Jason Moore: Victim’s family fight to clear convicted murderer’s name

ITV News Reporter Sam Holder spoke to the family of Jason Moore, who has spent 10 years in prison for the murder of Robert Darby

Jason Moore has spent 10 years in prison for murder.

His supporters say that he is innocent and his conviction is a miscarriage of justice.

What makes this case so exceptional is that the family of his supposed victim agree.

Robert Darby was stabbed to death outside the now-demolished Valentine pub in Gants Hill, East London, in August 2005.

Jason Moore has always denied murdering the 42 year-old and maintains that he was in a parked car near the pub, but never left the vehicle.

“There's no evidence of the fellow being there… No DNA, no CCTV,” says Tim Darby, Robert’s brother. "This is about principle, you don’t bang a geezer up for something he (hasn't) done."

Tim has joined the campaign demanding Jason Moore’s release, as have a number of former high-ranking Metropolitan Police officers.

Supporters claim that Moore was convicted on highly dubious evidence, which makes the conviction unsafe.

"It was undoubtedly a miscarriage of justice," says Dave McKelvey, a former Detective Chief Inspector. "It's clear that there are serious failings."

Moore, who had no prior convictions for violence, admits that he had previously been threatened by Robert Darby but has always insisted that he was not present at the stabbing and had no knowledge it was going to happen.

Much of the original police case appeared to be built around the testimony of an eyewitness, who's reliability has been called into question.

New evidence suggests that the eyewitness was drunk at the time of the stabbing, something which wasn’t disclosed to Moore’s defence team.

According to Dave McKelvey and other former police detectives who have joined Jason Moore’s campaign for release, the eyewitness initially picked out somebody who looked "completely different" to Moore in the original lineup.

In a highly unusual and controversial step, the police asked the eyewitness to pick again - seven years later - and this time he chose Jason Moore.

Experts say he may have just remembered Moore’s face from the first police lineup.

"The witness says that the man who carried out the stabbing was five foot nine," says Dave McKelvey. "Jason was six foot five (and weighed 18 stone), you could not miss him."

In the criminal trial, the judge allowed the jury to hear evidence that the eyewitness had identified Moore, but then following legal arguments, excluded it from proceedings.

Dave McKelvey said that by that point the damage would already have been done and it is unreasonable to expect a jury not to be influenced by what they had been told.

Charles Thomson, a journalist at the Romford Recorder, has been investigating the case for two years for an upcoming podcast.

In a telephone interview, the witness admitted that he was drunk at the time and asked how he could have been expected to remember what the attacker looked like.

During the trial at the Old Bailey in 2013, the jury were also told that the killer was wearing a blue zip-up top, but CCTV from before and after the stabbing appears to show Moore wearing a grey or black jumper with no zip.

The reason for the second police lineup seven years after the first was because Jason Moore fled the country.

His sister Kirstie Moore says the family were given an 'Osman Warning' by the police, which is where officers have intelligence that there is an imminent threat to a person’s life.

She claims the family were warned by the police that they couldn’t guarantee Jason’s safety. 

"My parents made the decision to sell up and leave the country, Jason did the same and so did my sister," says Kirstie Moore.

"He came back in 2012 because he’d had enough. He walked straight into a police station, told them everything he knew and went home."

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is the statutory body responsible for investigating potential miscarriages of justice.

Both Jason and Robert’s families have criticised its handling of the case.

Moore’s first application to the body was rejected, but his supporters argue that the CCRC didn’t read the case notes properly because of factual errors in their findings. He has now submitted a second application.

In response to an ITV News request for an interview, the CCRC said: "It would be inappropriate for us to discuss the application or make any comment at this stage."

The CCRC faced heavy criticism for its handling of the Andrew Malkinson case, who spent two decades behind bars for rape - even though DNA evidence could have cleared his name.

Former Justice Secretary Robert Buckland called for an urgent public inquiry in response and there has been widespread concern at the length of time it appears to take to overturn miscarriages of justice.

"The British justice system is a fortress; you cannot get through it, you can't get to talk to anybody, you can't get a reaction from anybody," says Kirstie.

“We were just normal people… This can happen to anybody. There's no discrimination around a miscarriage of justice."

Both Robert and Kirstie say they want justice for their brothers. Recently, the pair handed in a petition to No 10 Downing Street -the family of a convicted murder, and the family of his supposed victim, coming together to try to clear his name. 

"It needs to be looked at. It needs to be shown that this is terribly wrong," says Tim. "We know he wasn’t the stabber."

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