How many more texts have police 'sat on'? Hundreds of CONVICTED rapists could now appeal after a second case falls apart in evidence blunder involving SAME detective responsible for student's rape trial collapse

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Rapists across the UK could try to appeal their convictions after two cases collapsed because police sat on texts that proved the men in the dock were innocent, a leading barrister said today.

Isaac Itiary, 25, was released from prison yesterday after it emerged that his 15-year-old alleged victim routinely posed a 19-year-old and lied about her age. 

Last Thursday Liam Allan's rape trial collapsed because police failed to disclose damning text messages that showed his lover fantasised about being raped and asked Mr Allan for casual sex after she said she was attacked. 

Both cases were led by Met Detective Constable Mark Azariah who has not been suspended but is reportedly off active investigations while Scotland Yard reviews 30 cases approaching trial. 

Barrister Jerry Hayes asked the judge in Mr Allan's case to end the Croydon Crown Court trial and said today: 'If there's an ongoing investigation and you're about to go to trial I would demand in writing a letter for police and the CPS that there's nothing that could undermine the prosecution’. 

When asked about convicted sex offenders he said: 'They need to look at it again. There is a possibility there have been some very serious miscarriages of justice’. 

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Isaac Itiary, 24, was remanded in jail for four months after being charged with raping a child under 16 - but has been freed after texts showing his evidence were not released by Met DC Mark Azariah (right) who is no longer working on active cases

Liam Allan, pictured with his mother Lorraine, poses outside Croydon Crown Court after all rape charges against him were dropped

Father-of-two Mr Itiary, from south-east London, was released last night and was celebrating with his parents at their home. 

Scotland Yard will review hundreds of rape, child abuse and sexual assault cases after a second prosecution collapsed because police again sat on texts that proved a suspect's innocence.

Prosecutor who stopped Liam Allan case over withheld texts says it happens 'every single day and has to stop'

The barrister who stopped the prosecution in the Liam Allan after texts proved he was innocent said today it 'happens every day'. 

Jerry Hayes (pictured), a former Tory MP, said officers are withholding evidence that undermines their case and 'it's got to stop'.

He told Radio 4 this morning: 'This is not one rogue officer. This is a systemic, cultural problem with the police. It is enshrined in law that police officers have to be independent. They have to look at all the evidence. They have to log it.

'They are not just building a case to prosecute someone. If there is anything there that undermines the prosecution case they've got to tell you. 

'And if there's anything that undermines or rather assists the defence case they've got to tell you too. But that is not happening. You speak to any barrister they will tell you stories that this happens every single day and it has got to stop'.

He went on: 'I was speaking to the barrister [in the Itiari case] this morning. They had been asking for these tests [victim's phone records] for months. Now, this is not something that has just been forgotten. Were they deliberately sitting on it? We don't know but these are very, very worrying systemic problems'.  

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live on Wednesday, Justice Minister Dominic Raab said it was 'absolutely right' for the Met to carry out a review, adding: 'The basic principle of British justice is at stake.'

He said: 'The proper disclosure obligations in these two cases have not been discharged, and that is deeply worrying.'

'What we need to know now is quite how widespread that is and why.

'This is not a new thing. It should be made easy by technology. It's a very basic thing why it's not happening.

'I don't want to prejudice a review which is going to be under way but I do think the CPS and the police do need to have a pretty hard long look in the mirror about this.' 

Isaac Itiary was remanded in jail for four months after being charged with raping a child under 16 but had insisted that the girl told him repeatedly she was 19. 

His defence team demanded the police hand over her texts in September but only got them last week and found that the alleged victim, who was 15, had constantly lied about her age and posed as a 19-year-old.

Incredibly, his prosecution involved the same officer as the Liam Allan case, which collapsed last Thursday when it emerged he had failed to disclose thousands of damning text messages that showed a woman who said she was raped fantasised about being raped and asked Mr Allan for casual sex after she said she was attacked.

Mr Allan faced two years on bail before his case collapsed last Thursday and has called for anonymity for rape suspects unless there are exceptional circumstances. 

Mr Itiary was a month away from trial after being charged with six counts of sexual activity with a child, two counts of rape and one count of making indecent photographs.

As a result he was deemed a risk to the public and placed in custody.

But police had texts that showed that she had posed as a 19-year-old but this evidence was only released by detectives last week.

The CPS said Mr Itiary's prosecution had passed the 'threshold test' until the extra evidence arrived.

A spokesman said: 'On December 17, 2017, the police provided new material to the CPS, which had previously been requested, and this was reviewed'.

'Prosecutors decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction'.

The case has caused a crisis for police.  

Mr Allan, a psychology student at Greenwich University, is planning to sue the police and the CPS for their bungled handling of the case

Last night, amid mounting calls for an independent inquiry, the Metropolitan Police announced that every live case being investigated by its Child Abuse and Sexual Offences squad was now being reviewed to ensure that all digital evidence has been properly examined, documented and shared.

The flawed prosecutions have prompted fears there have been miscarriages of justice – but also raise the prospect that rapists and child abusers could go free if they are able to challenge disclosure of evidence at their trial.

It comes amid concerns that police are making basic errors in sex crime investigations in an attempt to improve conviction rates, with just 11.2 per cent of allegations of rape leading to a conviction. 

