Ex-Senator Stuart Syvret Blog

The Jersey Government: “Willing to Lie, Make False Statements, & Destroy Evidence”.

2012-02-19T14:11:00.000Z

Former Police Chief Graham Power
Describes the Evidenced Events.

“If the Jersey regime could do this to me and get away with it then think what they could do to others. Think what they could do to the victims of abuse. Think what they could do to you. Think about it.”

Graham Power, QPM.

Through Jersey’s citizen media, Graham Power, Queens Police Medal has been asked by many islanders to provide an overview of the events surrounding the illegal suspension enacted against him by Jersey’s Law Officers Department and their client civil servants and politicians.

Mr. Power has done so, with all the customary dispassionate, forensic, evidenced precision we have come to expect.

The full text of Mr. Power’s explanation can be read here:

http://ricosorda.blogspot.com/2012/02/operation-end-game-graham-power-replies.html

It is essential reading for any thinking person with an interest in the rule of law and of good governance in Jersey.

Jersey’s public authorities – the government, its prosecution system, its judiciary and its senior civil service – are a lawless syndicate, out of all civilised restraint and scrutiny. We passed, in truth several years ago, the stage at which any credible denial could be made of that fact, such is the sheer volume of documented evidence now available.

Every single institution in Jersey that wields any kind of influence or power has closed ranks and united – and has done so in exclusive protection of the strong and powerful, and in corrupt and repressive opposition to the vulnerable and the defenceless.

I’ve observed before how remarkable it is that the Jersey oligarchy did not possess as much as one ‘wise head’ amongst their number to have made them turn aside from the path of this madness. And “madness” is not in inappropriate word. Within the ranks of the Jersey establishment, there are now growing whispers amongst the more intelligent that are asking questions about the mental health of those who have been responsible for driving and controlling the events of the last four years.

And when your society is so obviously devoid of functioning checks and balances and the proper rule of law at the best of times, it is an alarming prospect to consider that amongst those at the very core of power might be some individuals living in an hallucinated parallel universe – the mirage of which is maintained in their eyes by the unquestioning deference of those around them.

It is a reality that Jersey’s quiescent middle-classes would be well-advised to wake up to – for their own sakes. As Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

And as Graham Power writes:

“If the Jersey regime could do this to me and get away with it then think what they could do to others. Think what they could do to the victims of abuse. Think what they could do to you. Think about it.”

Go and read Mr. Power’s latest analyses here:

http://ricosorda.blogspot.com/2012/02/operation-end-game-graham-power-replies.html

Reflect on the question, “how on Earth did Jersey get itself into this astounding and scandalous crisis”; we are staring at the corrupt, hi-jacking and politicisation of objective policing, of the obstruction of the very enforcement of the law.

Sometimes societies sleep-walk – and when they eventually wake up, they find themselves in a bad place.

Sometimes very bad.

Stuart

A Quote from Graham Power’s Statement as published in full by Rico Sorda, 19th February 2012.

“In spite of all of the conflicting and contradictory accounts offered by the Jersey Government we can be sure of some things which have emerged from this issue. The facts of this story support a view that senior figures in the Jersey Government are willing to lie, to make false statements, to destroy evidence, to withhold the truth, to invent accounts and to cover-up for each other. And this is not a story about me. I am not a victim of child abuse. I do not have to seek justice from the very authorities whose conduct and ethics have been exposed by their actions in this case. It is no wonder that the survivors of decades of abuse in Jersey Government institutions have little faith in the Island’s political and legal system. If the regime will lie about one thing then they will lie about another thing. If they will destroy evidence in one case then they will destroy evidence in another. If they are willing to collude and cover up the truth in relation to one matter then they will do the same about other things. If the Jersey regime could do this to me and get away with it then think what they could do to others. Think what they could do to the victims of abuse. Think what they could do to you. Think about it.”

Graham Power

AN UNLAWFUL ‘COUP’ AGAINST POLICE CHIEF

2012-02-08T01:15:00.004Z

The Decision to Suspend Graham Power

On the face of it, this article is primarily concerned with the decision by the then Home Affairs Minister, Deputy Andrew Lewis, to suspend Police Chief Graham Power. However, those events are more usefully viewed as a lens – through which we can gain a clear picture of the sub-text – the real issues – the real decisions – that lay underneath that hapless and unlawful political adventure.

By considering how startlingly and overtly defective were the actions of Lewis, we see the true nature of the supposed “full legal and HR advice from highly competent professionals” that he was steered by.

We also see the true nature of the “system” those “professionals” represent – and we are confronted with the question, “what now?”

What we are considering is the very rule of law – or rather, the absence of the rule of law in Jersey.

In recent days I have had the opportunity to read the letter written by the Deputy Police Chief David Warcup, dated 10th November 2008, and addressed to Chief Executive Bill Ogley. This letter was the trigger for the suspension of Police Chief Graham Power at an unscheduled meeting of the morning of the 12th November. At that meeting the Home Affairs Minister, Andrew Lewis, and the Chief Executive to the States of Jersey, Bill Ogley, confronted Mr. Power, and informed him of the existence of the letter. They made various un-evidenced assertions about the Warcup letter (which itself makes various assertions not supported by an objective analyses of evidence), told Mr Power that he was being suspended, but gave him an opportunity to “consider his position”. Although deeply shocked at these actions (as was clearly intended) Mr. Power nevertheless did not acquiesce to the intimidation and threats.

What we turn to now is a consideration of the legal questions and implications that arise from these events. When doing so, it is important to set aside partisan political considerations, such as whether one agrees or disagrees with the politics of people like Lewis or Frank Walker, the then Chief Minister who was also instrumental in the suspension of Mr. Power. Instead, we are considering the relevant issues simply from the perspective of the legal requirements – the standards and obligations upon any ‘public authority’ – and the legal environment, the requirements of the law – within which they operate.

All of the relevant ‘actors’ in these events – the relevant agencies – are legally classified as ‘public authorities’. Thus the Home Affairs Minister, the Chief Minister, the Chief Executive, the Chief of Police, and the Attorney General, are all public authorities. And as public authorities, each entity is bound by administrative law.

As a Minister, you are acting as a ‘public authority’ – and in that sense, you are not free to do whatever you may feel like. You – as the Office-holder – are bound by law to properly discharge the functions of that Office. Ministerial positions exist to serve the public good – in accordance with the law in the general sense, and the specific legal duties and powers held by individual Ministries. It is such legal requirements that bind governments to the rule of law, and protect us all from the tyranny of executive power exercised according to partisan political whim.

Any public authority, or ‘public body’, such as a Ministry, must obey the law.

Having been a Minister myself, I’m familiar with the burdens of Office – the legal obligations that come with exercising the powers conferred upon a ‘public body’. Some decisions are easy – some are very difficult; some decisions are of comparatively minor significance – some are of the most profound gravity. You, as the Minister, are therefore under a legal obligation to engage in the appropriate levels of research, advice, procedure and consideration, proportionate to the decision at hand.

In a small, quasi self-governing jurisdiction like Jersey decisions rarely come more serious and profound, than a decision to suspend the Police Chief.

And we must again remind ourselves that it is not two individual people we are considering here; it is two public authorities – each with their own distinct roles, duties and legal status. Thus a decision to suspend a Police Chief cannot even be likened to a decision to suspend a Chief Executive of a public department, as serious as such a decision might be. For in the case of the Police Chief, by suspending him – the Minister is suspending - effectively vetoing – those prominent criminal investigations initiated and carried forward under the leadership of that Police Chief.

The Minister is, in effect, making a political decision that could very well interpose itself directly into the questions of how ordinary people are to receive the protection of the law, which people are to receive such protection, and, indeed, if certain people are to be, de facto, protected from the law.

It will be obvious to any thinking person that a decision to suspend a Police Chief must meet the very highest possible standards of objectivity, evidence, due process, diligence, research and consideration. Such is the potential for the abusive interference in the very policing of the law – the very fabric of our society – that the most rigorous legal standards must apply to any such decision.

Because if such standards did not apply – then many ordinary powerless people – people who may be the victims of unlawful failures by government departments - or who may be victims of criminal acts by people closely allied to those in government – are in jeopardy of being denied the protections of the rule of law.

Denied those protections – if partisan politicians can bring about discriminatory, politicised policing – merely by removing an “inconvenient” Police Chief.

Which is – of course – exactly what Jersey’s political establishment did.

And so much documentary evidence for the manifest criminality of Jersey’s public authorities is now in the public domain that it takes an active determination to look away from it. Yet such is the festering and accusatory toxicity of it, some in Jersey and in London would sooner gaze upon Medusa.

The really horrifying thing, is that there is more to come.

