George Davis (born 1941) is an armed robber, born in Bletchley, England and active in England. He became known through a successful campaign by friends and supporters to free him from prison after his wrongful conviction in March 1975, for an armed payroll robbery at the London Electricity Board (LEB) offices in Ilford, Greater London, on 4 April 1974. The conviction was based solely on unreliable use of identification evidence, in the absence of other evidence connecting him with the crime. Following his release, Davis was jailed for two cases of armed robbery.
Evidence
A number of blood samples (matching different blood groups) were recovered and formed part of the prosecution case. Of four accused, only Davis was convicted. At a number of specific locations, Davis was identified but the blood obtained from the location did not match his; neither did the blood match any of his co-accused.
A further complication turned on the fact that Davis might never have been committed for trial from the lower courts had blood test results been disclosed at the committal stage. Although it subsequently became clear that evidence had by then become available to police, it was suppressed and this abuse of due process became one of the core allegations relied upon by those campaigning for the release of Davis. "The blood samples taken from ... Davis ... at Walthamstow on 18 May 1974 were passed on to the Yard's Senior Scientific Officer, Peter Martin, on 21 May and he reported his negative findings to the police officer in charge of the case on 20 June. At as late as November 1974 on a third bail application, this time before a judge in chambers, and after committals had been completed (28 October) the police were saying that they still awaited the blood results from forensic."
Campaign for release
Public activism
On 19 August 1975, while Davis was serving a 20-year prison sentence for the Ilford LEB robbery, his supporters dug holes in the pitch and poured oil over one end of the wicket at the Headingley Cricket Ground, preventing further play in the Test match between England and Australia. This direct action protest by relatives and friends of George Davis was accompanied by Davis Campaign graffiti proclaiming "FREE GEORGE DAVIS ... JUSTICE FOR GEORGE DAVIS ... GEORGE DAVIS IS INNOCENT ... SORRY IT HAD TO [BE] DONE". Three men and one woman were tried for this incident, and one, Peter Chappell, was eventually jailed for 18 months. The Davis campaigners who were remanded to prison to await trial for the Headingley sabotage continued their campaigning in support of one another within the prison system. One, Geraldine Hughes, refused to accept bail until it had also been granted to all of her co-accused. The campaign was also characterised by the graffiti “GEORGE DAVIS IS INNOCENT OK” or some variant thereof, in plain white paint, appearing on dozens of walls and bridges in London and on motorways.
Celebrity support
Roger Daltrey of The Who went on stage in 1975 wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with "George Davis Is Innocent". "George Davis Is Innocent" was a song on Sham 69's 1978 debut album Tell Us the Truth, and the song "The Cockney Kids Are Innocent" ends with a namecheck. Patrik Fitzgerald also showed support with "George" on the 1979 EP The Paranoid Ward. Davis received a namecheck in the Duran Duran song "Friends of Mine" on the album Duran Duran (1981): the chorus begins "Georgie Davis is coming out".
The back cover of the Tom Robinson Band's LP Power in the Darkness (1978) contains a cropped photo of the band seated on a street in front of a wall; the 2004 CD issue of that album shows the uncropped photo, showing the wall contained the graffito "GEORGE DAVIS IS GUILTY".
Media sympathy
Before Chappell's 1976 trial and conviction there was media criticism of the decision by the courts to refuse bail to the Headingley defendants (for example The Daily Telegraph editorial "WHEN TO GIVE BAIL", 28 August 1975) and eventually bail was granted to all of them. Bail conditions were stringent and denied the four Headingley accused the right to discuss Davis's wrongful conviction in public.
Related campaigns
Importantly, the original campaign to free Davis overlapped with, variously influenced, and was in turn influenced by other criminal justice campaigns in London, particularly the Free George Ince Campaign. Ince, another London victim of identification evidence, was also eventually freed. Although the "EAST END SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN...TO STOP EAST END FIT UPS" (October 1975, UPAL/INCE Campaign political poster) had pre-dated the Davis Campaign, it went on to parallel it.