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The extremely charged second got here simply ten minutes earlier than the tip of our two-hour encounter.
Eyeball to eyeball, I confronted the convicted assassin throughout the desk from me within the drab interview room at HMP Leyhill in Gloucestershire.
‘I must ask you this query, Clive, and I must look you within the eye as I do it: Did you kill Alexander Hardie?’
Clive Freeman, a fragile 80-year-old with a particular gray beard, stared again at me intently.
‘I’ve by no means murdered anyone in my life. Sadly, I’ve most likely killed folks whereas within the Military… However my conscience is obvious. We had been pressured to do issues within the Military to outlive, however I’ve by no means murdered anybody.’
Clive Freeman, a fragile 80-year-old with a particular gray beard, stared again at me intently
‘We had been pressured to do issues within the Military to outlive, however I’ve by no means murdered anybody.’ Clive Freeman, on the age of 20
And what about ‘Burking’, the brutal technique of suffocation that jurors at his 1989 trial on the Outdated Bailey had been advised he’d realized as a soldier and had used to kill Mr Hardie?
‘Is it a way you knew,’ I requested.
He shook his head: ‘I would by no means heard of ‘Burking’ in my life.’
He dismissed it as a ‘fairy story’ by the prosecution.
Do I imagine him? I do not know. However I do know that Freeman, one in every of Britain’s longest-serving prisoners, who has spent near 36 years inside (together with on remand) for homicide and arson, may have walked free greater than 20 years in the past when he grew to become eligible for parole – simply as extra notorious killers corresponding to Kenneth Noye and Tracie Andrews have accomplished.
Nonetheless, that might have required him to confess his guilt – and he refuses to take action.
‘I stated to my spouse: ‘I promise you, I can’t depart jail till I am fully exonerated. I’ll depart in a field, however I can’t depart till I’m exonerated,’ he tells me.
And if Clive Freeman succeeds in overturning his conviction, will probably be one of many best miscarriages of justice in British authorized historical past – a person incarcerated for nearly 40 years for a homicide that by no means was.
As reported by the Mail earlier this month, Freeman’s case is now being investigated by the Prison Instances Evaluation Fee (CCRC) – which has the ability to refer suspected miscarriages of justice to the Court docket of Attraction – for the fifth time due to doubts about his conviction.
He’s supported by eight forensic specialists who’ve debunked the ‘Burking’ principle – employed in 1828 by Edinburgh’s notorious physique snatchers Burke and Hare, who killed at the least 16 folks by suffocating them whereas kneeling on their chests.
The specialists say Mr Hardie’s reason for loss of life is, at greatest, ‘unascertained’. Some have steered the 49-year-old, an alcoholic unwell, died of pure causes.
In his nook, Freeman additionally has human rights legal professionals, distinguished clergymen together with Sir Terry Waite and revered ex-police superintendent Tony Thompson. It was Thompson, whom I’ve identified for 25 years, who first alerted me to the case.
The Mail has spent months investigating Freeman’s claims of innocence, throughout which it has emerged {that a} key Crown witness retracted his assertion to police about seeing Freeman depart the scene of the crime.
There are additionally troubling questions concerning the alleged non-disclosure of key prosecution paperwork to defence legal professionals earlier than his trial.
In the middle of his imprisonment, he has rubbed shoulders with Britain’s most violent inmate, Charles Bronson, pictured
Final week, after the Mail first highlighted Freeman’s marathon quest to clear his identify, two former senior judges added their voices to criticism of the CCRC for its dealing with of the case.
There are, nevertheless, vital inquiries to be answered about damning circumstantial proof which appear to level to Freeman’s guilt.
Why did he change his identify by deed ballot and take out a brand new life insurance coverage coverage simply weeks earlier than the alleged homicide? And why did he fly to the US the day after?
It took two months to achieve ministerial approval, however on a chilly January afternoon I arrived at HMP Leyhill to ask Freeman myself.
When Clive Freeman started his sentence on Could 2CHK 1989, Margaret Thatcher was nonetheless prime minister and the Berlin Wall had but to fall.
‘It is about 13,170 days,’ he tells me, his Zimbabwean accent nonetheless robust, after we meet on the Class D minimal safety jail. ‘Or 315,600 hours, roughly,’ he provides. ‘I used to have it in my mind at one time, however leap years and which have confused me.’
In the middle of his imprisonment, he has rubbed shoulders with Britain’s most violent inmate, Charles Bronson, Brian ‘The Colonel’ Robinson from the Brinks-Mat gold bullion theft, and the ‘odious’ Jeremy Bamber, who shot his sister, dad and mom and twin nephews. Bamber’s cell was just a few doorways down from Freeman at Wormwood Scrubs within the Nineteen Nineties and, he tells me, Bamber would boast about all of the engaging ladies writing to him.
