Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #249 Jason Flom with Raphael Rowe

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#249 Jason Flom with Raphael Rowe · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: In December of nineteen eighty eight, four incidents in and
0:05
Speaker 1: outside of South London, two carthfs and two home invasions
0:09
Speaker 1: left eight victims in their wake, one man severely injured,
0:13
Speaker 1: another brudely murdered, and a number of cars and other
0:15
Speaker 1: goods stolen. The victims and witnesses all described three assailants,
0:20
Speaker 1: two white men and one black man. The brutality of
0:23
Speaker 1: the crimes garnered national attention, as well as mounting pressure
0:27
Speaker 1: to bring those responsible to justice. It is believed that
0:30
Speaker 1: the first carthf was traced to a hostel where eighteen
0:33
Speaker 1: year old Raphael Rowe lived with five other men. On
0:36
Speaker 1: December nineteenth, he and his hostel mats, along with several others,
0:40
Speaker 1: were arrested. Despite the prior identification of the perpetrators as
0:44
Speaker 1: two white men and one black man and solid alibi witnesses,
0:47
Speaker 1: police focused their investigation on Raphael and two other black men,
0:51
Speaker 1: Michael Davis and Randolph Johnson. It became clear a trial
0:55
Speaker 1: that the prosecution was relying on information from an incentivized
0:58
Speaker 1: informant who was involved and the crimes. Discrepancies between the
1:02
Speaker 1: victims and witnesses initial reports and their testimonies a trial
1:06
Speaker 1: raised suspicion. Despite all of that, plus Raphael and Michael's
1:10
Speaker 1: alibi witnesses and the description of two white and one
1:13
Speaker 1: black assailant, the jury convicted all three black men, and
1:17
Speaker 1: Raphael was sentenced to life plus fifty years. During his incarceration,
1:21
Speaker 1: Raphael was able to develop evidence with the help of journalists,
1:24
Speaker 1: to shed light on the details of his wrongful conviction,
1:27
Speaker 1: including official misconduct and the fabrication of a false narrative.
1:31
Speaker 1: Raphael joins us today to share his harrowing story at
1:34
Speaker 1: his continued fite to clear his name. This is Wrongful Conviction.
1:52
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Today, we're taking you overseas
1:57
Speaker 1: to Southeast England for a wrongful conviction case. That is,
2:02
Speaker 1: it's a powerful story, not least of which because the
2:05
Speaker 1: man who lived it has a way of telling it.
2:08
Speaker 1: That is, it rocks my world. So I think this
2:12
Speaker 1: is going to be a wild episode and I'm really
2:16
Speaker 1: honored to have with us today the man himself, Raphael
2:21
Speaker 1: Row Raphael, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
2:24
Speaker 2: Thank you for inviting me onto your podcast.
2:27
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, I never had the privilege of interviewing
2:29
Speaker 1: a wrongfully convicted person who is themself a podcaster journalist.
2:33
Speaker 1: But let's go back all the way to even before
2:37
Speaker 1: this happened, right, These were crimes that took place in
2:40
Speaker 1: December nineteen eighty eight, a series of robberies, violent robberies
2:44
Speaker 1: in Southeast England. It's like something out of Clockwork, orange
2:47
Speaker 1: or worse. And they're much more than robberies. There was
2:50
Speaker 1: a murder. There were other types of home invasions. I mean,
2:53
Speaker 1: I say robberies. It sounds too benign to describe what
2:56
Speaker 1: was really going on here, But what was your life
2:59
Speaker 1: like for all this insanity happened? So?
3:02
Speaker 2: I grew up in Southeast London in a very deprived neighborhood.
3:07
Speaker 2: We had cancel houses, which are sort of social housing.
3:10
Speaker 2: I come from a mixed race background. My father came
3:14
Speaker 2: to the United Kingdom on the wind Rush as a
3:17
Speaker 2: Jamaica and my mother is a born and bred Londoner
3:20
Speaker 2: from West London. And when they got together, they had
3:23
Speaker 2: my three sisters, and then along came me and my
3:26
Speaker 2: dad was a laborer. My mom was a housewife bringing
3:28
Speaker 2: up four kids, and so financially we struggled as a
3:33
Speaker 2: young family, but we had quite a stable upbringing of course,
3:36
Speaker 2: there were problems in our household. You know, my dad
3:39
Speaker 2: liked to drink. My mum and dad would argue, but
3:42
Speaker 2: on the street everybody was struggling and trying to make ends.
3:45
Speaker 1: Me.
3:46
Speaker 2: Everybody came from a working class background and we all
3:49
Speaker 2: grew up in small flats, in blocks of flats.
3:53
Speaker 3: You know.
3:53
Speaker 2: I come from a neighborhood where riots had kicked off
3:56
Speaker 2: in the United Kingdom because of the oppression of people
3:59
Speaker 2: like myself, in particular black people in and around London,
4:03
Speaker 2: especially migrants. To be honest, there was no one in
4:06
Speaker 2: my life in my early teens that inspired me to
4:10
Speaker 2: become anything. You know, everybody around me was just looking
4:13
Speaker 2: to earn money, and for me, as a young teenager,
4:16
Speaker 2: that was about being involved in petty crime. And so
4:19
Speaker 2: by the age of eighteen, I'd got in trouble with
4:22
Speaker 2: the law and I was put on what we call
4:24
Speaker 2: probation and at that point I went to live in
4:27
Speaker 2: a hostel with one of my best friends. And in
4:29
Speaker 2: this hostel in southeast London, there were lots of other
4:33
Speaker 2: sort of wayward kids, if you like, people who have
4:36
Speaker 2: also been sent there by the authorities for getting in
4:39
Speaker 2: trouble with the law, and I was living with my
4:41
Speaker 2: best friend Michael party In doing the things that you
4:44
Speaker 2: do as a teenager without a care in the world.
