The false accusation of five men, and the subsequent wrongful conviction of three men, remains a dark stain on Cardiff’s recent history that it isn’t likely to forget. In the early morning hours of February 14th, 1988, 20 year old Lynette White was murdered in a horrendously brutal fashion. The case was treated so horrendously by police, it is now known as the UK’s largest police scandal to date.
The events that transpired that Valentine’s Day are truly horrific. And it’s cast its shadow all across Cardiff, Wales, the UK, and the world for over 30 years.
Lynette Deborah White was born on July 5th, 1967. She left school when she was very young, though she was described as very bright and very vivacious. She was also described by friends as pretty and popular. She lived in a section of Cardiff, called Butetown, in a flat on Dorset Street with her boyfriend Stephen Miller.
Lynette was a very hard worker. She worked nearly every day. And what money she did earn, usually went to help support Stephen’s cocaine addiction. But she didn’t mind. She was happy. They were happy. And then she disappeared.
For five days, Lynette didn’t return home to the flat. It’s hard to account for her whereabouts – someone said that they saw her in the corner store by her flat. A taxi driver known to Lynette and her friend Leanne drove her around a couple of times. For all intents and purposes, Lynette had gone to ground.
Some speculate that she was hiding from police. They had a warrant out for her arrest. She was a witness in two trials for the prosecution, and she was not a willing witness. Others speculate she’d left in order to cool off after a fight with Stephen. They argued about her occupation. He didn’t like the work she did – she was a sex worker, he wanted her to stop and find another job.
Whatever the reason, for the five days leading up to her death, Lynette had disappeared. Leanne was worried. Leanne also couldn’t go home. She’s loaned Lynette the keys to her flat – flat one at 7 James Street – so that she could take her clients there. Leanne yelled up to a neighbour who dropped their keys from the window to let herself in at the main door. But she still couldn’t get into her flat.
Leanne decided to go to Butetown Police Station to report the situation, and alert them to Lynette’s disappearance. PS William Bisgood, PC Simon Johnson, and PC Anthony Prosser returned to the flat with Leanne. At 9:17 PM, on Sunday, February 14th, 1988, they found Lynette dead in the flat.
She’d been found with her throat cut, with more than 50 stab wounds to her torso. According to Bernard Knight, the pathologist at the scene, the cut across the throat happened first, accounting for the large pool of blood at the foot of the bed. She was “found in the front bedroom which overlooks the main road of James Street. She was fully clothed and lying on the floor.”
Lynette’s watch had been torn from her wrist, it lay broken beside her. The time had been stopped at 1:45AM – later determined to be the time of death. Detective Chief Superintendent John Williams, head of South Wales CID, called it a “vicious, frenzied, sadistic attack.” It was like nothing Cardiff had ever seen before.
The first person police wanted to talk to was her boyfriend – Stephen Miller. He was pulled in for questioning on Monday, the 15th. He provided an alibi – which was corroborated by a man named David Orton. Stephen was more than willing to help – he was even wearing the same clothes he’d had on the night before. He offered to give them to police for testing, even though they visibly lacked any blood that would surely be on the murderer. Police soon let him go – they had another lead to follow.
Several witnesses came forward and gave police similar descriptions of a man they’d either seen with Lynette, or around James Street the morning of the 14th. He was white, with dark hair, roughly 5’8”-5’10”, late 20s to mid 30s, and dishevelled. One woman said that she saw the man in the early morning on the 14th, it looked like he’d cut his hands, and he had blood on his clothes. She described the man as a “blubbering mess”.
A photofit of the man was made, and shown on television. It was broadcast all over the BBC programme Crimewatch UK on March 17th, 1988 – a month after the murder.
Having no other leads, DC Geoff Thomas compiled a list of 12 people of interest. One of the men on the list was known to police – and only ever referred to as Mr. X. He was a convicted sex offender, and a former client of Lynette’s. He was brought in for questioning, and stated that he couldn’t provide an alibi for the night of the murder. He also had a blood type of AB, which was of interest to the police.
Police had found AB blood at the scene, belonging to an unknown male. Police were sure they’d got their guy. On October 19th, 1988, DI Graham Mouncher put a surveillance team on Mr. X in order to get a feel for his routines. Mr. X had become the prime suspect in Lynette’s murder.
Police were hit with a major setback – on November 9th, 1988, forensics came back and DNA exonerated Mr. X. He had not been Lynette’s murderer.