Things you just couldn’t make up.

In the mean time, the letter from Deputy Police Chief Warcup, to Home Affairs Minister Andrew Lewis can be read here:

http://ricosorda.blogspot.com/2012/02/warcup-letter-operation-end-game.html

What does this piece of evidence – and other facts – tell us about the lawfulness – or otherwise – of the actions of Lewis in his capacity as Home Affairs Minister?

For the Minister’s – for any public authority’s decision to be lawful – the information that the decision is based upon must be accurate. It must be true in all reasonable and relevant respects. Information and advice being provided to any ‘public body’ such as a Minister must also be complete. It must not omit ‘relevant’ information, nor include ‘irrelevant’ information. Warcup’s letter fails all of those basic, established legal tests.

Therefore – on those grounds alone – the consequent decision of Lewis – of the Home Affairs Minister – was unlawful.

But it doesn’t stop there.

It is also very clearly established in the case-law concerning the standards of decision-making by public bodies, that the information, advice and guidance being provided to a public authority in order to inform a decision, must also be fair and balanced. If the information going to the public authority making the decision is unbalanced and biased – then any consequent decision of that authority is unlawful.

The manner in which Warcup presented information in the letter did not only fail to be balanced, in some innocent error – rather it was calculated and structured to generate and support a false and unlawful decision.

In fact – considering the material furnished to the Minister by Warcup and Ogley – and the nature of their conduct – the resultant decision of the Minister is unlawful – and thus vitiated – on most of the grounds established by judicial review: procedural unfairness, unreasonableness, errors of fact, proportionality, inconsistency etc.

But there are certain grounds of especial interest to us, upon which the actions of the Minister are unlawful. For example, ‘bad faith / improper motive’, ‘insufficient inquiry’, ‘frustrating the legislative purpose’ - and ‘abdication / fetter’.

One of the most striking and remarkable facts that arise from the letter and the consequent decision of Lewis, is the absence of anything even remotely approaching “sufficient inquiry”. Any Minister receiving information and advice that urged him down the path of any important decision, has a basic duty of care – and of competence and responsibility – to question that advice. And if the decision the Minister is being asked to make is especially unusual and dramatic – a decision of grave magnitude – then the basic responsibility to undertake “sufficient inquiry” is even greater.

It is nothing less than breathtaking that Lewis should have agreed to make a decision to suspend the Police Chief, on the basis of the un-evidenced assertions of Warcup – without so much as even requiring sight of the supposed ‘report’ Warcup was referring to.

Simply staggering.

Had I been a Home Affairs Minister who received a sudden letter of that nature – and it was being suggested to me by the author and the Chief Executive that the Chief of Police be suspended – the very first thing I would have done would have been to write to the Police Chief himself, forwarding to him Warcup’s letter, and asking for a written response. I would have also – simultaneously – required sight of the full report that Warcup was basing his assertions on.

The claim that has been made by Lewis, to the effect that he could not see the “Interim Met Report”, is wholly extraordinary. It is simply not true. Any public authority being asked to make a major decision is actually required – by law – to consider the relevant information that the decision is predicated upon. If the information does not form part of a ‘sufficient inquiry’ – then the decision is not lawful.

In fact, any Minister who was being asked to make such an extraordinary decision – but who was then refused access to the relevant information – would have to be stunningly incompetent not to immediately see that the decision he was being asked to make was unsafe – and almost certainly driven by improper motives.

Frankly, had I been Home Affairs Minister, and the approach of Warcup and Ogley been made to me in an effort to make me obstruct and remove the Police Chief – I would have sought the suspension of Warcup. The man’s actions were that strikingly unlawful.

It would take a deliberate effort not to see the actions of Warcup and Ogley as being driven by bad faith and improper motives.

If a public authority makes a decision – and that decision is contaminated by conflicts of interest, than the decision is unlawful. And it is important to understand what administrative law means by that; the person actually making the decision – a Minister – may be free of conflicts, and be acting in good faith – but if those who have been advising him, or furnishing him with information and guidance concerning the decision are conflicted, then the decision is unlawful.

Warcup claimed to be motivated by a concern for good policing. Just how credible was that claim?

I’ll answer that question below – with some information so extraordinary, you couldn’t make it up.

In the mean time, consider those other individuals that were informing and driving the decisions of Lewis – such as Attorney General William Bailhache, Chief Executive Bill Ogley and Chief Minister Frank Walker.

William Bailhache as Attorney General was the source of all legal “advice” provided to Jersey government departments – and had been for some years. That advice had been so crushingly and catastrophically defective as to have permitted several States of Jersey departments to be pursuing policies that were manifestly illegal. For example, policies that led to entire regimes of corporate child abuse by Jersey government departments.

He was also Jersey’s sole prosecuting authority – thus plainly giving a direct conflict of interests in wishing to minimise the scope and scale of all files for prosecution landing on his desk from the police. After all, just how problematic is it going to be – to have to consider bringing criminal charges against the same government departments that you have been defectively advising?

And how deeply problematic for William Bailhache – that one of the most powerfully suspected child abusers in Jersey’s civil service – a man the police were very eager to prosecute – happens to be a golfing friend of yours?

The conflict of interests becomes multiplied yet further, when it is noted that William Bailhache was the senior partner of the law firm Bailhache LaBesse – when that firm catastrophically failed a number of its young legal aid clients in 1998 – when those clients were abuse victims of the States of Jersey’s Blanche Pierre Group Home.

William Bailhache was the source of legal “advice” and direction – behind the actions of Ogley, Warcup and Lewis. On those grounds alone it is not possible for the decisions of Lewis to have been remotely lawful.

What then of the fact the Chief Executive, Bill Ogley, was playing such an instrumental and pro-active role in engineering the constructive dismissal of Police Chief Graham Power?

It was not lawful for Ogley to have been involved – at all – in any actions concerning Graham Power and the child abuse investigations. Ogley was in charge of the civil service that was in many ways the key focus of the police investigations. Indeed – so well-documented is the history of the criminal conduct of Jersey’s civil service in unlawfully concealing child abuse over the decades, that various formal criminal complaints had been made against various senior civil servants.

Amongst those suspected of acting criminally in terms of conspiring to pervert the course of justice and of committing misconduct in a public office were immediate friends and colleagues of Ogley – and Ogley himself.

In July 2007, Ogley had led a meeting of certain senior civil servants at which they were illegally conspiring to engineer my dismissal as Health & Social Services Minister because I had uncovered a range of very serious child protection failures. We know that that meeting occurred – because Graham Power was present, and Ogley attempted to involve him in that illegal conspiracy. The Police Chief made a contemporaneous file-note at Police Headquarters to record the facts.

Bill Ogley - in so many ways – epitomised the very despicable, self-protecting criminality that lies at the heart of so many decades of concealed child protection failure in Jersey. A highly paid, supposed professional – in fact betraying the vulnerable and the public interest, and lying, and acting criminally to protect himself and his colleagues from accountability and scrutiny.

The failure of a Home Affairs Minister to insulate and protect his formal decision-making process as a public authority from such toxic and starkly corrupt influence renders any decisions he made manifestly unlawful.

Then there is the well-documented role played by the then Chief Minister, Frank Walker.

Walker was instrumental in driving forward the conspiracy to have Police Chief Graham Power suspended. We know from evidence painstakingly gathered that the original claims by Lewis – to the effect he had no concerns about the performance of Graham Power until the 11th November - to be lies. People like Bailhache, Lewis, Ogley and Walker had been seeking to engineer the dismissal of Graham Power for months. The question then arises, was it in any way lawful, for the Chief Minister to have been influencing the decisions of the Home Affairs Minister?

And perhaps even more significantly – was it in any way lawful for a Chief Minister – Frank Walker – to have had any involvement of any kind at all – in any attempts to obstruct, sabotage or remove the Police Chief – when the police under the leadership of that Chief were pursuing a very serious criminal investigation against a close friend and business associate of Walker’s?

Any involvement – of any kind – by Frank Walker in any of the pressure, actions or decisions that led to the suspension of Graham Power – was unlawful.

And I don’t just mean unlawful in the civil sense of it rendering null and vitiated the actions of the Home Affairs Minister.

I mean illegal – in the criminal sense.

Here is a quote from the Judicial Review Handbook, from the section that deals with unlawful decisions of public authorities when the authority has ‘abdicated or fettered’ the power that is conferred exclusively upon it by law:

“Acting under dictation: A public body must not surrender its independent judgment to a third party. Nor must one public body bring about the surrender of another public body’s independent judgment.”

Andrew Lewis, in his capacity as Home Affairs Minister – failed that test; a test very powerfully established in the case-law.