4:47
Speaker 1: And so that brings us to this insane series of
4:50
Speaker 1: events of four separate violent, hyperviolent robberies that took place
4:54
Speaker 1: between December thirteenth and December sixteenth and nineteen eighty eight.
4:57
Speaker 1: The first crime took place in Sidenheim on December thirteenth,
5:01
Speaker 1: where two men stole a car, a Triumph, spitfire in
5:04
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and took it back to
5:05
Speaker 1: twenty five Lori Park Road, which was the hostel that
5:08
Speaker 1: you were living in that you just described now. The
5:11
Speaker 1: next crime took place a few days later on December
5:13
Speaker 1: sixteenth in Fickleshaw, where three masked men interrupted Peter Herberg
5:17
Speaker 1: and a younger man amed Alan Eely as they were
5:20
Speaker 1: having sex at a car. The masked men had a
5:22
Speaker 1: knife and a gun. Eely was pulled from the car
5:24
Speaker 1: and robbed of ten pounds, and it was clear that
5:27
Speaker 1: the three masked men intended to steal a car. When
5:30
Speaker 1: Herberg objected, he was attacked eally passed out, and when
5:33
Speaker 1: he awoke he found that Herberg was dead after having
5:36
Speaker 1: been savagely beaten. He had fractured ribs of Bruce Hart
5:41
Speaker 1: and he had actually died from a heart attack, obviously
5:43
Speaker 1: as a result of the beating. This car, by the
5:46
Speaker 1: way an Austin Princess was gone, but the stolen car
5:49
Speaker 1: from the thirteenth, the Triumph Spitfire, was discovered abandoned close
5:53
Speaker 1: to the scene. The Austin Princess was then driven to Oxted,
5:57
Speaker 1: which is about ten miles away, where the three men
6:00
Speaker 1: invaded and robbed a home. There was a violent struggle
6:04
Speaker 1: and one of the homes occupants was cut badly, with
6:07
Speaker 1: his artery severed. The house was ransacked and the robbers
6:10
Speaker 1: left with the man's Toyota now here too. The car
6:13
Speaker 1: from the previous robbery that night and Austin Princess was
6:16
Speaker 1: found abandoned near the home and in the final ins
6:19
Speaker 1: and an hour later, about twenty miles from Oxted, in
6:22
Speaker 1: a place called Fetcham, a couple woke up in their
6:24
Speaker 1: bed to find three masked men in their room. The
6:26
Speaker 1: robbers asked them for money, jewelry and car keys, and
6:29
Speaker 1: the couple was tied and gagged while the robbers ransacked
6:32
Speaker 1: the house. The men eventually left driving off in a
6:35
Speaker 1: Renault and a baux Hall Cavalier. As before, the stolen
6:38
Speaker 1: Toyota from the previous robbery was found nearby, and the
6:41
Speaker 1: Renault and Bauxhall were later found abandoned and burned out
6:44
Speaker 1: in the field. So this is four separate incidents in
6:48
Speaker 1: which eight people were robbed, one was severely injured, and
6:52
Speaker 1: another one killed in a truly good tesque manner.
6:55
Speaker 2: These robberies hit the front pages of all the national
6:59
Speaker 2: newspaper because the headlines were things like two white men,
7:04
Speaker 2: one black man commit horrors m twenty five gang, which
7:08
Speaker 2: is what these three men were up. Catch these monsters,
7:12
Speaker 2: bring back hanging twenty five thousand poundly ward for the
7:16
Speaker 2: arrest of these monsters, etc.
7:18
Speaker 1: Twenty five thousand pounds back then was a huge amount
7:21
Speaker 1: of money, right we're talking about nineteen eighty eight. I
7:24
Speaker 1: don't know what that would be in current dollars or
7:27
Speaker 1: with the exchange rate, but I would say it's well
7:30
Speaker 1: over one hundred thousand dollars in today's money. What I
7:33
Speaker 1: will say is that in case after case, we see
7:35
Speaker 1: that these type of rewards, which sound like a good
7:38
Speaker 1: idea on paper, lead to people who want the money,
7:42
Speaker 1: saying things that they might otherwise know not to be true,
7:46
Speaker 1: or guessing. So how did they come to target you
7:49
Speaker 1: and the others.
7:50
Speaker 2: Well, the facts don't materialize as to why we were
7:55
Speaker 2: initially targeted until many years after I'd spent in prison.
8:01
Speaker 2: The reason the police targeted our address was because they
8:05
Speaker 2: were given a tip off. I believe that there was
8:07
Speaker 2: different evidence that led them to our address, ie the
8:10
Speaker 2: cars that had been discovered from the final robbery that
8:14
Speaker 2: were burnt out. Witnesses saw people standing over those cars
8:17
Speaker 2: at the time and described those individuals to the police,
8:20
Speaker 2: and I think the police then made some in roads
8:22
Speaker 2: on who those people were. Two of those people were
8:26
Speaker 2: living in the same address as made two white guys.
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Speaker 3: All of the victims.
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Speaker 2: Described the perpetrators as two white men and one black man.
8:35
Speaker 2: One of the most significant factors in this case. All
8:38
Speaker 2: of the victims of these crimes, as terrified as they were,
8:42
Speaker 2: were able to give a consistent account of what the
8:45
Speaker 2: perpetrators looked like, despite the fact that these robbers were
8:49
Speaker 2: wearing balaclavas.
8:51
Speaker 1: In case anyone our audists is unfamiliar with the term
8:54
Speaker 1: ballack lava, it's a sche mask anyway, continue.
8:58
Speaker 2: When the victims described the perpetrators having described one of
9:02
Speaker 2: the white men with blue eyes and fair hair, another
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Speaker 2: white man whose skin they saw through the eye hole
9:09
Speaker 2: and the mouth of one of the balaclavas was white.
9:12
Speaker 2: And the black man they said, had brown skin with
9:16
Speaker 2: quite a chubby face.
9:17
Speaker 3: So that was the level of detail.
