forum.sports-pro.co.uk

Darren · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:24 pm Post subject:

In my original post months ago, I said this....

I find the whole thing a bit depressing. Someone caved a fella's head in with a paving slab. Why should Jack Straw grant a pardon, and essentially over-rule another country's justice system?

The whole thing with Liverpool fans feigning outrage, just to prove what bigtime liverpool fans they are, is pathetic (kop murals and players wearing t-shirts to support convicted criminals?), but then again the Everton fans taking the piss is just as bad.

Liverpool fans seem to assume he's innocent because he is a Liverpool fan. Sorry, we all know that doesn't wash.

I never said he was guilty or innocent, I don't know the facts. The BBC seem to make out that Jack Straw has granted it on the basis that the family campaigned so hard. However, these are facts.

Bulgaria's legal system found him guilty. A man's head was caved in by a paving slab.

Footballers should not get involved with issues like this, especially the wearing of t-shirts with his name on.

The team you support does not dictate whether you are capable of a crime. (That is the part I had an issue with.)
_________________
The Skanky's Mob Facebook Group......

http://www.facebook.com/group.php...702361#/group.php?gid=59818702361

CanfordCliffs · Listed Winner Joined: 02 Jul 2009 Posts: 515

Disgraceful decision by the Government.

alansouthcoast · Site Admin Joined: 28 Mar 2006 Posts: 13647

Darren · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:18 pm Post subject:

Focus on the evidence, by all means, and if he is released because of it, so be it. However, the following sentences should not be at the forefront of the article.

Mr Straw said that fresh evidence had come to light during a meeting with the Shields family on 28 August.

He was told that two members of the family had visited the home of another man alleged to be responsible for the crime, shortly after the attack in 2005.

"I was told in the course of the visit that the man made an oral confession in front of several other people," Mr Straw said.

It gives completely the wrong impression, and I hope it just a case of shoddy journalism from the BBC. The 'new evidence' bit should be the focal point, not the fact that his family said he didn't do it.
_________________
The Skanky's Mob Facebook Group......

http://www.facebook.com/group.php...702361#/group.php?gid=59818702361

MT VESSELS · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 2:02 pm Post subject:

I dont think it is anti Liverpool dig at all.
I think Darren has put it quite well.
The story about the other fella making a confession has been around since he got arrested, so nothing new.
IMO and only IMO I think there is no smoke without fire and that he was involved somewhere along the line.
I will cringe like a big cringing thing cringing if he is paraded at all in front of the kop as a hero returns, really hope it doesnt happen.
I feel quite sorry for the victims family as justice hasnt been delivered either by a wrong pardon or the confessor getting away with it

MT jnr
_________________
THERE ARE 2 RULES TO SUCCESS. RULE 1)DONT TELL EVERYONE WHAT YOU KNOW

alansouthcoast · Site Admin Joined: 28 Mar 2006 Posts: 13647

MTV, my comment about it being a dig wasnt aimed at Darren. It was aimed at Canfords comment about it being a disgrace that Shields has been pardoned. Doesnt the rule of law count any more ?

Straw heard the evidence, not just a family saying he was innocent, but saying the had proof and witness`s that someone else had confessed. Im none to sure about no smoke without fire either, sure Shields could have been out drinking, he could have been boisterous, he could even have been involved in a fight. The question has to be did he do what he was jailed for. Straw said no after having the evidence re examined by the police, according to my link. If thats so, then good enough for me.
_________________
If at first you dont succeed..then skydiving isnt for you

lewijay · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 7:12 pm Post subject:

Here is the full statment by Justice Jack Straw following the royal pardon given to Liverpool fan Michael Shields...

1. In July 2005 Michael Shields was convicted in Bulgaria of the attempted murder of a Bulgarian national called Martin Georgiev. Mr Shields and other football supporters had been in the Bulgarian resort of Varna when violence flared in the early hours of 30 May. Mr Shields was sentenced to 15 years, reduced to 10 on appeal. In 2006 he was returned to England to complete his sentence here. He applied for a free pardon under the Royal Prerogative of mercy. However, it had been the long standing practice, on an equally long standing legal interpretation of the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, that the "receiving state" had to respect the decisions of the sentencing state, so the application was not initially entertained. This approach was challenged in a judicial review and on 17 December the Administrative Court declared that I should consider the application and said, "the grant of a free pardon would appear to require a conclusion that, taking the Bulgarian courts' judgment for what it is and without calling in question its correctness on the material which those courts considered, fresh evidence which the Bulgarian court did not consider, taken with the material which they did consider and their judgment upon it, justifies a conclusion that Michael Shields is morally and technically innocent".

2. On 2 July, following very careful consideration of all the evidence that was then available, I made a provisional decision to refuse Michael Shields' application for a free pardon. This was however- as I said- provisional. I made clear at the time that I would consider further representations before I made a final decision on his application. My office also contacted Mr Shields' parents to offer them a meeting should they wish to discuss their son's case with me. They said that they would like to. It took place at Blackburn Town Hall on Friday 28 August. Further representations were received from Mr Shields' legal team and from Fair Trials Abroad later in July. I considered those representations with great care.

