Michael Shields case proves justice shouldn't lie with a minister

By David Higgerson on Jul 2, 09 07:25 PM

JACK STRAW pulled a shock one out of the bag today when he refused to pardon Michael Shields, didn't he?

Our esteemed justice minister is normally quite a shrewd political operator, and pardoning Shields seemed like a no-brainer, both in terms of the law and in terms of brownie points amongst the Merseyside electorate.

Just to re-cap: Michael, now 22, was sentenced to 15 years for attempted murder following an attack in the Black Sea resort of Golden Sands, Bulgaria, in May 2005 after Liverpool FC's Champions League victory in Istanbul.

After the near-fatal attack and his return to the UK from the Black Sea resort of Golden Sands, Graham Sankey, another football fan who did not know Shields produced a written confession, admitting he was responsible for the attempted murder.

But he withdrew the statement, claiming he had been involved in a separate incident.

A judge ruled the confession inadmissible and Michael Shields was convicted and jailed for 15 years.

His sentence was cut to 10 years and in November 2006, he was flown back to England.

Up until last year, the British government had claimed it couldn't over-rule the court decision of another country, regardless of whether Shields was in the UK in jail or not.

That argument was over-ruled in British courts last year - in action brought by Michael's family - and it was down to Mr Straw to decide whether to pardon Shields, therefore triggering an early release.

In the meantime, the Bulgarians had said that it was up to Britain to decide what to do with Shields, while senior diplomats from Bulgaria admitted that new evidence casts doubt on Michael Shields' conviction.

So since December last year, Mr Straw has been mulling over whether to release Michael Shields. We're now in July, and even by Parliament's achingly-slow standards, that isn't the "quick process" Mr Straw promised in December.

While the Shields campaign have always been careful not to take anything for granted, having been let down time and time again, to any bystander who has followed the case, there was a sense that Shields' pardon was simply a formality.

To quote tonight's Liverpool ECHO:

The justice minister insisted the evidence presented by campaigners and the Merseyside police inquiry he commissioned in February is not enough to prove Michael is "morally and technically innocent", which, he adds, "is a very high test".

Rubbish. The legal system in this country is built on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and that such guilt must be "beyond reasonable doubt."

So it doesn't take a genius to prove work out that to determine that Shields, whose conviction is now being questioned by officials in Bulgaria, is "morally innocent" because there is now "reasonable doubt" over the validity of his conviction.

In determining anything other than that, Mr Straw - whose efforts as foreign secretary to get Shields released were hardly well thought of in Merseyside - is effectively taking the law into his own hands, and making the rules up on the hoof.

It goes to prove that such decisions should rest with a politician, or advisors in Government. What we should have had was an open hearing, with at least three judges pouring over the submissions and using the founding principles of our legal system to determine whether Shields should be released.

I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to have one injustice served against you in a lifetime, let alone the repeated ones Michael Shields is being hit with - from those who should be helping him in the first place.