However examples of non-disclosure have brought criticism from trial judges

However, examples of non-disclosure have brought criticism from trial judges. A rape trial in Nottingham Crown Court was stopped by the judge and the teenage defendant acquitted when the defence discovered that a crucial video tape taken from a CCTV camera in a nightclub foyer, which proved the defendant’s innocence, had not been disclosed – a situation described as “lamentable” by the judge.Disclosure was among the “unfinished business” outlined in Lord Williams’s Tom Sergant memorial lecture in London last week when he canvassed the idea of new prosecution rights of appeal.The Attorney-General maintained the problems with disclosure arose from a failure to implement the CPIA effectively, not from the Act itself. The prosecuting authority should then make secondary disclosure of any unused material that advances the defence case. It overturned her conviction for the M62 coach bombing, warning “we will not allow trial by ambush”, and ruled the prosecution had to disclose all case material to the defence.However, a backlash from police and prosecutors that they were having to spend vast amounts of time and money supplying the defence with material, much of it irrelevant, prompted the last government to clamp down on disclosure.The Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act (CPIA) 1996, which came into force on 1 April 1997, created two tiers of disclosure, both of which are dependent on the prosecution deciding what unused material should be disclosed.On primary disclosure, the police disclosure officer is required to list unused, non-sensitive material, and anything that might undermine the prosecution’s case should be disclosed to the defence.The defence, if it wants further disclosure, must first supply a defence statement. The Birmingham six pub bombing case in 1991 was another high-profile case of miscarriage of justice.In the Judith Ward case in 1992, the Court of Appeal decided enough was enough.

The police did not tell the defence that Gerry Conlon, one of the Guildford Four, had an alibi in London for the night of the pub bombings; or that Stefan Kiszko was physically unable to commit the sex crime for which he was convicted; or that a witness in the case of the Taylor sisters, convicted of the murder of a rival lover, had told police that one of the two women seen near the place of the crime was black Both sisters are white. They listed cases where statements of witnesses who were helpful to the defence were not disclosed and where forensic or medical reports supporting the accused’s versions of events were kept from the defence.Non-disclosures have been at the heart of a series of miscarriages of justice dating back to the Seventies. “We are trying to move as quickly as we can on this,” his spokesman said.
Questionnaires by the Law Society and the British Academy of Forensic Sciences have already produced about 200 examples of non-disclosure, with barristers and solicitors warning that there could be serious miscarriages of justice. Government departments, the police and the legal profession will be pressed to respond promptly to the consultation process because the Attorney- General, Lord Williams of Mostyn, wants the finalised guidelines in operation within the first quarter of next year. Concern over the issue of disclosure in criminal trials is now so great that binding new guidelines for prosecutors are to be published before Christmas.

Mnemonic leaves you needing no aide-memoire: it is authentically unforgettable,” Paul Taylor, The Independent.”The way of the play and the way of the mind, the workings of memory and the search to join the past to the present, all these adventures are mixed by Simon McBurney and his team to make an absorbingly interesting and, yes, beautiful two hours of theatre,” Jeremy Kingston, The Times.”Mnemonic will haunt the memory of all who see it,” Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph.Where You Can See ItMnemonic is at the Riverside Studios, London W6 (0181-237 1111) to 4 Jan. He also plays a harassed present- day insomniac whose girlfriend has left him.What They Say About It”The dazzling blizzard of synchronicities in Mnemonic, brilliantly achieved by an endlessly resourceful production, should not blind one to the fact that its primary appeal is to the heart, not the intellect. Conceived and directed by Simon McBurney, the show is full of weird scenic mergers, cross-fades, revolving juxtapositions and internal echoes, and takes the audience on two simultaneous detective trails into the past.
Who’s In It?Simon McBurney, acting like a cross between a stand-up comic and a metaphysical hypnotist, invites the audience to concentrate on ever more distant moments in their past, wearing eye-masks and holding a leaf, they’re asked to remember fragments of their own past. What Is It?

Theatre de Complicite return with a wonderfully arresting piece of theatre: an intriguing exploration of memory, inspired by the discovery of a neolithic man in the Alps in 1991. Ultimately, in its deference to King’s fame and importance, its reluctance to subject him to really thorough, thoughtful scrutiny, it cut off its own feet.. One chum talked of how “grounded” King’s work is, citing his use of brand names – hardly an innovation.

King himself found a much more powerful image of horror in the everyday when he talked about his alcoholic, druggie past; among the determinedly non- exotic substances he abused were cough mixture, mouthwash, aftershave and Anbesol (stuff you rub on your gums).This wasn’t a bad film, but it hinted at a much better one buried not far beneath the surface (and presumably poised to rise up and grab the viewer by the throat). If you liked being a teenager, there’s something really wrong with you.” But David Stewart’s film was a little too pussyfooting in its approach, opting for bland plugs from Tom Hanks (star of the latest King movie, The Green Mile) and friends from the world of publishing, rather than serious critical evaluation; so that you never had any clear idea of whether King’s work really is as good as it’s cracked up to be.Some of the praise lavished here seemed faint enough to be damning, though that surely wasn’t the intention. King’s own upbringing was classically deprived: his father vanished when he was two years old, leaving his mother struggling to bring him up alone. And King related how the idea for The Shining came from a brief bout of murderous irritation with his own small son (he saw the story itself as quite positive: “If a father is raging at a child, at least that father is there”).King himself came out of the programme rather well – a little touchy about his reputation, but engagingly absorbed in his life outside writing, frank about some of the more sordid aspects of that life, and with a sharp turn of phrase: “Anybody who looks back on the years from 14 to 18 with any enjoyment, I don’t trust those people. The roots of the horror in King’s books are, it was suggested, always to be found in childhood. In actual fact, the bomb was made out of pencil-erasers wired up with paper-clips, a device so well-attuned to King’s profession that I can’t help suspecting it had less to do with dementia than it was evidence of an over- developed sense of irony.
King’s art has always imitated his life, though necessarily indirectly, since even an American upbringing will put you in touch with only a limited number of psychos, hauntings and demonically possessed cars.

In King’s case, life imitated art chillingly when a Misery-style “demented fan” – the phrase used here – broke into his home, claiming that King had stolen the plots of all his novels from him, and threatened to blow up the house with a “bomb”. So it was ironic, and more than a little disappointing, to see him fall victim, in a different way, to the same cult in last night’s Omnibus (BBC1). “Stephen King – Shining in the Dark” contained some intriguing examples of the ways in which life and fiction spark off each other. IN HIS NOVEL Misery, about a popular author whose “number one fan” imprisons him and cuts off his feet, Stephen King produced the best-known and scariest satire on the cult of the celebrity author. In his first-class career he took 758 wickets (20.12) and scored 2,694 runs (15.39).He was a carpenter by trade and was still playing club cricket up to his death.Derek HodgsonSylvester Theophilus Clarke, cricketer: born Lead Vale, Barbados 11 December 1954; married; died Bridgetown, Barbados 4 December 1999.. In 1981 his 100 not out for Surrey against Glamorgan was recorded as the fastest of the season, 62 minutes.