9:19
Speaker 2: When I was arrested and my co defendants were arrested,
9:22
Speaker 2: the three men that ended up being in charge were
9:25
Speaker 2: all black. I had dreadlocks at the time, my co
9:28
Speaker 2: defendant had dreadlocks at the time, and the other co
9:31
Speaker 2: defendant was of dark black African appearance. So all three
9:36
Speaker 2: black men who were eventually charged didn't fit the descriptions
9:40
Speaker 2: that were not only described by the victims, but it
9:43
Speaker 2: was also repeated in these headlines that the police were
9:46
Speaker 2: looking for two white men and one black man, and
9:48
Speaker 2: that two white men were seen burning the cars, and
9:51
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. So the details were quite obvious.
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Speaker 2: How could the police go on to charge three black men?
9:57
Speaker 1: Right? These were not identifications that were given for across
10:00
Speaker 1: the street or down the road, where you might say, well,
10:02
Speaker 1: maybe they were mistaken about the race. Maybe it was
10:05
Speaker 1: dark the street like didn't work something like that. No,
10:07
Speaker 1: these were up close and personal crimes, and there's no
10:12
Speaker 1: way that everybody got the race of the perpetrators wrong.
10:15
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right, Jason. These weren't fleeting glances across the
10:20
Speaker 2: road in the dead of night. There was a level
10:22
Speaker 2: of detail that you could not excuse.
10:25
Speaker 1: And this was certainly a case as well where you
10:27
Speaker 1: would hope that the authorities would be on their a
10:29
Speaker 1: game because everybody needed these guys off the streets. I mean,
10:34
Speaker 1: whoever did this are literally the people for whom prisons
10:37
Speaker 1: are built.
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Speaker 3: I totally agree with you, Jason.
10:39
Speaker 2: I think the problem is is when these sensational headlines
10:43
Speaker 2: put politicians and lawmakers the police under the extreme pressure,
10:48
Speaker 2: they then start to target people that are innocent. They
10:51
Speaker 2: then home in on people who are the most vulnerable,
10:54
Speaker 2: i e. Those types of individuals like myself, who the
10:57
Speaker 2: public wouldn't care about.
11:10
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by AIG, a leading global insurance company.
11:14
Speaker 1: AIG is committed to corporate social responsibility and is making
11:18
Speaker 1: a positive difference in the lives of its employees and
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Speaker 1: in the communities where we work and live. In light
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Speaker 1: of the compelling need for pro bono legal assistance, and
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Speaker 1: in recognition of AIG's commitment to criminal and social justice reform,
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Speaker 1: the AIG pro Bono program provides free legal services and
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Speaker 1: other support to underrepresented communities and individuals.
11:45
Speaker 2: Twelve people were arrested on the nineteenth of December nineteen
11:50
Speaker 2: ninety eight under suspicion of being involved in these crimes.
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Speaker 2: I was one of my co defendant, Michael Davis, who
11:58
Speaker 2: was also my best friend and lived with me in
12:00
Speaker 2: the hostel, as was a number of other individuals who
12:04
Speaker 2: lived in a hostel. Three in particular, three young white
12:07
Speaker 2: guys were also arrested, as was a young Asian guy,
12:11
Speaker 2: but it was only me, my co defendant, and the
12:13
Speaker 2: three white guys who remained in the police station being
12:17
Speaker 2: interviewed and interrogated by the police between the nineteenth of
12:20
Speaker 2: December and the twenty second of December nineteen eighty eight,
12:25
Speaker 2: when I was charged and then sent to a remand
12:28
Speaker 2: prison to await trial. My friend Michael was reminded in custody.
12:32
Speaker 2: The two white guys and the Asian guy were not
12:36
Speaker 2: charged with the murder and the series of robberies, and
12:39
Speaker 2: it was about three weeks later that Randolph Egbert Johnson
12:44
Speaker 2: who was involved in a high speed car chase with
12:48
Speaker 2: the police, was arrested and he became the third suspect
12:51
Speaker 2: in the so called M twenty five case. Randolph I
12:55
Speaker 2: didn't know him. I had no association with him. I
12:57
Speaker 2: think i'd met him once before, but we had no
13:01
Speaker 2: connection at all.
13:03
Speaker 1: And so tell me about the police interrogation.
13:06
Speaker 2: There were two particular police officers who were responsible for
13:09
Speaker 2: my risks. And these two cops were typical of your
13:11
Speaker 2: good cop, bad cop type guys. One of them hated
13:14
Speaker 2: me from the moment he set eyes on me. The
13:17
Speaker 2: other one was slightly more reserved, always talked for and
13:20
Speaker 2: reflective of my answers, and he always gave me some
13:23
Speaker 2: confidence that he was believing me because I was not
13:26
Speaker 2: one of those suspects who sat in the police cell
13:29
Speaker 2: saying no comment, no comment, No. I took every opportunity
13:33
Speaker 2: to tell them that I was not involved, that they
13:36
Speaker 2: were pointing the finger at the wrong guy. I was
13:38
Speaker 2: providing them with as much detail as I possibly could
13:42
Speaker 2: about where I was, who I was with, what I
13:45
Speaker 2: was doing, and it fell on deaf ears. And the
13:49
Speaker 2: reason for that is because the other suspects that the
13:52
Speaker 2: police were interrogating, were telling lies, were making stories up,
13:57
Speaker 2: and I'd go as far as to say they were
14:00
Speaker 2: buying with other police officers at the time to fabricate
14:03
Speaker 2: evidence that would then be used against me. You know,
14:06
Speaker 2: even the victims themselves, who I have all the sympathy
14:10
Speaker 2: for in the world as to what they experienced, even
14:13
Speaker 2: they started to change their statements. So every time I
14:17
Speaker 2: told the police where I was and what I was
14:19
Speaker 2: doing and who I was with, they quickly got people
14:22
Speaker 2: to change their statements or their time so that it
14:25
Speaker 2: would undermine the evidence that proved unequivocally that I was innocent.
