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THE Shrewsbury 24 Campaign has won a crucial victory in its long struggle to overturn the convictions of construction workers tried in 1973/74 for picketing during the national strike.
Halfway through a judicial review hearing today at Birmingham Administrative Court, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) agreed to reconsider the referral of the convictions of the pickets to the Court of Appeal.
The pickets had asked the CCRC to refer their convictions to the Court of Appeal on two main grounds.
Firstly, recently discovered evidence shows original witness statements had been destroyed and this fact had not been disclosed to the defence counsel.
Secondly, during the orginal trial a highly prejudicial TV documentary, The Red under the Bed, was broadcast, the contents of which were contributed to by a covert agency within the Foreign Office known as the information research department.
The CCRC initially refused to make that referral.
Four of those pickets, Nick Warren (for his late father Des Warren), John McKinsie Jones, Michael Pierce and Terry Renshaw, pursued judicial review on behalf of the wider group.
They are represented by Jamie Potter of Bindmans LLP and Danny Friedman QC of Matrix Chambers.
Permission to proceed to a full hearing was originally refused on the papers but was subsequently granted by Mr Justice Jay in November 2018.
The CCRC continued to defend the proceedings until the day of the hearing before Lord Justice Flaux and Mrs Justice Carr.
But two hours into the hearing the CCRC took the unusual step of agreeing to withdraw its decisions.
The CCRC has agreed it will now reconsider as soon as practicable whether or not to refer the convictions of the Shrewsbury 24 to the Court of Appeal.
Secretary of the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign Eileen Turnbull said: “This is a magnificent success. We are one step nearer to achieving our goal of justice for the pickets.
“The Shrewsbury 24 Campaign has worked tirelessly over the past 13 years. Today’s result is a testament to all our hard work and the support of the labour movement.”