Robert Brown is a Scottish man who spent 25 years in jail for a crime he did not commit, the murder of worker Annie Walsh.
On 31 January 1977, factory worker Annie Walsh, who was 51 at the time, was found battered to death in her flat in Charles Barry Crescent, Hulme, Greater Manchester[2][3] by a man who had come to read the electricity meter.
[4] A Home Office pathologist estimated that she had lain undiscovered for two to three days after the murder, (she was last seen alive on 28 January 1977).
[1] He was originally arrested for non-payment of a fine[8] and was taken in for questioning without his rights being read to him and held for 32 hours without legal representation.
[13] Whilst in prison, Brown was caught in what Simon Hattenstone, writing in The Guardian, describes as "the Miscarriage of Justice Catch-22" (the Innocent prisoner's dilemma); because he would not admit his guilt in the crime for which he was imprisoned, he could not be rehabilitated and be deemed fit to be put in front of a parole board.
The appeal was due to be heard over two days, but the judges at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, quashed the conviction within minutes when the Counsel for the Crown explained that he could not argue the case on the evidence presented before the court; the appeal lasted only 18 minutes before it was deemed an "unsafe conviction".
[7][15] The appeal court had heard evidence that the fibres on Walsh's coat had not matched to Brown, but to another man who was questioned about the murder at the same time.
[19] Detective Superintendent Peter Topping of Greater Manchester Police had written a report in the 1980s detailing corruption practices within the force during the 1970s and beyond.
[31] In early 2005, Greater Manchester Police announced that they had reopened the investigation into Annie Walsh's murder.