Not only did he surrender and abdicate the independent judgment his Office should have exhibited – he surrendered it to other, directly conflicted, public bodies – and surrendered it to directly and starkly conflicted individuals – such as Bailhache, Ogley and Walker.

We are left with only the stark fact – that the public authority of Home Affairs Minister lost all contact with lawful conduct – and was instead adrift on a tide of conspiracy, illegality and perversion for improper purposes.

And if further proof were needed – further proof that the object of the exercise had been to sabotage effective policing by permitting direct interference in policing matters by non-police third-parties – let us ask the question how did things go after the unlawful coup against Graham Power?

I mentioned earlier some information that was so extraordinary, you couldn’t make it up.

The police ‘Gold Command Group’ established by David Warcup routinely involved in its meetings senior representatives from directly conflicted organisations – and directly conflicted individuals.

The actual police Gold Command Group was having regular meetings – at which it permitted non-police third-parties to influence and inform its decisions and strategies.

The organisations that Warcup had participating in these meetings actually included the Heath and Social Services department – and the Chief Minister’s department. Both public authorities that were subject to criminal complaints of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in respect of the child abuse cover-ups.

Not insane enough?

At certain of Warcup’s Gold Command Group meetings, the Health and Social Services department was actually represented by the Deputy Chief Executive of that department – and the Chief Minster’s department was represented by the Chief Executive, Bill Ogley.

Both men who were subject to formal criminal complaint of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and of misconduct in a public office.

David Warcup, with the backing and direction of William Bailhache and Frank Walker, provides the wholly defective and inadequate and dishonest letter for the purposes of engineering the suspension of Graham Power; that action is carried out by Bill Ogley and Andrew Lewis – and the public of Jersey, and the wider-world are told that it was necessary to improve policing in Jersey, which, supposedly, had been defective under Mr. Power because he and Lenny Harper did not establish a ‘Gold Command Group’ . Warcup has established a Gold Command Group – and with Graham Power off-the-scene, that Group proceeds to become heavily contaminated and perverted with the presence and influence of non-police third-parties – and directly conflicted organisations and individuals with an interest in sabotaging the proper investigation of all the child abuse issues. Just as Graham Power and Lenny Harper knew it would – which is why they didn’t establish one.

I posed a question at the beginning of this article, “what now?”

Where do we – where does Jersey – go from here?

Every one of our relevant public institutions is plainly and on the evidence, embroiled in a complete failure of even the most basic standards of good governance. An anarchic lawless imbroglio that far transcends Watergate in anti-democratic criminality. Ordinary people – the powerless and the vulnerable have been denied the protection of the law – denied it by Jersey’s government. We have an overtly corrupted prosecution system. A good and brave Police Chief gets illegally suspended. Prominent opposition politicians are then subject to police-state repression. We have a court system in which judges, including those recruited by the local syndicate from England, routinely make assertions not even compatible with basic logic, let alone case-law when considering cases that are embarrassing to their friends. Government departments that are under direct criminal suspicion have been allowed to have a seat in the very core of the Police Gold Group overseeing investigations into the actions of those same government departments. Senior civil servants under direct criminal complaint of having conspired to pervert the course of justice to conceal child protection failures sit around the table with the Police investigation team, and contribute to its strategy. Spin-doctors are given access to the witness statements by abuse survivors to write a report the government can then use to try and attack the integrity of the Police investigation. We have a wretched vast catalogue of plain and evidenced lies given by Ministers when answering questions in the Jersey parliament about these issues. And politicians are able to play a direct role in the removal of a Police Chief when the police under that Chief’s leadership are pursuing the most profound and serious of investigations into a close friend and business associate of those politicians.

Where, indeed, do we go from here?

As I wrote in a recent comment:

“Look across Western Europe - you will find no other jurisdiction or enclave as openly corrupt and stagnant in all its public institutions and authorities as Jersey.

Jersey is the “Picture of Dorian Grey” that the British Crown keeps hidden in the attic.”

How did that story end?

Stuart.

“A CORRUPT AND MALICIOUS ADMINISTRATION”.

2012-02-01T14:31:00.000Z

“Their malice is matched only by their stupidity and incompetence.”

Graham Power Produces a Commentary

On the Actions of Jersey’s Public Authorities:

Read the full document here:

http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.com/2012/02/former-police-chief-speaks-on.html

“I hope that this information is of assistance to those with an interest in these events. In particular I hope that they will be of value to the most important people in the whole affair, namely the survivors of the long running and systematic abuse of vulnerable children which was conducted in establishments run by the Jersey Government and which went unchallenged for decades.”

Former Police Chief Graham Power, Queens Police Medal.

In response to recent articles by Jersey’s independent journalists, the former Police Chief Graham Power agreed to explain the chronology and key facts involved in the illegal actions taken against him and survivors of child abuse, by Jersey’s public authorities. That full statement can be read here:

http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.com/2012/02/former-police-chief-speaks-on.html

I urge readers to go to the Voice For Children site, and read the full statement; it is clear, succinct and forensic in its deconstruction of events.

To give a flavour of it, I reproduce a few quotes, below.

Stuart

Excerpts from Graham Power Commentary 1st February 2012

“6: On 10th November 2008 the Chief Officer was off the Island attending to an urgent family welfare issue in the UK. The Deputy Chief Officer, David Warcup, wrote a letter to the Chief Executive to the Council of Ministers (Bill Ogley.) He said that he had that day received an “Interim Report” from the Met which documented their “Initial Findings.” He did not attach a copy of the Met report which he said was “restricted” due to the sensitivity of the information it contained. (Subsequent readers of the alleged “Interim Report” who have offered comment have not been able to identify any content in the report which justifies it being withheld by Mr Warcup, or which could not have been addressed by simple redaction. Those expressing this view include Brian Napier QC who was commissioned to review the matter and whose report is in the public domain. Mr Warcup resigned shortly before the publication of the Napier report.)”

“7: On 11th November 2008 the letter from David Warcup was considered by the then Minister for Home Affairs, Deputy Andrew Lewis. Mr Lewis was about to leave office. He had not stood for re-election in the 2008 Jersey elections which were reaching a conclusion around that time. It was the last, and perhaps only, significant issue he had to deal with during his short political career. In a subsequent statement to Wiltshire Police, prior to which he signed a legal declaration making the statement admissible as evidence in Court, Lewis claimed that he had no concerns regarding the Historic Abuse Enquiry until he received the letter from Warcup on 11th November 2008. The report by Brian Napier QC makes it clear that this part of his statement is untrue. Napier established that for some months Lewis had been meeting secretly with others, including the Chief Executive Bill Ogley and the then Chief Minister Frank Walker, in an effort to devise a means by which the Chief Officer of the Force could be suspended.”

“9: The Jersey Government quickly publicised its actions. The Chief Officers elderly mother learned of his suspension by means of a news item on her local TV station in Yorkshire. The Chief Officers daughter learned the news on her car radio in Sydney. With hindsight the Chief Officer now sees these actions as those of a corrupt and malicious administration resolved to trample over every rule of fairness and justice in an effort to break the spirit and resolve of an individual who is an obstacle to their plans and intentions. It did not work. What they in fact achieved was to initiate a long running and divisive controversy which is alive more than three years afterwards, and which in terms of reputational damage and cost exceeds anything which they may have been seeking to avoid. Their malice is matched only by their stupidity and incompetence.”

Graham Power, Queens Police Medal.

“A GRAVE MATTER”:

2012-01-26T23:45:00.000Z

A Criminal Enterprise.

Jersey’s Public Authorities – Exposed.

Read the latest damning revelations here:

http://ricosorda.blogspot.com/2012/01/matt-tapp-files-8-october-8th-hubris.html

Local independent journalist Rico Sorda continues, at the link above, his apocalyptic exposé of how Jersey’s corrupt mafia regime sabotaged the child abuse investigations and corruptly and criminally suspended an honest Police Chief.

In his article, Mr. Sorda says this:

“Between September 2008 and November 12th 2008 …….some of the Islands most senior figures were up to things that I don't even know are legal.”

Let me use my experience of Jersey’s public authorities to answer Mr. Sorda’s uncertainty.

The actions of the island’s most senior figures were not legal.

And I’m not referring merely to their actions being ultra vires, in some civil sense.

The actions of senior figures such as Bill Ogley, Frank Walker, William Bailhache, David Warcup, Andrew Lewis – and the rest of them – were criminal.

The actions of these people differ in no qualitative way from the actions of a set of gangsters, running various syndicates and protection-rackets.

And as they and their ilk are what has hitherto passed as “the law” in Jersey – then plainly the rule of law has collapsed in this Crown Dependency.

Certain inevitabilities flow – inescapably.

