History
The Cardiff Law School Pro Bono Scheme was set up in the academic year 2005/6 and officially launched on 5 April 2006 by Michael Napier QC at the twelfth annual Ewan Davies lecture.
The Cardiff Law School Innocence Project was launched on 16th February 2006 by Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty.
Student training took place between October and December 2005 for the initial intake of students, with a series of workshops and talks delivered by high profile victims of miscarriages of justice including Mike O’Brien of the 'Cardiff Newsagent Three', their families, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the Crown Prosecution Service and South Wales Liberty.
Students completing the training were then required to submit an essay on a selected topic relating to miscarriages of justice and the wrongful conviction of the innocent, and some research relating to this subject area, accompanied by their reasons for wishing to become involved in the Project.
Case work started in late February, with cases primarily selected from a central case bank administered by the Bristol project in conjunction with the national network. In addition, we chose to take on, under the guidance of his Cardiff appeal solicitor, a Swansea prisoner who claims he is innocent of a high profile local murder where the body has never been found.
