Jon Robins examines the “first miscarriage of justice” of Tony Stock
In 1970, the year that Tony Stock was convicted for his part in a violent robbery outside a Tesco store in Leeds, Edward Heath became Prime Minister, Prince Charles graduated with a 2:2 from Cambridge and £4,000 could buy you a decent house. Stock, then a 30-year old father of four, was to spend his remaining 43 years fighting to clear his name.
Stock’s epic campaign offers a way of looking at our criminal justice system over the last four decades. But it is not a cosy trip down memory lane.
At that time robbers didn’t carry guns. They bludgeoned their victims over the head with coshes as they did in the Leeds robbery, relieving the store manager of £4,000. The modus operandi, such as it was, was to go in hard and fast with real violence to subdue those who might otherwise be brave or stupid enough to fight back, and then speed away in the getaway car. The M1 motorway had only just connected Leeds to the South. The idea that
