Crooked British cops withhold exculpatory evidence

Police retained a secret diary that could have cleared a man jailed for life for killing his wife, it was revealed yesterday.

Eddie Gilfoyle protested his innocence for nearly two decades after being convicted in 1993 of murdering his pregnant wife, Paula, and making it look like suicide. But it has emerged that a padlocked box existed containing two volumes of a diary covering ten years. The journal reveals her troubled past and how she had previously tried to take her life.

These facts were not disclosed to Mr Gilfoyle's lawyers or told to the jury. In fact, the diary contradicts the image presented to the murder trial of Mrs Gilfoyle as a happy woman with everything to live for.

Police refused to say where the box had been over the years – because the case is being reviewed by the commission that investigates miscarriages of justice.

Mr Gilfoyle, 59, who was released in December 2010 after two unsuccessful appeals, said yesterday: 'I am completely devastated that the police had these diaries and failed to hand them over to my defence.

'I am disgusted, appalled, words just fail me. They should have been disclosed prior to my two appeals but they were kept hidden. 'I have told the truth all the way through. The police have lied all the way through.'

His solicitor Matt Foot, said: 'Mr Gilfoyle has protested his innocence for 19 years. Meanwhile the police have held on to a locked box containing material that directly contradicts their case. How has this happened?'

Mrs Gilfoyle, 32, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, was found hanged in the garage of the couple's home in Upton, Wirral, in 1992.

A suicide note was discovered in her handwriting but prosecutors said Gilfoyle dictated it to her, telling her he needed it for a course in his job as an auxiliary nurse.

Relatives and friends told the jury she was a happy, bubbly woman but the diaries and other personal papers which she kept in the marital home reveal she took an overdose of pills when she was 15.

They also show that as a teenager she was engaged to a boy who was convicted of killing a girl. She bought him a wedding ring while he was in prison.

It was when that boyfriend, Mark Roberts, threatened to leave her that she took an overdose, writing in her diary: 'Mark went mad but I done it to him.'

The new evidence also revealed that two of Mrs Gilfoyle's former boyfriends threatened suicide and among her possessions was a note from one – using similar words to the note found where she died.

Mr Gilfoyle's lawyers have asked the Criminal Cases Review Commission to refer his case back to the Court of Appeal to be overturned.

Merseyside police confirmed they handed papers to Mr Foot last year but refused to comment further.

Original report here




(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here