An innocent man convicted of a murder he did not commit was this week awoken by helicopters and armed police searching for a stolen government laptop left in an unlocked car.
John Kamara, originally from Toxteth, was wrongly jailed over a brutal botched robbery on a bookies in Lodge Lane in 1981, which saw the shop manager, 23-year-old John Suffield, tied up and stabbed 19 times.
After living in peace since he was acquitted on appeal in 1999, at around 9am on Monday morning (February 13) Mr Kamara had to witness officers from Surrey Police leading his 18-year-old university student son away as armed police milled around in his garden.
READ MORE: Innocent man sat in jail for 20 years as key witness statement gathered dust
He told the ECHO: "It was the helicopters that woke me up, but I didn't think anything of it. Next thing my partner comes into the bedroom and says I think you better come downstairs John.
"I went down and there were about 15 police officers in the garden. The sergeant said 'who is in this house?', I said my name and my partner and said my son is upstairs in bed. They said 'that's him' and they went to wake him up. I said 'where is your warrant' and he said 'we don't need one'.
"They had guns, there were helicopters, there were dogs. Some of the officers were from Hampshire Police. I said 'what the f*** are you doing here?'. They said 'I don't know, we're just here to help'."
The officers said Mr Kamara's son was under arrest on suspicion of the theft of a laptop and phone from a vehicle parked outside an address in nearby Epsom in the early hours of that morning. The officers explained the items had been recovered in bushes in nearby Horton Country Park, but that a sniffer dog had "lost the scent" near their property.
Mr Kamara said he was baffled at such a large police response to a stolen laptop, and told the officers his son was asleep all night and had not left the house. The teenager was taken into a police station for questioning, where he was shown CCTV footage of a person in a hood stealing the items, which he categorically asserted was not him.
His son, who is studying law at university, was released on bail, but not before his solicitor discovered the laptop contained "official government documents" and was owned by a Ministry of Defence employee. Mr Kamara said: "My concern is that there are sensitive documents just lying around in a car."
Surrey Police confirmed the arrest related to reports of theft of a laptop and mobile phone from a vehicle parked outside an address in nearby Epsom.
A spokeswoman said: "A number of devices, including a mobile phone and laptop, were stolen from the vehicle which was parked on a driveway. An area search was carried out and the devices were quickly recovered in woodland close to the address.
"An 18-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of theft in connection with the offence and has been released on bail. The investigation remains ongoing.
"The devices belonged to a government official and were password protected. They were disabled remotely and not accessed after the theft. The official is not an MP."
Surrey Police said it could not comment on which branch of government the owner of the laptop worked for, and a spokesman for the Cabinet Office said the incident was a police matter.
The presence of a large number of a police unexpectedly turning up in his home was a particularly shocking sight for Mr Kamara.
The flaws in the original investigation saw him lose 20 years of his life in prison, before he was released on appeal in 1999. His acquittal came after his legal team found 200 witness statements that had never been served on the defence at the time of his trial in 1981, including one which drastically undermined the prosecution case.
The Court of Appeal also found there were serious flaws in how police conducted an identity parade used to identify Mr Kamara, who was not linked to the scene by any forensic evidence. A second man, Ray Gilbert, was also convicted over the murder, and served 36 years in prison before his release on licence. Mr Gilbert, who initially confessed to the murder before retracting his statement, also claims his innocence but his appeals were unsuccessful.
Mr Kamara featured in a recent documentary about the case, presented by investigative journalist Raphael Rowe, who himself served time in prison for a murder he did not commit. Mr Rowe asked Mr Kamara whether he had been able to fully move on after being freed.
He said: "No, me personally, I haven't stopped to tell you the truth, it's just continued. Even though I have come out, it's took over my life now."
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