17841 D2-10,
HMP Shotts,
Cantmill Road,
Lanarkshire
ML7 4AS
October 2008
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am at present lying in Prison rotting away for a crime I did not commit.
I was charged alongside my co defendants Brendan Dixon and Colin Miller, with the murder of a 91 year old woman named Margaret Irvine.
Colin Miller walked free from court with a not proven verdict, despite him being the only one of us that people identified as being seen in the area.
I have been sentenced to life with a maximum tariff of 25 years which I received at Kilmarnock High Court, February 17, 2005. Brendan Dixon received the same sentence.
I was convicted on circumstantial evidence. I did not kill Mrs Irvine. I had nothing to do with this crime at all!
There was no physical evidence, forensics nor DNA linking me to the crime. Nothing at all links me to this crime because I was not there. I did not do it.
Although my appeal is still pending on this matter, I find myself not building my hopes up over this, because a crown prosecution service which can so easily prosecute me on nothing what-so-ever, isn’t going to be in too much of a hurry to admit their mistakes. Even though it has now come to my attention and the attention of the legal team that the crown with held evidence from us that could have so easily resulted in a different outcome at trial.
In person, I am constantly told I must do this and I must do that, though I refuse to do any programmes because I should not be here.
SPS policy goes by the courts decision and verdict, so in their eyes I must be guilty because I was found guilty.
I'm not the first person to claim innocence and I won't be the last, but in the meantime the SPS makes no allowance for us, courts say we're guilty so that’s it as far as SPS are concerned.
Rather than burying the fact that some of us could genuinely be innocent like we say we are, look at Campbell and Steele, Johnson and Allan, just some recent examples of being miscarriage of justice victims, can't the SPS be accepting that there is going to be people in prison wrongly convicted.?
Allowing people like me and others who claim to be innocent to undergo a polygraph test would go some way to showing SPS we are innocent and not just saying we are for the sake of it.
I've lost nearly four years of my life for something I did not do and it angers me when I read reports like Bill Aitken MSP calling for sex offenders to be put through lie detectors.
Lie detectors aren't admissible in court, but they do show if someone is lying or not. Rather than calling for sex offenders to be tested, why can't Mr Aitken support calls for lie detectors for people who claim they are wrongly convicted?
At least then people would see that I and others like me just could be totally innocent of our crimes, and so may end up supporting us in our fight for justice.
If it's a matter of cost then my family would pay for any costs to test me.
It took Campbell and Steele twenty years, and Johnson and Allan ten years to prove their innocence.
I guess I’ll have to be prepared for a long fight to clear my name.
I am hoping MPs and other people who are against injustice will be interested in me and my family’s fight for truth and justice. Not just for me and Brendan Dixon but also for Mrs Margaret Irvine too. Mrs Irvine deserves justice and she is not getting justice either, so long as the real killer/killers still walk free.
Kenny MacAskill, as justice secretary, Why can't you have some say on whether or not I can have a polygraph test?
I will prove my innocence in the courts, once all the evidence has been heard.
My case along with my co-defendants Brendan Dixon is being added to this site. Please take a look at the case and more will be added soon.
http://www.freewebs.com/justiceforthekillie2/
Yours Sincerely
Patrick Docherty.
