Research on Access to the Court of Appeal for Women in Prison featured in Probation Quarterly
Our Griffins Society Research has been featured in this month’s Probation Quarterly magazine.
Wrongful conviction and unfair sentencing occur every day in a criminal justice system starved of proper investment, and mistakes abound when defendants are unable to afford representation, restrictive legal aid prevents lawyers from doing thorough job and mass court closures and delays result in rushed hearings. The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) (CACD) should be capable of fixing mistakes for all unfairly treated defendants, but we were struck when findings from an internal project at APPEAL indicated otherwise. Out of a sample of 268 people who appealed against their sentence or conviction to the CACD using ‘fresh evidence’ between 1997 and 2010, only 19 were women, a mere 7% of cases. However, women make up 27% of the total number of convictions (Ministry of Justice, 2018), so it appears they may be disproportionately underrepresented in the criminal appeal system.
For that reason, with the support of the Griffins Society Fellowship and the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, we set out to uncover what barriers women face in appealing their convictions and sentences to the CACD.
In this article, we suggest that prison and probation officers might consider putting up posters explaining the 28-day time limit on appeal, rights to legal aid and the process for lodging an appeal in prison induction units. Special care should be taken to make these available and visible in the women’s estate. We believe that appeal ‘toolkits’ should be available in prison libraries, including guides on commencing proceedings in the Court of Appeal (one produced by HMCTS is available here), a set of FAQs about the Criminal Cases Review Commission (here), copies of the relevant forms for lodging appeals, the Information Commissioner’s Office’s Guide, detailing an individual’s right to their own data (here), and the addresses of law firms and chambers that accept legally aided appeals work (such as the registry on the website of the Criminal Appeal Lawyers Association, here).
We must recognise that appealing is a fundamental right of a convicted or sentenced person. However, the current system severely impedes women’s ability to exercise that right. The trial, probation and prison system has a responsibility to do more to support and empower women in their journey to right wrongs.
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