As Newsquest reveals delays in the reinvestigation of Jason Moore’s murder conviction, here’s a recap from investigations reporter Charles Thomson, explaining who Jason is and why people believe he's innocent of murder.
On August 24, 2005, professional gambler Jason Moore was a passenger in his friend’s car.
He was from Clacton and his friend from south Essex, but both lived at the time in east London.
He told police that when they pulled up outside Ilford’s Valentine pub, his friend got out and had a scuffle with Robert Darby.
Jason, who has a disability affecting his vision, said that as he watched from inside the car, he never saw any weapon in either man’s hand.
After a while, he said, he got out to intervene – but before he could, Darby ran off. Jason briefly chased him but stopped and turned back when he saw Darby fall over up ahead, before Jason got anywhere near him.
He would later be told Darby had, at some point in that chain of events, suffered a stab wound to the heart.
The only weapon recovered was Darby’s own Stanley knife, covered in his blood, found in his own hand by a witness.
The Line-Ups
Weeks later, Jason’s photo was placed in a line-up for two eyewitnesses – one male, one female. Neither recognised him as having been involved in the stabbing.
Both said the man they saw clash with Robert was around 5’10, with short hair and wearing a blue jacket.
Jason was 6’5 in shoes and wore his hair in thick curtains. CCTV filmed him leaving home that day in a grey hoodie, neither wearing nor carrying a blue jacket.
The male witness picked out a thin-faced man with a shaved head and said he was the stabber. He was actually a line-up volunteer – but he didn’t resemble Jason Moore.
Yet despite this prior false ID, police called that witness back for another photo line-up seven years later and again included Jason’s photo. That time, he picked Jason as the stabber.
No forensic evidence linked Jason to the stabbing. The pathologist accepted at trial that it was possible Robert had just fallen on his own knife.
But a jury found Jason guilty. He got life with a minimum of 18 years.
An Unlikely Union
Robert’s family immediately approached Jason’s, saying they were convinced an innocent man had just been convicted.
Robert’s brother Tim, from Havering, has helped run the Free Jason Moore campaign ever since.
The families contacted Newsquest in 2021 and asked us to help reinvestigate.
Top eyewitness identification experts told us police should never have shown the witness Jason’s photo in two line-ups: he could just recognise Jason from the first line-up.
When we tracked the witness down, he made an extraordinary outburst: “It was the blink of the eye! I was passing by! How could you remember things like that? And I was drunk!”
He claimed he’d told police he was drunk – which, if true, was hidden from Jason’s defence.
Asked whether he was sure he’d picked the right man, he replied: “No. I don’t know.”
Reinvestigation
We gave our recording to Jason’s lawyers, who submitted it to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
The miscarriage of justice watchdog has now also ordered DNA testing on evidence seized from the home of the man whose car Jason was in that day.
It turned out the authorities had found a blue jacket in his home, taken tapings from the front of it, then never tested them – none of which was mentioned at trial.
Correspondence seen by Newsquest shows the CCRC has accused the Met of “delaying” its reinvestigation by failing to hand over the evidence. The Met has insisted it is fully cooperating.
Jason’s celebrity backers include cricket legend Sir Ian Botham, bestselling authors Linda Calvey and Syd Moore, and former Bishop of Stepney Joanne Grenfell, who protested Jason’s ongoing imprisonment outside Downing Street.
But it has already been almost three years since we published the witness's shocking claims, and more than two since the CCRC launched its review. Meanwhile, Jason remains in prison.
Newsquest's work on the case was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and a documentary is in production for Channel 4.
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