Analysing the Neil Warner Case

 The CCRC rejected the case of Neil Warner to not take his case to the Court of Appeal. The CCRC pass a conviction if there is a real possibility that the conviction will be overturned. There must also be new evidence that was not mentioned before at the previous trial or appeal. Therefore, they believed that Warner's case didn't match with this criteria.

For example,a series of fingerprints belonging to Warner were found at the point of entry on the dining room window at the Pool's house, on the dining room door and on the kitchen draining board above the draw where the knife was taken to murder the Pools.

The footprint which was found on the chair in the dining room also matched the footprint of Warner.

Warner claimed in his statement that first of all he did not enter the house but then he changed his statement and admitted that he had actually entered the house with the intention to steal after he noticed that the front door was open. He claims that he did not go upstairs and only remained in the house for 5 mins until he noticed someone approaching the house. This statement turns out to be another lie, since fibres of the blue pullover which a witness had described seeing Warner wearing, shows contact with items which belong upstairs in the Pool's house.

However, no blood was found in Warner's caravan when it was searched later by Police, there was no blood in the pipes or anywhere which would have indicated that Warner has washed the blood away. A checkered shirt belonging to Mr Pool was discovered at Warner's caravan. Warner's caravan mate, Mr Knox, states that he returned to the caravan at 2:45am despite Warner claiming he returned home at 1am, wearing the checkered shirt, and Warner's jeans that he wore on the night in question were on the washing line. Therefore indicating they had been washed.

Warner claims that he left his pullover at the scene because he used it to wipe his fingerprints off the window frame and then left the jumper behind. He doesn't however, give a reason as to why he took the checkered shirt, he just states that the shirt was in the dining room and didn't have to go upstairs to retrieve it. I can't help but be sceptical about this, I don't see why the shirt would be in the dining room and why Warner would be so worried about wiping his fingerprints off the window frame but then leave his easily identifiable jumper behind, with his hairs on.

To conclude I believe that Warner has lied a number of times and therefore his account of what happened isn't reliable. Although he attempted to mention other witnesses such a Miss Lawson, a taxi driver, who claimed to take a man with blood on him home on the 21^st of July. However, the murder was carried out on the 22^nd of July therefore proving this evidence to not help his case. There is clear evidence that Warner went upstairs and that he was in the house longer than he has stated. Taking all this into consideration, I believe the CCRC were right to deny his appeal.