About
This is the title of a book, which I most sincerely would have preferred not to write, because it results from the failure of my campaign to obtain truth and justice following the homicide of my gay son.  This campaign lasted more than fourteen years, and it was centred on trying to persuade the London Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to give me the true facts and circumstances about my son Alex’s needless and untimely death, in order to access the High Court to have the coroner’s inappropriate verdict of accidental death annulled and obtain justice my for my son.

 My attempt was not a complete failure because I have confirmation of a fact I have known since the inquest, that my son was unlawfully killed, and I am now as sure as I can ever be, that my son died as the result of a bizarre sadomasochistic ritual, and I know the person who was responsible for bringing about his death, I had to struggle for 14 years before I received written confirmation from the Metropolitan Police that Alex was murdered. It came in the form of a letter sent to me sent in 2010 by a Senior MPS Information Access Officer, in which he was trying to justify the refusal to release information, which I requested under the Freedom of Information Act. It stated that my son’s death:
,
“…a murder such as this…”

  I have a feeling that the official slipped up there and that he was never authorised to make the admission.  Because, even though I used that damning admission to challenged the MPS on the matter, it was not followed through when I appealed to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). This ‘independent body’ granted the MPS request to invoke the ‘out of time’ clause which enabled them too avoid reinvestigating the case. My case was dismissed, the decision was final and therefore I am not allowed a further appeal. The doors of the courts still remain as tightly closed to me today, and justice for Alex is just as much out of my reach as it was in 1996.

The book I have just completed is a full account of the above events up to 2010, when the last of my many attempts to have my case heard in the High Court was dismissed. It was then that I was determined to reveal the true facts of the cause and circumstances of my son’s death, even though it was a painful task. The facts are that the Metropolitan Police, a pathologist, the DPP, the CPS and a coroner, from the beginning, colluded in an unbelievably convoluted modus operandi to conceal the truth from the press, public and the family.

Many of us in Britain, as I am, are fans of British and American TV programs, such as CSI, Law and Order, and New Tricks, and even of real life cases, where laws are openly flouted or bent in court, to suit the purpose and particular point of view of prosecution and defence lawyers. Usually though in such series, justice wins in the end.

However, many viewers, as I once did, consider very smugly, that the extreme cases of injustice depicted in USA series would not happen in Britain because our justice is superior to that of American justice. But I know that our Law Enforcement officers can be just as devious as their American counterparts, but perhaps more insidiously in manipulating the principle behind the ‘Rule of Law

‘The Rule of Law’, is applied to the courts of both countries, when status, or influence money or flawed evidence are used to pervert or interfere with the course of justice, and miscarriages of justice are believed to have resulted.

The Rule of Law

The Rule of Law is considered to be an important part of the British Constitution, and although I find it a very difficult concept to fully grasp, my understanding is based on the following definition of the Rule of Law: 
The rights of individuals are determined by legal rules and not the arbitrary behaviour of authorities - whether elected or appointed.
There can be no punishment unless a competent court decides there has been a breach of law.
Everyone, regardless of his/her position in society, is subject to the law.
The critical feature to this rule is that the realisation (determination) of individual liberties, depends not only on the role of ‘trial by jury’, and the impartiality of judges, but also hinges on Prerogative Orders issued by the High Court for their supervision of decisions taken by the inferior courts. When the victims and families contend that their rights have been adversely affected by mistrials or flawed cases heard in the lower courts, they can seek leave to appeal to the High Court for the decision to declared be unsafe. Whether or not the appeal will be heard or dismissed depends on three Prerogative Orders, referred to as quashing orders namely:
A writ or Certiorari, calls a case up from an inferior court to a superior for examination to ensure that justice is done, quashing the case when it is considered it has not.

A Prohibition prevents an inferior court from hearing a case it does not have the power to listen to.

A Mandamus or judicial writ is a command from the High Court to an inferior court to carry out the superior courts orders.

It seems this last order is only applied when an appeal to the High Court is successful.
This brings me to the point I am making on my flawed case, which is discussed fully in my book. The Coroner’s Court, in which the inquest of my son was heard, is an example of an inferior court and is open to the supervision of the High Court. On appeal, the High Court could examine the facts of a case, in order to establish whether or not the authority concerned, which in my case was the coroner, had made an arbitrary decision and breached the Rule of Law.  I considered that he had, and that the coroner’s conduct of the case and his inappropriate verdict, could be classed arbitrary behaviour and warranted me requesting leave to appeal to the High Court for a new inquest. But there was a snag. That snag being, that unless leave to appeal to the High Court is allowed, a legally binding decision made by a lower court, no matter how arbitrary or unfair it may be, will stand, as then there will no further opportunity for the appellant to have the decision set aside and have redress for the harm it has done.
I never got to the High Court, the authorities made sure of that.

I am often asked if I am sure that if I am positive that my son was murdered, and I can answer – ABSOLUTELY. I realised that at the inquest but it has taken fourteen years for the Metropolitan Police to admit Alex’s death was murder.

The fact was confirmed in letters from the MPS and two important extracts from MPS documents are included.

No.1
Extract from Murder Review Group Report 2005, confirming nature of enquiry carried out of my sun’s death.

No.2
Extract from an 8 page letter sent by James Young, SCO14 New Scotland Yard  - not dated – received 4tth April 2007, explaining why information requested under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, could not be released to me.

Letters received after these dates were more correctly referred to the ‘Murder of William Alexander Barrack’.