The M25 Three were Raphael Rowe, Michael George Davis, and Randolph Egbert Johnson, who were jailed for life at the Old Bailey in March 1990 after being wrongfully convicted of murder and burglary.
[1] The original trial took place between January and February 1990, resulting in all three being convicted of the murder of Peter Hurburgh, causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Timothy Napier and several robberies.
At some time between 11 pm and 12:30 am, an armed gang of three men wearing balaclavas and driving a stolen green Triumph Spitfire approached a car in Chelsham, Surrey in which Peter Hurburgh and Alan Eley were having sex.
[1] The assailants abandoned the Triumph Spitfire at the scene in Chelsham and stole Hurburgh's car, an Austin Princess which they then drove around the M25 to Oxted, Surrey.
[2] After between forty-five minutes and an hour the gang left in a Renault 5 and a Vauxhall Cavalier stolen from Spicer and Almond; Timothy Napier's Toyota was later found nearby.
[1] Rowe and Davis were arrested on the morning of 19 December 1988 at the probation hostel they shared in Sydenham, London and initially taken to Oxted Police Station.
[1] Griffin and Duncan admitted stealing the Triumph Spitfire used by the gang that murdered Hurburgh, but testified that they had stolen it at the request of Rowe, on 13 December 1988.
They claimed that it had been kept at the bail hostel until the evening of 15 December when Rowe, Davis and a third man, whom they did not know but who was alleged by the prosecution to be Johnson, had asked them for assistance to "bump start" the vehicle, between 23:00 and 00:00.
This same group of witnesses claimed that Rowe and Davis had returned on the morning of 16 December in the stolen Renault and Vauxhall Cavalier with a quantity of items, the proceeds of the robberies, which they helped to unload and hide.
Williamson claimed that Rowe took from the bag a pendant with a gold chain, a watch which was later found to be one taken during the Spicer robbery, and muddied jeans and boots.
The judge at the original trial drew this to the jury's attention in his summing up, and also highlighted that the evidence of Jobbins, Duncan and Griffin came from men who essentially were accomplices, and Williamson was by her own admission a handler of stolen goods.
The trial judge, Lord Justice Auld, summed up over four days and at the 2000 ruling it was acknowledged that the summation was "a careful, fair and wholly accurate reflection of the evidence and the issues.
[5] It later emerged that Norman Duncan had received £10,300 in reward money from the Daily Mail, which was not disclosed to the jury when he gave evidence at the original trial.
The appeal was rejected, with the court stating: "Taking all the evidence relating to the timing and events on the Thursday night and the succeeding days into account we conclude that, on the whole of the material we have reviewed, there is no basis for saying there is even a lurking doubt about the safety of the convictions of Rowe and Davis, the same applies to Johnson.
[6] It found that there had been a violation of Article 6 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically the failure to disclose Duncan's status as an informant prior to trial together with the fact that he had become eligible for a reward and may have nominated Cooper as one of the robbers before later accusing Johnson.