14:31
Speaker 3: And do you know why that is, Jason.
14:33
Speaker 2: During the interrogation, the police have it in their head
14:36
Speaker 2: that they've got the right people, the evidence that's coming
14:39
Speaker 2: into the interview room, all these fabricated bits of evidence
14:42
Speaker 2: which were convincing the police that they were onto the
14:45
Speaker 2: right guys, regardless of the victims descriptions. The problem was
14:49
Speaker 2: is that by the time they were starting to discover
14:51
Speaker 2: the real evidence, i e. The evidence that proved I
14:54
Speaker 2: had an alibi, the evidence that proved I could not
14:56
Speaker 2: have been involved in.
14:57
Speaker 3: These crimes, it was too late.
15:00
Speaker 2: So that's why they then went back to witnesses and
15:03
Speaker 2: victims and started to get them to change their statement.
15:07
Speaker 2: And that's easy for the police to do when you
15:09
Speaker 2: believe in the police, and these victims are law abiding
15:13
Speaker 2: citizens who go by whatever the police tell them they
15:16
Speaker 2: need to go by.
15:17
Speaker 1: You know, I have to point out that in America
15:20
Speaker 1: there's only one state, which is Minnesota, where they record
15:23
Speaker 1: I was interrogations, And I feel that's a reform that
15:26
Speaker 1: needs to be instituted nationwide and worldwide, because most people
15:31
Speaker 1: understand the reason why you need to record interrogations of
15:34
Speaker 1: suspects to make sure they're not being beaten, coerced fed information,
15:39
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. But in some cases, including this one,
15:42
Speaker 1: that would have been extremely valuable to have access to
15:46
Speaker 1: the videotapes of these incredibly suggestive witness identification procedures. I mean,
15:51
Speaker 1: they were not even being suggested. They're being told, you're wrong,
15:55
Speaker 1: don't believe your eyes, believe us.
15:57
Speaker 2: And I should say now, there was absolutely no forensic
16:02
Speaker 2: evidence or any other kind of scientific evidence in this
16:05
Speaker 2: case that pointed to me and my co defendants. In fact,
16:09
Speaker 2: the opposite was true. There was some forensic evidence, i e. Fingerprints,
16:14
Speaker 2: found on the car at the scene of the murder
16:18
Speaker 2: that linked the case to a white guy with blue
16:21
Speaker 2: eyes and fair hair. II fitted the description as described
16:25
Speaker 2: by some of the victims. And when the police discovered that,
16:28
Speaker 2: and I'm already locked up in prison charged with these crimes,
16:31
Speaker 2: they went to this witness and they got this witness
16:35
Speaker 2: to say that they stole the car that was used
16:38
Speaker 2: in the robbery for me and my co defendants rather
16:41
Speaker 2: than interrogate that individual about their involvement.
16:45
Speaker 1: It's a tangled freaking webman, this is a lot and Raphael,
16:50
Speaker 1: let's get to your alibi, because you had multiple people
16:54
Speaker 1: testifying to where you were during the crimes, right, please
16:58
Speaker 1: take us through this.
17:00
Speaker 2: Initially, in the witness that survived statement, the murder was
17:04
Speaker 2: timed to take in place at eleven thirty pm on
17:09
Speaker 2: the night of the fifteenth December nineteen eighty eight. At
17:13
Speaker 2: that time, me and my co defendant were with four
17:16
Speaker 2: girls who we were knocking about with. I was sleeping
17:20
Speaker 2: with one of those girls. And at about ten thirty
17:23
Speaker 2: on the night of the murder and these series of robberies,
17:26
Speaker 2: one of the girls invited me and my friend and
17:29
Speaker 2: her mates back to her parents' house. So at about ten
17:33
Speaker 2: thirty of the girls and my co defendant went back
17:36
Speaker 2: to this other girl's house. I met her mum for
17:39
Speaker 2: the first time, I met her sister, and I met
17:42
Speaker 2: her sister's boyfriend, who was a solicitor, and we were
17:45
Speaker 2: there until about half past midnight. All these witnesses verify this,
17:50
Speaker 2: so that's an hour after the murder had been committed.
17:53
Speaker 2: And at about half past twelve, the solicitor wanted to
17:56
Speaker 2: get rid of this rowdy couple of guys who were
17:58
Speaker 2: smoking weed and bouncing around with their dreadlocks. The solicitor
18:01
Speaker 2: offered to give me and my friend a lift back
18:04
Speaker 2: to our flat, and we agreed, and the solicitor drove me,
18:08
Speaker 2: my co defend and the girl I was sleeping with
18:10
Speaker 2: back to my flat and we arrived back at about
18:13
Speaker 2: just twenty to one in the morning. I went back
18:16
Speaker 2: to my room with this girl. We smoked a joint
18:20
Speaker 2: and then we made love. So I was in bed
18:23
Speaker 2: with her until about one point thirty in the morning,
18:25
Speaker 2: so this is two hours after the murder had been committed.
18:29
Speaker 2: This was just as the second robbery was taken place,
18:33
Speaker 2: and I'm forty miles away from where these incidents were
18:37
Speaker 2: already taking place, and this was my alibi. And all
18:41
Speaker 2: of these witnesses I just mentioned came into the court
18:43
Speaker 2: at the time of my trial and told the jury
18:47
Speaker 2: that I was with them at this time. And this
18:50
Speaker 2: is why the police got that first victim to change
18:54
Speaker 2: their statement. They said that the crime didn't happen at
18:56
Speaker 2: eleven thirty, It happened at twelve thirty. But even then
19:01
Speaker 2: I still had an alibi that put me miles away
19:05
Speaker 2: from where this crime was committed. But crucially, the girlfriend
19:10
Speaker 2: that I was in bed with was then undermined by
19:14
Speaker 2: the police because she gave the police items of jury
19:19
Speaker 2: that had come from one of the robberies, saying that
19:23
Speaker 2: she got that jury from me. That was an outright lie,
19:27
Speaker 2: and I can tell you why. When I was in
19:29
Speaker 2: prison a few months later, this girl wrote me a letter,
19:33
Speaker 2: unbeknown that it would be crucial evidence, admitting that she'd
19:38
Speaker 2: lied and that she'd been put up by the police
19:41
Speaker 2: to telling the police that I'd given her items a
19:45
Speaker 2: jury in order to save herself from being accused of
19:49
Speaker 2: perverting the course of justice or something like that. So
19:52
Speaker 2: a I had a cast iron alibi. B The police's
19:56
Speaker 2: attempt to undermine my alibi witnesses ability by fabricating evidence
20:02
Speaker 2: which she admitted was untrue. That's what we were up
20:06
Speaker 2: against at the time of my trial.
20:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're changing the times, they're changing the races of
20:11
Speaker 1: the perpetrators. They're coercing well threatening eyewitnesses and alibi witnesses.
20:18
Speaker 1: It's a whirlwind. So the trial itself, Raphael, it must
20:22
Speaker 1: have been a circus atmosphere. If I'm going to guess,
20:25
Speaker 1: please tell us about that experience. Here you are now,
20:28
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I'm going to say, one of
20:30
Speaker 1: the most hated men in the country along with your
20:33
Speaker 1: co defense.
20:34
Speaker 2: The court setting was that the Old Bailey, which is
20:37
Speaker 2: the number one call in the United Kingdom. And yes,
20:40
Speaker 2: it was a circus. Me and my two co defendants,
20:42
Speaker 2: all three of us stood in the dock, accused of
20:45
Speaker 2: the murder and the three robberies and the attempted murder,
20:49
Speaker 2: and witness after witness, including the victims, who stood up
20:53
Speaker 2: in the dock and gave evidence against us. Some told
20:56
Speaker 2: the truth, many told lies. One of the most awkward
20:59
Speaker 2: moments Jason in the trial was when the victims stood
21:03
Speaker 2: in the dock and they were asked to describe the perpetrators,
21:07
Speaker 2: and that's when the umzhnas started to come in. You know,
21:10
Speaker 2: the victims were Yeah, I did say that it was
21:12
Speaker 2: white skinned, and yes I did say they had blue eyes.
21:15
Speaker 3: But maybe I was wrong. Why was you wrong?
21:18
Speaker 2: But the police seemed to believe that those men in
21:20
Speaker 2: the dock were guilty. That was one of the saddest
21:23
Speaker 2: things for me that the victims could look at the
21:25
Speaker 2: three guys that were in the dock, know that we
21:28
Speaker 2: didn't commit the crime and couldn't do anything about it.
21:31
Speaker 2: And yet somehow that jury they went out and they
21:35
Speaker 2: came back and they found us guilty.
21:38
Speaker 1: So yeah, in spite of the fact that the victims
21:40
Speaker 1: are acknowledging their own original identifications of these white, blonde,
21:45
Speaker 1: blue eyed individuals, and in spite of the fact of
21:49
Speaker 1: your many alibi witnesses, in spite of all of that,
21:53
Speaker 1: the jury goes out and finds you guilty. So can
21:55
Speaker 1: you take us back to that moment.
21:57
Speaker 2: When the jury came in and they read the guilty
22:00
Speaker 2: verdict against me for murder, for attempted murder, and for
22:04
Speaker 2: three serious robberies. The judge had no alternative but to
22:08
Speaker 2: send me to prison for the rest of my life
22:10
Speaker 2: plus fifty odd years, which is the accumulation of all
22:14
Speaker 2: the sentences added up for the robberies. It's really difficult
22:19
Speaker 2: to say at that point that I was crushed like
22:22
Speaker 2: a penut under my foot, because I'd already been crushed
22:26
Speaker 2: when I was first charged with these offenses and condemned
22:29
Speaker 2: to prison. I was crushed, and it was during those
22:32
Speaker 2: eighteen months that I built a resilience within myself, a
22:36
Speaker 2: determination not to allow them to get away with what
22:40
Speaker 2: they were doing, not just to me and my family,
22:43
Speaker 2: but also the victims and anybody else that was being
22:46
Speaker 2: caught up wrongly. So by the time the jury came
22:50
Speaker 2: in and found me guilty, as crushing as that was,
22:53
Speaker 2: as desperate as I was a twenty one year old
22:57
Speaker 2: destined to spend the rest of my life in prison
23:00
Speaker 2: for a crime I didn't commit, I knew I was
23:03
Speaker 2: not going to give up. I knew that they got
23:05
Speaker 2: it wrong. They knew that they got it wrong, so
23:08
Speaker 2: I was never ever going to allow this to sit
23:12
Speaker 2: on that day forever more. I think it was the
23:27
Speaker 2: fact that I became so militant as a young twenty
23:30
Speaker 2: one year old that I did everything I possibly could
23:34
Speaker 2: to keep my body as fit as I possibly could
23:38
Speaker 2: in order to withstand the four walls that I was
23:41
Speaker 2: being confined in. So rather than sit in that cell,
23:44
Speaker 2: I exercised in that cell, used it as my gym,
23:47
Speaker 2: used it as my office, use it as the space
23:50
Speaker 2: that I was going to work my way out, whether
23:53
Speaker 2: that was psychologically or physically. So I was studying the law,
23:58
Speaker 2: teaching myself as much much as I possibly could about
24:01
Speaker 2: the law in order to understand how and why what
24:04
Speaker 2: had happened to me happened to me. And I should
24:07
Speaker 2: stress that in those years I was so militant, I
24:12
Speaker 2: did not conform. I refused to work in prison every day.
24:16
Speaker 2: As a convicted person, you are expected to follow the
24:20
Speaker 2: regime of the maximum security prison. Ie, you go to work,
24:24
Speaker 2: you do the things the authorities expect you to do
24:27
Speaker 2: as a guilty man. When I wasn't a guilty man,
24:30
Speaker 2: so I was going to do everything in the opposite.
