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Wendy Cohen with Sam’s brothers Danny, left, Terry, and sister Daisy |
Mum fights to free son from life term
A MOTHER campaigning to clear the name of her convicted murderer son says investigations of potential miscarriages of justice are crippled by lack of cash.
Wendy Cohen, whose son Sam Hallam, 21, is serving a life sentence for the 2004 murder in Clerkenwell of Ethiopian refugee Essayas Kassahun, said she had experienced “ups and downs like a roller-coaster” since her son’s conviction.
She criticised delays caused by lack of funding for the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) but said the support of friends and family had kept her going.
Ms Cohen added: “I’ve had support from day one. The day they came and arrested Sam I had neighbours saying he was innocent.
“Sam’s friends come to all our marches and benefit gigs. I’ve had no legal aid since 2005, so if it weren’t for the campaign I wouldn’t have been able to keep going.”
Mr Kassahun was stabbed in the head after attempting to help his friend Louis Colley escape a gang of violent youths.
The Sam Hallam Campaign, which has already attracted considerable media interest, is headed by Paul May, who has worked on numerous successful miscarriage of justice campaigns, including those of the Birmingham Six and the Bridgewater Four.
The campaign is supported by Islington North Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, members of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven and the actor Ray Winstone, whose nephew is a close friend of Mr Hallam’s.
Ms Cohen said her son’s imprisonment had been extremely trying for her family.
She added: “The system stinks. Sam had to wait almost eight months before a caseworker could be found even to begin looking at new evidence. It’s been crazy. But I tell people: don’t say it’s been crazy, say it’s wrong.”
This week, Ms Cohen took her son’s case to the House of Commons. A petition signed by campaigners was presented to the Speaker of the House by Labour MP Diane Abbott on Monday.
Billy Power, a member of the Birmingham Six who spent 16 years behind bars after being wrongly found guilty of 1975 pub bombings, was at the House of Commons with Ms Cohen. He said that the CCRC was not funded properly. “There’s so many cases in the pipeline – it’s going to take years before any of them are resolved,” he added. “So we are back to square one. It could take 10, 15, 16 years for some people to be referred back to the Court of Appeal.”
Paddy Maguire, who was wrongly sentenced in 1976 at the age of 13, said: “The Commission’s annual budget is under £8million – less than the cost of a day’s policing at the G20 demonstrations – yet it’s being cut.”
Campaigners point out that witnesses who testified against Mr Hallam changed their statements twice.
They claim statements were riddled with inconsistencies, adding that new evidence proves Mr Hallam was nowhere near the crime scene on the night and was playing football at the time.
Mr Hallam was aged 17 when he was convicted of the murder, alongside another defendant, Bullabek Ringbiong, 20. He is serving his sentence in Bullingdon Prison, Oxfordshire.
Fifty-seven balloons, symbolising the 57 months he has been in prison, were released on College Green outside Parliament on Monday. Campaigners plan to distribute 10,000 flyers on the Underground next month to highlight Mr Hallam’s case. |
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