Campaigners have voiced anger an "innocent man" may have spent an extra four months in prison due to Metropolitan Police Service delays.
A watchdog has raised formal concerns over the time it is taking for evidence to be handed over for DNA testing in a suspected miscarriage of justice.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) wants to test clothing, seized from a rival suspect from south Essex, as it investigates whether north Essex man Jason Moore was wrongly convicted.
Jason, from Clacton, is serving life with a minimum of 18 years for the murder of Robert Darby, who was stabbed in the heart outside the Valentine pub in Gants Hill in August 2005.
He has always maintained he was sat in a parked car near the pub and saw the victim scuffling with another man.
But when police included Jason in a photo line-up seven years after the stabbing and an eyewitness picked him as the stabber, he was charged with murder – then convicted at the Old Bailey in 2013.
Ten years after Jason’s trial, the eyewitness confessed to a Newsquest reporter that he had been “drunk” when he witnessed the stabbing and didn’t know if he had identified the right suspect.
He also claimed police had known all along he was drunk – which, if true, was never disclosed to Jason’s defence.
No forensic evidence ever linked Jason to the killing and he did not match the killer’s description. Even the victim’s family are convinced the wrong man was convicted and have spent years campaigning for Jason’s release.
Meanwhile, tapings from the south Essex suspect’s clothing have never been DNA tested.
The CCRC – whose job is to investigate potential miscarriages of justice – launched a review of Jason’s conviction after the eyewitness’s bombshell admissions.
It ordered the Met Police to hand over the clothing and tapings from the south Essex suspect so they could finally be tested – but four months later, it was still waiting.
In correspondence seen by Newsquest, the CCRC said it had requested the exhibits in early September and “chased this numerous times”.
The failure to comply was “delaying our progression of the review”, it wrote. The body said it was “escalating the issue with the police”.
“It shouldn’t take four months to turn over an exhibit,” said Jason’s sister Kirstie.
“This is how injustice is allowed to continue – because delay is built in and tolerated. Months pass, excuses are given and someone remains in prison while time quietly slips away.
“If the people responsible for these delays had to spend just one day in prison, I do not believe they would ever treat this work as paperwork again. One day would be enough to understand the fear, the loss of dignity, the weight of time.
“Delay is not harmless. It steals innocent people’s lives, day by day.”
The Met Police said it “has and will continue to supply evidence relating to the case to the CCRC.”
“Due to the extended period of time since the investigation took place, it can take time to locate and provide them,” it added.
“Further materials are currently being processed and will be supplied in due course.”
It has previously refused to comment on the eyewitness’s news claims about being drunk and telling officers at the time.
The CCRC has a policy of not commenting on ongoing reviews.
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