24:33
Speaker 2: So when they opened my cell door and shouted my
24:36
Speaker 2: name to go to work, I refused to leave the cell.
24:39
Speaker 2: The consequence would mean that they would come into the
24:42
Speaker 2: cell and physically drag me out of the cell, take
24:45
Speaker 2: me to the isolation block, where I would spend days
24:48
Speaker 2: or weeks or months being punished for not being prepared
24:52
Speaker 2: to put up with what guilty people had to endure.
24:56
Speaker 3: And that went on for years.
24:57
Speaker 2: It was me against the system as well as my
25:01
Speaker 2: wrongful conviction. And I mean I was brutalized so badly
25:07
Speaker 2: by the authorities for not conforming. There were plenty of
25:11
Speaker 2: times where they physically beat me or locked me in
25:14
Speaker 2: isolation cells completely naked, for no other reason than they could.
25:20
Speaker 1: So now, from inside the confines of these barbaric prisons
25:25
Speaker 1: that you were in, how did you manage to ultimately
25:29
Speaker 1: free yourself?
25:30
Speaker 2: One of the big turning points for me, Jason was
25:33
Speaker 2: the media. The publications and broadcast has paid a significant
25:38
Speaker 2: role in my wrongful conviction by calling me a monster,
25:42
Speaker 2: by asking for hanging to be brought back into the
25:45
Speaker 2: United Kingdom to kill people like me who were guilty
25:48
Speaker 2: of such horrible crimes. If the media could play such
25:51
Speaker 2: a powerful role in my wrongful conviction, maybe they could
25:55
Speaker 2: play a role in getting my conviction over turn. So
25:58
Speaker 2: I embarked on a journalism correspondence course whilst I was
26:03
Speaker 2: in prison, and that just meant paper pushing in the
26:05
Speaker 2: same way that I read every document, every line, every
26:10
Speaker 2: sentence of every document that was involved in my case,
26:13
Speaker 2: over and over again for years, and I'd become very
26:17
Speaker 2: tuned into how cases worked and didn't work, and I
26:21
Speaker 2: learned so much teaching myself how journalists work. Meant I
26:25
Speaker 2: could manipulate stories that I could send out there. So
26:30
Speaker 2: I'd write letters to some of our national newspapers, the Guardian,
26:33
Speaker 2: the Independent, the Son, the Mirror, and they'd start to
26:36
Speaker 2: slowly but surely publish my letters or publish little things
26:40
Speaker 2: that I said. And then that triggered what happened next,
26:44
Speaker 2: which was simply that the media who called me a
26:47
Speaker 2: monster were all of a sudden starting to question the
26:51
Speaker 2: safety of my conviction, and they were showing interest in
26:54
Speaker 2: coming to visit me. So I'd sit on a visiting
26:56
Speaker 2: table and talk to these journalists about why I was
27:00
Speaker 2: innocent and asking them questions about what they remembered at
27:04
Speaker 2: the time, and that just led to a lot of
27:06
Speaker 2: publicity questioning the safety of my conviction, and that rocked
27:11
Speaker 2: the British criminal justice system to its core. They really
27:15
Speaker 2: started to wobble at the idea that they'd locked up
27:19
Speaker 2: three innocent black men. And once the media started questioning
27:24
Speaker 2: the safety of my conviction, once the media started to
27:27
Speaker 2: remind the new generation of children that three black men
27:32
Speaker 2: were in prison for crimes committed by two white men,
27:34
Speaker 2: we go needed a lot of support. And that made
27:37
Speaker 2: a big difference because it was then ten years into
27:41
Speaker 2: my wrongful life imprisonment that barristers and reputable lawyer started
27:46
Speaker 2: to take an interest when I wrote to them asking
27:48
Speaker 2: for their help, and so they did start to help.
27:51
Speaker 2: And then there was one moment where an eminent human
27:55
Speaker 2: rights lawyer discovered that the non disclosure of the reward
28:00
Speaker 2: money meant that I'd been deprived the right of a
28:03
Speaker 2: fair trial, and that particular lawyer took my case to
28:07
Speaker 2: the European Court of Human Rights and it was an
28:10
Speaker 2: opportunity to set out the fact that free black member
28:14
Speaker 2: in prison for crimes committed by two white men. One
28:16
Speaker 2: black man, I had a cast iron alibi witness, had
28:18
Speaker 2: given fabricated evidence, reward money had been paid and it
28:22
Speaker 2: had not been disclosed. So all this was laid out
28:24
Speaker 2: in front of twenty nine judges at the European Court
28:28
Speaker 2: of Human Rights and they unanimously in nineteen ninety nine
28:33
Speaker 2: ruled that I had been denied the right to a
28:36
Speaker 2: fair trial and that that rocked the British government and
28:41
Speaker 2: in two thousand the government told the Court of Appeal
28:44
Speaker 2: they had to rehear my case. And it was just
28:47
Speaker 2: a few months after that my convictions were overturned.
28:52
Speaker 1: You turned the train around on the tracks. It's amazing
28:56
Speaker 1: that you were able to do it from this dungeon
29:00
Speaker 1: that you were in and even managed to keep your
29:04
Speaker 1: wits about you. Your code defendants did they benefit from
29:08
Speaker 1: your work as well? Were they freed when you were?
29:11
Speaker 3: They were?
29:12
Speaker 2: Yes, My co defendants convictions were also overturned at the
29:16
Speaker 2: Court of Appeal at the same time that my convictions
29:19
Speaker 2: were overturned, and that happened on the seventeenth of July
29:23
Speaker 2: two thousand.
29:25
Speaker 1: And What was that moment like walking out.
29:28
Speaker 2: From the age of twenty and to the age of
29:31
Speaker 2: thirty two. I was confined in a single cell by myself.
