Stone's conviction to be reviewed
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
A series of murder convictions, including that of Michael Stone for killing Lin and Megan Russell, are being reviewed amid concern over the evidence supplied by a discredited Home Office pathologist.
Michael Heath stood down after a disciplinary hearing criticised his conduct and questioned his fitness to practise. His resignation has led to legal experts re-examining 54 prosecutions in which he was called as a prosecution witness.
Five manslaughter or murder convictions are understood to have concerned the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). Four others are already being considered for referral to the Court of Appeal.
Dr Lin Russell and her six-year-old daughter Megan were bludgeoned to death with a hammer near their home in Chillenden, Kent, in 1996. Megan's sister Josie, nine, survived after being left for dead. Stone denies the murders, but received three life sentences for the killings. His convictions were quashed in 2001, but he was found guilty in a retrial later that year and lost an appeal in 2005.
The CCRC is also re-examining the murder conviction of Simon Hall, who was jailed for life for stabbing a pensioner, Joan Albert, in 2003.
David Jessel, a CCRC commissioner, said Dr Heath's evidence was "marginal" to many convictions, but could have been decisive where there were questions over the time of death or the nature of the fatal injury.
Dr Heath conducted hundreds of post-mortem examinations for the Home Office. They included autopsies on Stuart Lubbock, who was found dead in a swimming pool at the television star Michael Barrymore's home in 2001, and on the Moors murderer Myra Hindley.
In August the Home Office's Advisory Board for Forensic Pathology upheld 20 disciplinary charges against Dr Heath and concluded that he bungled post-mortem examinations.
A spokesman for Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, said: "The Attorney General believes that the normal appeal procedures, and where appropriate the involvement of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, should be sufficient."