Victor Nealon spent years in prison because he refused to say he was guilty. Now his sentence has been quashed, but the Ministry of Justice refuses to compensate him.
Victor Nealon, photographed earlier this year.
SWNS / Newsteam / Dave Evitts
In a tiny, shabby flat on the outskirts of Birmingham, Victor Nealon is talking about the day in 1996 that West Mercia police knocked on his door. His partner let them in. "When I asked what it was about," he says, "they said they were arresting me on suspicion of a crime against a woman. I told them I had nothing to do with it." Nealon agreed to be interviewed back at the police station. Unbeknown to him, he says, the police raided his home while he was there.
At the time, Nealon, then 36, was a postman. Originally from Ireland, he'd moved to the city the year before: "I left home when I was 17, and I'd been around Europe working, and in 1995, my uncle who lived in Birmingham asked me to visit. He said he knew someone would get me work – within 24 hours he'd got me into the Royal Mail. I decided to stay because the money was good. By March 1996 I'd moved in with a woman."
The crime the police arrested him for was this: A woman had been assaulted in the centre of Redditch after she left a club. The attacker jumped on her but she resisted, and he ran off. A number of witnesses saw the man; among the testimonies were claims that he had a Scottish accent and – the witnesses were unanimous on this – a very distinctive lump on his forehead. Six weeks later, they arrested Nealon, despite him having neither attribute.
The police asked him if he'd be willing to stand in an ID parade. "I said 'I've got nothing to fear, sure.'" This is investigative journalist Bob Woffenden's description of what happened next:
"The victim's friend [present at the time of the attack] did not pick him out. The club doorman did not pick him out. Two women who served the attacker at a burger bar (one of whom provided a particularly good description) did not pick Nealon out. And the victim herself? The police didn't even ask her to attend the parade.
"However, a barmaid picked Nealon out and so did a clubgoer, sort of (he was, he said, 'unsure, though it was possibly No.3 [Nealon]').
"That was all – although afterwards one witness was beckoned over by the investigating police officer. The witness then said he'd thought all along it was No.3 but, being naturally indecisive, he hadn't said so at the time."
SWNS / Newsteam / Dave Evitts
