Wrongful Convictions · False Allegations · Memory & the Courts
106 stories
New rape courtrooms in England and Wales and pre-recorded evidence in NSW are sold as easing delays and stress for complainants. What about a fair trial for the accused?
25 September 2026
The Court of Appeal found a deputy High Court judge should not have heard a suspended optometrist's appeal by video link from his bed, the day after surgery on a ruptured Achilles tendon, though it ruled the hearing caused no injustice.
23 September 2026
Christopher Poulter and Kevin Biggs, who died in 2004, exonerated of mailbag theft after new evidence emerged
22 September 2026
The NSW government plans to let complainants in adult sexual assault trials give pre-recorded evidence-in-chief, trial ground rules hearings in three District Courts, and narrow court access to counselling records.
22 September 2026
More than 15,000 sexual offense cases are clogging England and Wales’ senior criminal court, with survivors often waiting months or years for a trial.
21 September 2026
Ros Burnett called it the lowest circle of hell. The director of FASO on what a false allegation of sexual abuse does to the accused and their family.
21 September 2026
Khloe Simmonds, 26, has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to eight counts of perverting the course of justice over false rape allegations spanning seven years
19 September 2026
The Indiana Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling that the State suppressed evidence pointing to another man, affirming a new trial for Jason Hubbell, who has spent more than 28 years in prison for the 1997 murder of Sharon Myers.
18 September 2026
The Thirlwall inquiry found a complete failure to protect babies at the Countess of Chester — but the Guardian, the Telegraph and Peter Hitchens all asked why it reported at all while the CCRC is still weighing Lucy Letby's convictions.
16 September 2026
Healthcare researcher Neal K. Shah argues that America's psychiatric system, not Lindsay Clancy alone, bears responsibility for her children's deaths — and asks why no prescriber faces a courtroom.
13 September 2026
Jennifer Pritchard was jailed for a two-month Facebook campaign falsely accusing her police officer ex-husband of being a rapist and a baby killer. It was the second time she had been jailed for inventing allegations against him.
12 September 2026
Chicago faces nearly $14 million more in settlements for two men framed for murder by Detective Reynaldo Guevara, on top of a misconduct bill that has already passed $80 million.
11 September 2026
More than 100 lawyers stood in silence outside the Old Bailey in support of Rajiv Menon KC, who faces an unprecedented contempt of court prosecution carrying up to two years' imprisonment over his closing speech to a jury in a protest trial.
9 September 2026
Stacey Sharples was jailed for four-and-a-half years in March after admitting 10 counts of perverting the course of justice. The Court of Appeal has ruled that term unduly lenient and increased it to seven years.
9 September 2026
A woman who lied to the police falsely accusing ten innocent men of rape had her sentence increased following intervention by the Attorney General, Ellie Reeves KC MP.
9 September 2026
Khloe Simmonds was jailed for seven and a half years for eight counts of perverting the course of justice, after making false rape allegations against a series of men between 2018 and 2026.
7 September 2026
The Superior Court of Quebec has ruled that Cardinal Marc Ouellet was the victim of slander and defamation and falsely accused of sexual violence, ordering his accuser to pay 100,000 Canadian dollars for the damage to his reputation.
4 September 2026
The Superior Court of Quebec has found that Cardinal Marc Ouellet was falsely accused of sexual assault, awarding him $100,000 in damages against his accuser — money he says he will donate to organisations fighting the abuse of Indigenous peoples in Canada.
1 September 2026
Marland Yarde, who played for Sale Sharks, saw his life ruined by a woman's false accusations
29 August 2026
A judge has granted Jerry Sandusky a hearing over an accuser's bid to recant. Speaking by phone from a Pennsylvania prison, the former Penn State coach told ABC7 he was convicted by people with "their own personal agendas".
29 August 2026
During a vigil held Thursday, State College Mayor Ezra Nanes said Vedam’s ongoing detention is an “injustice piled on top of injustice.”
28 August 2026
One was a cop branded a serial rapist. Another was accused of a nightclub drugging. But these men share one thing in common: they were all innocent.
