Acid attack killer has appeal rejected

A man serving a life sentence for the murder of a Bradford man in an acid attack has had his appeal against his conviction rejected.

Lee Calvert was one of four men jailed in 2014 for killing Barry Selby in October 2013.

He appealed, claiming a prosecution witness whose evidence was described at trial as "crucial" told a private investigator he had lied after being threatened.

But the witness rejected this claim during the Court of Appeal hearing, which concluded the investigator had been "ignorant, if not wilfully blind, to the Calvert family's rather distorted and subjective outlook of the case".

The hearing was told Mr Selby was "viciously attacked" at his home in East Bowling in front of his wife Donna.

He was shot in the knee with a handgun and had acid poured over him, with the cause of his death given as an acid attack.

None of the defendants gave evidence during the trial.

However, since their conviction Calvert's sister had been "very active in publicly asserting [his] innocence" and had previously unsuccessfully appealed against the conviction, the hearing heard.

Their case at the Court of Appeal claimed the key witness had told a private investigator he had lied under oath when he said Calvert had confessed his role in the murder to him while they were imprisoned at HMP Armley.

The key witness allegedly said he and his sister had been threatened by people who knew the victim, pressuring him into testifying against Calvert.

A statement made by the private investigator had been signed by the witness, who was now "unreliable", according to the appellant's legal team.

However, when questioned at the appeal hearing in February, the witness denied he said he had lied when the statement was read out to him. Nor, he added, had he been threatened by associates of Mr Selby's family.

The hearing noted the "disparity" between the private investigator's notes of his first meeting with the witness and the statement he typed up after speaking to Calvert's mother.

It concluded he "may have been subject to instruction [from Calvert's family] rather than concluding an independent investigation", describing the statement as "an unreliable record of events".

The witness told the hearing he signed the statement without reading it after being told by the private investigator it "was what we had spoken about previously and he had just typed it up".

The decision, handed down on Wednesday, means Calvert must serve 32 years in prison.

His co-defendants Joseph Lowther and Robert Woodhead were each ordered to serve a minimum of 32 years, while Andrew Feather was ordered to serve 26 years.

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