‘Cardiff three’ innocent, says Lynette White killer
The man jailed for murdering Cardiff prostitute Lynette White has given evidence at the trial of eight former police officers accused of fabricating evidence to wrongly convict three men.
Jeffrey Gafoor, 46, said the conviction of three men who were originally convicted of killing Lynette White, 20, in Cardiff in February 1988, was a “miscarriage of justice.”
“Their problems stemmed from my actions and I feel terrible about it. I know that they did not have anything to do with it and that they were completely innocent, because I was the one who killed Lynette White. All the injuries she had she received from me,” Gafoor told Swansea Crown Court.
Lynette White was stabbed more than 50 times in a frenzied attack in a squalid flat in the city’s deprived docklands area.
Gafoor rejected claims today that he had been “pressurised” in prison before being sentenced to take the blame alone.
Lynette White’s boyfriend Stephen Miller and two other men, Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris, were convicted of killing her and were jailed in 1990
They were freed on appeal in 1992 and, following improved DNA techniques, Gafoor was found and convicted 15 years after the killing.
Eight former policemen are on trial accused of colluding to implicate the three men – who became known as ‘the Cardiff three’ – in Lynette White’s murder.
They listened today as Gafoor gave evidence and repeatedly insisted that he had acted alone.
Senior among them are ex-superintendent Richard Powell, 58, and former chief inspectors Thomas Page, 62, and Graham Mouncher, 59.
They are accused of conspiring with Michael Daniels, 62, Paul Jennings, 51, Paul Stephen, 50, Peter Greenwood, 59, and John Seaford, 62, to pervert the course of justice.
Civilians Violet Perriam, 61, and Ian Massey, 57, together with Mouncher are also accused of two counts of perjury.
The 10 defendants deny all charges. The trial continues.