The Court of Appeal has overturned the murder conviction of Justin Plummer, who spent 28 years in prison for the killing of Janice Cartwright-Gilbert but always maintained his innocence. The 54-year-old was convicted in 1998 for the murder of the 38-year-old, whose body was found in a burning caravan with multiple stab wounds near Wilden, Bedfordshire, in 1997.
The original conviction relied heavily on footwear mark evidence from a dentist unqualified in forensic footwear analysis, which was later deemed unreliable. In 2021, the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case back to the Court of Appeal, which quashed the conviction in 2023. However, the Crown Prosecution Service immediately challenged that ruling, leading to a retrial in June 2023 where Plummer was convicted again, this time based on an alleged confession to a deceased cellmate.
On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal quashed the 2023 conviction, ruling that the hearsay evidence from the cellmate, Christopher Dunne, a police informant with schizophrenia, should have been withdrawn from the jury. The judges stated the conviction was unsafe due to concerns over the reliability of this evidence.
Plummer's solicitor, Annalisa Moscardini, said: 'Justin Plummer is finally vindicated for his 28-year fight against this murder conviction. Due to his refusal to accept his guilt for a crime he has always been clear he did not commit, he has served far longer than his minimum term of 16 years.' His barrister, Katy Thorne KC, called for law reform to prevent such evidence being used in trials, adding that Plummer is being released with little state support.