And as we await the arrival of the rule of law in Jersey, let us reflect upon just a few of the words of Graham Power, Queens Police Medal, from his latest statement – which should be read in full on Rico Sorda’s blog.

Stuart.

Quotes from a Statement by Graham Power, QPM; the full text and accompanying article can be read here:

http://ricosorda.blogspot.com/2012/01/matt-tapp-files-8-october-8th-hubris.html

“We know from the review and report by Brian Napier QC and other documents that the Minister never saw a Review report from the Metropolitan Police (although I understand that some States Members at the time believe that he may have indicated otherwise.) What the Minister saw was a letter from the then Deputy Chief Officer, David Warcup, which purported to summarise what the Met had to say. This exchange is well described in the Napier report and interested parties should read it in full. In brief Napier found that Mr Warcup's letter did not accurately reflect the content of the Review by the Met and in particular he did not convey to the Minister the caveats and reservations in the report which, according to the advice of the Solicitor General, would have rendered it unusable for suspension purposes. It is now clear from the Napier report and from other revelations that, contrary to whatever impression the former Minister may have given at the time, the only relevant document which he appeared to have seen when he implemented my suspension was the letter from Mr Warcup and the incomplete and selective summary of the Met Review which it contained. The day after Mr Warcup submitted his letter to the Minister he was promoted to Acting Chief Officer with a significant increase in salary and pension. A few days before the publication of the Napier report he resigned.”

And -

“Finally, there is one additional point which may be of value to those interested in the case. The Chief Officer of the Islands Police is not an employee of the States. He is in the words of the Islands Attorney General an "Officer of the Crown" who is sworn by the Royal Court to "Serve the Queen." The means by which the postholder can be suspended or removed are prescribed by law. It is not an employment process but a legal process which is subject to review by the Courts. The legal and constitutional implications of such an act are significant. If such a process was implemented or supported on the basis of evidence which was fabricated, amended, mis-represented or falsified in any way, or if any relevant evidence was wilfully destroyed, that would be a grave matter and ought to have significant implications for those involved.”

DAVID WARCUP:

2012-01-24T19:27:00.000Z

A Liar and a Crook

There was no "damning Interim Met Report".

The "document", as described - peddled - and used - by Jersey's public authorities to undermine the child abuse investigations - and suspend the Police Chief - did not exist.

The supposed "damning criticisms" - did not exist.

Chief Executive Bill Ogley, Attorney General William Bailhache, Chief Minster Frank Walker, Home Affairs Minister Andrew Lewis - and Deputy Police Chief David Warcup - all lied.

GO TO THIS LINK, AND READ THE EXPLANTION:

http://ricosorda.blogspot.com/2012/01/matt-tapp-files-7-operation-tuma.html

That all of Jersey's relevant public authorities should have engaged in such a criminal conspiracy to pervert justice - and deprive the vulnerable, weak and abused of proper and fearless protection, is such a startling collapse in the very rule of law, as to be without precedent in the modern, peacetime democratic world.

Another remarkable fact - and it is a tragic fact in so many ways - is that the necessary work to expose the rampant corruption of all aspects of public authority in Jersey, has had to be done by amateurs, by concerned good citizens.

Not one mainstream media in Jersey, not one traditional journalist - I repeat, not one single traditional journalist in Jersey - has even touched the task of examining the evidenced corruption of the very rule of law in the island.

Even though many of them have been - at various times during the last four years - handed evidence on a platter by me and other whistle-blowers.

There is no excuse - there is no hiding place.

And it is even worse than that.

The press-conference given by Warcup and Gradwell - and all of the attendant spin - that corrupt exercise, now exposed to have nothing but a pack of lies at its centre - was not merely passively reported by Jersey's failed mainstream media. The island's media were active participants - along with the Chief Minister's "Communications Unit" - in the development and build-up to those events.

Although most residents of this island will not know, or understand this fact yet - the community of Jersey has been fortunate, in that there were "a few good men" - who have stood firm, done the right thing, and have striven to defend justice and the rule of law. Men like Graham Power, Lenny Harper and Rico Sorda. I'm very proud to stand amongst such company.

Let the truth prevail.

Stuart

E-Mail by Stuart Syvret to David Warcup - 9th September 2009.

-----Original Message-----
From: Stuart Syvret
Sent: Wed 09/09/2009 11:04
To: David Warcup
Cc:
Subject: The Corrupt Conduct of David Warcup

Mr. Warcup.

I listened to the BBC Jersey radio news this morning, which - belatedly - was reporting the guest posting written by Mr. Lenny Harper, and published on my blog.

Mr. Harper, being the recently retired former Deputy Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police Force, and the man who led the historic child abuse investigation.

Mr. Harper wrote the blog posting in response to the concerted and co-ordinated attempts by Mick Gradwell, who has just retired from the SOJP, to rubbish the historic abuse investigation, undermine its credibility, attack the credibility and integrity of abuse survivors, and in doing so, assist the Jersey oligarchy in concealing the true and full extent of child abuse in Jersey.

Mr. Gradwell's comments were riddled with lies, distortions and misleading omissions. It was that catalogue of falsehoods to which Mr. Harper was responding.

What has prompted me to write to you was the astonishing comment attributed to you by BBC Jersey, which consisted of words to the effect that, "The arguments and personal disagreement between the two former officers of the SOJP – Mr. Harper and Mr. Gradwell - was nothing to do with you."

This was plainly a desperate attempt on your part to distance yourself from the controversy - as though it were, in fact, nothing to do with you.

Mr. Warcup - it is everything to do with you.

You and Mr. Gradwell have failed to secure prosecutions of a significant number of very well-evidenced child abusers.

In fact - it is worse than this; you and Mr. Gradwell pro-actively supported and worked with Attorney General William Bailhache in minimising the cases that came to court.

You - Mr. Warcup - are a pro-active member of the Jersey establishment's cover-up.

You have, for example, pro-actively supported and assisted in the concealing of the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice which was committed by senior civil servants and the then Council of Ministers, in engineering my dismissal as Health & Social Services Minister in 2007. That conspiracy was made a formal criminal complaint by me - against these demonstrable conspirators, who were striving to conceal the criminal conduct of the States of Jersey in respect of institutional child abuse.

You have failed to investigate the matter fully, no charges have been brought, you have refused to give me copies of my many formal statements given to the police - and you have failed to keep me - the complainant - informed of "progress".

You have also - in a further example - shown yourself to be content to carry on being employed by the SOJP - notwithstanding the evidenced, provable fact that the Chief Officer of the Education Department - Mario Lundy - is a very serious child abuser - having spent much of the 1980's - along with his predecessor, Tom McKeon - savagely battering and torturing vulnerable children in Jersey's child secure unit, which they used to run.

Are you proud of your "achievements" Mr. Warcup?

Are you content that Jersey's Education Department is led by a man who is a child-torturer?

That example - as you well-know - is but one of dozens of abusers who should have been brought to justice.

You and Mr. Gradwell have been content to assist the Jersey oligarchy in minimising the scope and scale of charges that should have been brought.

I think you need reminding of the infamous and notorious press-conference you gave - along with Mick Gradwell - in November 2008 - in which you issued a five-page press-release, which contained several demonstrable lies - and during which you both - both - set about doing all you could to rubbish the integrity and credibility of the prior two years of police work in conducting the investigation.

I repeat - you were then - and have been since - a pro-active participant in the Jersey oligarchy's cover-up.

It is - therefore - totally dishonest - and simply literally incredible - for you to attempt to now distance yourself from Mr. Gradwell's remarks.

Mr. Gradwell, in his extraordinary diatribes of lies and abuse directed at fellow officers, made reference, however inaccurately, to certain things being "unprecedented".

I will tell you what is unprecedented, Mr. Warcup, because I took the trouble to research the matter following your infamous press-conference.

It is unprecedented for two senior police officers, to come into a major police investigation, which had been on-going for two years - and then to call a press-conference for the express purpose of undermining, attacking, destroying the credibility of, and ruining the effectiveness of the previous two-years hard work.

The actions of you and Mick Gradwell were "without precedent" in British policing.

And let us recall another extraordinary feature of your actions. At that press-conference you publicly stated - to a national press presence - that you had destroyed certain evidence - because 'you' didn't consider it 'credible'.

Are you not aware - Mr. Warcup - that destroying evidence is a very serious criminal offence?

It is a criminal offence that you have committed.

Mr. Warcup - let me spell it out to you - as it apparently eludes you - you are in a situation in which you are leagues out of your depth.

You find yourself as a pro-active member of a criminal conspiracy to conceal child abuse and other crimes.

You may have imagined that selling your "integrity" to the Jersey establishment would be a safe option - given they control all power in Jersey.

