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Hickman & Rose are celebrating a victory for client Lee Firkins whose murder conviction is going to be reviewed

4 Aug 2020

Hickman & Rose are celebrating a victory for client Lee Firkins whose murder conviction is going to be reviewed by the Court of Appeal.

His first appeal failed in 2009, but his solicitor Jane Hickman, together with Rhona Friedman of south London law firm Commons Legal, submitted new evidence to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2015. The CCRC has finally confirmed today that there is a real possibility the Court will not uphold the conviction.

Jane Hickman has acted for Mr Firkins continuously since his arrest for murder early in 2004. Fifteen years on from his conviction at Exeter Crown Court she still believes his conviction was a mistake. The brutal murder of Graham and Carol Fisher at their garage near Wadebridge in Cornwall shocked the local community but the police could find no evidence to indicate who committed the murders. Mr Firkins and his brother, east Londoners who had recently moved to the West Country, were eventually charged and convicted on the evidence of a fellow prisoner at Exeter jail.

Jane Hickman said today “This is not the first time that the Court of Appeal will be asked to examine the credibility of a case based almost entirely on a cell confession. It is time that this type of evidence ceased to be a last resort where police have no proper case against someone they think is a likely suspect“.

This is an unusual case where the same legal team has acted for Mr Firkins and his brother Robert since trial, and all are convinced that justice has not yet been done.


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