DAVID WATKINS SCHOOL BOY FALSE ALLEGATIONS ASSAULT TRIAL NORWICH MAGISTRATES COURT NELSON KRUSCHANDL HERSTMONCEUX EASTBOURNE HERALD HAILSHAM GAZETTE SUSSEX EXPRESS

Magistrates yesterday threw out a case against a head-teacher accused of forcing a fish head into the mouth of an 11-year-old boy.

David Watkins, a respected headmaster with a reputation for helping difficult youngsters, walked free from Norwich magistrates court after it was ruled that he had no case to answer. He had denied assaulting the boy at a school in Norwich last November.

Mr Watkins, 51, declared the decision "a good result for education" and criticised the Crown Prosecution Service and police for bringing the case.

Joe Ghirardello, prosecuting, had told magistrates the assault took place while Mr Watkins was trying to make the boy, now 12, put the fish head into a bin. He said Mr Watkins, of Old Catton, Norwich, had put the student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in a headlock and forced the fish head into his mouth.

Wendy Martin, the chairman of the magistrates, said: "We've carefully considered all the evidence given and reflected on everything we've heard. There was such a degree of inconsistencies and changes in evidence during testimony as to render the evidence so manifestly unreliable no reasonable tribunal could convict."

Mr Watkins later paid tribute to friends and relatives. "They have been there for me throughout," he said. "It's been a nightmare. It's been the most difficult time in my life. I'm not bitter, I'm disappointed. I don't blame the parents, I blame the CPS and I blame the police."

The headteacher, who has more than 30 years' experience in teaching, pledged to return to education: "I love it so I will get back to it. It's a good result for education.

"We've got to start saying to people: yes, children have rights and so have parents, but they have responsibilities, too."

Mr Watkins' wife, Anne, also 51, said she was "absolutely relieved ... He's a fantastic man and I love him very much, and he's a great teacher."

His solicitor, Simon Nicholls, criticised the police and the CPS: "David Watkins has not been acquitted on a technicality. He has been acquitted because there was not enough evidence for him to stand trial." The headteacher was acquitted after an application to magistrates by Mr Nicholls.

Earlier the court heard from Margaret Roberts, a classroom assistant with responsibility for special needs pupils. She had worked closely with the boy for two years and accepted that he had been a troublesome pupil. She said: "He was a cheeky little boy. He could cause disruption in the class."

The Miscarriages of Justice Organisation
'Bringing hope to the innocent'

MOJO Scotland

The millioncampaignhomepage is inspired by the Million Dollar Homepage, run by a 21 year old student and entrepreneur called Alex Tew. Mr.Tew's website was phenomenally successful and his vision of the website mosaic will revolutionise the way internet space is organised. As well as being a brilliant concept, the website he created looks like an internet version of Piet Mondrian's depiction of the vibrancy of jazz era New York.

We here at the Million Campaign Homepage believe that the world, and particularly the mainstream media, is already flooded with advertising. In the era of global warming we need to evolve to a global public service instead of local private profit. We have a planet to save, and a life upon it to safeguard and secure for future generations - animal, vegetable, and mineral.

There is a lot of cynicism in the world and people feel that their actions are incapable of making positive change. That disillusionment is inaccurate. The power of synergy and symbiosis is enormous. The more bridges are built between different campaigns, the less duplication results. Achievement grows exponentially. River flows move mountains, volcanoes erupt from the steady accumulation of magma, and oceans develop from the confluence of small streams.

The Million Campaign Homepage is an ecosystem where a congregation of campaign groups can co-exist together. Instead of the competitive principle, where one individual or group profits at the expense of another, we believe in the co-operative principle where the health and prosperity of one is directly correlated to the health and prosperity of others.

The Million Campaign Homepage is a links page. It is a mosaic. It is a library. It is a jigsaw puzzle. It is a space-station where social entrepreneurs can dock their spaceships. The sum of the whole is greater than its parts. Keep the information flowing and the networks growing - please add your tile to the game by contacting us.

MillionCampaignHomepage

Open forum where we have added Simon’s case for discussions / questions.

True Crime, World News and Justice: For Readers and Writers

The National Monthly Newspaper for prisoners

Inside Time

we have created a page on Myspace for Simon, again, to raise awareness.

My Space

This is a News Website, allowing people to post their own stories, if you search for Simon Hall, you will see our articles on there, this will hopefully bring even more awareness to the campaign and who knows who might pick this it up. The more views we get on our articles, the more popular our story becomes and the more chances we have of being noticed and bringing Simon home.