You failed to take into account the gravity and magnitude of the situation - all of which will now be exposed fully - in microscopic detail - before the Commons Justice Committee - and in court in London during the civil action against the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw.

If there is any justice and decency in this world - you will - in the coming months - find yourself without the protections of the Jersey authorities - as they too will be held to account.

At the end of your career, Mr. Warcup - you are a criminal.

You have engaged in numerous conspiracies - with the Jersey authorities - to pervert the course of justice. You have also committed misconduct in a public office.

At least two-thirds of your officers despise you, and regard you as a component in the establishment's cover-up.

You have twisted and perverted your job as a senior police officer from what it should involve - enforcing the law, and protecting the weak and vulnerable - and turned it into a role in which you abuse your powers to protect powerful and influential criminals.

You - Mr. Warcup - are a bent cop.

You were a pro-active participant in the plainly unlawful, improper and Political suspension of the Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police Force, Graham Power. An exercise which is another example of a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

You have betrayed my vulnerable constituents.

You have betrayed many, many victims of child abuse.

You have shamed the office you hold and the good name of the police.

Mr. Warcup - you are a liar and a crook.

My constituents and I require your immediate resignation.

You are disgusting - and an utter disgrace to the uniform you wear.

Yours sincerely,

Senator Stuart Syvret.

States of Jersey.

READ THIS

2012-01-22T19:02:00.000Z

Dramatic investigative reporting from an independent journalist:

http://ricosorda.blogspot.com/2012/01/matt-tapp-files-6.html

All the more remarkable, in contrast with the deafening silence from Jersey's mainstream media - including the BBC.

Stuart

JERSEY FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMISSION.

2012-01-18T23:50:00.000Z

John Averty – and Jersey’s Politicians

On Monday 11th July, I published a posting titled, ‘MEDIA CORRUPTION: Politics, Police, Power’.

As so much of that article remains pertinent, I thought I’d re-post it.

In that posting I considered the unravelling of much of the hitherto un-acknowledged media corruption in the UK. The abuse of media power – its relationship with corrupt elements in the police – and the seethingly toxic influence over politics – finally being exposed, to an extent.

I also went on to consider just how much worse – far worse – the situation was in Jersey.

The island having only one “newspaper”, owned by the Guiton Group - the Chairman and Chief Executive of which is a former Senator - one John Averty.

It so happens that today – after a secret debate – the vast majority of Jersey politicians voted to re-appoint John Averty as the Deputy Chairman of Jersey’s Financial Services Commission.

Jersey politicians, of course, being well-placed to make an objective and fearless judgment – concerning THE boss – of Jersey’s ONLY “newspaper”.

Jersey’s Financial Services Commission is the regulatory body – the “reliability” and “probity” of which is supposed to convince the world that Jersey’s multi-billion dollar off-shore finance industry is ethically and objectively regulated and policed.

Overseas investors and clients of Jersey’s off-shore finance industry – and governments and regulatory agencies around the world – are expected to trust the Jersey Financial Services Commission; trust it to show zero-tolerance of unlawful actions, to have no truck with villains, and to ensure that anyone undertaking any finance related business activity in Jersey is capable of passing a “Fit and Proper Person Test”.

Good luck with that.

Stuart.

MEDIA CORRUPTION:

Politics, Police, Power.

In the world of British media and political power, questions always present, but not often addressed – like the unspoken disappointments and tense resentments in a bad marriage - are erupting with all the dignity of flung crockery bursting out of windows and paint-stripper poured over a spouse’s car as they flee to the home of their latest bad choice.

Can the severing of the bond – the divorce of two so symbiotically-linked playas, media and political power – be looming?

Don’t you believe it.

Not for one instant.

Managing – massaging – public opinion has always been central to the obtaining and holding of power – even back in the day when your spin only had to be a convincing enough shaman dance to persuade the rest of your tribe that going to club-in the heads of your rivals would please the gods and bring better hunting, or convincing your vassals through some faux-piety that running their swords through the yeomen of the neighbouring county was pleasing, even to God.

What chance, then, of shaping and mobilising that crucial commodity of public opinion in an age in which persuasion is your only tool, and political-correctness-gone-mad prevents your lieutenants from using the historical method for recruiting the men of a village, the simple expedient of burning down a couple of houses with the warning that this will be done to all of them (by the ‘enemy’, naturally) unless all stout fellows help you kill the neighbouring robber-baron so that you, instead, can gather the tithes from his peasants? Why, with God’s help and victory, back in those days, you may even not have to raise quite so much tribute from your vassals.

But no – in an age when it takes some kind of Churchillian effort at inspiration to make people set aside the pizza box and the four-pack of Stella to get off the couch long enough to register to vote, those who would wield power need – absolutely need – every scrap of publicity, persuasion, threats, lies, omissions, distortions, propaganda, funfair-barking, beguiling hucksterism and grifter hackery to be found, swarming around, out there – in the market-place of influence.

Politicians of all stripes, who are now fleeing the contagion of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp, are running, whimpering and tearful into the arms of the Guardian, the Telegraph, the BBC and Channel 4 News – seeking, there, a respectable relationship to replace the indentured whoredom into which they sold themselves – stripping, laying back – and thinking of the million votes that would be theirs once Mr. Murdoch – urges satisfied – clicked his fingers and delivered to them the approval of an audience conditioned into thinking there is something important - and newsworthy – in celebrities snorting coke, vicars shagging their congregations, and the waxing habits of lesbian soap-stars – edifyingly revealed through up-skirt camera shots.

Publicity, image, spin – call it “news”, if you will – is power.

Political party ‘A’, could be the biggest accretion of villains since FIFA – and political party ‘B’ could be decent, brave and competent. But if political party ‘A’ are in that mutually beneficial power-relationship with the media – then it is political party ‘A’ that you will vote for – along with most other people – and which will be elected. And if you protest ‘no’, you ‘have more discernment than that’ – then you do indeed posses the IQ of a Sun reader.

Political party ‘A’ will be depicted to you, and everyone else – week in and week out – as a marvellous, far-sighted organisation – comprised of paragons of virtue – and guaranteed to make the value of your home and your wages increase. By way of contrast, political party ‘B’ will be exhibited as a divided, chaotic, incompetent, “dangerous” shambles, which will wreck the economy if let anywhere near the reins of power. And, of course, should party ‘B’ look like getting close to winning an election, then the ‘dirt’ – kept in reserve as a kind of media-baron’s insurance policy – will be shovelled on a few prominent members; affairs here and there, the odd unsavoury acquaintance, a bit of election expenses fiddling, cheating at golf, that kind of thing.

The fact that senior figures in party ‘A’ have been taking massive bribes into BVI trust-funds from arms manufacturers, investing in the sale of crystal-meth in Utah, and paying rent-boys to tie them up and defecate on them – will not damage your opinion of party ‘A’ – because you will never get to know of such habits and practices.

At least, that is, for as long as party ‘A’ carries on remembering what is good for it – and the policies of government continue to suite the purposes of the media Bosses – and their advertisers. For should party ‘A’ get above its station, and start thinking that it is the real foundation of power in the country – its leaders will be made an offer they can’t refuse. One which will see their poll ratings sleeping with the fishes – quicker than you can say “back to basics”.

But the manoeuvres of the media need not be quite so outré, at least, not on a day-to-day basis. There is a whole armory of weapons to choose from – ranging from the minor and subtle – such as only giving three paragraphs on page 15 to the launch of your major policy initiative - all the way up to those photos of your party Chairman sniffing coke from the buttocks of a Bangkok lady-boy.

Fascinatingly, one of the things that makes the influence of modern media so powerful, is just how infrequently the hacks have to resort to lies. Although the thing that, occasionally, attracts a lot of attention – amongst the many tactics of the press, such as prominence – terms – omissions - pitching - framing - straightforward lies are the rarest and least of it. One of the most relevant truisms of media and PR, is that old reference to the “oxygen of publicity”. Fewer more effective ways exist of artificially shaping and rigging political dialogue, than simply giving no publicity at all, to people, arguments – evidence - that might cause the very ground to shift beneath the feet of the two “opposing” factions you have trained so well – as they go through their charade of “disagreement”, as obediently as performing dogs. When you have put so much time and effort into framing the issues in such a way that both political parties support the under-regulation of your business empire, and support policies that allow you to dodge hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate tax each year, one of the last things you want is a third party gaining prominence; one that points out the intellectual and ethical bankruptcy of the two dominant “opposing” parties and the reality of the stagnant consensus that exists between them.

