name:
John Kamara

John Kamara spent the best part of 20 years fighting to prove his innocence in the murder of John Suffield, a betting shop manager

'Murderer' freed after 20 years

A man has been freed by the Court of Appeal after spending 20 years in jail for the murder of a betting shop manager.

John Kamara, now 44, from Toxteth in Liverpool, had his murder conviction dramatically quashed by three judges in London.

Mr Kamara was alleged to have been one of two men who murdered stammering bookmaker John Suffield in 1981 during a robbery because he could not tell them the combination of the safe.

Mr Kamara was present at London's Law Courts to hear his freedom announced after the judges were told 201 statements had been "hidden" by police.

Outside court, Mr Kamara's 40-year-old brother Philip said: "At the moment I am full of joy and thinking it's Johnny's day. The anger will hit me later. Justice has come right, but why did it take 20 years when he could have been out 12 years ago? The police investigated the case and never found anything. A total of 201 statements were hidden by the police."

Mr Kamara's case had been referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, who "found" the statements in 1998 "in a box of miscellaneous material" furnished to the commission by the Crown Prosecution Service.

His conviction was overturned by Lord Justice Otton, sitting with Mr Justice Douglas Brown and Mr Justice Hooper.

After hearing submissions on behalf of Mr Kamara and the Crown, Lord Justice Otton said the court saw no reason to delay announcing its decision in the case.

He said the conviction would be quashed with "immediate effect" and the reasons for the decision would be given at a later date.

Lord Justice Otton described it as "a difficult, worrying and complex case".

Mr Kamara had denied murdering 23-year-old Mr Suffield - who was stabbed 19 times at his Toxteth betting shop - but was found guilty by a jury at his 1981 trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

He was sentenced to life for murder with six years' concurrent for robbery. His co-accused Raymond Gilbert, then 23, admitted the charges.

Mr Kamara's counsel Michael Birnbaum QC told the judges: "This is a case of a kind which in one respect at least one would hope is a thing of the past.

"That is to say, a case in which there turns out to have been a massive non-disclosure at the trial."

Mr Birnbaum added there were "many disturbing features of the case".