Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

Misleading Special Knowledge 527
The trial judge was also sceptical about Kiszko’s claim that he had been ill
treated at the police station and had made a false confession, because after
making his confession Kiszko had had the opportunity to make a complaint to
a police officer in the presence of his solicitor, but did not do so.
In May 1978 he was refused leave to appeal against his conviction.
The Final Appeal
Following the defence team’s petition to the Home Secretary in 1990, and the
outcome of the re-investigation by the West Yorkshire Police in 1991 which
demonstrated suppression at trial of crucial scientific evidence supporting
Kiszko’s claims of innocence, the case was referred by the Home Secretary to the
Court of Appeal. The crucial ‘new’ evidence related to the fact that Kiszko’s semen
was void of sperm heads (spermatazoa) and it therefore did not match that
found on Lesley Molseed’s clothing. This fact was known to the police and the
forensic science service, which carried out the tests, at the time of Kiszko’s trial.
The case was heard on 17 and 18 February 1992 before Lord Chief Justice
Lane and Justices Rose and Potts.
In his Judgment, Lord Lane stated that on the facts presented by the prosecution
at trial, the case against Mr Kiszko ‘was extremely strong’. Not only was
there a confession to the murder, there was an admission to indecent exposure.
Perhaps the most important supportive evidence was that Mr Kiszko provided
in his confession detailed descriptions of the murder, which the police and prosecution
argued could only have come from somebody who was present during
the killing. On the face of it, the intimate post-admission special knowledge
was very incriminating and included the following.
� Detailed description of the circumstances of the murder and the place where
it had taken place.
� Knowledge that the victim had been left fully dressed (this knowledge had
been kept away from the public—Rose, Panter & Wilkinson, 1998).
� Seminal stains on the girl’s knickers and skirt, which coincided almost
exactly with Kiszko’s description of how he held the girl and masturbated
over her (the information had been withheld from the public and at the trial
the superintendent in charge of the case testified ‘that only five members
of the enquiry team, none below the rank of chief inspector, knew that the
killer had ejaculated over Lesley’s body’ (Rose, Panter & Wilkinson, 1998).
The implication was that the special knowledge about the semen had to
have come from the murderer: that is, Kiszko.
� Of the several knives Kiszko possessed the one he identified as the murder
weapon had traces of blood on it (it was not possible to establish whether
the blood was human or not).
However, in view of the fresh evidence the Court of Appeal had no alternative
but to overturn the conviction, because it clearly proved Kiszko’s innocence:
The result is that it has been shown that this man cannot produce sperm. This
man therefore cannot have been the person responsible for ejaculating over the
little girl’s knickers and shirt, and consequently cannot have been the murderer.