Don Hale

Don Hale (born July 1952) is a British author and journalist known for his investigative work and campaigning against miscarriage of justice in specific legal cases. Early life Hale played football at youth and reserve level for Bury, Blackburn Rovers, York City and Shrewsbury Town. Career While editor of the Bury Messenger in the early 1980s, he says Barbara Castle, then the local Member of the European Parliament gave him confidential information on political figures who appeared sympathetic to the Paedophile Information Exchange and indicated that several high ranking senior politicians were also allegedly involved in promoting a Westminster paedophile circle. After refusing pressure to hand over the dossier put on him by Cyril Smith MP and Special Branch not to publish it, his office was then raided by SB officers and the papers were confiscated with the threat of prison. Bakewell murder He was later editor of the Matlock Mercury, where he became involved in the campaign to overturn the murder conviction of Stephen Downing. In 1973, Downing, at the time a 17-year-old with the reading age of an 11-year-old, was imprisoned for the murder of Wendy Sewell and served 27 years in jail. Following his six-year campaign, the conviction was eventually quashed and declared unsafe by the Court of Appeal in 2001 and Downing was released.