A former police officer who claims to have been wrongly convicted has called an almost decade-long delay by the Criminal Cases Review Commission in making a decision to send his case back to the Court of Appeal ’farcical’ and ‘hugely damaging’. The watchdog has today finally referred the case of Danny Major back to the Appeal judges despite an independent investigation by a neighbouring police force identifying the former officer as a ‘miscarriage of justice’ in 2015. Major blames the CCRC for wrecking his mental health, ruining his career prospects and allowing the officers responsible for fitting him up to progress their own careers.

Ten years ago, the Justice Gap exclusively reported an investigation known as Operation Lamp by Greater Manchester Police which vindicated Danny Major in the attack on Sean Rimmington in the Leeds Bridewell. The former police officer was sentenced to 15 months for assault, serving four months in prison, after being found guilty in 2006. Talking to the JG earlier today, Danny Major said that on a first reading of the 500-page report he had received from the CCRC there was ‘little justification for any delay’.

‘I strongly believe the best course of action would have been for the CCRC to inform the Court of Appeal of Operation Lamp’s findings in 2015,’ Major said. ‘If this had been addressed promptly, my name could have been cleared nearly a decade ago. The suspects in the case could have been dealt with and might already have been released from prison by now. The delays have all but destroyed any chance of me rebuilding my career and have taken a terrible toll on my mental health. Tragically, several family members who supported my case have not lived to see my name cleared. Moving forward, I hope the DPP will decide not to contest the appeal so this matter can be resolved swiftly.’

• You can read an interview with Danny Major by Jon Robins from 2015 here. His case features in Jon Robins’ book Guilty Until Proven Innocent (Biteback 2018).

The CCRC today confirmed that it referred the case because ‘evidence that was not available at trial raises a real possibility the Court of Appeal will now quash those convictions’. Danny Major was convicted in November 2006 at Bradford Crown Court of battery and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He was acquitted of a third count of assault and was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment.

Major first applied to the CCRC in 2007 after a failed appeal. It took the watchdog four years to reject his case. Danny Major and his family managed to persuade Greater Manchester Police to investigate what happened that night in the Leeds Bridewell. They were forced to bypass the CCRC which has statutory powers to instruct an external force to investigate allegations. but failed to use them; instead, the family persuaded their local Police and Crime Commissioner to back their campaign for justice.

In 2013, Greater Manchester Police began Operation Lamp which reported in December 2015 concluding that there was (in the CCRC’s own words from today’s press release) ‘fresh evidence that cast doubt upon the safety of Mr Major’s conviction’. The following year on the recommendation of Operation Lamp report, GMP launched another operation (Redhill) as a criminal investigation of the events that led to Danny Major’s conviction.

The CCRC has said today that it had decided that it was then ‘not possible to progress its review of Mr Major’s convictions whilst the first phase of Operation Redhill was underway’. Danny Major says that this was not the case. He insists that it was the expectation of everyone including Greater Manchester Police that the CCRC would act immediately after Operation Lamp. He says this point was made directly to the watchdog at a meeting in Westminster in May 2018 convened by the Labour MP Mary Creagh attended by his lawyer Maslen Merchant as well as a number of officers from Operation Redhill.

Danny Major said that the meeting was ‘shocking’ and that the CCRC had already decided to pause their own review pending Redhill. MP Mary Creagh had asked to meet with the then chair of the CCRC, Richard Foster. In 2014, BBC Radio 4’s File on Four challenged Foster as to why the body had not commissioned a police force to investigate. ‘I stand by that judgement and if that investigation turns up anything new and it’s put to us, we would of course look at it,’ he told them.

According to Major, Foster ‘failed to attend only making his excuses on the morning and sent an investigator and commissioner in his stead’. According to Danny Major, that commissioner took the view that review should be shelved without having read Operation Lamp. ‘Everyone in the room was shocked. The opening of Operation Redhill in the view of all right-minded people should have led to the CCRC expediting the case. To do the opposite was farcical and the consequence were predictable and hugely damaging.’

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