Stacey Hyde’s case will be featured in the new Channel 4 series The Accused: Beyond Reasonable Doubt, airing at 10pm on Thursday 25 June. The episode tells the story of Stacey, who was just 17 when, in 2009, she stabbed and killed Vince Francis during a violent incident in which she said she was acting in defence of herself and her friend. She was convicted of murder in March 2010.
Francis was the boyfriend of Stacey’s friend, Holly Banwell, and had a long history of violence towards Holly and a previous girlfriend, including 27 recorded incidents of violence towards Holly. On 4 September 2009, Stacey and Holly had been out together and returned to Holly’s flat, where Stacey fell asleep. She awoke to hear Holly screaming for help as Francis assaulted her. Stacey ran to her friend’s aid and jumped on Francis’s back. Francis grabbed Stacey around the throat and threw her around by her hair, smashing her into a wall. Stacey then took a knife and stabbed Vince in an attempt to defend herself. Most of the fight was recorded during a 999 call made by Holly to the police.
Stacey was charged with murder and, following a trial at Bristol Crown Court, was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Following her conviction, Stacey’s aunt, Julie Hyde, contacted Justice for Women and solicitor Harriet Wistrich, now CEO of Centre for Women’s Justice, took on the case. Fresh psychiatric evidence supported the defence of diminished responsibility and, when the case was eventually heard by the Court of Appeal, Stacey’s conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered.
Stacey indicated a willingness to plead guilty to manslaughter, but the Crown insisted she go through a second trial. In June 2015, after a trial lasting several weeks, and represented by Steve Kamlish KC and Clare Wade, Stacey was completely acquitted. The jury concluded that she had acted in self-defence and she walked free. Sadly, freedom after a lengthy period of imprisonment, particularly from such a young age, is never easy, and the story following her release is tragic.
Stacey Hyde’s case is one of four episodes in the Candour Productions series, The Accused: Beyond Reasonable Doubt. It includes interviews with Stacey’s aunt, Julie Hyde, and her former schoolteacher, Liz Gough, as well as Harriet Wistrich and Clare Wade KC, and features writing from Stacey’s prison diary.
Harriet Wistrich, CEO of Centre for Women’s Justice, stated:
“Miscarriages of justice are commonly understood to be cases where the wrong person was prosecuted and convicted of an offence, sometimes serving many years in prison for a crime they did not commit – like the recent case of Andrew Malkinson, who served seventeen years for a rape he did not commit. However, many women are convicted of the murder of their partner where, like Stacey, they accept their actions caused the death but maintain that they were not guilty of murder, either because they acted in self-defence or because they were only partially culpable due to significant mitigating circumstances and should have been convicted of manslaughter, not murder.
“CWJ is currently reviewing over 30 cases where women were convicted of the murder of their abusive partner or of a man who attacked them. We are helping women appeal where possible and making detailed submissions to the Law Commission’s consultation on homicide, arguing that women suffer systemic sex discrimination within the criminal justice system because they are judged according to laws designed for men. The law is not fit for purpose when it fails to properly take into account domestic abuse and the structural inequality between men and women.”
ENDS