SUCCESS FOR SHREWSBURY PICKETS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/august 2020 :: RMTnews 16 Shrewsbury 24 Campaign chair Harry Chadwick reports on a magnificent success Wednesday March 4 2020 was a momentous day in the 14-year long campaign for justice for the Shrewsbury pickets when the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) finally announced that it would refer the pickets’ convictions to the Court of Appeal. It has been a long hard road which has had a number of setbacks but the campaign and the pickets have battled on regardless. At last, 46 years after these building workers were put on trial, they have the chance to overturn this miscarriage of justice. The campaign wants to pay tribute to the eight pickets who have consistently pursued this case through to the end, Des Warren, John McKinsie Jones, Ken O’Shea, Michael Pierce, Bernard Williams, Malcolm Clee, Kevin Butcher and Terry Renshaw. The CCRC’s press statement in March invited other pickets to apply to join the case. It has recently referred the names of four more pickets who were submitted by the Campaign: George Roberts, John Seaburg, Samuel Warburton and Alfred James. Two other pickets withdrew from the case in 2017 when the CCRC rejected the applications. On the back of the eight pickets’ success in March they have now resubmitted their applications independently and had them accepted by the CCRC. The Shrewsbury 24 Campaign was established in 2006, based in the North West and North Wales. We aim to overturn the convictions and sentences of building workers who took part in picketing during the 1972 national strike. Several of them were sent to prison. Eileen Turnbull, the Campaign’s researcher, spent many years investigating the background to the trials and discovered fresh evidence to support the case. This formed the picket’s application to the CCRC on 3rd April 2012. Further evidence was discovered by Eileen in 2014 and 2015 and submitted to the CCRC. It clearly demonstrated that there had been an abuse of process in the trials at Shrewsbury. Despite this, in 2017 the CCRC refused to refer their cases to the Court of Appeal. This was a tremendous blow to the campaign and pickets. Our lawyers advised us that the CCRC’s decision was legally perverse and could be challenged in court through a Judicial Review. Access to justice is very expensive, but we were determined to challenge it and see the case through to the end. We set out to raise the funds to proceed to a Judicial Review. The unions gave us the boost we needed to fund the start of judicial review proceedings in the Administrative Court. CCRC OPPOSE JR APPLICATION The CCRC opposed our application for a Judicial Review. A judge considered the papers (known as the ‘permission stage’), including the SUCCESS FOR SHREWSBURY PICKETS Mick Cash and Steve Shaw with members of the Campaign at TUC Congress 2017