Kevin came from an Irish working class background and was first generation Scottish. He was horn in 1965 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, the fourth of six children. He carried strong principles of what was right and what was wrong. He was bullied at school until he learned to fight back. He had learning difficulties which were never fully recognised. (Kevin was twenty-six before his dyslexia was diagnosed in 1992). He had wanted to be an artist but truanted from the art exam and took only metal and wood work.

The family of eight, parents and six children, lived in two rooms and a kitchen. His mother especially, brought up her children, giving them the values of her rural Irish upbringing and an appropriate code of conduct in an urban working class community in the West of Scotland. His was a typical enough childhood, except for the trauma, when he was about eight, of being with a friend who was held at knife-point. The friend moved from the district but Kevin remained with the memory haunting his childhood. Kevin was a timid child with his big sister fighting his fights and often blaming Kevin for things that were her responsibility.

At twelve, when he changed schools, Kevin resolved that life would have to be different if he was to survive and he started running wild with a gang, abusing glue and alcohol. Kevin would have been an easy victim, a little spoken child who daydreamed and didn't feel quite secure with the world. He'd been sent to a speech therapist and psychologist and had had a brain scan when he was ten but his learning difficulties were never assessed properly. Nothing abnormal was found in this scan. The defence called psychiatrists who suggested that the fact that Kevin had had such a scan was in itself proof of brain damage contributing to Kevin having a personality disorder that was aggressively psychopathic. Dr. Bob Johnson, in his recent report (1997), is highly critical of their contribution to this "gross miscarriage of justice".

At secondary school he was performing well enough not to be put in the bottom stream but had himself moved there because they did more football and art. By the time he left school he was a regular truant and had been brought before the children's panel after a fight on the school bus. Kevin got a job in a cobblers shop. He was in regular trouble with the police for minor offences and spent a period of time in borstal and detention centre before being placed on probation and moving to London.

Living on the Streets

Living on the streets in London is a question of survival and the story was no different for Kevin who came to London searching for the promised pavements of gold. Instead he found himself sleeping on the streets and picked up by the police and placed in youth custody. He met Ricardo at Centrepoint on his release and took to living in squats. It was after his second period in youth custody that he met Christine and they agreed to marry. Christine moved into the squat with Kevin, Ricardo and others. Ricardo felt Kevin move away from their close relationship and this is why Kevin had not gone with Ricardo who went to Derby the weekend before the events that led to Kevin's arrest.

The Squat

In mid-June 1986, David Hulse and Mark Balcombe, an 18 year-old youth from Manchester, moved into a squat off the Walworth Road, South London. That same week there were a number of evictions on estates in the area, with substantial resistance being offered by those on the Pulham estate. Kevin and his girlfriend Christine were away for the weekend and on their return were told by Joanne Huff and Gillian Dalcos that they were fed up by the way Mark and David were treating the place. Christoph McKuch, a French squatter brought back another French punk, Laurent Dhainult and people felt it was good that he had someone else around to speak French with. Both Laurent and Mark 'fancied' Gillian, the young South African who was particularly responsible for keeping the house in good order.

Tensions

There are tensions implicit in multiple squat living and these seem to have been exacerbated by the presence of Mark and David and their attitude to the squat and an air of "owning the place". By Tuesday morning it was agreed that they should be asked to leave. When others left them sleeping in the squat, they left the music on full blast. During that day, they bumped into the others in Leicester Square and were told to be out of the squat by the time everyone came back that night. In an incident sometime that afternoon, David Hulse kicked Joanne's dog (Arsehole) which annoyed Kevin who did not like to see animals ill treated. Joanne joined Kevin and Christine at a point with John Beveridge and introduced him as he was not known to them.

A Fight

They returned together to the squat with McKuch and Laurent. Mark and David were there having ignored the earlier warning. By his own account John Beveridge laid into Hulse and was followed by Kevin ,"on account of the dog". In the meantime, the French punks started on Mark who was cooking a curry in the kitchen. Hulse decided he had had enough and took himself off over the low first floor balcony and had his wound treated at the local police station at Carter Street. John Beveridge and Kevin joined in the fight going on in the kitchen. The order of things are by the nature of the night a little unclear. Gillian was the only girl without a partner in the squat and was fancied by both Mark and Dhainault. Kevin withdrew from the aggression meted out on Mark though by his own account at court, John continued some involvement. Kevin always made it clear that his involvement with what went on that night upstairs was to try and stop what was happening though Kevin himself had a limited appreciation of the dynamics of the situation. The two French punks denied any involvement or responsibility for what happened at the squat. It was clear the jury did not believe McKuch and Dhainault's account of what happened that night otherwise they would not have been convicted of Actual Bodily Harm.

Mark's Death

It was not recorded anywhere precisely what happened to Mark in the bathroom of the squat that night with McKuch and Dhainault. Clearly it was not a straight fight that 'got-out of-hand'. Mark was eventually stabbed. The evidence at the trial makes it quite clear that only Christoph and Laurent were seen with knives that night. Only they had blood on their clothes when they were arrested, three days later. There was some suggestion from Joanne Huff and Ricardo that the police had failed to take a blood-stained T-shirt belonging to John Beveridge.

Arrest

What is clear from his evidence at the trial, and from Christine's statements, is that there may be a number of factors which affect Kevin's short term memory function. It is clear that he is dyslexic and Dr. Chasty's report does identify working problems between long and short term memory function. Kevin did not properly assimilate what was happening at the time. His ability to make connections is not automatic. When he woke the next day in another squat around the corner, Christine had to explain to him that Mark was dead. McKuch and Dhainault left the squat and went to stay with a friend of Laurent's in Putney.

Joanne, Christine, Gillian and Kevin were all distressed and afraid of what would come of this and tended to turn to Kevin for leadership. Gillian decided to go see friends in Ireland and was supported in this by the others. The others stayed in the West End and went about their life as normally as they could. Since they had all been in the squat they felt they shared in the responsibility of allowing Mark's death to happen.

In the early hours of Friday morning Kevin was picked up by the police in a cafe in Whitehall. Kevin was drunk and abusive to the police who were physically abusive to this "lowlife" in return. The police interviews at Carter Street and Cannon Row are the only evidence against Kevin and the question of their reliability is the crucial new evidence. Kevin neither had the support of a solicitor, an appropriate adult nor taping facilities as legislated under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Aspects of pressure were dealt with at the trial but without knowledge of Kevin's learning difficulties. At no point was Kevin seen with a knife and there was no forensic evidence against him.

Ricardo returned to London Friday evening and passed through Trafalgar Square. He met with McKuch who got into the car and told him of "the big trouble". "John Beveridge made him do it". Subsequently Ricardo hands McKuch to the police advising them of his responsibility for the murder and told them Dhainult was still in Trafalgar Square. It was also Ricardo who found critical evidence which he handed to the police in support of Kevin's case, as he thought, which was ultimately used against Kevin.