29:36
Speaker 2: I suffered in those twelve years and it wasn't until
29:40
Speaker 2: they quashed my convictions. I walked down the steps of
29:43
Speaker 2: the Court of Appeal. They opened up the door, the
29:46
Speaker 2: door that was going to set me free. That I
29:49
Speaker 2: for the first time cried. I fell into the arms
29:52
Speaker 2: of my sister, one of my three sisters, and it
29:55
Speaker 2: was the first time I cried in all the years
29:58
Speaker 2: that I was in prison, and it felt so good.
30:02
Speaker 2: And then I walked with my family to the front
30:05
Speaker 2: of the Court of Appeal and shouted my mouth off
30:08
Speaker 2: about how I'd lost so many years of my life
30:11
Speaker 2: in prison to the world's media. The judges cheekily and
30:16
Speaker 2: typically turned round and said, this is not a declaration
30:20
Speaker 2: of innocence. But they quashed my conviction as unsafe and
30:24
Speaker 2: they set me free. And that was the big turning point.
30:27
Speaker 2: That's when my life began. That wasn't the end of
30:30
Speaker 2: an ordeal. That was the beginning of my life.
30:33
Speaker 1: That's beautiful, And you're involved in so many things now, Raphael,
30:36
Speaker 1: and it's awesome to see how you've taken the world
30:40
Speaker 1: by the balls since you came home. So please share
30:44
Speaker 1: with us what's your life like now.
30:47
Speaker 2: For me, it was one of those kind of classical
30:50
Speaker 2: right place, right time, right opportunity. From the age of
30:54
Speaker 2: twenty to thirty two, I studied the law in prison,
30:56
Speaker 2: I studied journalism, so there was only two things I
30:58
Speaker 2: could do when I got out of and that was
31:00
Speaker 2: go down that route of campaigning on behalf of other
31:02
Speaker 2: miscarriage of justice victims. But I've just spent twelve years
31:05
Speaker 2: of my own fucking life fighting hard, and as much
31:07
Speaker 2: as I do that in my own way, now, the
31:09
Speaker 2: other option was journalism, so that's what I did.
31:12
Speaker 3: I went.
31:12
Speaker 2: I met a man who at the time was a
31:15
Speaker 2: senior figure at the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation. He
31:18
Speaker 2: offered me an opportunity, and before I knew it, I
31:21
Speaker 2: was working on the most prestigious radio program here in
31:25
Speaker 2: the United Kingdom called the Radio for Today program, and
31:28
Speaker 2: I remember sitting at the desk as a sort of
31:30
Speaker 2: call center calling up politicians. Asked him to come on
31:33
Speaker 2: the program, and after two or three days, I went
31:35
Speaker 2: into the editor and I said, listen, you know what,
31:37
Speaker 2: I've just spent twelve years sitting on a cell bed
31:39
Speaker 2: or a cell chair.
31:40
Speaker 3: I can't do this. This is not for me. I
31:42
Speaker 3: need to be free.
31:44
Speaker 2: And he offered me the opportunity to try my hand
31:46
Speaker 2: at being a reporter on this prestigious program, and I
31:50
Speaker 2: accepted and I didn't look back. I went on to
31:52
Speaker 2: become a reporter on this program. Now you've got to
31:55
Speaker 2: remember Jason and your audience. When I came out of prison,
31:58
Speaker 2: I was handed a mobile for the first time. The
32:01
Speaker 2: Internet didn't exist when I went to prison, so there
32:03
Speaker 2: were lots of technological developments, so I was learning things
32:07
Speaker 2: on the job at the BBC, and this was within
32:09
Speaker 2: twelve months of getting out, and I worked my way
32:11
Speaker 2: through the BBC, working for the Radio Pro then I
32:14
Speaker 2: worked for the prestigious BBC News program, and then I
32:17
Speaker 2: worked for the longest running current affairs investigative program Panorama
32:22
Speaker 2: as one of their correspondents. I spent a lot of
32:24
Speaker 2: my early career as a BBC journalist as an undercover
32:27
Speaker 2: operative because I knew how to duck and dive. Having
32:30
Speaker 2: survived in prison, I had a gift for the gap
32:32
Speaker 2: in that well. And so I spent the next sixteen years,
32:36
Speaker 2: having been released from prison, carving out this successful career
32:40
Speaker 2: as a BBC journalist, as a public speaker, as somebody
32:42
Speaker 2: who inspired other people from backgrounds like mine, or bringing
32:46
Speaker 2: together people from my background and the academic or the
32:49
Speaker 2: affluent background to show that we could work together to
32:53
Speaker 2: bring about change.
32:54
Speaker 3: In social justice.
32:55
Speaker 2: And I left the BBC after sixteen seventeen years and
33:00
Speaker 2: was given the opportunity by Netflix to do this series
33:03
Speaker 2: called Inside the World's Toughest Prisons. And I thought they
33:06
Speaker 2: were crazy to be asking me, having spent so long
33:09
Speaker 2: trying to get the fuck out of prisons, to go
33:12
Speaker 2: back in Willingly, I thought long and hard and thought,
33:15
Speaker 2: do you know what I can change people's perceptions about
33:18
Speaker 2: the people that are in these places. I can change
33:20
Speaker 2: people's perceptions about what prison is really like. You know,
33:24
Speaker 2: Let's get rid of all this sensational violence stuff. Let's
33:27
Speaker 2: get rid of all this kind of stigma around who
33:30
Speaker 2: these individuals are, and let's try and understand more. And
33:33
Speaker 2: it's been a phenomenal success. I go in prisons all
33:37
Speaker 2: around the world spend seven days with the prisoners to
33:40
Speaker 2: try and find the balance between rehabilitation punishment. In addition
33:45
Speaker 2: to that, I have my own podcast, Second Chance. I
33:48
Speaker 2: talk to people about why they give people a second chance,
33:52
Speaker 2: what their second chance is, what that means to people,
33:55
Speaker 2: not just people that have come out of prison and
33:58
Speaker 2: gone on to become entrepreneurs or people that have been
34:00
Speaker 2: wrongly convicted who have gone on to lead successful careers
34:04
Speaker 2: like I have, but loads of different questions around what
34:08
Speaker 2: second chance actually means. During the lockdown first pandemic, I
34:12
Speaker 2: wrote my first book because so many people have asked
34:16
Speaker 2: me about my life story, and although in bits and
34:18
Speaker 2: pieces I've shared it, I've never put it all in
34:21
Speaker 2: one place.