For decades – centuries even – thus has been the power of those who get to control what people know – don’t know – and what they think. The opinion management industry has always been with us. It has always been the power-behind-the-throne. But – we live in interesting times. Suddenly – the traditional – often very great - mercantile transactional value between the errant sleaze-bag and the news-man – of withholding, or publishing ‘the dirt’ - has dropped faster than the credit-rating of Greece. That whole – ancient – trade in the commodity of what the public do – or do not – get to know, has been rendered redundant by the internet.

Just like every kind of threat to society the Daily Mail ever warned you about – citizens’ media has arrived – led by its Orchish vanguard, bloggers; surely the horsemen of the apocalypse - who will abolish the pound, give you cancer, hand over the Crown to Brussels and - quake in fear - bring down house-prices.

Now, of course there is an awful lot of crap out there, in the blogosphere, to be sure. Some of it deeply unpleasant and, not infrequently, barking mad. But can we have so little faith in the average reader, as to reckon them incapable of distinguishing between the reasonable, civilised and evidence-based – and on the other hand, tortuous meta-conspiracies involving shape-shifting space-alien lizards in league with Zionists who organised the world banking collapse in order to accelerate the Bilderberg group becoming the one world government – which, once achieved, would see Rupert Murdoch abandoning his disguise of the last eighty years, and resuming his natural appearance of a five-eyed crocodilian carpet-bagger from the region of Alpha Centauri?

Actually, thinking of the vast readership the News of the World had, I begin to wish I hadn’t posed that rhetorical question. Just as people get the government they deserve - so do people get the media they deserve. Let’s face it – the Jersey Evening Post remains in business – a journal openly and strenuously in support of the criminal concealment of child-abuse – so there can’t be much hope for society moving beyond its interest in nymphomaniac PAs and under-sexed gorillas any time soon.

One can’t help but wonder at what might be the substance behind the many dark hints of “worse to come” in the phone-hacking scandal?

What could be worse than giving a terrified family the impression their missing child was still alive, by deleting their frantic phone messages from her voicemail?

I confess my imagination does not go that far.

However – I can speculate as to what the London media world and the Westminster village might mean when they say “worse” to come.

What I suspect, is that it has been routine for certain media operations to access – by one illegal means or another – the private communications between members of the public and their elected representatives. We already know that certain cabinet ministers had their commutations hacked by News International. Let me suggest that if such things were possible – listening in to the messages of actual cabinet ministers - something – or some agency (bribed policemen perhaps) - a great deal more sophisticated than a mere guess at a factory-set pin of 0000 must have been involved.

The Independent newspaper has already described this scandal as “Britain’s Watergate”. It would indeed be that – worse – if News International has been routinely accessing – bugging – the private communications amongst and between members of a cabinet, their civil service advisers – and between MPs and their constituents. After all, as massive as it was, Watergate was one small band of crooks, albeit working for an incumbent President, burgling the offices of a rival political party. How much worse – a transnational corporation effectively illegally accessing and stealing the private data of an entire incumbent administration? The private communications between actual members of the legislature and their constituents?

My speculation could be wrong, of course, but if correct – or something similar – it would explain why Rebekah Brooks has not yet resigned or been sacked. Whatever her malodorous conduct, it would be unwise to conclude that she is anything other than a very clever and ruthless ‘operator’. It is entirely implausible that she did not know what was the origin of the stories the News of the World ran when she was in charge. Who, but a complete fool, could imagine the editor – with whom the buck stops – being handed dynamite and extraordinary stories – and not asking for the verification trail?

Why was someone like Tony Blair so desperate as to attempt to get labour MP Tom Watson reined-in when he was first going at the phone-hacking allegations?

Could it be that one of the real reasons – perhaps even THE real reason – why the first Met Police investigation was pulled prematurely and failed to get to the truth, is that Blair and his inner-circle were briefed as to the full scale of the crimes once that early investigation was underway, perhaps even by Brooks, and Murdoch himself – and that glimpse over the precipice – no-doubt made all the more terrifying by the inevitable ‘aces’ held by Murdoch – made the authorities run screaming from the scene of the crime, just wishing it all away?

No matter how irredeemable things have become, still Murdoch stands by Brooks – surprising, no, given that he has not hitherto been noted as the sentimental type, especially when it comes to his business interests? Brooks, of course, will have done nothing whilst in the pay of Murdoch, without making certain there was an “audit-trail” of authorisation – or, at least, knowledge – back to him or his son. After all, a girl’s got have an “insurance policy”. If Brooks goes down, she takes the Murdochs with her. So, naturally, they’re all in it together.

And if any man was to have accumulated enough “insurance policies” of his own – enough to enable him to defy the government and law and parliamentary democracy of an entire nation, that man is Rupert. Just imagine - what dirt he must have upon hundreds of important people - members of parliament, civil servants, police officers – and members of the judiciary, note? Such material is, no-doubt, spectacular. But it would fade into insignificance – compared to evidence that the previous British government knew of his hacking of members of parliament – and thousands of constituents, members of the public - and of the cabinet – and of Whitehall - but yet had the dogs called-off – because they were frightened of him – and what he knew about them.

Such a situation would represent nothing less than the breakdown of democracy and the rule of law.

Let me put it this way: given what we know - that which is already in the public domain – there is a prima facie case for the charging and prosecution of Rebekah Brooks, James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch. Should they not be charged – and the retribution be confined to some scapegoats like Andy Coulson and Les Hinton – it will be difficult to come to any conclusion other than that Murdoch did, indeed, achieve utter power over the British establishment and the institutions of state.

Would the British establishment - civil servants, politicians, police officers, judges – ever let things get so “out of hand” as to have Rebekah Brooks and Rupert Murdoch on trial? Perhaps they already have – but just aren’t aware of the implacable momentum yet.

But on the other hand, no matter how great the mutual hatred may sometimes be, history shows us that those in power quickly forget their differences, and close-ranks, when the threat they face is to the entire paradigm within which they operate. As they all stand to lose from this crises – we can be quite sure that all of the institutions involved – politicians, police, prosecutors, judges, media – will be doing all they can to find a way of damage-limiting the situation in a manifestation of the very culture that is now laid bare.

Some commentators suggest these events represent some epochal shift in the nature of the relationship between media power and politicians. Well, if that view is right, then we have indeed advanced beyond all lesson of human history. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Just as Murdoch has so cynically tried to use this crises as an opportunity – appearing remorseful and shutting the News of the World, but in the long-term, saving himself a considerable sum of money by expanding The Sun in to a seven-day operation to regain the market – so have politicians of all persuasions sought to make a virtue out of the necessary and unavoidable responses they must make; none of which – you can be quite sure – will leave them with any less of a direct access to the power of the media. Assuming Murdoch’s empire survives, politicians and their spin-doctors will be queuing-up to kiss the ring of the ‘new’, ‘improved’, ‘caring’, ‘sensitive’ re-branded News Corp oligarch – just as soon as the sacrificial heads on spikes have rotted away – and the public have re-discovered their taste for self-asphyxiating rock-stars and the varying ‘breast-jobs’ of social avatars. And, why – if the death-star does not survive – then the willing lips of the politicos will be slavering for the ring of whatever suzerain next replaces the old emperor.

Only the most despicable of shameless hypocrites and political shysters would use the wretched and disgusting spectacle of the deleting of desperate family messages left on the mobile phone of a murdered child, for no better purpose than the re-cementing and re-branding of an already dangerously exclusive relationship with corrupt, overly-powerful media interests, in which each party mutually re-enforces the position of the other.

Still – I suppose things could be worse; we could be seeing politicians and journalists who had been corruptly acting in-league to actually cover-up child abuse, band-wagoning on the tragedy of Milly Dowler’s family, for nothing better than the sick motivation of undermining child-abuse investigations. That – truly would be disgusting - beyond all remedy.

Jersey Senator Ben Shenton and the Jersey Evening Post contrived, last Friday, to produce a front-page lead article that managed to bare-back on the News of the World scandal, further attack the Haute de la Garenne investigation, smear the police, repeat as though fact demonstrated falsehoods, display another example of diversionary faux-anger at the investigation in order to keep people’s attention from the fact children were raped whilst under the “protection” of the States of Jersey – and to depict contact with national media (rather than exclusively the Jersey Evening Post) as ‘bad’ and ‘unhelpful’ to the victims.

But as we’ve been confronted with the toxic relationship between UK politicians and media power – who could wish for a more timely reason to take a look at the Jersey equivalent - a too powerful media empire – and the political whores who grovel in fear and abase themselves before the wretched organ, craving the favour granted to a few ‘chosen-ones’ such as the Shenton Clan; a regular supply of positive, prominent, yet vacuous stories, in which previously Dick Shenton – and now his son Ben Shenton could display their empty demagoguery to the mutual benefit of themselves and the Jersey media Bosses.

