By Stewart Ross

A FIFE man who spent seven months in prison for a knife crime he did not commit has had his conviction formally quashed.

Craig Dobell, of Glenrothes, went on trial in June 2004 accused of assaulting another man, Michael Costner, with a knife “to his severe injury and permanent disfigurement” the previous year.

Mr Costner’s left ear was virtually hacked off during the vicious attack which came shortly after he left a Glenrothes pub.

No motive was ever established but Craig Dobell (27) was quickly in the frame, was arrested and questioned but throughout the investigation he denied involvement.

He was still protesting his innocence during his week-long trial which ended with a guilty verdict from a split jury and a 30-month sentence by Sheriff Roderick McLeod.

But the Crown case had weaknesses. The four witnesses who identified Craig said only that “he looked like” the attacker while, crucially, there was none of his DNA on the knife used in the attack.

Indeed, the only blood found on the handle was later identified as that of another man—a man who is said to have told others he assaulted Mr Costner.

Throughout, Mr Dobell insisted he had been with his long-term partner and a friend on the evening.

However, the Crown had dismissed them as hardly “independent” witnesses and the trial went on to find Mr Dobell guilty.

Within seven months Mr Dobell was out on appeal and now, two years later, there has been a brief hearing at the Court of Appeal in front of Lords Gill, Macfadyen and Johnston.

An advocate depute acting for the Crown stated simply “the Crown are no longer supporting this conviction.”

The lords will not be publishing their findings.

A spokesman for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service later said, “The ground of appeal lodged by the appellant was that there was fresh evidence in the form of admissions by another person.

“In the course of preparing for the appeal hearing, inquiries by the Crown led to the comparison of unidentified DNA, which had been found on the knife used in the attack, with the police database.

“This resulted in a match with the DNA of the person who allegedly made admissions.

“The existence of this DNA was known at the original trial, but it was not compared against the police database at that time.

“Since the existence of small traces of this person’s DNA on the weapon would have been a relevant factor for the jury to consider at the original trial, the Crown conceded the appeal.”

Mr Dobell, who lives in the Pitteuchar area of Glenrothes, is the first to admit he would not have won any citizenship awards when he was a youth.

“I’d been in trouble, done shoplifting and that, but apart from this I haven’t been in bother since 1996,” he said.

“I had never been violent and never been involved in weapons.

“I had four witnesses who said I was not at the scene of the assault on Michael Costner, there was no forensic and the people who ID’d me just thought I looked a bit like the guy.

“As a result, I was in Perth Prison for seven months with the first five attempts to get an appeal knocked back.”

Mr Dobell spent a few weeks in a young offenders unit when he was a tearaway teenager, but being behind bars still came as an utter shock.

He is still being treated for the depression he says jail caused.

“Looking back now I feel anger, hurt and a lot of grief. I blame the Crown and the justice system because they knew they had nothing on me, because I was innocent.

“The fact that now they have upheld my appeal and are saying nothing is evidence of that.”

His partner Yvonne was also caught up in the investigation and was accused of washing clothes of Mr Dobell’s within a few hours of the assault. She was held in custody and threatened with prosecution but as soon as he was convicted, the prosecutors lost all interest in her.

But seven months behind bars is a long time for an innocent man and in the next few weeks Mr Dobell will be speaking to his solicitor.

It is not known if the police will be reopening investigations into the assault.