34:22
Speaker 3: So I wrote my.
34:23
Speaker 2: Autobiography, Notorious, which was published at the end of last year.
34:28
Speaker 2: The most important thing for me, the legacy of everything,
34:31
Speaker 2: is the Rafael Row Foundation, and having experienced prisons around
34:35
Speaker 2: the globe, I realized so much needs to be done,
34:39
Speaker 2: not just for the prisoners, but the prisons to improve
34:42
Speaker 2: the humanity and the ability to rehabilitate or give people
34:47
Speaker 2: a second chance. And that's why I recently set up
34:50
Speaker 2: the Rafael Row Foundation in the hope that my legacy
34:54
Speaker 2: will be to guard near people change their perception about
34:57
Speaker 2: what prisons really are, what they mean, and how they
35:00
Speaker 2: can help people rather than destroy people or their families.
35:06
Speaker 1: It's great work and it speaks volumes about your character
35:10
Speaker 1: that you're giving back in the ways that you best can, right.
35:13
Speaker 1: I mean, you have a natural gift for this stuff,
35:16
Speaker 1: and you found your I'm going to call it your calling,
35:19
Speaker 1: and it's wonderful to see you sort of thriving and
35:23
Speaker 1: you succeeding I think, beyond any reasonable expectations that anybody
35:28
Speaker 1: could have had, and just making a difference. You know,
35:31
Speaker 1: what can I say except you have all of my
35:33
Speaker 1: respect and I'm just glad that you're here today. And
35:37
Speaker 1: of course for anyone listening who wants to learn more
35:40
Speaker 1: about Raphael's journey and follow it as I do, and
35:43
Speaker 1: as I will his podcast, his book, the Raphael Row Foundation.
35:49
Speaker 1: We're going to have links to all of them in
35:51
Speaker 1: our bio and I'm sure people can follow you on Instagram, right,
35:55
Speaker 1: and what about other social media?
35:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter, I have a website.
36:00
Speaker 2: If you put my name Rafel Row Rowe or a
36:04
Speaker 2: reporter on Twitter or Instagram, you'll be able to find
36:08
Speaker 2: me up.
36:08
Speaker 1: And now we come to the closing of our show.
36:10
Speaker 1: It's called closing arguments, and closing arguments works just like this.
36:15
Speaker 1: I'm going to kick back in my chair, turn my
36:17
Speaker 1: microphone off, and leave my headphones on, and of course
36:21
Speaker 1: leave your mic open for you to share any final
36:25
Speaker 1: thoughts you may have with our audience.
36:29
Speaker 2: I think for me, one of the most important things
36:32
Speaker 2: is who am I?
36:33
Speaker 3: Who am I?
36:34
Speaker 2: So I shared with you my upbringing. I shared with
36:37
Speaker 2: you my ordeal of being wrongly convicted and imprisoned. I've
36:42
Speaker 2: shared with you a bit about the work that I
36:44
Speaker 2: do now having got out of prison. You know, when
36:46
Speaker 2: you think you hit the summit, you never quite hit
36:49
Speaker 2: the summit, because there's always more to climb.
36:51
Speaker 3: And that's what I've done.
36:52
Speaker 2: In my successful career as a journalist. But I'm constantly
36:56
Speaker 2: asking myself the question who am I? And that's what
37:00
Speaker 2: I want people to do. Ask themselves, who are you?
37:04
Speaker 3: Who am I?
37:05
Speaker 2: Am I the person that wants to make lots of money?
37:07
Speaker 2: Am I the person who wants to care for my
37:09
Speaker 2: elderly parent? Am I the person who wants to become
37:12
Speaker 2: a high performance athlete? I always ask myself the question
37:17
Speaker 2: who am I? And I've reached what I think is
37:19
Speaker 2: a fair description of myself. I am who I've always been.
37:24
Speaker 2: I'm the same person that I was when I was
37:27
Speaker 2: a kid. I'm the same person that I was when
37:30
Speaker 2: I was in prison, and I'm definitely the same person
37:33
Speaker 2: now that I'm free. And that person is an honest,
37:37
Speaker 2: direct with morals and values where I believe not just
37:42
Speaker 2: in myself, but in other people and by other people.
37:45
Speaker 2: I mean, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Why
37:48
Speaker 2: shouldn't I Why shouldn't you give up a few minutes
37:51
Speaker 2: of your time or your space to see the other
37:54
Speaker 2: side of someone? Because I've shown over the years there
37:59
Speaker 2: are different sides to everybody. The person I am today,
38:03
Speaker 2: as I say, is the same person I was when
38:06
Speaker 2: I was a kid, when I was innocent, when I
38:09
Speaker 2: just enjoyed the things that we all do before we're
38:12
Speaker 2: corrupted by the things that we witness and hear as
38:15
Speaker 2: we get older, or our desires and our wants. So
38:19
Speaker 2: that's my final word, Ask yourself, who are you? Because
38:23
Speaker 2: I know who I am.
38:31
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
38:34
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Clivern,
38:38
Speaker 1: and Kevin Wardis. With research by Lyla Robinson. The music
38:41
Speaker 1: in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated
38:44
Speaker 1: composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram
38:48
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
38:52
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava
38:55
Speaker 1: for Good. On all three platforms, you can also follow
38:59
Speaker 1: me on both talk and Instagram at its. Jason flam
39:03
Speaker 1: Raevel Conviction is the production of Lava for Good podcasts
39:05
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one