When someone is convicted they have twenty eight days in which to lodge an appeal against conviction. In the case of a conviction for murder the appeal has to be against conviction only not sentence.

Appeals are heard at first by a judge sitting alone in the Court of Appeal. This judge has the power to allow an appeal a) to the court sitting with three judges b) not to allow an appeal or c) overturn the conviction. The latter is rarely the case; the first judge, since about 1990, will generally refer to the court sitting with three judges. Before that few cases were given the opportunity to appeal. An appeal which is not made within those twenty-eight days is known as "an out of time appeal". That is Kevin's situation. It is very difficult to have such appeals accepted. Until 1997, when the Criminal Cases Review Commission came into being, the Home Secretary was able to refer cases to the Court of Appeal. There has to be new evidence available and the norm is that the appeal case had been refused. New evidence essentially means anything relevant to the case which was not available at the time of the trial. It cannot be evidence that was in any way available to the defence but they chose not to use. Legal Aid is not available for out-of-time appeals until they have been referred to the Court of Appeal although some limited funds may be available through "green-form" work.