Now Public

To raise public awareness of wrongful convictions as a continuing cause for concern, despite the creation of the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
To facilitate research that identifies the causes of wrongful convictions in the interests of effecting legal reform to reduce the occurrence of wrongful convictions.
To encourage the establishment of Innocence Projects within universities in the UK.

Innocence Network UK

Guidance Note 10, Improving Prison Healthcare. Duty of care for prisoners:-
"All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person."

Improving Prison Healthcare

The perfect guide to get you started.
Who to contact, where to go, support is available, you just need to ask!!!
Visit United Against Injustice (Thanks to Andrew, great drop menu :)

No Smoke Without Fire

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman is appointed by the Home Secretary and investigates complaints from prisoners and those subject to probation supervision, or those upon whom reports have been written. The Ombudsman is completely independent of both the Prison Service and the National Probation Service (NPS). The current Ombudsman is Stephen Shaw, and a team of deputies, assistants, investigators and other staff supports him.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman

Judge for Yourself is a book that is long overdue - a well researched lay person's guide to the British legal system's appalling number of miscarriages of justice.
Naylor starts from an intelligent and irrefutable premise: that any system of justice, being man made, is prone to error.

L.A. Naylor Judge for yourself

Independent Police Complaints Commission

IPCC

All-party, Law Reform and Human Rights organisation working to improve the legal system and the quality of justice.

Liberty

4th National Miscarriage of Justice Day Public Meeting.
Raising the Profile of Miscarriage of Justice.

We will be there to represent our campaign, for more information click on the link...

MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE DAY

The Parole Board is the independant body that protects the public by making risk assessments about prisoners to decide who may safely be released into the community and who must remain in or be returned to custody...

The Parole Board

Organisation helping people through Miscarriages of Justice

Portia

Organisation helping people through Miscarriages of Justice

United Against Injustice

Miscarriages Of Justice UK, another organisation supporting miscarriages of justice.

www.mojuk.org.uk

Criminal Case Review Commission

www.ccrc.gov.uk

Manchester based organisation supporting people going through miscarriages of justice. Special THANX to Ann!

www.innocent.org.uk

CONVICTION QUASHED OVER 'MADE UP' VAMPIRE CLAIM

A man who was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2004 after a teenager falsely alleged he repeatedly raped her in "vampire" rituals had his conviction quashed yesterday.

Leon Benjamin Forde, 21, of Lincoln, was jailed 18 months ago after the girl claimed he subjected her to a sex ordeal two years previously, when she was 13. But he won his freedom at the appeal court after the prosecution accepted the girl's testimony was undermined by evidence uncovered from a computer diary which suggested she had "made it all up".

TEACHER CLEARED OF RAPE TOO LATE

Graeme Paton - Published: 21 April 2006

A teacher who died in prison after being convicted of raping one of his pupils has been posthumously cleared by the Court of Appeal.

Darryl Gee was jailed in 2001 despite scant evidence to corroborate his accuser’s claims, which related to alleged incidents more than a decade earlier.

The music teacher, who protested his innocence, died in his cell from an undiagnosed blood cancer. He had served 18 months of an eight-year sentence.
This week, campaigners described the case as one of the worst miscarriages of justice they had seen after the Court of Appeal in London quashed his conviction.

It comes as government guidance designed to speed up investigations into alleged abuse of pupils is introduced in schools. Unions say this will reduce the risk of innocent teachers being smeared by false allegations.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said: “This is an extreme and tragic illustration of the consequences of malicious allegations and underlines the need for these new procedures.”

Mr Gee’s 88-year-old mother, Molly, awarded £62,493 costs by the court, said the case should be a warning to other teachers.

“It all boiled down to one girl’s word against his, and the jury believed her,” she said. “That’s all it took to send my son to prison and it has left me very angry and grief stricken. I don’t think anyone should have to work alone with a child – it is just too easy for an allegation like this to be made.”

Mr Gee, a supply teacher who taught brass instruments, was found guilty at Leeds crown court in January 2001 after being accused of raping and indecently assaulting a pupil in a Huddersfield school in 1989. He died aged 55 in August 2002, a month after a second appeal failed.

His conviction was eventually quashed when his mother alerted the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which asked a leading psychiatrist to report on his accuser. The study cast doubt on her mental state. It also emerged that the girl, now 26, made similar allegations against another man, whose conviction was quashed earlier this year.

Read more in the TES including the story of Charlie King. A jury took just half an hour to find him not guilty of sexually assaulting three of his pupils. So why did it take 13 months for the case to reach court?

SEX ATTACK LIAR NAMED BY PEER - 19th October 2006 by SAM GREENHILL

A woman with a long history of crying rape who sent an innocent man to jail was named in Parliament amid calls for a change in the law.