3. I have said before that I have spent more time on this case than on any other, during and since my time as Foreign Secretary. I am well aware of the very strong feelings many people have about the safety of Mr Shields' conviction, and over the months I met several of Mr Shields' supporters. But as I explained I had to apply myself to the evidence available and set that against the test established by the administrative Court. I have been assisted in considering Mr Shields' application by Merseyside Police and by one of the country's leading criminal barristers, Mr David Perry QC. I am very grateful for their assistance. The decision itself was not one I could delegate. It had to be mine.

4. My consideration of the further representations did not, however, persuade me that my 2 July provisional decision was wrong. It was clear to me that I had still not been provided with enough evidence to meet the very high test of "moral and technical innocence".

5. However, during the meeting on 28 August with Mr Shields' parents, important new evidence came to light which, when looked at alongside all the previously available evidence, has now satisfied me that Mr Shields meets the high test set by the Court.

6. At this meeting, following a series of questions which I put to the family, I was told for the first time about a visit by two members of the Shields family to the home of a man alleged to be responsible for the crime for which Michael Shields was jailed. I was told that in the course of the visit that man made an oral confession to the crime in front of several other people. This episode, I was told, happened on 22 July 2005, a day after the start of Mr Shields' trial in Bulgaria.

7. Since the 28 August meeting in my constituency further inquiries, including by the Merseyside Police, have been made at my request into the events of 22 July 2005. I will not set out in this statement all the evidence that has come to light over the last two weeks but suffice it to say that there is very good reason to believe I was being told the truth. This in my view profoundly changed the credibility of the various accounts of what actually happened in this case.

8. Whether or not this new evidence would have been admissible at Mr Shields' trial in Bulgaria, it is highly relevant to my consideration of Mr Shields' application for a pardon.

9. No reference to the events which took place on 22 July 2005 was contained in any of the formal written representations I received either before or after I made my provisional decision on 2 July. Mr Shields' current solicitors have told us that they did not know about them, and their potential significance had not been fully appreciated by those who had been made aware of them. #

10. It is clear that the victim in this case, Mr Martin Georgiev, was subjected to a brutal and vicious attack. It is not for me to say who was responsible for this disgraceful assault. That is a matter for the criminal courts in Bulgaria. The new evidence which has emerged from the meeting with Mr Shields' parents and from Merseyside Police's subsequent inquiries has been passed to the Bulgarian authorities by the British Ambassador in Sofia.

11. My decision does not amount to a criticism of the Bulgarian courts' judgment in this case. I have seen evidence that they did not.

12. In assessing this difficult case I was tasked, as I have already mentioned, by the Administrative Court in December 2008 to determine whether having considered any fresh evidence which the Bulgarian courts did not consider, alongside that which they did, it would be justifiable to conclude that Michael Shields is morally and technically innocent.

13. I have concluded, having looked carefully at all the evidence now available, that Michael Shields is telling the truth when he says he is innocent of the attempted murder of which he was convicted in Bulgaria. That being so I have recommended to Her Majesty the Queen that he should be granted a free pardon. Mr Shields is being released from prison today and will return home to his family a free man.

14. I have spent a great deal of time on this case, both before the Administrative Court hearing in December last year and subsequently. I felt it was of critical importance that my consideration of Mr Shields' application was full, thorough and above all demonstrably fair. Indeed, it is the thoroughness and fairness of the process - particularly giving Mr Shields' family the opportunity to talk to me face to face before I made my final decision - which enabled the new evidence to come to light.

15. I add this as a postscript, one issue that has emerged from this case is the appropriateness or otherwise of the Justice Secretary, rather than a court, exercising this power over a prisoner's liberty involving finding of fact in an alleged miscarriages of justice, particularly in relation to cases from abroad. I am clear, even with expert advice, that a quasi-judicial role such as this is not a suitable function for the Executive. I shall therefore be exploring alternative options for dealing with any future cases which arise.

16. For now I wish Mr Shields and his family well

geordie_racer · Group Performer Joined: 25 Feb 2006 Posts: 11078

lewijay · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 8:12 pm Post subject:

To be honest i am a bit mystified by it all really. The lad has been freed as he was Morally and technically found to be innocent by Straw.

Yet in Bulgaria he is seen as still guilty of the crime? Is there any feedback coming back from Bulgaria at all?

Although surely Mr Straw would have done some proper homework on this case regardless of qualifications. It is after all quite high profile news in the current climate of the British justice system and all things linked with it.

Strange times!

geordie_racer · Group Performer Joined: 25 Feb 2006 Posts: 11078

Machiavellian · Group Performer Joined: 17 Mar 2008 Posts: 4416

johnnio · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:30 pm Post subject: