Maxwell Confait Inquiry: Transcripts and Papers

HO 253

1972-1977

Transcript of proceedings, witnesses' statements, chairman's notebooks, etc arising from the Inquiry between 1975 to 1977 by Sir Henry Fisher, on the appointment of the Home Secretary and the Attorney General, into the circumstances leading to the trial of certain persons in 1972 on charges arising out of the death in that year of Maxwell Confait in a fire at Lewisham.

Public Record(s)

English

132 files and volumes

Subject to closure for periods up to 75 years

Topics

Litigation

On 28 November 1975 Sir Henry Fisher, a former High Court Judge, was appointed by the Home Secretary and the Attorney General to inquire into the circumstances leading to the trial of Ronald Leighton, Colin Lattimore and Ahmet Salih on charges arising out of the death of Maxwell Confait, and the fire at 27 Doggett Road during the night of 21/22 April 1972.

The three youths were convicted on 24 November 1972 at the Central Criminal Court, Leighton, of murder; Lattimore of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, and all three of arson. Applications for leave to appeal, by Leighton against conviction, by Lattimore against conviction and sentence and by Salih against sentence only, were refused by the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) on 26 July 1973.

On 18 June 1975 the cases of the three were referred by the Home Secretary to the Court of Appeal whose task was to decide "whether the verdict of the jury should be set aside on the ground that under all the circumstances of the case it (was) unsafe or unsatisfactory" (Section 2(1)(a) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968).

The Court concluded that the prosecution had not established the charges beyond reasonable doubt, and on 17 October 1975 quashed the convictions for murder and manslaughter and for arson at 27 Doggett Road, and ordered absolute discharges to be made in respect of other offences.

The task of the Inquiry was defined by Sir Henry as: "to examine the probabilities of the case (which the Court of Appeal did not seek to do) and reach conclusions...as to what actually happened." In doing so the Inquiry was bound neither by the verdict of the jury, nor by the judgement of the Court of Appeal, and had available to it a great deal of evidence and other material which had not been laid before the courts.

The Inquiry was held in private on 46 days between 6 September and 2 December 1976.