Shannon Taylor was unmasked by a peer who told the House of Lords her lies had put father-of-two Warren Blackwell behind bars for more than three years.

Lord Campbell-Savours used Parliamentary privilege to expose her identity and lambast the 'shabby' police investigation that saw Mr Blackwell imprisoned.

Legal experts praised his decision to speak out to prevent other men falling victim to fake sex attack allegations.

Mr Blackwell, 36, whose loyal wife Tanya never doubted his innocence, was dramatically cleared at the Appeal Court last month after Miss Taylor's background as a serial fantasist was exposed by a Criminal Cases Review Commission investigation.

But although his name was blackened, anonymity laws meant his accuser's was automatically protected, and she became known only as Miss A.

Even the appeal judges wanted to name her - but were powerless to do so - to warn other blameless members of the public.

The Daily Mail led calls for her identity to be revealed before she put another innocent man through torment.

Yesterday, Lord Campbell-Savours - said to be motivated by 'outrage' at the case - stood up and publicly did so.

He asked fellow peers: "Is not the inevitable consequence of the workings of the law, as currently framed, that we will carry on imprisoning innocent people like Warren Blackwell, who was falsely accused by a serial and repeated liar, Shannon Taylor, with a history of false accusations and multiple identities?

"As a result of her accusations, he spent three and a half years in prison following a shabby and inadequate police investigation, and was only exonerated when the Criminal Cases Review Commission inquiry cleared him and exposed her history."

The Labour peer added: "Shouldn't mature accusers who perjure themselves in rape trials be named and prosecuted for perjury?"

Miss Taylor's own daughter backed the decision to disclose her name, saying: "She is a danger and the public needs to be warned. She needs prosecuting for what she did. She is every man's worst nightmare."

Mr Blackwell's ordeal began when his accuser, now 38, claimed she had been seized with a knife outside a village club early on New Year's Day 1999, taken to an alley and indecently assaulted.

She later picked him out of an identity parade and a jury found him guilty, even though there was no forensic evidence against him and he had no previous convictions.

Eventually, the case was investigated by the Criminal Cases Review Commission which found that the woman had made up at least seven other fake allegations of sexual and physical assault, including against her own father. She frequently changed her name and police forces did not realise they were dealing with the same woman.

Her own mother has described her as "a persistent liar, very manipulative and a bully" who frequently claimed to have been beaten, sexually attacked and raped - all of which were untrue. She has a history of mental illness and self-harm.

The original investigation by Northamptonshire Police was exposed as shoddy, with Mr Blackwell's lawyers claiming that normal safeguards and procedures were completely ignored. He plans to sue.

Yesterday, a friend of 63-year-old Lord Campbell-Savours explained why he decided to speak out. He said: "He named her because he was outraged. He doesn't think it's got anything to do with the issue of rape, he thinks it's an issue of perjury.

"This woman made up the story and told lies and he can't see why a person who has perjured themselves should be protected, irrespective of the type of offence.

"Sometimes people have to stick their heads above the parapet in cases where the law is clearly an ass and needs to be reformed.

"He thinks the law around anonymity, particularly where false accusations have been made, needs to be changed."

Welcoming the development, Mr Blackwell, from Woodford Halse, Northamptonshire, said: "It's absolutely fantastic. I didn't think anybody would have the guts to name her.

"This woman needs to be stopped. The fact is, she remains free to carry on crying rape and up till now has been enjoying the full protection of the law. It's absolutely crazy that she could not be named and shamed, because innocent men need to be warned to avoid her like the plague.

"Now I hope she will go on to be prosecuted." But she is unlikely to face charges for perjury or perverting justice.

Northamptonshire Police yesterday claimed there was "insufficient evidence", while Crown Prosecution sources have cited her mental illness as a barrier.

But Mr Blackwell's barrister Anne Johnson said: "There is a clear public interest in her being prosecuted for perjury or the very least wasting police time.

"It's fantastic that somebody of authority has finally come out and named this woman. The issue needs to be aired otherwise nothing will be done."

At Mr Blackwell's appeal last month, Mr Justice Tugendhat admitted that similar tragic cases could follow because of the lies of the 'Miss A', adding that Parliament had not seemed to have considered this possibility when framing the law. Last night the judge said he did not wish to comment on yesterday's twist.

In the 1970s, the Daily Mail campaigned for women in sex cases to be granted automatic anonymity, to protect genuine victims of genuine crimes. Although Miss Taylor has now been publicly named, there is nothing to stop her changing her identity yet again.

Callers to her most recent address were told by her boyfriend that she no longer lived there.

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below?

