What Price Justice?  Convicting three men of murder in 1990... about £10m. Bringing the officers who caused three innocent men to be convicted of that murder to trial in 2011... about £30m. Causing their trial to collapse? Priceless.

On Thursday 1st December 2011, nearly 24 years after Lynette White was brutally stabbed to death by Jeffrey Gafoor, the trial of the former police officers for the corruption that led to the convictions of three innocent men known as `The Cardiff Three' collapsed due to prosecution error, writes Charlie Fox. The case was the most complicated, lengthiest and is expected to be the most expensive of its kind in modern legal history.

This has been the matryoshka doll of cases. At its heart lies the truth, invisible beneath layer upon layer of cocked-up investigations and lengthy court cases. Now the outer layer is superglued shut, the truth lost forever.

In order to understand the importance of the trial of these policemen collapsing, it is vital to understand the investigation which sparked it all.