Sadly, it is no revelation to say that the police often manufacture evidence during investigations; nor that they often convince a jury to convict an innocent man. But what is at the extreme end of evil, is when the police deliberately concoct an entire crime. TERRY SMITH writes from HMP SWALESIDE
My nightmare ordeal started back in May 2008, when I was flying high as an Essex true crime writer and TV consultant. Armed Police stormed my family home and arrested me for a spate of seven unsolved cash-in-transit robberies in east London and south Essex between 2000 and, 2008, and the callous shooting of a brave have-a-go-commuter during a cash-box robbery at Rayleigh station, Essex, in May 2007.
I was taken to Southend police station where I faced six lengthy police interviews and where I was instructed by my legal advisers to make no comment to all questions until detectives put some concrete evidence to me directly linking me to the offences. The nearest they came to implicating me in any criminal offence was when I was observed by the police conducting research for my latest commissioned true crime book Blaggers’ Inc: Britain’s biggest armed robberies, published in Decemer 2008. As part of this research I was seen to examine an old type Mercedes Loomis cash van.
Despite a lamentable lack of any evidence against me, I was charged with nine offences and remanded to Belmarsh prison to await trial.
During my remand time, I was placed on a turkey shoot of 26 computerised Viper ID parades where I was eventually misidentified by a witness who had apparently seen me from an upstairs bedroom 54 metres away, as being a 5’ 5” tall, able-bodied, black-haired Indian man. The fact is, however, that I am a 5’ 10”, white, north European male with a serious leg disability. Furthermore, I was at home with my wife and child at the time concerned.
It gets worse. At the trial the eyewitness said he was unable to describe or recall facial features from that distance and that he identified the suspect Terence Smith due to his ‘height and build’. When it was pointed out that you cannot view the ‘height and build’ on the neck and head only video screen, he stuck to his story. The jury failed to reach a verdict and a retrial was ordered.
Primarily, this was because, I emphatically suggest, the police and Loomis UK Ltd had unlawfully switched the old-type Mercedes Loomis CIT van I was researching for a newer Ford Iveco model in order to denigrate my testimony as ‘a big fat lie’.
At the retrial a defence application was tendered to exclude the risible ID evidence as manifestly unreliable and unsafe; however the trial judge unfairly dismissed the application and it was left in the hands of the jury.
As for the police/Loomis-manufactured evidence, I pushed for disclosure in order to prove precisely what type of Loomis vehicle was in use on that day. But the crown said that there was no CCTV, video or mobile footage on the route.
In any event, the jury foreman, who was a local bank manager, declared I was guilty by a unanimous verdict and I was sentenced to an indeterminate sentence (IPP) with a minimum tariff of 12 years.
In July 2011, I submitted a complaint to the police/IPCC and asked them to run an archive ANPR check on the Ford Iveco CIT vehicle to show it was somewhere else in Essex at the time of the offence. The complaint was rejected as out of time and an abuse of process.
A year later I discovered, through Freedom of Information and Data Protection Act applications that the detective chief superintendent, witness liaison officer an disclosure officer had all resigned from the police service within weeks of my complaint. Three senior managers who gave false evidence at my trials had also been dismissed from Loomis.
A wheelbarrow of further complaints followed to the IPCC, Loomis UK, Security Industry Authority, Information Commissioner, Legal Ombudsman and other bodies – but I continue to be shafted in every direction.
Two separate barristers who looked at the case file and fresh evidence I have gathered were prematurely promoted to QC after they dismissed my arguments for an appeal; however late last year I found a real gem who has declared ‘I can clearly see that you have been framed.’
I am now in my eighth year of a sentence for concocted crimes. I am determined to have my day at the court of appeal. I would be grateful if any of your readers can come up with any ideas of how to expose the police/Loomis fit-up and challenge the bogus data track documents and route time sheet that are riddled with time, distance and speed anomalies.
Strength and honour, as always
Terry Smith A8672AQ,
HMP Swaleside, Sheerness,
Kent ME12 1UZ.
More detail on Terry’s case can be found at www.justiceforterrysmith.co.uk
