My dad was wrongly jailed so now I fight for justice – at least 30 long-term inmates are innocent, says actor Tom Conti
Stalwart actor Tom Conti has spent decades at the top of his game, most recently playing Einstein in Christopher Nolan's epic about the birth of the atomic bomb.
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But it was a stage role in Twelve Angry Men that led the Oscar -nominated actor to discover a passion that few movie fans know about.
Conti privately spends hours poring over legal documents and court transcripts to try to identify potential real-life miscarriages of justice, with the hope of freeing those wrongly imprisoned.
The actor — once described as the thinking woman's crumpet after starring in 1989 romantic comedy Shirley Valentine — believes there may be as many as 30 long-term inmates in the UK who have committed no crime.
Conti says it does not take a rocket scientist to realise there is something seriously wrong with Britain's dangerously overcrowded jails.
And the actor blasted the notoriously slow Criminal Cases Review Commission for dragging its feet on cases such as ' Beast Of Birkenhead ' Peter Sullivan, who spent 38 years protesting his innocence before his conviction was overturned earlier this month.
Conti told The Sun: 'It's an absolutely shocking story.
'I don't know how this guy is going to manage now. He's been completely institutionalised.
'He's been told what to do every minute of the day for 38 years.'
'Damaged my father'
Conti became interested in forensics while researching a book he wanted to write in 2014, and got in touch with Tracy Alexander, an expert in cold cases.
As a thank you for the advice, he left her tickets for his latest play at the time, Twelve Angry Men, in London's West End.
They later went for dinner, where Tracy told Conti about UK charity Inside Justice, which campaigns to resolve major miscarriages of justice.
It was a conversation that struck a personal chord.
Conti's father Alfonso was one of 4,000 Italians interned by Britain during World War Two.
They were sent to camps on the Isle of Man in 1940 after Italy's Benito Mussolini declared war on Britain and France.
Almost overnight, ordinary Italians were considered the enemy.
Conti said: 'Winston Churchill famously said, 'Collar the lot'.
'Collar the lot'
'It must have damaged my father a bit, but he got over it and never resented the British because it was a time of war.
'So, I kind of had knowledge, second-hand, of what it was like to be locked up having committed no sin.'
The actor soon found himself on Inside Justice's advisory board, giving guidance on cases to a panel of blood spatter, fingerprint, fibre and DNA experts.
It might be easy to dismiss Conti as another do-gooder with too much time on his hands, but he is clearly no pushover.
While he worries about the state of the UK's overcrowded jails and questions whether rehabilitation programmes might be the answer, he also says 'we need to take violent people off the streets'.
A bear of a man, a charmer with twinkling eyes and an aura of mischief, the actor caused a stir in 2015 when he publicly switched political allegiance from Labour to the Tories.
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The Tony Award winner said that socialism was becoming 'a religion of hatred' and even considered running for London Mayor after Boris Johnson.
Conti acknowledges there are a huge number of prisoners who apply to Inside Justice 'because they are bored and it gives them something to do', but insists there is a vigorous vetting process.
He said: 'It's fairly easy to weed out the ones who are doing that, but there are genuine cases — maybe between 20 and 30 individuals — who are serving long sentences.'
The charity is currently working on several high-profile cases, including that of killer nurse Colin Campbell, formerly known as Colin Norris, who was jailed for life for killing elderly patients in two Leeds hospitals in 2008.
Originally from Glasgow, Campbell was convicted of murdering Doris Ludlam, 80, Bridget Bourke, 88, Irene Crookes, 79, and 86-year-old Ethel Hall.
His case is currently being heard at the Court of Appeal, where his barrister argued that the evidence against Campbell, 49, was circumstantial, and medical advances could now provide other reasons for the women's deaths.
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Inside Justice is also battling for Roger Kearney, whose case was featured on 2016 BBC investigation Conviction: Murder At The Station, which later streamed on Netflix in 2023.
Viewers were left 'flabbergasted' after Hampshire police destroyed evidence that Kearney, 67, hoped would prove his innocence after lover Paula Poolton, 40, was found stabbed to death in the boot of her car. The case against him was mainly circumstantial.
Paula's family remain convinced the cops got the right man, while police claim an officer destroyed the items without first consulting his senior.
Conti said: 'Our fibre expert went to get the exhibits but, when she arrived, the police said they had been destroyed. I find that jaw-dropping.
'This was this man's last hope of getting a conviction overturned and this is what happened.'
The actor is hugely frustrated at the pace of the Criminal Cases Review Commission which, he says, does not act quickly enough to refer cases to the Court of Appeal — or force the police to hand over exhibits.
Conti revealed that Inside Justice has even offered to loan its experts to the CCRC to speed things up, but were rebuffed.
He said: 'The CCRC is just not fit for purpose. Most of them work from home when they really should be in the office to discuss cases face to face.
'A real travesty'
'They resolutely refuse to pass cases to the Court of Appeal. They decide whether or not there's a chance of success.
'They don't have any scientists examining evidence and our experts have offered their services for nothing.
'Our scientists have said, 'If you want to send us exhibits, our people will examine them free of charge'. Instead they send them to a lab for 'presumptive' substance tests, whereas we would test for everything.'
The CCRC refers around 3.5 per cent of its cases to the Court of Appeal — and around seven in ten of those cases succeed.
In 2008, Peter Sullivan, now 68, asked the CCRC to look for DNA evidence that could exonerate him from the murder of 21-year-old barmaid Diane Sindall in 1986 — evidence that eventually pointed to an another suspect.
The technique that ended Peter's ordeal this year was available back then — but the CCRC says it was told by forensic scientists that they were unlikely to uncover any useful DNA.
There have been absolutely massive advances in science that can reveal new things... the Criminal Cases Review Commission is not fit for purpose
Conti says: 'It's a real travesty. There have been huge advances in science over the past ten or 15 years, absolutely massive, that can reveal new things about cases.
'We need the CCRC to move quicker.'
Conti might be earnest about the issues close to his heart, but he is also entertaining and fun, with a sharp sense of humour.
He's very proud of his daughter Nina, a comic ventriloquist, who he calls a genius for going on stage without a script, and his actor grandson Arthur, who starred in last year's hit Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Conti, who lives in Hampstead, also retains a sense of childlike wonder, talking about how excited he was when he got the chance to sit in Einstein's actual chair while filming Oppenheimer at Princeton University.
He avoided early starts on set by insisting the make-up artist left his wild Einstein hair on for the duration of filming, shocking locals.
He said: 'The first morning, I was in the make-up chair at about 5am because the hair had to be done and the moustache curled properly.
'Later that day, I went back into make-up and they said, 'Right okay, we'll get you cleaned up'.
'I said, 'Wait, we're doing four days of shooting, so why don't we just leave it?'.'
Conti laughs: 'There were definitely double-takes when I went out for supper those nights.'
The star might not be the real Einstein, but he is hoping that, with a handful of clever experts, he can make a genuine difference.
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