A convicted murderer has claimed the fatal stabbing of a bookies’ manager that he spent 36 years behind bars for was “misinterpreted” as he fights to clear his name. Raymond ‘Ray’ Gilbert, then 22, was convicted of the murder of John Suffield, a manager at the Joe Coral betting shop in Liverpool.
Gilbert’s team has claimed police missed signs that it was “staged to look like a theft gone wrong” and made alleged errors in the initial investigation. Suffield was opening the shop on March 13, 1981, when he was ambushed and attacked in what was called a botched robbery.
Gilbert, a petty criminal from the area, was arrested three days later and was interrogated by police for 48 hours, without a solicitor present. He had changed his statement several times and confessed to the murder, but now claims it was false and given under duress.
He was co-accused alongside John Kamara, who he implicated in his confession. The confession was withdrawn once he had access to legal representation. Despite the savagery of the killing, the busy location and the close-knit community during the 1980s, no physical or forensic evidence was ever uncovered linking the two men to the scene.
Despite taking back their confessions, both men went on trial but Gilbert shocked the courtroom by passing a note to the judge, saying he wanted to end the ordeal and pleaded guilty. Gilbert, who claimed he was under pressure from local criminals who were furious he dragged an innocent person into the mess, later said he did this to reverse his mistake in implicating Kamara.
This backfired as the pair were sentenced to life in prison. Kamara was acquitted 19 years later in 2000 when his legal team found a list of issues in his case. Gilbert was later released in 2016 but he maintains his innocence, saying he was never given the opportunity to have his case reheard in the courts.
Gilbert spoke The Liverpool Echo this week and said: “I’m innocent of murder, I will keep shouting that. I just want the opportunity to prove it. That will happen when the CCRC examines the case. I hope they act on the evidence and give me and the victim’s family justice. When you know you have not done it you will fight. I will fight to my last breath.”
According to forensic expert Stephanie Davies, Merseyside Police “made some early errors” which could make Gilbert’s conviction unsafe. A team supporting Gilbert’s attempts to exonerate his name has submitted a new case review report to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which they claim suggests an alternative sequence of events to the accepted narrative put forward by investigators.
A spokesperson for the CCRC, the statutory body responsible for investigating alleged miscarriages of justice which has the power to refer cases back to the Court of Appeal, told the Echo: “We have received an application in relation to this case.”
The investigator, who was introduced to Gilbert by a mutual contact around a year ago, told the Echo: “At first I didn’t think it was something I could help with as the case against him had been built around his guilty pleas. However, after I looked at the forensic evidence I thought the narrative wasn’t right. I looked a bit deeper and believed Ray was telling the truth.”
Davies’ case review report, seen by the Echo, makes a number of claims including: that the death scene had been misinterpreted by the police and the official accepted sequence of events was likely erroneous; there were signs of crime scene staging present at the scene that had been missed by the police at the time; due to this misinterpretation the police narrowed their suspect pool to just those with a history of theft; and the CCRC may have missed earlier opportunities to conduct a thorough forensic review.
In her written conclusion, Davies claimed Suffield’s death “was a planned murder by an individual or individuals known to him” by offenders “aware of the victim’s usual routine”. She said: “I believe the offender(s) knew that they would be considered prime suspects by the police, so they manipulated the scene to misdirect the police investigation.”
Davies alleged: “I believe the investigation was potentially flawed from the outset and, influenced by confirmation bias, the police were just looking at a small pool of suspects with a history of theft and robbery and they were closed-minded to other potential suspects.”
Merseyside Police declined to comment when approached by the Echo.
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.