Jason Moore murder case: Star witness says he was drunk

The star prosecution witness in an East End murder trial has told Newsquest’s Investigations Unit that he was “drunk” when he happened upon the incident.

He was the only witness who identified Jason Moore as a killer. His evidence directly led to Jason being charged with murder and taken to trial.

Jason’s family, backed by the family of his alleged victim Robert Darby, now intend to use Newsquest’s new evidence to try to overturn Jason’s conviction.

Robert, from the Isle of Dogs, was stabbed in the heart outside the Valentine pub in Gants Hill on August 24, 2005.

Jason, from Canary Wharf, is nine years into a life sentence for his murder.

He was arrested and charged with the crime in 2012, one day after Abdul Ahmed picked him out of a photo ID parade and said he was the stabber.

Newsquest has reported in recent weeks on a number of discrepancies in Mr Ahmed’s evidence.

Robert Darby was stabbed in the heart on August 24, 2005. Emergency surgery revived his heartbeat - but the lack of oxygen had already left him braindead. (Image: The Darby family)

CATCH-UP:

Part 1 - East End Killing: Is an innocent man doing life for a murder he didn't commit?

Part 2 - East End Killing: 'My brother is doing life thanks to an ID parade which should never have happened'

Part 3 - East End Killing: Witness and CCTV evidence never presented in court casts doubt on the case against Jason Moore

When we contacted Mr Ahmed to ask about those discrepancies, he exclaimed: “It was the blink of the eye! I was passing by! How could you remember things like that? And I was drunk!”

He added that he had told the police he was drinking that morning – something never mentioned in court or in any evidence disclosed to the defence.

“Ahmed’s evidence was effectively the evidence that convicted Jason Moore,” said Dave McKelvey, a retired Metropolitan Police detective. “This new material brings that whole conviction into question.”

Newsquest has handed its recording of Mr Ahmed’s comments to Jason’s pro bono lawyer Mark Bowen, of Shearman Bowen Solicitors.

It offered the recording to the Met Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as well, but they did not respond.

Robert Darby was stabbed in the heart outside the Valentine pub in Perth Road, Ilford (Image: supplied by Moore family)

Why was Mr Ahmed important?

Mr Ahmed was one of only two eyewitnesses to a clash between Robert and another man outside the Valentine, shortly before midday on August 24, 2005.

Mr Ahmed was walking up Perth Road, lost, while the second witness – codenamed Sally Palmer by the police – was in her car.

Both witnesses agreed on some facts. Each saw Robert in the carriageway facing two other men and said the taller of those men – wearing a blue, zip-up jacket and between 5’10” and 6ft – tussled with Robert.

But only Mr Ahmed said he saw the man in the blue jacket exit the passenger door of a silver car, carrying a kitchen knife wrapped in a white cloth. He said he watched the man plunge it into Robert’s chest.

But Ms Palmer, who was much closer to the action, did not recall these details.

She told police that just as she was driving past, feet away, the man in the blue jacket “shoved” Robert.

She never saw a knife or a white cloth and never saw the stabber get out of a car.

Jason Moore, 6'4 in bare feet, was around half a foot taller than the man Abdul Ahmed described to the police (Image: Moore family)

ID parades

Interviewed by police, Mr Ahmed said the man in the blue jacket had been either the same height as Robert (measured as 5'11" in his autopsy) or shorter, and had his hair shaved to a number two.

Jason Moore is 6’4” in bare feet and had long, dark hair.

Weeks after the incident, Mr Ahmed attended a photo ID parade where he was shown Jason’s photograph. He did not recognise him.

In another photo line-up on the same day, he identified a thin-faced man with very short, receding hair as the stabber. He was an innocent ID parade volunteer.

Seven years later, Mr Ahmed was asked to attend another photo line-up. He was shown Jason’s photograph again and this time chose him as the stabber.

Jason was arrested and charged with murder.

Eyewitness identification experts have told Newsquest that repeat ID parades should not happen, as a witness could unknowingly recognise a suspect from a prior line-up.

The Met and the CPS have each suggested at times that the other was responsible for that parade going ahead.

