Following the collapse last month of the trials of a number of South Wales rozzers for 'perverting the course of justice' in the framing of a number of seemingly innocent men for the murder of a prostitute in 1988. It now appears that the files that were considered vital to achieving a conviction, had not in fact been shredded, as was initially claimed. The loss of those files led the judge to rule that the officers would not receive a fair trial and aquitted the police officers.

It now appears that rather than the "senior investigating officer, Chris Coutts, instructed junior officers to get rid of files that prosecutors had earlier said were relevant to the case. The prosecution told the court that the destruction of the files would "inevitably be fatal to this case", which followed a decade-long inquiry and trial that cost an estimated £30m." The files were in their original boxes and were still in the hands of South Wales Police, which had investigated the case against officers from the same force.

Call me an old cynic but I can't help thinking this was something more than a simple oversight.

Following the collapse last month of the trials of a number of South Wales rozzers for 'perverting the course of justice' in the framing of a number of seemingly innocent men for the murder of a prostitute in 1988. It now appears that the files that were considered vital to achieving a conviction, had not in fact been shredded, as was initially claimed. The loss of those files led the judge to rule that the officers would not receive a fair trial and aquitted the police officers.

It now appears that rather than the "senior investigating officer, Chris Coutts, instructed junior officers to get rid of files that prosecutors had earlier said were relevant to the case. The prosecution told the court that the destruction of the files would "inevitably be fatal to this case", which followed a decade-long inquiry and trial that cost an estimated £30m." The files were in their original boxes and were still in the hands of South Wales Police, which had investigated the case against officers from the same force.

Call me an old cynic but I can't help thinking this was something more than a simple oversight.