Providing wrongfully convicted people with access to justice
Wrongful Conviction Day on 2 October is a day when the world acknowledges the travesty of wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice.
In America alone, 3,300 people have been exonerated since 1989 for crimes they did not commit, many of them serving prison sentences in excess of 30 years.
This is not just a problem for America, here in England people are being wrongfully convicted for crimes they did not commit. In July this year, Manchester’s Andrew Malkinson had his conviction overturned after he was wrongly convicted and imprisoned for over 17 years for a rape he did not commit (supported by the charity Appeal).
Learn more about Andrew’s story here.
People like Andrew and many others need your support. The criminal justice process is slow, outdated and underfunded meaning innocent individuals in prison right now, cannot access the help they need to make their voices heard.
The Innocence Project London (IPL) is a charity based at the University of Greenwich.
Run by Director, Dr Louise Hewitt (Associate Professor of Law at the university) bringing together lawyers working pro bono and students from across the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences working together to investigate claims of innocence from those who have exhausted all their options and have nowhere else to turn.
We help our clients make applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, finding fresh evidence or a new legal argument to show their innocence.
The IPL also raise awareness of wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice and how they occur.
As a charity, we have to fundraise to sustain our ability to provide justice to our clients and educate the next generations of legal professionals.
We need YOUR support to keep providing our services.
We need YOUR support to make sure innocent people like Andrew Malkinson are exonerated.
Please donate to the Innocence Project London Giving Weekend – every £ helps:
- £25 will provide support to an applicant (application pack and support completing it)
- £50 will obtain documents for investigation.
- £100 will help securely transport evidence.
- £250 will fund a prison visit to a client.
- £500 will obtain trial transcripts for those without paperwork.
- £1,000 will help instruct a forensic expert.
Students in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences will benefit – with your donation, the IPL can continue to provide a law clinic for students to volunteer and for placement students to work on.