It is unfortunate that in my opinion women seem to be able to make allegations and men are treated as guilty unless proven innocent. This spills over into family law where this happens all the time. It is time for laws to be changed and the system to be exposed for what it is. I take my hat of to the judge for naming this women. It is about time that more professional people i.e. judges and lawyers started looking at what is right and wrong instead of either following there own political agenda or lining their own pockets.

The sentencing for false accusations of rape should be as harsh, and enforced as harshly, as rape itself.

The USA also needs to wake up to the many false allegations of rape that are putting innocent men in jail.

Man freed but serial rape accuser remains anonymous -12th September 2006

An innocent man jailed for a sex attack was dramatically cleared after it emerged that his 'victim' is a serial liar with a long history of crying rape.

But because of laws that protect her anonymity, judges are powerless to name and shame her, leaving her free to make more false accusations against blameless members of the public.

Mr Blackwell, 36, hugged his loyal wife Tanya and wept as the Appeal Court quashed his conviction.

Mr Justice Tugendhat admitted, however, that similar tragic cases could follow because of the lies of the woman, Miss A.

In the 1970s, the Daily Mail campaigned for women in sex cases to be granted automatic anonymity, but now there are questions about whether the law has gone too far.

Warren Blackwell's nightmare began when Miss A, now 38, claimed she had been seized with a knife outside a village club early on New Year's Day 1999, taken to an alley and indecently assaulted.

Yet Mr Blackwell, from Woodford Halse, Northamptonshire, was found guilty and spent three years and four months behind bars.

Eventually the case was referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) which assigned Detective Chief Inspector Steve Glover, to investigate. He discovered that the woman:
• Has made at least five other fake allegations of sexual and physical assault to police in three separate forces.
• Was married twice and made false allegations against both husbands - one of whom was a policeman.
• Once accused her own father of sexual assault, but police concluded she had made it up.
• Accused a boy of rape when she was a teenager, only for a doctor to discover she was still a virgin.
• The CCRC concluded that in the case of Mr Blackwell, she had "lied about the assault and was not attacked at all, her injuries being self-inflicted".

David Farrell QC, for the Crown, said: "This conviction is unsafe. What has come out of the woodwork paints a picture of a woman with immense personal problems with serious difficulties in distinguishing between truth and lies."

If this information had been known at the time of the trial, he added, "this case would not have made it off the ground".

Mr Blackwell said: "Clearly something has to be done about this woman. She needs to be stopped. The prosecution say she is psychiatrically disturbed, but insane people who murder are tried and if found guilty put away."

Mr Blackwell, who plans to sue police over his ordeal, will now have his name removed from the Sex Offender Register.

His accuser has a history of mental illness and self-harm - once inscribing the word 'HATE' on her body with scissors.

However, because she has changed her name at least eight times, and moved between addresses in at least three counties, it seems police never realised they were dealing with the same woman.

For Mr Blackwell, her accusations meant he missed more than three years of family life. His son Liam, ten, and stepdaughter Holly, 16, were three and nine when his ordeal began.

His 36-year-old wife said: "I never doubted him for a second. We were together six years before it happened, and ever since."

Add your comment | View all Comments (48)

48 people have commented on this story so far. Tell the Mail on Sunday what you think using the links above.

I think that most right-thinking people would support a change to allow these people to be identified. It might even have some deterrent effect.

- Gordon Littlewood, Valenciennes, France

When you name the accused guilty or not you should also name the accuser. If his photo is published then so should hers be. Let's have things equal and fair all round.

- Mike, Wadebridge, UK.

This government does not have the time to waste on changing this law they are all too busy jostling for the top office job.

- Gordon Myatt, Swansea UK

F.A.C.T. (Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers)
PO Box 3074
Cardiff CF3 3WZ
Tel: 029 2077 7499
E-mail: info@factuk.org
Website: www.factuk.org
Campaigning organisation and support group which provides help and advice to falsely accused and wrongly convicted carers and teachers throughout the UK. The website contains a range of information, leaflets, books and links.

Guidance for education staff and volunteers in schools
Website: www.lg-employers.gov.uk/conditions/education/allegations
This website has guidance on: 1) staff facing an allegation of abuse; 2) preventing 'abuse of trust' for education staff; and 3) the conduct of education staff working with young people.

Headteacher cleared of assault - Friday October 3, 2003

CONVICTION QUASHED OVER 'MADE UP' VAMPIRE CLAIM

SEX ATTACK LIAR NAMED BY PEER - 19th October 2006 by SAM GREENHILL

Man freed but serial rape accuser remains anonymous -12th September 2006

Add your comment | View all Comments (48)