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New doubts on double murder conviction of hanged farmer
NEW evidence casts doubt on the conviction of a man for a notorious double murder in West Yorkshire more than 50 years ago, according to two former detectives.
Poultry farmer Alfred Moore went to the gallows at Armley jail in Leeds in 1952 still protesting his innocence to the charge of shooting dead two police officers during a police stake-out at his farm in Kirkheaton, a village in Huddersfield.
He was 36 and left behind a wife and four young children who, nearly 60 years on, remain traumatised and stigmatised that he died on the gallows.
Daughter Patricia, aged 10 at the time, says she was forced to sign a false statement after being "picked up and shaken like a rag doll" by an interviewing police officer.
Now 68 and speaking publicly for the first time, she says she was bullied, called a liar and was left "exhausted and frightened" after being questioned for hours on end, sometimes alone.
In 1951 she told police her father was in bed at the time of the shooting, around 2am but they did not believe her.
Now she says: "I eventually signed a statement which the policeman wanted to hear. That statement was not true."
Officers had surrounded the house in a pre-planned stake-out in order to catch Moore, a confessed thief, returning from a night of burgling but new evidence casts doubt on key evidence that the jury heard.
Hundreds of pages of evidence, much of it never publicly aired or put before the jury, have been gathered by two former Huddersfield detectives, Steve Lawson and the late Colin Van Bellen.
Mr Lawson yesterday handed the dossier, gathered over three years, to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) which investigates suspected miscarriages of justice.
He believes that some statements were fabricated by police and that the jury heard barely a third of the evidence, preventing Moore from having a fair trial.
And he has named his own prime suspect – the late Clifford Mead, a Huddersfield man said to have a fascination for guns and whose wife on her death bed revealed his involvement.
Mr Lawson says the case against Moore was flimsy and he should receive a posthumous pardon. Moore's daughters also want to see their father cleared.
Patricia, who lives in Yorkshire, said: "I always thought he was not guilty. He might have been a thief but you don't hang a thief. I think he was a thorn in the side of the police.
"I have never spoken about it, not at all, until I talked to Steve. It's like somebody believes me at last. It would be nice to hold an official pardon in my hand."
Last night a West Yorkshire Police spokesman said the force was always happy to receive information about investigations old and new and it would co-operate if contacted by the CCRC.
"We were made aware of Mr Lawson's own work on this case in 2007, but as of yet, we have not received any submissions."
More coverage:
The murdered policemen, the hanged father. . . and a mystery that lingers on>>
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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