Jon Robins, who many readers will know of as the editor of the excellent www.justicegap.com, has written a first class book, The First Miscarriage of Justice, which pulls off three tricks. First he tells a riveting and rather sad story of an ordinary man whose life was shattered by an outrageous miscarriage of justice. Secondly, he takes us back in time to a Life on Mars world of Cortinas, Mini Coopers, bent coppers and biased judges. Thirdly, he reminds us that whilst the Cortinas may have vanished the modern judiciary is by no means as clever or as fair as it sometimes likes to imagine itself. Four times Tony Stock’s case has been to the Court of Appeal. Four times, disgracefully, it has been rejected.
The facts that gave rise to his conviction for robbery are simple enough. At about 6.45 p.m. on a wet Saturday evening in January 1970 two employees of Tesco were taking the day’s takings to the bank. They were suddenly attacked from behind by robbers wielding iron bars. They dropped the cash, which was picked up by the robbers who made off in a Ford Cortina. The car which had been stolen, was later found abandoned in another part of Leeds, while a holdall containing money-bags from the robbery was found close to the A58 Wetherby to York road, about 12 miles away. Continue reading “Tony Stock: a flagrant and appalling miscarriage of justice compounded four times by the Court of Appeal”