27 August 2026
Gov. Bill Lee commuted Thomas Clardy's life sentence to parole, stopping short of the Board of Parole's recommendation that he be exonerated.
27 August 2026
The Human Rights Law Centre says a restrictive parole condition that stopped Sue Neill-Fraser from being able to claim her innocence in the media has been removed after a court challenge.
25 August 2026
Guy Miles spent more than 18 years in prison for a 1998 Fullerton robbery he did not commit; Orange County prosecutors have now vacated the conviction after a Conviction Integrity Unit review.
22 August 2026
Juno-award winning musician Ashley MacIsaac has ended his defamation suit against Google over its AI overview falsely labelling him as a sex offender. He was originally seeking $1.5 million in damages, but filed a notice of discontinuance in July.
19 August 2026
Corey Young served 30 years for a 1995 Albany shootout he did not commit. He is now suing the city and two detectives for $80 million over coerced witnesses.
19 August 2026
Tyrone Noling has spent 30 years on Ohio's death row for a double murder he insists he did not commit; a rare clemency hearing let him put recanted testimony and an alternative suspect to the parole board.
19 August 2026
Acacia Lyn-Darr, exonerated in 2025 after nearly 12 years in prison, is suing Pueblo County and its officers over a conviction built on coerced testimony.
19 August 2026
George Bell served 24 years in prison before one of the city's highest-profile exonerations.
17 August 2026
The family of a Memphis man wrongfully convicted of murder said a new hurdle has emerged a week before a hearing that could prove his innocence.
16 August 2026
Two NSW Police officers shared witness statements before submitting them as evidence. A judge said it “undermines confidence” in their accounts — then allowed the evidence and ruled the arrest lawful.
15 August 2026
A federal judge sent the Cascio siblings' child sex trafficking claims against the Michael Jackson estate to confidential arbitration, holding that the terms of their 2019 settlement leave him no discretion.
13 August 2026
Alan Hall was wrongfully convicted nearly 40 years ago of murdering Arthur Easton. Two former police officers involved in the investigation have been found not guilty of perverting the course of justice.
12 August 2026
Are Australia’s rape reforms jailing innocent men? NSW costs certificates in sexual assault cases leapt from 28% to 67% in three years — and the men who paid.
5 August 2026
His name had one “_”. The criminal's had two. He got 18 months anyway.
31 July 2026
Matt Foot on the unprecedented contempt of court prosecution of Rajiv Menon KC, brought over a closing speech that cited Bushell's Case — the 1670 ruling, commemorated on a tablet at the Old Bailey, that established a jury's right to give its verdict according to its convictions.
15 July 2026
A Valparaiso mother and father have their kids back after they say the Indiana Department of Child Services wrongfully accused them of abusing their baby.
7 July 2026
The psychologist whose report made Merseyside Police suspect Eddie Gilfoyle of murdering his pregnant wife now calls his own advice 'nonsense'.
3 July 2026
One of New Zealand’s worst wrongful convictions returned to court yesterday, 40 years after the murder and subsequent police investigation that led to it.
30 June 2026
The two officers are charged with perverting the course of justice in one of New Zealand’s most high profile wrongful convictions.
29 June 2026
Filmmakers Fran Robertson and Jemma Gander report from Joe Outlaw's trial, where a jury heard the indefinite IPP sentence itself put on trial.
8 May 2026
Newly released body-camera audio captures actor Timothy Busfield denying child sex-abuse allegations to an Albuquerque detective, as his attorney calls the recording 'completely exculpatory.'
16 April 2026
Bettina Arndt on Scottish judges and the push to tilt justice systems toward accusers at the expense of fair trials.
19 February 2026
Brendan McConville’s solicitors have referred his case to the CCRC after a review confirmed the PSNI obtained their communications data ahead of his 2013 appeal.
21 October 2025
The High Court clears the way for a South Australian man to sue his ex-wife for malicious prosecution over false allegations.
18 July 2025
Sky News host Andrew Bolt has criticised the decision to grant two men compensation by the federal government’s National Redress Scheme for alleged historical…
31 January 2025
Two Toronto defence lawyers set out how false memories reach the criminal courts, and what R. v Tan and R v SKM show about testing recovered-memory evidence.