He additionally met a number of the most high-profile victims of miscarriages of justice – the Birmingham Six and the Bridgewater 4. Their circumstances – and that of Andy Malkinson who spent 17 years in jail for a rape he didn’t commit earlier than the Court docket of Attraction declared him harmless final July – are what encourage Freeman. He says he is aware of of inmates who’ve falsely admitted crimes to get out of jail, however he has by no means contemplated it.
‘My phrase is my phrase and that is it,’ he says firmly.
So what introduced him thus far, to life in a small cell with a single mattress, bathe room and WC – and a wall coated with pictures of household, previous and current (he desires of assembly his 5 grandchildren for the primary time)?
Clive Freeman was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe) in 1943 right into a rich household.
His mom was the daughter of Lord Rawlinson, an aide to Lord Kitchener throughout the Second Boer Struggle, whereas his British father fought in North Africa within the Second World Struggle.
The household made their fortune in tobacco, however their gilded world fell aside following Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
Freeman, by then a farmer using 600 folks, was a well known polo participant and racehorse coach. Nonetheless, his work within the Gray’s Scouts, monitoring down militants combating for black majority rule within the Rhodesian Bush Struggle from 1964 to 1979, put him on an unofficial loss of life listing after independence.
The twice-married father of three fled first to South Africa after which to London in 1987 and ended up working as a safety guard.
He lived in a flat (usually occupied by a childhood pal) within the run down former dockland space of Rotherhithe, south-east London.
Arduous up and separated from his household, he grew to become depressed, drank closely, and talked of suicide.
Then got here that likelihood assembly with Hardie, a Scottish plumber, in a pub in April 1988 and a sequence of occasions that led to the Outdated Bailey.
The Crown’s case was that Freeman lured Mr Hardie, a someday vagrant, to his flat, suffocated him, after which set hearth to the property anticipating Hardie’s physique can be mistaken for his personal.
Jeremy Bamber shot his sister, dad and mom and twin nephews. Bamber’s cell was just a few doorways down from Freeman at Wormwood Scrubs within the Nineteen Nineties
Brian ‘The Colonel’ Robinson from the Brinks-Mat gold bullion theft was additionally in jail similtaneously Clive Freeman
The motive was allegedly monetary, in keeping with the Prosecution: Freeman wanted Mr Hardie’s physique to faux his personal loss of life and declare on a £300,000 life insurance coverage coverage (£800,000 in the present day).
Nonetheless, Hardie’s physique was solely partially destroyed and he was later recognized by his fingerprints.
Dr Richard Shepherd, the up and coming younger pathologist for the prosecution, initially suspected Hardie had died of alcohol and acute pancreatitis. However throughout the third of 4 examinations of the corpse, he recognized bruising and concluded Hardie had been suffocated. He later posited the Burking principle.
Freeman, identified to have been dwelling on the flat, was the prime suspect.
Having flown to New York the day after the homicide – he says he was oblivious to Hardie’s loss of life – Freeman went on to Australia the place he was traced by Met detectives. He was visiting a pal on a long-planned journey as flight data and visa documentation appeared to substantiate.
He tells me he returned to the UK voluntarily, believing he had nothing to concern.
‘I used to be introduced as much as imagine in British justice,’ he says. ‘Even after I would been wrongly convicted, I at all times anticipated to win my attraction.’
He says his Australian lawyer had urged him to not return to the UK voluntarily however to ‘make [Scotland Yard] extradite you and you will notice what proof they’ve towards you’.
‘I stated: ‘I’ve accomplished nothing mistaken… there isn’t any proof. I’ve obtained a forged iron alibi. You can’t be in two locations directly.’
He regrets not heeding that recommendation.
I problem him about elements of his case that trigger some to doubt his claims of innocence – not least that life insurance coverage coverage and why he modified his identify.
‘I stated to my spouse Ora [back in South Africa], once I go to England, I’d get the insurance coverage fastened up as a result of Zimbabwe cash meant nothing.’ he says. ‘I renewed my insurance coverage coverage to be payable exterior of Africa.’
However that was just some weeks earlier than Hardie died, a reality which – not surprisingly – raised the suspicions of police.
Certainly, after studying – through a telephone name when he arrived in New York {that a} man had died in a hearth on the flat he’d been staying in and that police had been initially not sure who was useless, Freeman steered – drunkenly, he claims – to a member of the family that they need to declare on his life insurance coverage coverage.
He describes it as a ‘large mistake’, however says there was ‘by no means, by no means any try by anybody to assert’ on the coverage.
Freeman’s supporters level out that he wasn’t charged in reference to insurance coverage fraud. They are saying the suggestion was the rambling of a continuously drunken man affected by PTSD (as assessed in 2021) resulting from his bush conflict experiences.
Clive Freeman’s letters to Stephen Wright from jail, wherein he explains his innocence and the way his ‘belief within the British Justice system was brutally destroyed’
‘I used to be in a really, very dangerous state,’ Freeman explains. ‘I would gone via conflict in Rhodesia. And the worst factor that occurred to me in my life as much as then was I needed to flee the nation … and try to begin a brand new life in South Africa. [Ora] hated being away from her household. I may see South Africa additionally taking place the tubes.
