In May 1991, Saunders and his co-accused appealed against their convictions. The guilty verdicts were upheld, though his sentence was halved after medical evidence was produced at the Court of Appeal that suggested he was suffering from serious illness. A diagnosis of pre-senile Alzheimer's disease was accepted by the Appeal Court. Alzheimer's is an incurable, progressive degenerative disease of the brain, but Saunders subsequently made a full recovery from his medical condition. Dr Patrick Gallway, a forensic pathologist who was an expert witness at the appeal, explained in 1996 that a diagnosis for the condition is initially "very difficult" and said "so we did not make one; we expressed worries about it."