And in grim irony, the Shentons and the Guiton Group - and the contemptible role played by both in Jersey’s child protection failures – could not be a more fitting study of political power, media corruption – and the necessity of bloggers - and the shared imperative that traditional politicians and media have in denigrating and repressing internet journalists.

In yesterday’s Observer, Henry Porter writes, “over more than three decades, no one dared question the perversion of politics by and for Rupert Murdoch.”

The following is equally true, “for over more than ten decades, no one dared question the perversion of politics by and for the Guiton Group”. That is, no one until I came along. And if there were any doubt as to the true power of the Guiton Group, just look at what happened to me. For in Jersey, it isn’t only politicians who have a toxic relationship with the newspaper monopoly; Jersey’s sole prosecution service, the Law Officers’ Department – also has a very mutually beneficial “understanding” with the media Bosses. Just as do certain elements in the police force.

For several years now, oligarchs like Shenton and the local mainstream media have striven to put in place an artificial distinction – between what they term the “accredited” media – the cosy status quo favourable to them all - and that of citizen media – which is challenging – and beginning to break the power of the traditional media.

People like Shenton and certain other Jersey politicians have done all they can to prevent independent journalists, such as bloggers, from filming scrutiny panel hearings, whilst letting the local TV station, who they are almost as in thrall to as the newspaper – film at will. Likewise, the local oligarchy politicians - and the Jersey Evening Post - never miss an opportunity to disparage political social media.

The spin – the lie – inherent in such depictions, is that the “accredited” Jersey media – basically, the corrupted power-source of the entrenched local oligarchy – are ‘reliable’, ‘honest’, ‘accurate’ and ‘fair’ – and, by way of contrast, bloggers are unreliable, nasty, dishonest – and a threat to society every bit as bad as some kind of cross between Stalin, an EU Commissioner and the German football team’s goalkeeper.

But – oh dear.

When we compare and contrast the two competing media – Jersey bloggers vs. the Jersey Evening Post – the comparison is as that between the Guardian - and the Sunday Sport.

In fact, that is unkind to the Sunday Sport; B52 bombers found crashed on the moon – and double-decker buses found at the south-pole – were altogether more responsible uses of print-media, than the conduct – when it mattered – of Jersey’s only “newspaper”.

The island’s independent web-based journalists have published article after article of informed, incisive reportage – backed-up with page after page of published, documentary evidence; clearly a disreputable enterprise supported by such obvious anarcho-commie fellow-travellers as the former Chief Constable, and the Deputy Chief Constable of the Jersey Police Force.

Perhaps there just were not enough column-inches in Friday’s JEP to include such incidental information, as the fact the two senior Police Officers have produced several affidavits concerning the true nature of law-enforcement and power in Jersey?

Maybe the editorial judgment was that the readership would have just been - so – incredibly - bored – by learning that over many years – decades, in fact – survivors of child abuse – and other victims - and whistleblowers – had gone in desperation with their stories to the Jersey Evening Post, Jersey’s only “newspaper” - only to be dismissed and ignored?

Perhaps, the JEP’s condemnation of the News of the World – and the imperatives of their local advertisers, just didn’t leave enough page-space - to mention the stacks of apocalyptic documentary evidence of child abuse cover-ups, handed to the paper, by me – and which they contrived to ignore?

Entirely.

Who knows, it could be that the very busy journalist – just did not have time – to include in his article - the fact that Ben Shenton was handed, by me, detailed evidence of the criminal concealment of child abuse by Jersey Health & Social Services senior civil servants when he became Minister, after me – and which he and his Assistant Minster, Jimmy Perchard then proceeded to ignore?

Possibly – the entire archiving-system of the Jersey Evening Post, crashed – thus preventing its journalists from accessing – and reporting – the stark fact that Ben Shenton’s father – former Senator Dick Shenton – was the President of the old ‘Defence Committee’ – the political body in charge of policing in Jersey – back in the day when Jersey’s police force was under overt political control – and decisions were made to not fully investigate many cases of child abuse?

It can only have been forgetfulness – surely – that prevented the paper from asking Senator Ben Shenton just how he reconciled all of the obvious – stark – familial conflicts of interest – with his continuing rabid hostility to properly investigating Jersey’s evidenced decades of child protection failure?

Only a cynic, surely – could possibly speculate as to just what “old-school” connections there may be – between Guiton Group Boss – former Senator John Averty – and dominant political demagogue, former Senator Dick Shenton?

The man who - for years and years – exercised political control over policing in Jersey.

The man who tried to say to former Deputy Police Chief Lenny Harper, “a little bit of corruption never did any harm.”

The man who would have had many – many – profoundly serious questions to answer, had the “traditional” approach to policing in Jersey been exposed and held to account, as Graham Power and Lenny Harper dutifully attempted.

So, although the Jersey Evening Post - the island’s only “newspaper”, doesn’t quite go in for the bonking vicars and kiss-n-tell roastees, familiars of Premiership football-players – it does – for all of its Daily Mailesque “respectability” wallow in a gutter of filth and ethical turpitude at least as foul as UK tabloids – at their very worst.

Put it this way – the News of the World doomed itself through an atrocious violation of the family of a murdered child. But at least it could be said of the News of the World, in mitigation, they were rigorous in their exposure of child-abusers; in that sense, they were ‘on the right side’.

By way of contrast – a shattered and wrecked survivor of child abuse, one of my constituents who telephoned me in early 2008, and recounted how, when a child, they had been stripped, save for a T-shirt, and then leered at through the glass of a small window in a basement cell of the Haute de le Garenne complex by one of their attackers who said to them, “will I do you now, or later? Nah – later” – spoke to the Jersey Evening Post a few years later – and were ignored.

That attacker remains working in a senior Health & Social Services post – where they have access to vulnerable people.

The female survivor – aged 12 at the time - was raped by him.

That concealment – is but one example of the corrupt failure of the Jersey Evening Post, its parent company, the Guiton Group – and its shareholders.

Yet – so far – they have been immune from the just consequences of such crimes; immune for over a century; immune - just like they were, for profitably peddling Nazi propaganda during the occupation in WWII.

But – when even the mightiest weapon of the most powerful Gods – the News of the World – can strike down the very titan who wielded it – shattering itself in a final blow upon its master – for just how much longer can the Guiton Group – and its boss, John Averty – and the Jersey Evening Post – and their oligarch clients - escape a similar reckoning?

All those decades – all those lies, omissions, distortions – the transactions with bent police officers – the corrupt relationship with a client group of privileged oligarchy politicians – the pork-barrel-politics of tax-payers' money flooding to Guiton Group shareholders – the damning public-interest stories not reported - the blind-eye turned to the crimes of the powerful – certain fatal car-crash drivers not named - the de facto blackmail – the exercise of the real, political power, by a private, self-interested business, to the detriment of the broad good of the community – is it really sustainable?

Sadly, it may well be – given the historic relationship between politicians, and the media-men who decide their destiny. Unless, that is, Jersey’s bloggers can persevere, and be unto the Jersey Evening Post, what 'The Guardian’ was to the malignancy that was the News of the World.

You may think that you – voting members of the public – determine the political destiny of this community – but you don’t. Jersey’s media Bosses have already decided the outcome of the forthcoming general election in the island.

As a commentator said on one of the national TV news programs this past week when discussing News Corp, “today’s media is little more than a legalised protection-racket.”

Indeed.

Though I’m not sure we could use the word ‘legalised’ any more.

Stuart.

STEPHEN LAWRENCE AND THE DAILY MAIL

2012-01-03T22:43:00.001Z

The Long Struggle Against Murderers

When the System has Failed.

“It was about 8 o'clock. I reached for a layout pad. This was in the days before on-screen make-up and I literally wrote down with a thick pencil the words "Murderers" and underneath it the sub-deck: "The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us".

“After about five minutes on my own, I walked back onto the floor. The 'Murderers' page was made up with an alternative front page next to it. The mood was electric. 'Let's go,' I said. 'You can always come and visit me in jail…'”

Paul Dacre, Editor, Daily Mail.

It shouldn’t be this way – but sometimes it takes courage – and long, long fight – to bring the worst of criminals to justice.

When I first entered Jersey politics, as a genuinely motivated young man of 25, I knew the Jersey polity was, essentially, a corrupt and stagnant crypto-feudal oligarchy – so I never expected things to be easy. But even I never expected that fighting for the public interest would cause me to have to become Jersey’s first political prisoner since the Nazi’s were overthrown.

I’ve just been released from Jersey’s prison after two months – convicted and sentenced for supposedly breaking the data protection law and “contempt of court”; charges brought by an overtly corrupt and politicised prosecution system and upheld by courts, the judges in which are friends and colleagues of those parties whose failures and malfeasances I have exposed.