A month later, news of arrests rocked all of Wales. Five men had been arrested for the murder of Lynette White in December 1988, 10 months after the incident occurred. They were 22 year old Stephen Miller (Lynette’s boyfriend), 30 year old Tony Paris, 26 year old Yusef Abdullahi, 27 year old John Actie, and, John’s cousin, 30 year old Ronnie Actie.
Police had been looking for a scraggly-looking white man. None of these men were white. They certainly didn’t match the photofit. They didn’t even run in the same circles – not even the cousins hung out together. These men would forever be known as the Cardiff Five.
All of the men had alibis. Yusef’s was the strongest – he was 10 miles away working on a ship called Coral Sea. The police didn’t seem to care – they had men in custody and that was good enough for them. All five men were told variations on the same thing – witnesses saw them there, they saw them commit the murder.
If anyone found it suspicious that these witnesses were only now coming forward, 10 months later, the police summarily dismissed them. The witnesses were the keys to cracking the case. So, who were these witnesses?
Leanne Vilday – the woman who found Lynette’s body, and was also her friend – had been hounded by police for months. She kept telling them that she didn’t know anything, but they were convinced that she was lying. They thought she knew more than she was saying – especially because she’d been dating Ronnie at the time of the murder. For months she told them that she knew nothing. Then, suddenly, in December she changed her tune, and she implicated all five men in the murder. Lynette, Leanne claimed, had been involved in a gang murder.
Angela Psaila lived in a flat that had a clear view of 7 James Street. She also knew Lynette. Lynette, Leanne, and Angela often worked together – they were in the same trade. As with Leanne, for months Angela claimed she didn’t know anything. Then, on November 17th, 1988, police pulled her in and told her they knew she was connected to the crime – the found AB blood, you see, and Angela had AB blood. They just didn’t tell her that the blood belonged to a male. They wanted her frightened.
Angela changed her story. She heard screams, she said, from across the street. Then she saw John, Ronnie, Yusef, and Tony standing outside. On December 6th, 1988, she amended her statement yet again. She told police that she and Leanne had been hanging out at Angela’s flat the night of the murder. They heard the screams, and they ran across the street, into the flat, and saw Lynette on the floor. She said the Actie cousins were on the stairs, while Tony, Stephen, and Yusef were standing over Lynette’s body. She then said she and Leanne were forced to participate in the murder – that’s how her blood (which wasn’t her blood at all) got there. Leanne agreed with this version of events.
Mark Grommek lived above flat one in the same building at 7 James Street. He had a friend over, Paul Atkins. They were terrified. Not of the murder, no. They were terrified of the police. Both men were gay, and the police was not known for being kind to the LGBTQ+ community. They feared what would happen to them when police came around looking for witnesses. The police liked scared witnesses, it seems.
Paul kept changing his story – he couldn’t keep his thoughts in order. At one point, he even claimed that Mark had murdered Lynette. The police didn’t treat his words too seriously. Mark, however, they could take seriously. After months and months of police hounding him, Mark broke and told them that he saw a group of men – the same five men Leanne and Angela saw – standing outside of the flat. He also agree with their version of events.
But what prompted the police to suddenly go so hard on these witnesses, and get these statements? A statement from a known friend of theirs – Violet Perriam. Violet was a secretary at a Cardiff yacht club, and she often tended bar at the club. In fact, she was quite friendly with many of the Butetown police officers – she served them drinks all the time at the club.
She told them that on the morning of February 14th, she’d been driving home from the club around 1:30AM. She saw four “excited” black men standing outside the James Street flat as she drove by. She identified one of the men as John Actie. From there, police implicated the other four men. Though they didn’t hang out together, they were known around Butetown. The police had their frame.
The police believed that the witness statements would be more than enough to arrest, charge, and convict the Cardiff Five. But there was one problem. Every single one of those witnesses was lying. Not that that mattered much to police – they got five men of colour off the streets.
When the Five were arrested, the police were aggressive and hostile from the outset – especially towards Stephen. Police did not listen to his denials, nor the denials of the other men. They knew they had their killers. They didn’t have evidence, they had lying witnesses, but they knew they had their killers.
With Stephen Miller, the police employed the good-cop-bad-cop technique – bad cop goes in, does some yelling, some harassing, some name calling, frays the nerves of the person being interrogated, and then leaves. Then good cop comes in, soft-spoken and falsely sympathetic. Trying to be friendly. Trying to be nice.
