Davis conviction overturned after 37-year battle

GEORGE DAVIS, who has spent decades denying his involvement in an armed robbery, won an appeal against his conviction in a British court yesterday.

Davis’s case became part of criminal folklore after he was jailed over a raid in April 1974 at the London Electricity Board (LEB) in Ilford, Essex.

Davis, now 69, has now had his convictions overturned in an appeal.

Lord Justice Hughes said that fresh material relating to identifications made by those at the scene of the robbery, and “limited new evidence’ affecting the “very positive identification’ given by another witness, “so far undermines the case that it is impossible to be satisfied that this conviction is safe’.

He announced: “We do not know whether Davis was guilty or not, but his conviction cannot be said to be safe.”

The judge added: “As we have made clear, the fact that he was an active and known criminal does not affect this question, nor does it make it any the less important that his conviction should not be upheld unless it is clear that it is safe.”

After the ruling, Davis said in a statement: “This is a bitter-sweet moment for me. I am, of course, delighted that my conviction has been quashed.

“I have been protesting my innocence since 1974.”

Davis, who lives in London, was originally sentenced in March 1975 to 20 years.

The same year the Court of Appeal rejected a conviction appeal bid, but reduced his sentence to 17 years.

His case attracted widespread attention in the 1970s, with punk band Sham 69 writing a song about him, The Who singer Roger Daltrey wearing a T-shirt proclaiming his innocence and his name being daubed across railway and road bridges.

Davis’s sentence was remitted by royal prerogative and he was released from prison in 1976. He was arrested in September 1977 and later pleaded guilty to his involvement in an armed robbery at the Bank of Cyprus in London. He was sentenced to 15 years, reduced to 11 on appeal.

Richard Whittam QC, for the crown, told Lord Justice Hughes, Mr Justice Henriques and Mrs Justice Macur that they could “properly uphold the conviction”.

Davis said he had always claimed he had been falsely identified “but it should not have taken 36 long years for me to be able to stand here like this”.

He said: “I have made it clear that I have no intention of seeking compensation for my wrongful conviction. I have pursued this appeal for all these years because I wanted all those people who worked for, and helped, the campaign in the 1970s to know that their support was justified.”

At the trial, the prosecution relied on identifications of Davis, at identification parades, by two officers who were at the robbery scene and three other officers from a different location.

Lord Justice Hughes said “new material affecting the identifications of the two policemen at the scene of the robbery is of considerable significance”.

He added: “We bear in mind that both behaved with exemplary courage and that the attack under which they personally came will have made it very difficult for them to have made dispassionate observations.

“However, we have no doubt ... neither identification can be safely relied upon.”

When the then home secretary Roy Jenkins remitted the balance of Davis’s sentence in May 1976 he did so, said the judge, on the basis he was “satisfied that the identification evidence has been seriously weakened”, but that he did not “have the evidence of innocence to justify recommending a free pardon”. Lord Justice Hughes said the Court of Appeal was in “a similar state of ignorance on the defendant’s innocence.