Our Grounds For Appeal

We feel that Paul Paginton was not afforded a fair hearing at the Court of Appeal. We also submit that a new Appeal Hearing should be granted as soon as possible. Set out below is why it should be granted. Also, Barrister Stephen Jeary has drawn up a "perfected grounds for Appeal" which you should read. Paul Paginton was not afforded a fair trial because the self impalement option was not pursued and presented to the court. This in our view, would have not led us to where we are at this point in time had it been heard at the Trial.

Solicitor for Paul, Mr Andrew Shanahan of Leo Abse & Cohen Cardiff have indeed not only applied to the European Court for a ruling that Paul was denied a fair hearing at the Court of Appeal, but have made an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission for that body to investigate the conviction.

The basis for both applications, are the same as our own views which are that the Court of Appeal approached the application for leave to admit fresh evidence on the wrong basis.

That is:-
The Court of Appeal should have considered the expert evidence and, if it found that the evidence was compelling, the Court should then have relied upon it. Unfortunately, Mr Paginton made contradictory statements about what had happened on the date of the death
of Mr Thompson. His account for the purposes of his appeal was different from that that he gave to the Police and in his evidence at his trial. The Court of Appeal could have dealt with that issue by deciding that, due to the inconsistent accounts given by Mr Paginton, they should rely instead on other evidence.

There were no other witnesses of fact to help the Court and who saw how Mr Thompson sustained the injury to his neck, although there were pieces of circumstantial evidence in support of the prosecution surrounding the incident.
However, in the absence of the witnesses of fact as to what actually happened at the point when the glass shard penetrated Mr Thompson's neck, we submit that the Court would have to rely on expert evidence. If the Court found that the expert evidence of Dr Borer and Dr White was compelling, and more compelling than any other expert evidence, then it is submitted that there would be a lurking doubt as to whether the prosecution could prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, the conviction would have to be regarded as unsafe.
You will note that in the Judgment of the Court of Appeal the Court accepted that the expert evidence was both capable of belief and would have been admissible in the original proceedings. However, the Court decided that before such evidence could be admitted there had to be an evidential basis for it, i.e.an account from Paul Paginton that was credible.

In a nutshell, we argued that the Court of Appeal were side-tracked by an analysis of Paul's inconsistencies, rather than an examination of what the new evidence actually was.

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