This week we have looked into developments in the campaign to clear the name of a Huddersfield man hanged for the murders of two police officers in 1951.
Alfred Moore’s surviving daughters have been campaigning alongside former detective Steve Lawson over the alleged miscarriage of justice.
Moore was hanged for the murders of Det Insp Duncan Fraser, 45, and Pc Gordon Jagger, 42, who were fatally wounded at Cockley Hill farm, Kirkheaton, in the early hours of July 15, 1951.
The two officers were part of a police cordon around the farmhouse home of Moore, a known burglar.
The officers were hoping to catch him red-handed returning home from burgling mills. The officers were shot trying to arrest a man as he approached the house.
Moore was arrested at his farmhouse a few hours after the shooting but the gun was never found. One theory is the gunman fled, leaving Moore to take the blame. He protested his innocence right to the end.
Mr Lawson, a detective with the West Yorkshire force from 1968 to 1974, has been campaigning to clear Moore’s name for several years and has previously persuaded the Criminal Cases Review Commission to reopen the case.
But in 2013 the CCRC announced it would not refer the conviction to the Court of Appeal, saying it had been “unable to identify new evidence that is capable of raising a real possibility that the Court of Appeal would quash the conviction.”
This week Mr Lawson said he was continuing to investigate the case with a view to submitting a fresh application to the CCRC. He said the new application was being considered by a barrister before it was submitted.
Around £5,000 has been raised to pay for legal advice before the case is submitted.
Mr Lawson has been looking at archive documents which he says “strongly suggest that certain officers committed perjury at the original trial.”
He says the information proves Moore did not have a fair trial. He says a police ID parade involving Moore contained two men who were different in age by over 10 years.
Mr Lawson believes the fresh application to the CCRC has a better chance of succeeding than the previous one which did not have the benefit of being reviewed by a barrister.
He said: “We want the case looked at legally to see if there’s a basis for a resubmission to the CCRC and we will be guided by what the legal advice is.
“We are awaiting a decision from lawyers having presented them with all the information and relevant documents.
“It’s a long slog but we keep going. The more we find out, the more we are convinced that Alfred was innocent.”