16 January 2025
Mathematicians and statisticians questioned the shift-pattern chart that placed Lucy Letby at every suspicious incident on the Countess of Chester neonatal unit. An extract, with our own diagram of how a chart like that is built.
9 July 2024
The reasoning behind Jarryd Hayne's successful sexual assault appeal after three trials and two overturned verdicts.
17 June 2024
Derek Bromley is granted parole 40 years after his 1984 murder conviction, still maintaining his innocence.
28 March 2024
A Sydney judge ruled a rape complainant used a rehearsed script to manipulate the accused into an apology he did not believe. The charges were then dropped.
11 February 2024
Fr Gordon MacRae's own account of the New Hampshire investigation, the plea deals he refused and the 1994 trial that left him serving 33½ to 67 years.
8 January 2024
An Adelaide cheerleading coach who had been accused of sexually assaulting girls at a club is acquitted of all charges, after a judge finds the complainants were "not credible or reliable".
29 September 2023
Eight Australian cases in which judges, lawyers and legal academics say prosecutors strained impermissibly for a conviction — from Gordon Wood to Shane Drumgold.
4 August 2023
Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey has been cleared of multiple sexual assault charges. Some say he faces an uphill struggle to return to his previous position as a top-ranking star.
27 July 2023
In 2020, a Canadian university tore up its psychology department in search of a non-existent network of sexual predators. Documents obtained by Quillette reveal how administrators allowed it to happen.
14 June 2023
Retired NSW public servant Noel Greenaway, 85, is serving 20 years over 1960s Parramatta Girls allegations — a conviction that turned on tendency evidence.
12 June 2023
The headline of a report in the Age Newspaper on Wednesday 22 March 2023 read, “Gobbo seeks immunity deal to dob on police.” Gobbo refers, of course, to Nicola…
3 April 2023
Jennifer Gries used claims of rape to punish a co-worker. Activists at Stanford used her lies for their own purposes.
3 April 2023
Eleanor Williams is jailed for eight and a half years for lying about being raped and trafficked by a grooming gang.
14 March 2023
Clive Freeman is 79 and in his 35th year in prison for a murder he says never happened. Nine pathologists have since disputed the prosecution pathologist’s conclusion that Alexander Hardie was suffocated — and the CCRC has rejected four applications.
1 March 2023
In 2020, a British High Court judge ruled that actor Johnny Depp was probably a “wife beater.” In 2022, an American jury disagreed. Who got it right?
18 January 2023
Bettina Arndt on courts withholding mobile phone evidence that could clear men accused of sexual assault.
11 January 2023
Bill Spedding was harassed and ostracised after police laid historical sex charges against him during the William Tyrrell investigation. The NSW Supreme Court found the prosecution was malicious.
1 December 2022
Bettina Arndt on the Brittany Higgins case and what readers can do about the attack on basic principles of criminal justice.
31 October 2022
A woman's compulsive lies to police saw her innocent ex-boyfriend jailed twice and confronted by armed officers at his home.
21 October 2022
How a police interview unravelled the case built in the investigation of the 'execution-style' murder of Lois Tolley.
2 October 2022
When an allegation of abuse dates back decades, probing the reliability of the accuser's memory is often the only defence — and a difficult one to run.
6 September 2022
Recent tweets by Stanford Law Professor and Amber Heard supporter, Michele Dauber, have viciously attacked Johnny Depp’s attorney Camille Vasquez. Dauber…
3 July 2022
Admin: A must-read from Joseph A. Neuberger & Diana Davison on alarming developments in Canadian law (Neuberger & Partners LLP, Toronto Criminal Lawyers)
1 July 2022
Nicola Sara Watts was jailed for three years four months over a year of false complaints made through fake email, Snapchat and Facebook accounts.
22 June 2022
The inquiry into Alan Hall's quashed murder conviction must unravel extremely troubling issues about how the case against him was run.
9 June 2022
A Fairfax County jury found for Johnny Depp against Amber Heard — a significant defeat for the #MeToo witch-hunt and a victory for the presumption of innocence and due process.
3 June 2022
A Sydney gynaecologist is found not guilty of sexual assault after a judge found the complainant's account bereft of rational explanation.
