Paul Cleeland

EDM number 760 in 1990-91, proposed by Chris Mullin on 26/04/1991.

That this House is seriously concerned as, on 18th July 1988, as well as depositing an inaccurate Home Office record of the court transcript of the 1973 second trial of Paul Alexander Cleeland, the Minister for the Home Office, the Right honourable Member for Oxford West and Abingdon inadvertently misled the House when he referred to Mr Justice Lane's summing up for the jury, of the forensic evidence provided by Mr McCafferty, an unqualified senior officer employed by the Home Office, and further to that acknowledges that Lord Justice Bingham and Mr Justice Mann, who denied Paul Alexander Cleeland's application for a judicial review in October 1987 after their consideration of the Home Office document, were misled into thinking that Mr Justice Lane at the second trial had said to the jury that `traces of lead were found which could conceivably have been left by the residues of the fired shot gun cartridges, but there was no evidence to connect Paul Alexander Cleeland either with the scene of the crime or with the disposal of the gun cartridge', is concerned at this misrepresentation of the trial judge's summing up of vital evidence in this case given by an unqualified expert, and aware of the doubts over scientific evidence, calls upon the Home Secretary to refer the case of Paul Alexander Cleeland to the Court of Appeal.

This motion has been signed by a total of 7 MPs.