I recently read the book, The Clydach Murders: A Miscarriage of Justice (pictured left). Written by retired lawyer John Morris, this is the second edition which was published in 2019, although I believe that an updated version by the same author - entitled Force of Evil: The Clydach Murders - has just been published in 2025. Any comments and extracts posted here in this post, therefore, relate to this Second Edition and not to any former or subsequent edition, neither of which I have read. The book tells the true story of how four people tragically died in their house in the small community of Clydach in eastern Swansea in south Wales. It initially appeared as if Mandy Power and her two children and elderly mother had died in a tragic house fire, but closer examination revealed that the four had been bludgeoned to death by a large pole found lying on the floor in the house, and the fires had been started deliberately as a distraction. The book tells how local man and petty criminal David Morris (presumably no relation to the author) was tried and found guilty of the murders, despite always maintaining his innocence. Sentenced to a minimum of 32 years in jail, Morris died in prison aged 59 in 2021, having served 22 years. John Morris produces evidence in this book that pretty much proves beyond any reasonable doubt that David Morris did not commit these murders, and that the police framed him to cover for the real murderers, who were likely two current (at the time) and one former South Wales Police Officers, all with the surname Lewis. The author states unequivocally that South Wales Police are the most corrupt police force in the U.K. (quite an achievement!), and cites numerous other instances of miscarriages of justice in south Wales to back up his claim.
Following are some quotes from the book, with pictures of the relevant pages to prove I'm not making it up!:-
On Page 19, the first page of Chapter 2, John Morris says: "Of all the police forces in Britain, South Wales Police has been responsible for some of the worst miscarriages of justice in the United Kingdom. By the time of the Clydach murders, no fewer than nine earlier murders investigated by the force had proved to be miscarriages of justice, and nineteen people had been freed after being wrongly convicted of crimes they did not commit. Had their trials been conducted before 1967, when the death penalty was abolished, those individuals would have been hanged."
"Many miscarriages of justice were caused by wrongdoing on the part of South Wales Police detectives. Evidence was routinely altered and fabricated. In some cases, detectives wrote statements themselves and then forced suspects or witnesses to sign them. In other cases, suspects were tortured, bullied or simply worn down by lengthy interviews into making untrue confessions. Vulnerable witnesses were 'leaned on' to make false statements implicating an innocent person in a crime; others were bribed, some intimidated. Prisoners serving time in jail were offered deals in return for signing false statements, and some detectives planted incriminating evidence where it was certain to be found, to frame innocent suspects for crimes they had not committed."
Here's Page 19:
On Page 20, the author says: "Officers habitually wrote up their notebooks at a later time than they claimed. This is illegal and is also a disciplinary matter, but this unlawful practice nevertheless persisted as a simple means of obtaining evidence in order to achieve convictions. In many cases later set aside by the court of appeal, ESDA testing proved that some officers lied about the times and dates prepared only after officers had compared notes and colluded with their colleagues."
"In June 1999, two weeks before the Clydach murders, South Wales Police hit the national headlines when human rights lawyers and civil rights campaigners accused the force of 'corruption and incompetence on a massive scale'. They revealed that many of the murder cases the force had investigated over two decades were fundamentally flawed and were among the worst miscarriages of justice ever seen in Britain. The headline in the Daily Express on 13 June 1999 read: 'SHAME OF FORCE THAT DECIDED IT WAS ABOVE THE LAW'. The editorial outlined a number of cases in which South Wales Police detectives ignored both the legal and human rights of suspects in order to obtain convictions that were later revealed to be unsafe. A year later, the situation had not improved, and South Wales Police continued to tolerate illegal practices within its ranks in order to keep conviction rates high. A headline in The Observer on 15 October 2000 stated: 'CORRUPT POLICE FORCE IN FIRING LINE sic: PRESSURE GROWS FOR SOUTH WALES POLICE TO FACE INQUIRY OVER MISCONDUCT AND WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENTS'."
Here's Page 20:
On Page 22, the author writes: "...the resulting wrongful imprisonments were the responsibility of a relatively small number of police detectives, but it was those few corrupt officers who were the root cause of the problem, and their wrongdoings tainted the force. Notable miscarriages of justice involving South Wales Police included the Darrell Brothers, the Cardiff Three, and the case of Jonathan Jones."
"All the miscarriages of justice for which the South Wales Police force was solely responsible were characterised by the same elements: dishonesty on the part of the responsible detectives, their rejection of a suspect's basic human and legal rights, and a determination to obtain a conviction at the cost of truth and justice. If framing an innocent person by police officers sworn to uphold the law was not bad enough, another custom that flourished within the ranks of South Wales Police was equally corrupt. This was the sinister practice of watching one another's backs. It ensured that a fellow police officer would escape the consequences of wrongdoing, no matter how serious the misconduct or criminal their actions might be."
