This poor bugger is cleared of a murder he has spent 27 years in prison for, starts his own business and is now being done for wearing police clothing in public. Even though it was an ex police issue jacket with his company name written on the back of it and he called the police himself to deal with the incident he was still fined over £400 and made to pay over £600 in costs.
Ok the choice of jacket may have been a little daft but am I alone in thinking that its a fairly petty display by the police. After all people get away with doing far worse with nowhere near as large a fine.
A Derbyshire man who had his conviction for murder overturned after spending 27 years in jail, has been found guilty of wearing police clothing in public.
Stephen Downing, 52, was released from prison in 2001 after a court quashed his conviction for the murder of Wendy Sewell in a cemetery in September 1973.
On Monday, he was found guilty of wearing clothes "likely to deceive the public" at Buxton Magistrates Court.
Downing was charged after trying to buy shandy at Buxton in February.
Sewell death
When arrested at the shop, he was dressed in an ex-police issue jacket, dark trousers and black boots, the court was told.
The jacket had the words Photographics, the name of Downing's freelance photographic company, on the back.
He was fined £437 and ordered to pay £625 costs. The court also ordered that the jacket be destroyed.
Downing, of Jefferson House, Milford, Bakewell, Derbyshire, had been mistaken as a police officer while wearing the jacket before, the court heard.
At the time of his arrest, he called the police himself to come to the store to deal with the matter.
The 52-year-old served 27 years in prison before being released on bail in 2001. In 2002 his conviction for bludgeoning typist Wendy Sewell to death with a pickaxe handle was quashed.
At the time of Ms Sewell's death he was 17, but was assessed as having a mental age of 11.
His solicitor Jonathan Taaffe said after the trial his client wanted to get on with the rest of his life in private.
