A TELEVISION documentary will tonight show the moment a man who spent 11 years in prison met the family of the businessman he was wrongly convicted of killing. 

Michael O’Brien, his brother-in-law Ellis Sherwood and a third man Darren Hall were all convicted in summer 1988 of the murder and violent robbery the previous October of Cardiff newsagent Phillip Saunders. 

They would spend 11 years in prison before the verdicts were quashed at an appeal. 

But Michael said he has always worried that their innocence may not have been accepted by Mr Saunders’ family with his murder still unsolved. 

“For his family to come out and say we know you didn’t do it, that meant a lot to me,” Michael told The National ahead of the broadcast tonight of British Injustice with Raphael Rowe. 

“I thought for many years they believed we did it but this helps me as I am determined to get the case re-opened.” 

The investigative journalist, who fronts the popular Netflix series Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons and has also presented on The One Show and other BBC programmes, understands the impact of a miscarriage of justice. 

In the same year Michael and the others were convicted Raphael was arrested for murder as one of the ‘M25 three’. He was sentenced to life in prison but after lengthy appeals was acquitted and released , spending 12 years behind bars before his conviction was quashed. 

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In the episode Raphael examines how South Wales Police had conducted their original inquiry and also attempts to give viewers a greater understanding of the businessman who ran news kiosks in Cardiff city centre. 

The programme draws parallels between the case, which became known as the Cardiff Newsagent Three, and other high-profile cases from the time such as the Birmingham Six and the Guilford Four. 

Many aspects of the case, including the pressure put on a vulnerable suspect, will also be familiar to those who followed last year’s BBC Wales documentary A Killing in Tiger Bay which examined the wrongful prosecution of five men which led to the 1990 conviction of all but two, who became known as the Cardiff Three. 

The bond between the presenter and Michael is clear in the programme but by far the most emotional scenes are the meeting with the victim’s 92-year-old sister Pheobe and her son David. 

The family also reveal shocking aspects of the police investigation in the programme. 

While in prison Michael had to turn campaigner for his own freedom and since his release has campaigned against the death penalty and to expose other miscarriages of justice including supporting several serving prisoners who claim they have been wrongly convicted. 

Last year Michael wrote The Dossier in which he examined a number of cases involving South Wales Police with the intention of it essentially supporting his calls for an independent judicial inquiry into his case and the tactics of South Wales Police. 

READ MORE: 'I spent 11 years in prison for a murder I didn't do'

However throughout his campaigning Michael has always been clear that others have lost more than their freedom. He said: “The victims and their families can be forgotten but I never have, they are the primary victims. 

“What happened to me, and the others, was horrendous but what has happened to their relative is also horrendous being brutally murdered.” 

Michael said he hopes the programme will also raise awareness of miscarriages of justice and bring further pressure for the inquiry he continues to campaign for. 

The programme is the first of a two episode series with the second seeing Raphael look at the unjust conviction of John Kamara who spent 19 years in prison for the shocking killing of Liverpool betting shop manager John Suffield, who was stabbed to death in broad daylight in 1981. 

British Injustice with Raphael Rowe is on Crime+Investigation at 9pm on Monday, May 23 and available to stream on C+I PLAY from the May 24 from the channel's website by clicking here.

Crime+Investigation is available on Sky 156, Virgin 275 and TalkTalk 328. 

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