The song, by Sham 69 called 'George Davis is Innocent', was
released on an album. The lyrics, from the Metro Lyrics website, are:
"Everything they want to pin on
you
Everything you say and do
Looking through their photofits
See
your face and your face fits
George Davis is innocent
George Davis is innocent
George Davis is innocent
Okay
All the world's gonna write about you
All the
world's gonna know about you
They want to put you on News At Ten
If you
don't talk it'll happen again
George Davis is innocent
George Davis is innocent
George Davis is innocent
Okay
I'm never gonna leave you alone
They're never gonna
leave you alone
Everything you say and do
May be used against
you
George Davis is innocent
George Davis is innocent
George Davis is innocent
Okay
They're never gonna leave you alone
They're never
gonna leave you alone
They know where you bloody live
East London is
your home
George Davis is innocent
George Davis is innocent
George Davis is innocent
Okay"
Wikipedia
website tells the story of George Davis:
"George Davis (born 1941) is an ex-armed robber in the
United Kingdom, who became widely known through a very successful campaign by
friends and supporters to free him from prison after his wrongful conviction in
March 1975 for an armed payroll robbery at the London Electricity Board (LEB)
offices in Ilford on 4 April 1974. The conviction was based solely on the
unreliable use of identification evidence, in the absence of any other evidence
connecting him with the crime. Following his release Davis went on to be jailed
for two other cases of armed robbery.
The London Electricity Board
robbery
The robbery for which Davis was convicted was very
aggravated involving a long chase, with numerous vehicles commandeered and
numbers of the robbers injured. Unusually the initial payroll attack was
photographed by undercover police officers and eye witness descriptions, alleged
identifications and individual robbery "roles" were predicated against those
photographic records to further complicate and confound the subsequent
identification evidence[clarification needed] on which the criminal prosecution
relied.
The evidence
A number of blood samples (matching different blood
groups) were recovered and formed part of the prosecution case. Of four accused,
only Davis was convicted. At a number of very specific locations Davis was
identified but the blood obtained from the location did not match his blood.
Neither did the blood match any of his co-accused.
A further complication turned on the fact that Davis
might never have been committed for trial from the lower courts (and therefore
convicted) had the above blood test results been disclosed at that committal
stage. Although it subsequently became clear that the evidence had by then
become available to police it was suppressed and this abuse of due process
became one of the core allegations heavily relied upon by those campaigning for
Davis's release:
'The blood samples taken from ... Davis ... at
Walthamstow on 18 May 1974 were passed on to the Yard's Senior Scientific
Officer, Peter Martin, on 21 May and he reported his negative findings to the
police officer in charge of the case on 20 June. At as late as November 1974 on
a third bail application, this time before a judge in chambers, and after
committals had been completed (28 October) the police were saying that they
still awaited the blood results from forensic.'
Campaign for Release
Public activism
On 19 August 1975, while Davis was serving a 20 year
prison sentence for the Ilford LEB robbery the pitch at the Headingley cricket
ground was dug up by his supporters, preventing further play in the test match
between England and Australia. This dramatic direct action protest by relatives
and friends of George Davis was accompanied by typical Davis Campaign graffiti
proclaiming "FREE GEORGE DAVIS ... JUSTICE FOR GEORGE DAVIS ... GEORGE DAVIS IS
INNOCENT ... SORRY IT HAD TO (BE) DONE". Three men and one woman went on trial
in relation to this incident, and one, Peter Chappell was eventually jailed for
eighteen months. The Davis campaigners who were remanded to prison to await
trial for the Headingley sabotage continued their campaigning in support of one
another within the prison system. Geraldine Hughes, the female accused, refused
to accept bail until it had also been granted to all of her
co-accused.
Celebrity support
Roger Daltrey of The Who was seen onstage in 1975
wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with 'George Davis Is Innocent'. "George Davis is
Innocent" was also a song on Sham 69's 1978 debut album Tell Us the Truth, and
the song 'The Cockney Kids Are Innocent' ends with a namecheck. Patrik
Fitzgerald also showed support with "George" on the 1979 EP The Paranoid Ward.
Davis also received a name check in a Duran Duran song entitled 'Friends of
Mine' on the album Duran Duran (1981): the chorus begins 'Georgie Davis is
coming out'."
On 24th May, 2011 three Court of Appeal judges quashed
Davis's conviction, after 36 years, as unsafe but they went on to say that they
were unable to 'positively exonerate him'.