Here's Page 22:
On Page 23, Morris writes: "...there was a growing clamour from all parties in the Welsh Assembly to formally ask the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, to launch a public inquiry into the activities of the South Wales Police. If granted, the potential consequences would be enormous. A public inquiry into so many miscarriages of justice would inevitably lead to questioning ministers in Parliament and loss of confidence in the Chief Constable of the South Wales Police and his force. Reputations would be shattered and careers ruined. It would be a crisis of monumental proportions from which it might take decades for the police force to recover."
"Corruption and systematic wrongdoing by officers in the South Wales Police, determined to get a conviction at any cost, were endemic and too deeply rooted. Furthermore, the consequences for any officer found guilty of misconduct were not onerous. Internal enquiries by officers investigating their own colleagues usually ended with no sanctions imposed."
Here's Page 23:
On Page 24, Morris says: "Punishments or written warnings were of little or no deterrence. At the time of the Clydach murders, officers in the South Wales Police force had little to fear if they were caught out.
Detectives in the South Wales Police were not above the law, but they knew how the criminal justice system could be manipulated. Furthermore, they knew they could rely on their colleagues to support them. They were poachers turned gamekeepers, able to both commit crimes and to get away with them."
Here's Page 24:
On Page 71, the author states: "But, notably, Lloyd-Evans had now learned that former South Wales Police Officer Alison Lewis had been intimately involved with Mandy Power, and that Lewis' husband Stephen Lewis, a serving Sergeant in South Wales Police, also knew the victims. "
"He was under immense pressure to find the murderer, but the political and public ramifications of any suggestion that South Wales Police officers were involved, whether serving or retired, were unprecedented and enormous. The government of the day had no political will to undermine its own police force by ordering a public inquiry, or, for that matter, taking any steps that might bring the force into disrepute. This had already been shown by the refusal of the Home Secretary to launch a public inquiry into police corruption which the Welsh Assembly had urged on him."
Here's Page 71:
On Page 92, John Morris writes: "...some police officers give in to pressure, lose their integrity, and become prepared to break the rules because they are determined to identify a suitable suspect, ensure that they 'find' sufficient evidence to charge them with the crime, and make certain that a prosecution is brought, followed by a conviction. One rule of justice - that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty - simply ceases to apply; the demands for retribution outweigh a suspect's basic legal and human rights and provide the genesis of a miscarriage of justice."
Here's Page 92:
On Page 106, Morris says: "But South Wales Police detectives were not about to let the small matter of lack of evidence stand in their way."
"In the absence of hard evidence, however, there was another, disarmingly simple option available to the detectives. When used to maximum effect, the technique is potentially shattering since it could make a totally innocent person appear to be guilty of a crime. It is called character assassination, and it was this practice that was used to devastating effect against Dai Morris."
Here's Page 106:
On Page 111, the author writes: "...even if they were unable to prove that the gold neck-chain belonged to Morris, they would still be able to paint a picture of him as someone who was both violent and capable of committing murder.
An old acquaintance of Morris, 'Mr B' was serving a 12-year sentence in Swansea prison and, while Morris was awaiting trial, they shared a cell."
"When detectives interviewed 'Mr B' in the prison, he repeated to them what Morris told him about his affair with Power. In his statement, he added that Morris was a 'tidy' guy, which in South Walian parlance meant he was decent."
"This, however, was not evidence which suited the police. Detectives returned to the prison to interview 'Mr B' a second time. On this occasion he said in his statement that Morris was a 'madman who always carried iron bars in his car and was always looking for trouble'. It was the polar opposite of his first statement. There can be no logical reason why he would have told them this unless the murder squad detectives had offered him a deal. Shortly after giving the police this new statement, 'Mr B' was released from prison before his due date. This suggests that such a deal had indeed been struck.
Further confirmation was provided by 'Mr B' himself. Immediately after his release, he had a change of heart and rang Morris' solicitor, David Hutchinson. He asked if he could make an appointment to make a new, third statement - basically the same as his first statement - confirming that Morris was not a man who looked for trouble, and that he did not carry iron bars in his car. The evidence 'Mr B' could have given in court was crucial to the defence, yet Hutchinson told him that there was no need to make another statement, and anyway it was too late. At this point Morris' trial had not yet begun and was, in fact, still several months away."
