The sisters wrongly imprisoned for murder and their battle with the tabloid press

On December 6, 1994, 18 months after two sisters were cleared of murder, they found themselves back in court with a case against the British Press.

Michelle and Lisa Taylor, two young women from Forest Hill, were caught in the centre of a tabloid feeding frenzy in the summer of 1992.

They were convicted of murdering a 21-year-old bank clerk, Alison Shaughnessy, who was stabbed to death in the stairwell of her flat near Clapham Junction station on June 3, 1991.

The attack was frenzied, the pathologist had found 54 stab wounds – two of which were fatal.

Michelle, who had been having an affair with John Shaughnessy, had allegedly killed his wife in a jealous rage with the help of her sister.

Any story of murder or sexual intrigue attracts press attention. And this had both. It was a movie style revenge story at its finest and the papers ran with it.

‘Love crazy mistress butcher’s wife’, ‘Killer at Wedding’, ‘Killer wept as she stroked her victim’s hair’, flooded the headlines while the trial was still in progress.

Critically, a video recording of Michelle at John and Alison’s wedding, which was not shown to the jury, was broadcast on the news.

Five papers snapped still shots capturing the moment Michelle and Mr Shaughnessy shared a peck on the cheek, and speculated that it was in fact a mouth-to-mouth kiss, sealing their spin of a ‘Judas kiss’.

At the end of the trial, and after only five and a half hours of deliberation, the jury found the Taylor sisters guilty of murder by a unanimous verdict. 

But, one year later their convictions were overturned by the Court of Appeal.

A junior defence lawyer had looked at the unused material which had become available only after the conviction. He discovered a note recording an original description of one of the suspects which had been provided by the only identifying witness. 

The description was significantly at odds with the appearance of either sister.

In June 1993, the Court of Appeal released the two young women in a tumultuous welcome to freedom. The media ‘with practically no exception’ was damned alongside the police for causing a miscarriage of justice.

But that was only the start of the Taylor sisters’ fight.

Lord Justice McCowan asked the Attorney General to consider bringing contempt proceedings against the Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Star and Daily Express.

Ten months later, the Conservative Attorney General decided to do no such thing.

But when the Taylor sisters discovered that the tabloids had been let off the hook, they announced they would go to the High Court for a judicial review. 

And so it was on December 6, 1994, that the Taylor sisters found themselves back in court to seek a review of the decision that contempt proceedings against the press were “not appropriate”.

Geoffrey Robertson QC agreed to act for them in a case which would see half-a-dozen Fleet Street editors in the dock if it succeeded. 

There is no doubt that coverage of the Taylor case was relentless, sensational, extensive and driven by a sort of hysteria. But that is not a crime.

In July 1997, the Taylors lost their case against the Attorney General. 

But the case of the Taylor sisters did bring about real change.

Decisions about the relevance of unused evidence were no longer made by the police and prosecution – the people who had an interest in securing a conviction. 

Instead, the defence was granted access to the “common pool” of material.

Pictured top: Sisters Michelle (2nd left) and Lisa Taylor celebrate with their sister and mother, Ann, outside the Court of Appeal after the pair were relesed from life sentences (Picture: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo)