to describe someone with lightly coloured skin, and that Rowe was lightly coloured. There was no physical evidence linking Johnson to any of the scenes of crime or to any property stolen from them. The trial judge, Lord Justice Auld, summed up over four days and at the 2000 ruling it was acknowledged that the summation was "a careful, fair and wholly accurate reflection of the evidence and the issues. His directions in law were impeccable. He drew attention to the weaknesses in the prosecution case as well as its strengths. Having directed the jury as to the burden and standard of proof he said: "That test is particularly important in a case such as this when so much of the evidence is disputed, where much of the prosecution evidence is itself tainted for one reason or another and where there is considerable uncertainty and inconsistency in important areas."" Other inconsistencies Rowe has since stated that it had been pointed out that the three key prosecution witnesses: fitted the victims' descriptions of the assailants admitted handling and hiding some of the stolen property in premises belonging to Jobbin's girlfriend admitted stealing the Spitfire admitted possessing a handgun used by the gang admitted disposing of the stolen Vauxhall and Renault Until the arrest of Rowe and Davis, the police maintained in their appeals for information that the suspects were two white males and one black male. Appeal Following conviction the defendants appealed. The grounds for appeal were based on that Johnson had not been identified by anyone including Jobbins, Duncan or Griffin; the evidence from eyewitnesses about the colour of the attackers; the unreliability of the witness who testified that Johnson had confessed to him while on remand; the unreliability of Jobbins, Duncan and Griffin; the inconsistency between Kate Williamson's evidence and that of the witness who had seen the green Spitfire at the scene of the murder. The appeal was heard on 23 July 1993, and it was then disclosed that reward money had been paid for information leading to the three men's conviction but not the name or names of the recipients, which their lawyers claimed was vital to their case, since those alleged to have received payments might also have been suspects, and had been promised immunity from prosecution in return for information. It later emerged that Norman Duncan had received £10,300 in reward money from the Daily