Within three months of publishing this book during the third week of September 2017, I had received literally thousands of messages supporting the view that David George (Dai) Morris had been wrongfully convicted of the Clydach murders, and was the victim of yet another terrible miscarriage of justice. Almost without exception, they felt that Morris was innocent of the crime, that the South Wales Police were responsible for his wrongful imprisonment, and that the case should be reinvestigated by a police force unconnected with the case. Just a handful of people held the contrary view insisting he was guilty, which, of course, is a stand they are quite entitled to take.
In addition to the messages I received, more than a hundred people e-mailed me directly using the dedicated contact address published in the book. This was provided for readers to set out their views on my findings, pose questions about the case, and to encourage energetic discourse on one of the most controversial judgments ever handed down by a British criminal court.
A prominent Welsh barrister, a Queens Counsel (Q.C.) and highly respected member of the legal profession in South Wales, now retired, who represented one of the three women involved in the deaths of Diane Jones and her two young children, at Cardiff Crown Court in 1997, contacted me [about the book] to say:
This was not the first time I had come across SWP [South Wales Police] stitching up innocent victims, and unfortunately, it wasn’t the last.
This highly critical statement confirms that wrongdoing by members of South Wales Police was both an endemic and iniquitous practice. It was a complaint I received repeatedly from other legal professionals.
There was another reason why an e-mail address was made available giving a direct line to the author. My research, carried out over a three-year period, had indicated that there was so much wrong with almost every aspect of the case, that it was impossible to ignore the possibility that some witnesses had something important to say. For various reasons, these witnesses may not have been given the opportunity to give their evidence in court. The e-mail address provided gave them the opportunity to tell me their stories – and many of them did. I received a wealth of information that I intend to publish as a sequel or update; but this at another time, and only when Dai Morris’ future has become more certain. However, some extraordinary information I received in several e-mails from key defence witness Louise Pugh stood out, which I felt should be addressed in this Postscript. The manner in which she and the evidence she wanted to give were treated, was shameful.
Ms Pugh, who was nineteen at the time of the Swansea Crown Court trial, was a next door neighbour of Mandy Power and her family. She says she was virtually brought up by Mandy and Mandy’s mother Doris, and was very close to both of them. Having considered the information Louise Pugh provided, I am of the view that the evidence she said she wanted to give to the court, would have changed the course of the trial. But for reasons she explained to me, she was unable to give all the evidence she intended. I suggested that she set out her story in an affidavit which I would send on to Morris’ legal team, and that I would like to publish a few selected passages from the affidavit in an update. Ms Pugh agreed to this course of action, and I helped her to construct the necessary document.
An affidavit is a sworn statement of knowledge and belief. It is often used in court proceedings and in the event that the contents of an affidavit differ substantially from a witness’s oral testimony, proceedings for perjury may ensue. It is therefore a very important document and one to which great weight may be attributed.
On 5th December 2017, Louise Pugh swore her affidavit before a solicitor who, as the law requires, was unconnected with the case, confirming that the contents were true. As such, her testimony should be given due consideration. But, like all evidence, it is still for others to decide whether to accept the stated facts as truthful or not. The full affidavit, which has been passed on to Morris’ legal team, will be published in due course.
The following numbered passages are taken from Ms Pugh’s affidavit. It is the first time that this evidence has appeared in the public domain, and they set out evidence that the juries never heard. They read as follows:
11 On the morning of Friday 25 June 1999, I went into 9, Kelvin Road intending to check up on Doris, and to find out if she needed anything. The front door was unlocked. As I entered, I was talking to myself and I went upstairs towards Doris’ bedroom.
When I reached the small landing where the stairs turn up to the first floor, I saw Mandy in her bedroom. She was standing up with her back against her mother’s bedroom party wall. She and Dai Morris appeared to be engaged in sexual intercourse. I don’t know if Dai Morris saw me or not, but Mandy quickly broke away from him. I said to myself “Oh shit”. Then I immediately turned around, went back downstairs and stepped out through the front door where I stopped and tried to get the image out of my head.
Mandy came downstairs after me and opened the front door a little. I told her, “I wished I hadn’t seen that.” Then we laughed. As we stood there, I caught a glimpse of Dai Morris as he came downstairs and he quickly exited the house using the back door. After he had left, I went back into the house and talked with Mandy in the kitchen. Again, we laughed about what had happened. She showed me a heavy broken gold neck-chain that she said he had left behind. I told her she should put it away as otherwise people would question her about it. She agreed and took the neck-chain upstairs. I went upstairs later and peeped into her bedroom, I saw something that gleamed in the bowl beside her bed which I am reasonably confident was the neck-chain. I told all this to South Wales Police CID officers Stuart Mackenzie, Phil Rees and Simon Davies, and I watched as each of them wrote down what I said.
This was evidence of the greatest importance as, if true, it corroborates the claims by Morris that he was involved in a sexual relationship with Mandy Power, that he was in her home on the Friday morning before the murders, and that he left his broken gold neck-chain behind when he left the house. But it also raises the obvious question, why did Louise Pugh not give this evidence in court? So, I asked her. This was her e-mailed reply:
Yeah the defence and prosecution knew about it, in the first trial when I started talking about it I got told to be quiet and only answer what I was asked, then second trial I got told outside Newport crown court while I was pregnant that I was only to answer the questions that the prosecution asked but when I blew up in court and I asked the prosecution barrister were you there? Did you see what I saw? He then said that what I had said was just hearsay so I just walked out…
As readers will appreciate, the major drive of the prosecution case depended on the jury believing that Dai Morris had never been involved in a sexual relationship with Mandy Power, that Mandy Power would have had no interest in him sexually, and that he did not, and could not, have engaged in sexual intercourse with Mandy Power on the morning of Friday 25th June 1999 – two days before the murders. It was essential for the prosecution to demolish Morris’s claim that he had had intimate relations with Mandy Power that morning, because this was when he claimed he had left his broken gold neck-chain in her home.
The affidavit of Louise Pugh confirms that Dai Morris was indeed involved in a sexual relationship with Mandy Power (this is also suggested by the numerous telephone calls she made to him on Valentine’s Day), that he had sex with her on the Friday morning as he claimed, and that he had left his gold neck chain in her home at that time. Yet inexplicably, Louise Pugh was denied the opportunity of giving this vital evidence in court.
On Wednesday 29th November, by chance just a couple of months after The Clydach Murders: A Miscarriage of Justice was published, the first meeting of the All-Party-Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Miscarriages of Justice took place. It was attended by several MPs and Peers, and is expected to be a very welcome step towards criminal appeals reform. More information can be found at:
www.wntv.uk/all-party-parliamentary-group-appg-on-miscarriages/