Here's Page 111:
On Page 122, John Morris writes: "Simon Jowett said: '...When Dai Morris appeared on the scene, he was an easier target altogether. They decided he was guilty and the entire focus of the case shifted to him. They built a case around him, even though his DNA and fingerprints were nowhere to be found in the house. After a year-long investigation, they were still unable to find any hard evidence against him. It was an intellectually dishonest prosecution, based on purely circumstantial evidence.'"
Here's Page 122:
On Page 156, Morris states: "Explaining the background to the various sightings, Morris told the author: 'All five witnesses in the pub who gave evidence against me hated me for one reason or another, and all of them were prepared to lie under oath to see me sent down. I was public enemy number one as far as they were concerned.'"
"Police evidence-gathering methods after Morris' arrest fitted perfectly the accusation by civil rights campaigner Satish Sekar that South Wales Police detectives seemed to decide who was guilty, and then look for the evidence needed in order to achieve a conviction. This certainly seemed to be the case for Dai Morris."
Here's Page 156:
On Page 217, the author writes: "Whether guilty of the murders or not, Morris was the ideal person to take the blame. He had a long criminal record, some of it for violence. He was despised by neighbours and villagers in the small, close-knit community where he lived. These were some of the very people who would testify against him at his trial." "He was the perfect fall guy. All South Wales Police had to do was to come up with enough evidence linking him to the crime to be sure of a conviction.
But there was no evidence. Forensic experts who carried out a detailed investigation in the house could find no DNA or fingerprints belonging to Dai Morris. Neither could they find any trace of the victims' blood at his flat, or in any other property he used. The unlikely suggestion that he had destroyed all trace of his DNA and fingerprints became a legend. The bloody handprint found on the downstairs carpet near the television in 9 Kelvin Road did not match Morris' handprint; two leading expert witnesses called by the defence said it could not have been made by him.
Against this negative background, the police were forced to rely on other tactics, including character assassination and circumstantial evidence, in order to convict Dai Morris.
During the hunt for evidence to convict him, South Wales Police detectives searched for evidence to fit the crime, rather than letting the evidence lead them to the criminal. In the past, the force was widely condemned for this illegal and unethical practice which had led directly to numerous cases of wrongful imprisonment. Where evidence did not fit in these cases, detectives made it fit. Where there was no evidence, they fabricated evidence. Where witnesses gave testimony which did not suit the prosecution case, they persuaded or intimidated the witness into changing their evidence..."
Here's Page 217:
On Page 232, Morris says: "Early in 2006 Tucker [a former cellmate of David Morris] was called into a prison office where a police liaison officer offered him a deal: if Tucker gave South Wales Police detectives a statement that Dai Morris had confessed to the Clydach murders, the murder squad detectives would ensure that he got the statement he wanted [in order to have his case reviewed]..."
"It was easier to convict Morris than two police officers."
"...but Morris's name came up, due to a chain he had left behind at an earlier time than when the murders happened, so they used him as the fall guy to avoid a scandal in the police force."
"Subsequently Tucker provided the required confession..."
"But Tucker had reservations about making the false statement..."
"...I don't want any part of helping them to lock up a [sic] innocent man."
Here's Page 232:
On Page 265, John Morris writes: "...Thornton's team discovered documents that showed DNA had been discovered at 9 Kelvin Road. Male DNA was found in a number of locations throughout the property; also on the murder weapon..."
"...though none of the DNA found matched that of Dai Morris."
"Tracking down and eliminating every bit of biological debris left behind would have been impossible, even for the cleverest criminal."
"This dispels completely any notion put forward by South Wales Police that Morris had wiped away all traces of his DNA and fingerprints, or that he was forensically aware."
Here's Page 265:
On Page 267, the author states: "Another significant discovery made by Brian Thornton and his team was that the police had tampered with evidence from the police HOLMES database (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System)."
"He discovered that the text from several thousand pages of records emanating from HOLMES, some containing crucial information, had been cut and pasted into Notepad (A Microsoft application) where they could be - and subsequently were - altered."
"The recent discovery of this evidence suggested that not only was the man on trial innocent, but that South Wales Police knew from the outset that he was."
Here's Page 267:
On Page 271, Morris says: "Instead, my research revealed a police force willing not only to arrest an innocent man, but to charge him with murder on the basis of his criminal record, and very little else. "
"But taking the history of wrongful convictions in the United Kingdom as my starting point, any illusions I held about the integrity of the police were very quickly shattered. I discovered that a number of police forces were literally a law unto themselves, although institutionalized corruption involving South Wales Police gave that police force the unenviable record of being the worst of them all. It seemed to me that the police were more concerned with achieving convictions, and lowering the crime rate, than they were with ensuring that they had the right person for the offence.
Here's Page 271:
