A man serving a life sentence for a controversial hitman murder committed nearly 30 years ago has taken the unusual step of publishing a book from inside prison with fresh evidence he hopes will lead to his conviction being overturned.
With his book titled Fitted Up and Fighting Back, Kevin Lane believes he can finally prove his innocence of the contract shooting of Robert Magill in Hertfordshire in 1994.
Lane, now 53, was convicted after two trials on a majority verdict of murdering Magill, who had been out walking his dog in Rickmansworth.
Witnesses saw two masked men fleeing the scene in a red BMW after shooting Magill, who was known to have a number of enemies because of his involvement in protection rackets. The BMW car allegedly used as the getaway vehicle was traced, and one of Lane’s palm prints was found on a bin-liner in the boot.
Within hours of the shooting the names of two men, Roger Vincent and David Smith, were being spoken of as those responsible.
The following year Vincent and Lane were charged with the murder but Vincent was acquitted at the subsequent trial.
In his book, Lane reveals documents held back under public interest immunity regulations that give details of Vincent’s conversations with one of the key investigating officers, who would himself end up behind bars.
Vincent was acquitted of the Magill killing, but he and Smith were back in court for murder in 2005 and were jailed for life. They were convicted of killing David King, who was suspected of being a police informer.
Lane highlights the similarity of the two killings. “In the Magill murder a witness describes one of the men brazenly smiling as he drove away from the scene. In the King murder, a witness refers to one of the killers ‘waving a salute’ in her direction as he changed vehicle,” he writes.
Both Vincent and Smith deny any involvement in the Magill murder.
Lane goes into great detail about the detective in the case, DS Chris Spackman. Lane claims that in a previous confrontation, when Lane was 21, he had met Spackman when he was briefly arrested in connection with a car-ringing operation.
While in a police cell, Lane alleges Spackman came in and told him: “You think you’re the daddy of this lot, don’t you?”
Spackman was jailed at the Old Bailey in 2003 for plotting to steal £160,000 from Hertfordshire police, money that had been seized from criminals.
Spackman, who admitted conspiracy to steal, theft and misconduct in office, was the officer handling disclosure information in Lane’s case. The judge sentencing Spackman remarked that “this was no fiddling of expenses, but was more suited to a seasoned fraudster who could conduct complicated deceptions in a police environment”.
Spackman’s involvement in another case, involving cloned credit cards, led to the successful appeal of the two men convicted.
Robert Evans, counsel for the two men in that case told the court: “In my opinion, Mr Spackman’s accounts in interview show a history of dishonesty and a history of tampering or falsifying police records in cases he was involved in.”
Lane notes that at his own trialone of the detectives told the court that “he is an extremely dangerous man who has undoubtedly committed other murders” although he had never been charged with any others.
Lane has always proclaimed his innocence despite the fact that this inevitably slows down the possibility of release as a prisoner is deemed not to have come to terms with his offence. His case was initially covered in the Guardian in 2001 and was later the subject of a short film as part of the Guardian’s Justice on Trial series.
He was released in 2015 but returned to jail last year after his arrest on a common assault charge unconnected to the case. A parole hearing is due in March.
In his book, Lane acknowledges previous offences which landed him behind bars as a young man but is adamant that he is innocent of the Magill murder. He is scathing about the possibility that any professional hitman would use the battered old BMW car he was alleged to have used. “Wouldn’t it be simply unbelievable that I’d choose a car I had been driving my family about in just a few days before?” His young son’s fingerprints were also found in the car.
In the book, Lane quotes everyone from Voltaire to Hunter S Thompson to Juvenal and is also revealing on the state of prisons today.
“The Covid-19 crisis has reported concerns for the public’s mental health due to being housebound,” he notes. “Really! I think to myself what do they think being locked up in a concrete coffin for years and years does to a person?”