In 1984, the single most important piece of criminal justice legislation in modern times, other than the abolition of the death penalty, was placed on the statute book. Just as the Adolf Beck scandal gave rise to the Court of Criminal Appeal, so it took another miscarriage of justice before parliament would act to protect suspects on the street and in the police station. The 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act for the first time ensured due process by laying down the rights of those in police detention, as well as the criteria governing the stopping, searching or questioning of suspects. That this provision was urgently needed is shown by the case that propelled it into being.

At about 1.30a.m. on 22 April 1972 the body of Maxwell Confait was found by firemen in his room at 27 Doggett Road, Catford, one of those nondescript areas so common in south London. He had been strangled, and an attempt to set fire to the premises had been made. Two doctors, on the basis of rigor mortis, concluded that death had certainly occurred some hours before the body was found and most likely between 8.00pm and 10.00pm. Neither doctor deigned to employ the most accurate method of fixing the time of death. They had both heard that the deceased was prone to indulge in ‘unnatural practices’, and so they had declined to take the rectal temperature. This fastidiousness may have saved their blushes but it was to consign three innocent boys to years of imprisonment.

Confait was twenty-six years old and from the Seychelles.