Mr Itiary's case collapsed at Inner London Crown Court yesterday afternoon after the Crown Prosecution Service decided to offer no evidence.

Police said they had been 'working closely with the CPS to progress the investigation and provide full disclosure'. 

However, the day after Mr Allan's trial collapsed, a review was ordered which 'resulted in the identification of relevant material which was passed to the CPS to disclose'.

A CPS spokesman said: 'Prosecutors decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction and we offered no evidence against the defendant at a hearing today.' 

Rape trial shambles is latest sex attack case to end in chaos

Leo Mahan and Thady Duff (left) were cleared of rape when it emerged detectives had 'cherry picked' the evidence while Bartolomeo Joly de Lotbiniere, 22, (right) was cleared of rape reported to police 14 months later

It comes after a string of rape cases were found to have fallen apart.

Friends Thady Duff, Leo Mahon, Patrick Foster, all 22, and James Martin, 20, were charged with gang-raping a young woman following the May Ball at the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester, Gloucestershire in 2014.

It was alleged that the violent assault was filmed, and the footage circulated via Snapchat. But the trial at Gloucester Crown Court collapsed after it emerged that detectives had 'cherry picked' and 'airbrushed' the evidence.

A study of the alleged victim's phone revealed that she had sent nude pictures of herself to one of the men in advance of the ball and also how she had given inconsistent accounts of a 'threesome' she took part in at an Army barracks five months after the alleged university rape.

Shockingly, none of this material was handed over to the prosecution or defence by an investigating police officer.

Royal Agricultural University students Mahon, Foster and Duff, and friend Martin, were cleared in 2016 after the prosecution offered no evidence. 

An IPCC investigation later found that detectives had no case to answer for misconduct. 

Bartolomeo Joly de Lotbiniere, 22, was accused of raping a geography student at York University after a night out downing cheap spirits and alcopops. His 19-year-old accuser said his advances were unwanted and that she froze in terror as Lotbiniere, also then 19, undressed her and carried her to bed in her halls of residence.

But she only reported Mr Joly de Lotbiniere to police 14 months after the alleged attack when he appeared on television in six episodes of the BBC2 quiz show University Challenge.

After such a long passage of time there was no forensic evidence, only individual testimonies, accounts from friends and text messages.

Mr Joly de Lotbiniere insisted what had happened was a 'two way', consensual one-night stand, saying : 'Drunk or sober I would never rape anybody.' After two trials spread over seven months — the first ended in a hung jury — he was found not guilty of rape and sexual assault in September.

Last night Commander Richard Smith, who oversees the Met's rape investigations, said: 'I completely understand that this case may raise concerns given the backdrop of the case of [Mr Allan] last week.

'The Met is completely committed to understanding what went wrong and is carrying out a joint review with the CPS, the findings of which will be published. Rape investigations are by their nature very complex, and often hinge on the contradictory accounts of the alleged suspect and the complainant about what has taken place.

'We are reviewing all our investigations where we are in discussion with the CPS, to assure ourselves that we are meeting our disclosure obligations in an acceptable timescale based on the volume of data that some cases involve.'

Last week DC Azariah, 37, was accused of 'sheer incompetence' by prosecutor Jerry Hayes after failing to hand over 40,000 text and WhatsApp messages which proved the innocence of Mr Allan. The 22-year-old student, accused of six counts of rape, spent almost two years on bail and three days in the dock at Croydon Crown Court before his trial was dramatically halted by a judge when it emerged that his accuser had sent hundreds of messages to friends describing her rape fantasies.

DC Azariah had claimed the phone records were 'too personal' to share, and only did so when a new prosecutor took on the case and demanded the evidence.

Yesterday Mr Allan's solicitor Simone Meerabux said: 'I think that someone should look back at all the Met cases and look at the reviewing lawyer who looked at the cases involving this officer. I really don't think that the CPS can put the blame on this one officer, I know reviewing lawyers aren't doing their jobs.

'I do not think that the Met can investigate themselves, nor the CPS investigate themselves, it must be an independent inquiry.'

Conservative MP Bob Neill, chairman of the Justice select committee, said: 'This is an extremely troubling development. It rather confirms the view that this was not a one-off mistake. I think there are deep-seated failure of disclosure by both the police and the CPS.

'There also needs to be a very swift inquiry into this officer's conduct and suitability for being involved in these rape investigations. After making two errors of this gravity he should not be involved in any more active investigations until we find out what has gone wrong.'

Mr Neill said Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders, who has pushed to increase rape prosecutions and convictions, must 'urgently' review communication failures between the police and CPS on handing over sensitive material.

'I don't know if this officer is not up to scratch, but the CPS needs to realise that if it can't depend on the police to carry out thorough checks of the evidence then prosecution lawyers have got to be more proactive,' he said.

'It is not good enough to see that this mistake was not a one-off. We have got to make sure that it is not happening in any other cases. Every case this officer has been involved in needs to be looked at again.'

David Green of think-tank Civitas, a former adviser to the Government, said: 'There is a wider problem that the justice system and the police have lost their way because of the cult of victimhood and the prevailing idea that the victim should always be believed. That is leading to these grave injustices.'