Major boost for ex-polo playing soldier who has served 37 years for a murder he claims he did NOT commit as watchdog refers conviction to Court of Appeal - after Mail exposed key 'failures' in prosecution case

Daily Mail​

10 hours ago

A former polo-playing landowner who has spent 37 years in prison for a brutal murder which may never have happened has been granted an appeal after the Daily Mail exposed key failures in the prosecution case.
Clive Freeman has repeatedly denied he was responsible for the death of vagrant Alexander Hardie in London in 1988, but was convicted during an Old Bailey trial dubbed 'the gentleman and the tramp' the following year.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) today ordered the case be referred to the Court of Appeal, after this newspaper cast serious doubt over the largely circumstantial evidence used against the Zimbabwean national, a former elite soldier.
It is understood the decision centres on allegedly flawed pathology evidence.
Mr Freeman's spokesman, Tony Thompson, broke news of the stunning development in a highly emotional meeting at Leyhill Prison near Gloucester this morning.
He told the Mail: 'He put his arms around me. He was ecstatic after 37 years of frustration and disappointment.'
He added: 'It was an emotional moment when I looked into his eyes across the small prison table and told him he now has a chance to finally clear his name and return to see his family in Africa - a family he has not seen since the 1980s.'
And Mr Thompson praised this newspaper, and its fearless Associate Editor Stephen Wright, for helping shine a light on the tranche of inconsistencies used to convict Mr Freeman, 82, who is seriously ill in prison with adavanced prostate cancer.
He said: 'Clive Freeman's fight for justice demonstrates the importance of good investigative journalism. I, and Clive Freeman, will be forever grateful to Stephen Wright, Associate Editor of the Daily Mail, for taking on the case when most of the mainstream media ignored it.
'Stephen exposed grave doubts about the safety of Clive's conviction in a series of major articles in the Daily Mail, putting pressure on the CCRC to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.
'Without a public voice, Clive would inevitably have spent the rest of his days rotting in jail, for refusing to admit to a crime that he did not commit and one that did not happen.'
He added: 'Clive Freeman's case is likely to become one of the most infamous miscarriage of justice cases in modern British legal history. He will be known as the man who spent almost forty years in British prisons for a crime that never happened.'
Father-of-three Mr Freeman now faces having his case re-examined by Court of Appeal judges. It is understood a top KC specialising in wrongful convictions has been lined up to represent him.
If he succeeds in overturning the case, it would represent one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in UK legal history.
Hardie's partially burned body was found in Mr Freeman's flat in Rotherhithe, south-east London, in April 1988.
Prosecutors claimed Mr Freeman lured the 49-year-old alcoholic to his home, then suffocated him using a technique called 'burking', which was used by 19th-century 'body-snatchers' Burke and Hare, who sold corpses to doctors for dissection.
Mr Freeman is then alleged to have set the flat on fire and fled abroad as part of an elaborate insurance scam - simply, they said Mr Freeman wanted to make it look as though he died in the fire, and enable a claim to be made on his life insurance policy.
But the fire did not properly take hold, and the body was identified as Scotsman Hardie's.
Mr Freeman said he was staying at a hotel in Earl's Court, on the other side of London, the night of the alleged murder.
He was said to have been so drunk that he could not write his home address in the receptionist's ledger, and flew to America the following day before being arrested and returned to the UK to face justice.
Mr Freeman refused to give evidence in his own defence at the trial, believing his alibi to be strong enough against the largely circumstantial evidence.
He was also concerned about the impact his giving evidence would have on his family back in Africa, where he was formerly a member of Rhodesia's Grey's Scouts mounted infantry unit.
As previously revealed by this newspaper, eight leading pathologists and forensic experts reject the 'burking' theory.
Many say the most likely cause of death was the mixture of alcohol and prescription drugs in his body and suggest the most appropriate cause of death is 'unascertained'.
The new toxicology report has looked into the original analysis of Mr Hardie's death by the Crown's pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd, which initially concluded that the Scot was not murdered.
The Mail has previously revealed that in a 2017 report Professor Nicholas Birch, a respected consulting pharmacologist, was very critical of Dr Shepherd's work.
He said: 'I understand that the contemporaneous notes of Dr Shepherd made at the post-mortem were not disclosed to the defence at the time of the trial.
'Subsequent consideration of them has disclosed that at the post-mortem of April 16, 1988, Dr Shepherd concluded: 'COD [cause of death] prob alc [alcohol] + acute pancreatitis'.'
Also, in the first two examinations, there were no reports of bruising on Mr Hardie's back despite an examination in that area. Professor Birch wrote that these notes were not disclosed.
'He found a more melodramatic cause of death but one which is not based on the facts of the Burke case. However, this may have influenced the jury,' he added.
Six years ago, forensic pathologist Dr Alexander Kolar wrote that 'there is no evidence in isolation or in combination that allows a cause of death to be put forward, in particular there is no evidence that allows a diagnosis of suffocation, crush asphyxia, Burking or similar'.
There are also claims that key police evidence was withheld from Mr Freeman's lawyers ahead of his trial.
Celebrity pathologist Dr Shepherd, whose evidence was crucial in the prosecution's case, said he noted the CCRC decision but had 'nothing further to add' when contacted by the Mail today.
Theoretically, Mr Freeman could have been released after completing the 13-year minimum term of his life sentence.
But his continued protestations of innocence means he has never been granted parole.
He now hopes to live long enough to clear his name when his case comes before the Court of Appeal.
In February, the Mail revealed the scandal of another long-serving murder convict, the so-called 'Beast of Birkenhead' Peter Sullivan.
He spent 38 years in jail before his conviction was quashed in May, three months after our damning revelations.