Rough Justice TV - BBC Genome online article -
This is the story of how detectives closed their minds to all but one suspect. In doing so, they broke the rules designed to protect the innocent. Rough Justice: ‘The Usual Story’: Paul Berry, BBC 1996
Colwyn Bay: One stranger in particular at the building society on the Abergele Road … At another building society, the Halifax, just up the road the manager and her assistant had just finished serving two customers. It was around ten to four. ibid.
‘I saw the same man standing outside just to the right of our door … He ran towards the counter then jumped on to it. He said, ‘Fill it up, all of it.’ ibid.
The robber got away with just £600. ibid.
At the first parade two witnesses picked him out … Paul Berry continued to protest his innocence. ibid.
Paul Berry’s alibi appeared to stand up. Three independent witnesses came forward to confirm his movements that critical afternoon. ibid.
A prisoner on remand with Berry turned grass. ibid.
It took three trials to convict him. ibid.
The identification evidence was a mass of contradictions. ibid.
By contrast Paul Berry is much taller. ibid.
In 1992, Paul Berry was found guilty of an armed robbery on a building society in Old Colwyn, North Wales.
Eye-witnesses said he was the man who held two elderly women cashiers at knife point. But Rough Justice has uncovered evidence which suggests the case against him was far less routine than it appeared.
The programme reveals that Paul Berry had an alibi which the police could only break by testimony from a convicted conman. Rough Justice found that the police broke nearly every rule in the book in building their case against Paul Berry, including contaminating the identification evidence that helped to convict him. BBC Genome Project online article 12th March 1996