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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
Arson |
Sentence: |
6 years |
Years Imprisoned: |
2.5 |
Year Crime: |
2014 |
Year Convicted: |
2015 |
Year Cleared: |
2018 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
United Kingdom |
County or Region of Crime: |
England |
City of Crime: |
Sunningdale |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated Released |
Summary of Case: |
"Jodie Rana was wrongly convicted on September 4, 2015 of reckless arson and perverting the course of justice for a fire at the family's home in Sunningdale, Hadley, England, on October 25, 2014. Rana's parents were asleep in the home when the fire started at about 2:15 am, but they fled the house when the smoke alarm went off. Rana was 22 at the time of the fire. Rana was arrested on December 6, 2014. There was no forensic, eyewitness, or confession evidence linking Rana to the fire, which had been deliberately started with gasoline. The prosecution's circumstantial case was based on disagreements between Rana and her parents who did not approve of her boyfriend, and expert evidence that her phone was connected to the house's wireless router and that established she was within 30 to 40 feet (20 to 25 meters) of the house, which was at 29 Sunningdale, Hadley, Telford. Her defense was that she had been out drinking with friends that night and she had been dropped off at a corner near her house at about 2 am. The corner was at the intersection of Waterloo Road and Crescent Road, about 160' from her house (as the crow flies). She said she was smoking a cigarette at the corner when the fire started. After her conviction by a jury Rana was sentenced to six years in prison. During her appeal her lawyer presented new conclusive expert evidence based on actual tests that her phone in fact could connect and exchange data with her home's wi-fi system when she was up to about 260' (160 meters) away, and the corner where she said she was smoking was less than that distance from the house. On April 11, 2018 the Court of Appeal quashed Rana's convictions based on the new expert evidence that corroborated her alibi defense. The Court's ruling stated: "we have concluded that the fresh evidence, undermining as it does an important part of the prosecution case both on timing and also the potency of the appellant's lies, renders the conviction unsafe. In the circumstances we allow the appeal and quash the convictions."" |
Conviction Caused By: |
Unreliable expert evidence at trial. |
Innocence Proved By: |
"On April 11, 2018 the Court of Appeal quashed Rana's convictions based on the new expert evidence that corroborated her alibi defense. The Court's ruling stated: "we have concluded that the fresh evidence, undermining as it does an important part of the prosecution case both on timing and also the potency of the appellant's lies, renders the conviction unsafe. In the circumstances we allow the appeal and quash the convictions."" |
Defendant Aided By: |
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Compensation Awarded: |
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Was Perpetrator Identified? |
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Age When Imprisoned: |
23 |
Age When Released: |
25 |
Sex: |
Female |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
White |
Information Source 1: |
"Free again: Telford woman's arson conviction quashed thanks to fresh phone evidence, By Deborah Hardiman, Shropshire Star,Apr 12, 2018" |
Information Location 1: |
https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/crime/2018/04/12/freed-from-jail-telford-womans-arson-conviction-overturned-by-judges/ |
Information Source 2: |
"Rana, R v [2018] EWCA Crim 725 (11 April 2018) (Quashing conviction based on new electronic evidence.)" |
Information Location 2: |
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2018/725.html |
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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org