‘I used to be going to go to America and Australia to search for higher locations. I had contacts there. So I stated to Ora, I promise I am going to get the insurance coverage coverage modified once I get to Britain and get my passport up to date.’
He modified his identify to Ray Rawlinson [his mother’s maiden name], he says, to get a brand new British passport so he may return to Africa with out being detained at border crossings. He had beforehand been detained as an alleged ‘enemy of the state’ in Zimbabwe.
Why hadn’t he taken the stand to defend himself in courtroom, I ask?
It’s, once more, one thing he regrets however he says he took authorized recommendation and in addition believed he had a forged iron alibi – that he was at a resort in Earl’s Court docket on the time of the homicide.
I ask him concerning the final time he noticed Alexander Hardie and he tells me he was mendacity on the sofa within the flat and his respiration was shallow.
‘He was a really frail individual. You understand, I really lifted him up and I believe he weighed about 140lbs. I believe he simply drank himself to loss of life.’
Freeman ridicules the Prosecution’s suggestion that he was a ‘educated killer’ who realized the ‘Burking’ method in Rhodesia’s Gray’s Scouts.
He says police obtained canine tags – identification disks worn by troopers – from his spouse which had ‘TK’ on them. He stated detectives believed – wrongly – this stood for ‘Skilled Killer’ when the truth is it meant ‘Monitoring Kommander’.
‘I am a horseman and knew the bush very properly,’ he says. ‘I used to be a tracker.’
He insists that his determination to ask Mr Hardie again to his digs after assembly within the pub was an act of kindness.
Clive Freeman has prostate most cancers and says that he desires his ashes intermingled together with his spouse Ora’s – who died in 1999 – and buried within the Zambezi Valley in northern Zimbabwe
‘In my nation you assist any person you understand, in case you see an individual on the facet of the street, you cease and decide him up. You see a drunk, you assist him out. And Mr Hardie was a drunk.’
Freeman is scathing of the CCRC and tells me angrily.
‘The CCRC’s raison d’etre is to kick you into the lengthy grass.
‘I have been in courtroom in Africa. I have been within the worst prisons in Africa and I obtained handled far more pretty… The Mugabe authorities imprisoned me and I’ve obtained extra justice from them than I ever obtained from the CCRC.’
And but Clive Freeman is clinging to hope that the line-up of forensic specialists who’ve challenged the ‘Burking’/suffocation principle, would possibly – together with different key proof which seems to undermine the protection of his convictions – ultimately get his case earlier than the Attraction Court docket.
He is aware of time is operating out. Freeman has prostate most cancers.
‘I used to be advised about eight or so months in the past that I wanted radiotherapy. I stated no. My brother-in-law has just lately died of the identical factor and he refused. I do not need any person taking care of me.’
He has given a variety of thought as to his closing resting place and needs his ashes intermingled together with his spouse’s – she died in 1999 – and buried within the Zambezi Valley in northern Zimbabwe.
Throughout my lengthy profession, I’ve interviewed a number of murderers. Most of them did not admit their guilt, even when the proof was overwhelming. Is Freeman one other who cannot convey himself to admit to taking one other individual’s life? Or is he certainly the sufferer of a grave miscarriage of justice?
An artists impression of the sufferer Alexander Hardie. Consultants say Mr Hardie’s reason for loss of life is, at greatest, ‘unascertained’. Some have steered the 49-year-old, an alcoholic unwell, died of pure causes
Edinburgh’s notorious physique snatchers Burke and Hare, who killed at the least 16 folks by suffocating them whereas kneeling on their chests
Just a few weeks after we met, he despatched me a letter.
‘Sadly for me my belief in ‘British Justice’ was brutally destroyed and I and my family members have suffered the gravest of injustices that may very well be inflicted on anybody,’ he wrote. ‘I’m now a decrepit previous man of [80] having been wrongly and unjustly imprisoned for 36 years for against the law that by no means was.
‘I’ve now misplaced, very sadly, over 12 members of my speedy household together with my very beloved spouse (I used to be privileged to be married to an distinctive girl, my solely love ever, for 32 years and 135 days)… and lots of expensive buddies who all bore the disgrace and stigma of their affiliation with me, a wrongly convicted assassin.
‘Earlier than my beloved spouse died… I made a pledge to her that I’d by no means cease combating to show the horrific injustice accomplished to me and all my family members, and this can be a trigger I’m ready to die for and I’ll by no means depart jail till I’m fully exonerated. I’m a person of my phrase and of religious religion.
‘Sadly the injustices perpetrated by the CCRC are usually not distinctive to me. There are numerous harmless individuals who have additionally had their circumstances ‘kicked into the lengthy grass’ they usually and their family members are additionally victims of the British justice system.
‘Absolutely in a good and first rate society this horrific system have to be accomplished away with and changed by true justice.’
It stays to be seen if the CCRC agrees.