After four days, 13 hours, 19 interrogations, and all but dismissing the objections of Stephen’s solicitor, he broke. He gave a false confession. The police had painted a picture of the event, fed Stephen the lines over and over and over again over the course of four days, and he repeated them back to them. He’d sealed the fate of the Five. They were charged for the murder of Lynette White.
The trial took place at Swansea Crown Court. It began on October 5th, 1989. The witnesses were an absolute train wreck on the stand. The very same witnesses that police had been oh so proud of a year earlier.
Angela Psaila screamed “How many times have I got to tell you, I wasn’t fucking there!” as she was brought into the courtroom to give evidence. Not a great start. She was hostile, throwing insults at the defendants and the barristers. However, she did admit that she’d lied in her statement. Leanne Vilday and Paul Atkins followed suit, saying that they’d simply stated what the police had wanted them to state.
That was fine, the prosecution had another ace up its sleeve. They produced a new witness – Ian Massey, a convicted armed robber. He said he’d shared a prison wing with the Five, and had had many conversations with Tony Paris. He claimed that Tony had gloated to him about how he’d killed Lynette. Damning evidence, indeed.
But what the court didn’t hear was that Massey had had several meetings with DI Mouncher. Meetings which were not recorded. What was evident – at leas to the defence – was that Massey was shopping around for some kind of deal, and he was more than willing to say what he needed to say in order to get it. Another lying witness. At least this one hadn’t been scared by police.
All five men had witnesses who could corroborate their alibis. It was also made clear that there was absolutely no forensic evidence linking them to the murder. The defence was feeling hopeful. Then the trial hit a snag. After 82 days, on February 26th, 1990, the judge presiding over the case – Mr. Justice McNeill – died of a heart attack. They’d all have to start over again.
The second trial was set for May 14th, 1990 at Swansea Crown Court before Mr. Justice Leonard. Justice Leonard had a warning, though. He warned the jury that the witness statements were full of lies and could not be relied on as factual evidence. With that, the jury deliberated.
After 127 days of trial, on November 22nd, 1990, the jury had reached a verdict. Cousins John and Ronnie Actie were acquitted. But that didn’t change the fact that they’d both spent two years in prison for a murder they didn’t commit. What was to follow is one of the UK’s most egregious miscarriages of justice.
Tony Paris, Stephen Miller, and Yusef Abdullahi were all convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, and sentenced to life imprisonment. They were now known as The Cardiff Three
The defence immediately launched for an appeal. Lloyd Paris and Malik Abdullahi immediately went into action. They organized a campaign – Free The Cardiff Three. It gained international attention, even earning the support of American activist and reverend Al Sharpton. The campaign worked hard – three men of colour were sitting in prison for a crime they didn’t commit, and the police had originally been looking for a white man. The message was not lost on the community of Butetown.
The case against the Three was steadily falling apart. An appeal was set for December 10th, 1992 in London – four years after Tony, Yusef, and Stephen had been arrested. Michael Mansfield QC headed up the appeal – and he charged in.
He focused the appeal around Stephen’s coerced confession. For the first time, the courts would hear the tapes in their entirety – all 13 hours of them; all 19 tapes. Chief Justice Taylor was disgusted, stating that “short of physical violence, it is hard to conceive of a more hostile and intimidating approach by officers to a suspect.” He concluded that the confession should never have been admitted into evidence in the first place. The confession only proved one thing – the police had harassed, bullied, hectored and hounded Stephen until he told them what they’d told him to tell them.
Chief Justice Taylor even went so far as to order copies of the tapes to be delivered to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Chairman of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice as an “example of what we hope we shall never hear again in this court.” The police had bungled the investigation from the get-go, and now they were publicly humiliated for it.
In the end, the Cardiff Three were free at last – their convictions had been declared “unsafe and unsatisfactory”. They were released.
The message wasn’t lost on Butetown – the police had tried to frame 5 men of colour for murder, and had failed. And now they needed to find the real killer.
So, who killed Lynette White? Come back next week and find out in part two.
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Sources:
Shreds: Murder in the dock podcast – produced and narrated by Ceri Jackson
The Cardiff Three: The long wait for justice – Duncan Campbell for The Guardian
Murder of Lynette White Wikipedia page
[…] You can read Part 1 here. […]