On the left is the man Abdul Ahmed chose as the stabber in 2005. On the right is the photo of Jason Moore he identified as the stabber in 2012 (Image: Met Police)

The new interview

Contacted by Newsquest last year, Mr Ahmed, from Somalia, repeated his story that he had seen the stabber exit the passenger side of a car with a knife in a cloth and stab Robert.

“What I saw with my eyes, it was the passenger who had the knife, not the driver,” he said.

He told Newsquest that the driver was “short” and the passenger was “big, bulky and taller”.

We asked Mr Ahmed if he knew he had identified two different men as the stabber at different times.

“It’s not deliberate,” he said. “I don’t know the people.”

He then said: “It was the blink of the eye! I was passing by! How could you remember things like that? And I was drunk!”

“I was drinking,” he reiterated. “I drank before I came that area.”

"Do you think that might have affected your ability to remember the person’s face or remember what happened?” he was asked.

“No, no, no,” he said. “That’s - I was just passing by. That was a blink of the eye. You can’t remember everything.”

“Do you believe that you picked out the right person?” he was asked.

He replied: “No. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Mr Ahmed told police the stabber had a shaved head. CCTV from the day of the stabbing shows Jason Moore had long, floppy, dark hair (Image: supplied by Moore family)

“Hugely significant”

Dave McKelvey, who earned more than 60 commendations in his policing career, has been aiding the Free Jason Moore campaign pro bono for years through his TM Eye private investigation firm.

He said Mr Ahmed’s claim to have been “drunk” was “hugely significant”.

There was already a “massive question mark” over the 2012 ID, he said, becase: “How does he suddenly pick out someone completely different from the original ID?”

He suggested this could provide an explanation.

“If Ahmed was drunk... it should have been brought to the attention of the jury,” said Mr McKelvey.

“Someone’s ability to be a credible witness has got to be based on the fact that they were sober and lucid and saw what they saw.”

Eyewitness evidence is unreliable at the best of times, said Mr McKelvey, let alone if the witness has been drinking.

The only knife ever found at the scene was Robert Darby's own stanley knife, in his own hand. Abdul Ahmed was the only person who ever said he saw a second knife (Image: supplied by Moore family)

Expert opinion

“It is a factor which might impact the reliability of a witness account,” said Dr Julie Gawrylowicz, from Abertay University, Dundee, who has studied the impact of alcohol on eyewitnesses.

She would only discuss the subject generally, not in Jason’s case specifically, as she has not worked on Jason's case.

Many factors would have to be considered, she said, such as how much alcohol was consumed and how much time elapsed between consuming alcohol, witnessing an incident and recounting it.

But studies show that alcohol intake at around the drink-drive limit affects the “completeness” of a witness’s memory. Then, the more is consumed, the more it affects accuracy too.

Mr Ahmed told Newsquest he had drunk “two cans of beer” before witnessing the incident in Perth Road – which would put him at the drink-drive limit.

If a witness’s memory is incomplete, said Dr Gawrylowicz, their brain can then create false memories which they sincerely believe are real.

“There might be aspects to a scene we’ve not paid attention to and sometimes our brain helps us fill those gaps,” she said.

“Sometimes, in hindsight, it is then very difficult for an individual to disentangle which facts have been really witnessed and which details have been basically added to the scene so that it makes sense to us.”

For example, she said, a person might see a car drive past, then see a person laying in the street, and “remember” seeing a collision, even though they didn’t see it at all.

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The Authorities

Newsquest asked the Met Police and the CPS last week to respond to Mr Ahmed's claims.

We asked the Met whether it accepted or denied that he had told officers on the day that he was "drunk". 

We asked the CPS, given Jason was charged as a direct result of Mr Ahmed's identification procedure, whether a charge would still have been authorised if it was known that he had been "drunk" at the time of the incident.

We also asked for the details of the appropriate officers at each body to whom our recording should be sent.

Neither body responded to our emails.

NEXT WEEK: The authorities said pathology evidence proved somebody else brought a knife to the scene and stabbed Robert with it. Newsquest investigates the safety of that evidence.