Neil Wilby Media

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has referred the assault convictions of a former police officer because evidence that was not available at trial raises a real possibility the Court of Appeal will now quash those convictions.  

Danny Major (pictured above left) was convicted on 1st November 2006 at Bradford Crown Court of battery and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He was acquitted of a third count of assault and was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment. 

Mr Major, who was then a police constable with West Yorkshire Police, was accused of assaulting a detainee in the van dock and in a cell at Leeds Bridewell Police Station in the early hours of 6th September 2003.  

Following conviction, Mr Major was granted leave to appeal but this was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 12th July 2007.  

In September 2007, Mr Major applied to the CCRC. The CCRC’s review carefully considered extensive submissions.  

On 2nd August 2011, the CCRC issued a detailed Final Statement of Reasons setting out its decision not to refer Mr Major’s case to the Court of Appeal. 

In 2013, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) began an independent review of Mr Major’s conviction codenamed Operation Lamp. In December 2015, the review’s report concluded that there was fresh evidence that cast doubt upon the safety of Mr Major’s conviction. The CCRC subsequently launched a new review of the case.  

In 2016, on the recommendation of the Lamp report, GMP launched Operation Redhill as a criminal investigation of the events that led to Mr Major’s conviction.  

The CCRC decided that it was not possible to progress its review of Mr Major’s convictions whilst the first phase of Operation Redhill was under way. The CCRC, therefore, closed Mr Major’s case on the understanding that it would consider re-opening it at the conclusion of this first phase.  

In February 2020, the CCRC re-commenced its review. As part of a detailed investigation, the CCRC considered evidence that gives rise to a real possibility the Court of Appeal will now find Mr Major’s convictions are unsafe and will quash them.  

Journalist Neil Wilby says: “The professional satisfaction of seeing Danny Major’s case referred back to the Court of Appeal is tinged with overwhelming sadness. His mother, Bernadette Major, tirelessly and fearlessly led the innocence campaign from the moment Danny was led down from the dock in 2006 but, so very sadly, passed away in December 2021.”

“I first met Bernadette, and husband Eric Major, himself a hugely respected 31-year served officer with WYP, in March 2011.

“From there, less than two years later and after repeated public and journalistic humiliation over his handling of the case, the perennially disgraced West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner, Mark Burns-Williamson, was forced into referring Danny’s innocence claim to Greater Manchester Police in January, 2013 and Operation Lamp was instituted.

“It was my privilege to draft the submissions, as the appointed complaint advocate of the Major family, ahead of the bitterly fought, but eventually and begrudgingly agreed, Terms of Reference. The battleground was ‘to go where the evidence leads’.

“Neither Burns-Williamson nor GMP’s ACC Garry Shewan, whom falsely described himself to me as ‘an honest cop’ on the first occasion we met. wanted it in.

“The family stood four-square behind me and we prevailed. That small victory later undermined by GMP, repeatedly and determinedly, not following the evidence and making arrests (read more here). 

“The fact that it took GMP twelve years to conclude Operations Lamp, then Redhill, is utterly shameful, if not entirely unexpected, and means that Bernadette will never see her son’s day back in the Appeal Court.”