him straight into an interview without providing him a lawyer or allowing him a chance to sort one out for himself. Because of his mental issues, he unfortunately did not pick up on the illegality of this, and continued answering questions police were asking him. This was a severing undermining of justice, that was one of many factors gone wrong in this case.
There are numerous ways the police could’ve improved their investigation, and upheld justice to a greater extent in the case when handling it. Simply interviewing Andrew with an unbiased opinion, and recording the entirety of the interview would be a huge improvement, and would give the jury and judge a clearer idea of Andrew’s lack of involvement in the crime. Also making sure Mallard’s medical condition was taken into account so he didn’t do or say anything suspicious. This would have been aided if police allowed him to find a lawyer rather than snatching him for an interview without one. Additionally, police should’ve looked for a Sidchrome wrench on the crime scene as that was speculated by Andrew that this was the main murder weapon which is a rather significant element of the case. Making these improvements would’ve allowed justice to be upheld for the entire extent of the case, giving an ideal outcome of the real murderer being punished and Mallard a free man.
After spending about 12 years in prison, wrongly, Mallard was finally released on the 20 of February 2006. He received an official apology from the police commissioner, as well as being awarded $3.2 million. The real killer of Pamela Lawrence in 1994 was later discovered to be Simon Rochford, a 26-year-old at the time who left a handprint at the scene of the crime that day. He was already in prison for a murder with similar circumstances. Rochford committed suicide in 2006. Mallard moved on to complete a degree in Fine Arts, and moved to London in 2010. Tragically, in the early hours of the morning of April 18, 2019, he was struck by car whilst crossing the road. He was engaged to be married at the time.
Overall, justice was upheld to a disappointingly low extent of the case, due to the undermining of several principles of justice. These include the presumption of innocence, high quality evidence, and thorough police investigation. If improved, this could’ve stopped a harmless, innocent man from going to jail for 12 years over a violent murder that he didn’t commit. When justice is upheld to a strong extent, the court system works well, and fulfills its purpose.