This petition was submitted during the 2017–2019 Conservative government
Petition Pass a new law on access to evidence so the wrongly convicted can get justice
Too often, police and prosecutors are failing to disclose crucial evidence, which means that innocent people end up in prison while the guilty walk free.
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Yet under the current law, it is almost impossible for innocent prisoners to win back their freedom by accessing evidence wrongly withheld from them.
Disclosure failings are the biggest cause of miscarriages of justice. A former CPS head said potentially thousands of innocent people are languishing in our prisons due to failures to hand over evidence to the defence.
To ensure justice for wrongly convicted victims of disclosure failings, Parliament should pass a new law giving convicted defendants the right to access all non-sensitive material held by the police and CPS on their case and to instruct special counsel to inspect sensitive files.
This petition is closed This petition ran for 6 months