10 May 2022
Four days into Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against Amber Heard, his testimony paints a very different picture from the #MeToo allegations that damaged his acting career.
23 April 2022
Speaking out: Lady Brittan is seeking justice over the treatment of her husband, the former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, after false allegations were made…
1 March 2022
Prince Andrew has denied allegations made against him by Virginia Giuffre
10 February 2022
A jury unanimously found Richard Gidney 'not guilty' to every charge he faced
23 November 2021
The authors of a new report into findings in Family Court matters where sexual abuse was alleged say they began the project because of a lack of data.
9 August 2021
Gabriel Malor argues Bill Cosby going free is a vindication of the right to due process rather than of Cosby himself.
30 June 2021
Actor Craig McLachlan is found not guilty of all seven charges of indecent assault and six charges of common assault in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court.
15 December 2020
How a preposterous prosecution of the Cook family collapsed, another humiliating failure of Australia's criminal justice system.
7 September 2020
A Connecticut judge denied a request to cut short probation for a Long Island woman convicted of falsely accusing two former Sacred Heart University football…
26 August 2020
NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge moved a motion in state parliament on 5 August, calling on the Department of Communities and Justice to release the figures…
14 August 2020
Victoria's Court of Appeal has had 18 judgements overturned by the High Court in 14 years, making the case for a CCRC.
23 July 2020
Oscar winner to be awarded full $2.9m in damages after judges reject all publisher’s grounds of appeal
2 July 2020
THERE were dramatic scenes at Worcester Crown Court as a defendant, who went on to be jailed on four counts of perverting the course of justice, collapsed in…
25 June 2020
Robert Xie and his wife Kathy Lin say he was framed for the 2009 murders of five of her family. Two extracts from his appeal submissions show why.
24 June 2020
An appeal court confirms complainants in sexual assault trials are not to be granted better footing than any other witness or complainant.
18 June 2020
Jailed fantasist Carl Beech will have to hand over his assets of £23,960 to his only living victim, the former MP Harvey Proctor, a judge has ruled.
9 June 2020
New Zealand's Criminal Cases Review Commission opens for applications on 1 July 2020, leaving Australia the outlier with no equivalent body.
24 May 2020
In less than three years Ronan Farrow has become the most widely admired journalist in America for a series of scoops that began with an explosive story about…
19 May 2020
A Sydney man sues his former wife, NSW Police and a crown prosecutor for malicious prosecution over false rape charges.
1 May 2020
Australia's High Court unanimously quashed Cardinal George Pell's conviction for sexually abusing two choirboys, freeing him after more than 400 days in jail.
7 April 2020
Weinstein’s conviction has established the “breakthrough” principle that a criminal conviction can be secured without reliable and verifiable evidence. The working class and poor will suffer the consequences.
26 February 2020
A policewoman cried when she appeared in court today with three other officers all accused of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
6 January 2020
Sir Richard Henriques’s review found Met officers unlawfully misled a judge to obtain warrants against public figures falsely accused by Carl Beech.
5 October 2019
The Met had vowed not to shy from historical sex abuse after the Jimmy Saville scandal
5 October 2019
For 18 months Carl Beech was the star witness in a Met inquiry into a VIP paedophile ring that never existed. He was jailed for 18 years in 2019.
26 July 2019
Steven Avery's and Brendan Dassey's cases have stayed in the news since season 1. Zellner gives new reason to watch
19 October 2018
Seneca Valley girls admitted making false sexual assault accusations against a male student because they 'just don't like him'.
17 October 2018
In the 50s, Arthur Miller used 17th-century Salem to comment on the ‘red scare’. His drama is chillingly pertinent in the first weeks of Trump’s presidency
15 February 2017
On the trail of the IICSAthon Part 2: Still waters running deep and the trigger that opened the floodgates
22 September 2016
An Oxford study of 30 interviews finds teachers and carers cleared of abuse are ‘a new and growing class of victims’, left with wrecked careers and enduring trauma.
19 May 2016
Have you ever been the subject of a false accusation that led to you being investigated, or even charged with a criminal offense?
28 May 2014