The political oppression I have had to endure will continue – I fully expect to be subjected to further charges - and jailed again, probably repeatedly until I have been finally driven into exile from Jersey permanently.

Although – as is now evidenced – there were many unofficial reasons for the illegal massed police raid and search conducted without a search-warrant – it is an auspicious occasion upon which to remember the “official” reason for the political repression.

I say auspicious because today has finally seen the conviction of two of the murderers of Stephen Lawrence – eighteen long years since that crime.

And in no small measure, the convictions have happened because of the Daily Mail and its Editor, Paul Dacre. The unstinting campaign of the paper included its world-famous and brave headline of February 1997, which – over photographs of the five men – said, “Murderers: the Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us.”

The cowards didn’t sue, of course – knowing perfectly well that the Mail would have had no difficulty in showing to a jury of decent people that, on the balance of probabilities, they murdered Stephen Lawrence.

Nevertheless, the stance of the Daily Mail, which is not, I confess, a paper I find myself agreeing with often, exhibited tremendous courage and ethical clarity. Mr. Dacre could very easily have ended up in prison for contempt of court.

The forensic breakthroughs, and changes in law that have finally seen justice done would not have happened, had the case not been pursued so implacably by the Mail.

As a part of my journalistic and political work – and in accordance with my public duty – I made a public-interest exposure of the case of a rogue nurse who the Jersey authorities had very compelling grounds for suspecting of clinical mass-murder. But rather than investigating the case properly back then, the plug was pulled on the 1999 investigation as a result of police incompetence – and more significantly, a politicised decision of Jersey’s then Attorney General, Michael Birt, to bury the case so as to protect Jersey’s public authorities from an immense controversy and scandal.

I named the male nurse in question – and in doing so, I made the public-interest judgment that he may well sue me for defamation – but I was confident of winning the case; and even if I didn’t, the public good required he be exposed in any event. And what made public exposure even more important, was the profoundly disturbing failures by Jersey’s authorities in the case.

What happened is that the individual in question did not sue me; he had no need to – as Jersey’s authorities – desperate to cover-up their failures and malfeasances in the case – decided they would silence me on his behalf. So it was that I was prosecuted for supposedly breaking the data protection law – even though the law in question explicitly permits public interest disclosures.

Throughout the malicious prosecution conducted against me, a variety of abuses of process have occurred; for example, conflicted judges, the prosecution refusing to disclose evidence that was necessary to the defense, judges deeming the entire defense case “inadmissible” just as soon as it became clear the prosecution had no answer to it, the prosecuting lawyer repeatedly and evidencedly lying throughout the proceedings, key evidence being dishonestly withheld from the defense such as the 94 page statement by former Police Chief Graham Power – and the existence of a vital witness being withheld from the knowledge of the defense.

I am devoting most of this posting to the statement made today by Paul Dacre, which is reproduced in full below.

In respect of my case, I will just explain one simple point.

By happenstance, the vital witness I referred to above – one of many patients of the nurse I exposed - became known to me after the prosecution and subsequent appeal. I advised them to go to the police and give a formal statement of their concerns, which they did, in October 2011.

Having taken this statement, the police commissioned an independent clinical expert to review the patient’s notes.

I too, at a far earlier stage, had also asked a doctor to be my expert witness and write detailed reports based upon an analysis of the police evidence from 1999. The general thrust of the reports of this expert was that not only could foul play not be ruled out, but that there were also very compelling evidential grounds for concluding that the 1999 investigation into the rogue nurse had been both incompetent and had been halted prematurely. My expert witness and I spent three months working on my defense case, with the full knowledge and agreement of the prosecution and the court. My defense expert witness submitted his reports to the court and prosecution.

Three days later, the prosecution and the magistrate suddenly decided that none of the expert’s reports and supporting evidence would be “admissible” any more.

They simply had no answer to them; the prosecution case had collapsed.

So, what did the new expert clinician, very recently commissioned by the police, conclude in his detailed examination of the concealed witness’s patient notes?

“In my view on the basis of the medical records seen, the most likely cause of the ------- ------- ------ was ----- ---- ----- complicated by rapid-onset ------- -------. This may well have occurred as a result of pathophysiological mechanisms. However, the management of the ---------- was far from straightforward and the possibility of foul play could not be completely ruled out.”

And that is just one patient – amongst dozens and dozens and dozens – where foul play might have occurred.

I did attempt - whilst I was in prison – to make a strong appeal on the basis of this dramatic new evidence – and other, equally dramatic evidence that had also been improperly concealed from me, such as the 94 page statement prepared by former Police Chief Graham Power. I was given less than 24 hours notice of the court hearing – and was driven down to the court in hand-shackles the next morning. Obviously, I had had nothing like adequate time or facilities to prepare this application.

The case was heard by Christopher Pitchers – an English judge who had – late into the earlier proceedings, eventually been forced to admit that he had had dinner with Michael Birt – the former Attorney General whose failure I had exposed – and William Bailhache, the Attorney General who had ordered the illegal massed raid and subsequent prosecution against me.

Christopher Pitchers was effectively sitting as an appellate court judge, on his own judgment. Having already decided to support the prosecuting lawyer even though he had confessed to repeated lying during earlier hearings – and having already determined that, as far has he was concerned the justification of exposing the rogue nurse was “inadmissible” – it was no great surprise that this appeal was also thrown out.

I and my London advisers are looking forward, with great fascination, to the written judgment.

Meanwhile – the campaign - the campaign for effective and functioning justice – and the safe and strong protection of the public from dangerous criminals and a defective law enforcement apparatus continues.

It took fifteen years for Doreen and Neville Lawrence and the Daily Mail to secure justice and the public good, in the face of an intransigent and stagnant system.

Eventually, we in Jersey will also win our battle.

No retreat – no surrender.

Stuart.

Taken from the Daily Mail, Tuesday 3^rd January, 2012.

“For 15 years, the Daily Mail has led a remarkable campaign for justice for Stephen Lawrence.

Starting with the February 1997 front page which named Stephen’s killers, this newspaper has broken a series of stunning exclusive stories on the case.

This has included chronicling the moves to reform double jeopardy laws to allow his killers to stand trial again, the setting up of the public inquiry, the scandal of how bungling police officers escaped sanction, the key findings of the Macpherson report, the Yard’s decision to close the case in 2004 and the sensational forensic breakthrough in the case four years ago which paved the way for the new prosecution.”

PAUL DACRE'S STATEMENT IN FULL

“This is a glorious day for Neville and Doreen Lawrence who after all the betrayals, injustice and tears have finally, after nearly two decades, secured justice for Stephen.

It's a glorious day for the police, who – after the utter disgrace that was the original investigation – have through sheer bloody perseverance and brilliant detective work wiped out this blot on the Yard's history and shown that British policing at its best is still something to be proud of.

It's a glorious day for British justice which shows that, while mistakes can be made, our judicial system does provide redress for every member of British society whatever their racial background.

It's a glorious day for the politicians – particularly Jack Straw and David Blunkett – who, responding to the Mail's campaign, commissioned the MacPherson Inquiry and reformed the centuries-old double jeopardy law – thus allowing the trial of two of the original suspects after a criminal action, a private prosecution and an inquest had failed to secure justice for Stephen.

And finally, it's a glorious day for British newspapers, proving that the power of journalism, courageous headlines and relentless campaigning can act as a huge force for good in society and make a major difference to countless lives.

Quite simply, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that if it hadn't been for the Mail's headline in 1997 – "Murderers: The Mail accuses these men of killing" – and our years of campaigning, none of this would have happened.

Britain's police might not have undergone the huge internal reform that was so necessary. Race relations might not have taken the significant step forward that they have. And an 18-year-old A-Level student who dreamed of being an architect would have been denied justice.

The Daily Mail took a monumental risk with that headline. In many ways, it was an outrageous, unprecedented step. But I'd like to think that as a result we did a huge amount of good and made a little bit of history that day.

In truth, however, I think that headline had almost subconsciously been brewing in my mind for some time because there had been a sense of rage building up in the Mail's conferences over the sheer injustice of the Lawrence case.

Our crime reporters, who had spent months investigating the case and had a huge dossier on the suspects, were absolutely convinced of their guilt.

By sheer chance earlier in the week of the inquest, I'd had lunch with one of the Yard's most senior police officers who said words to the effect that he'd stake his life on their guilt.

Four of the five, you will recall, had refused to provide alibis. The fifth had, but it didn't stand up.

The suspects had been given every chance to disprove the charges against them but had refused every opportunity to do so.

For me, the most sickening thing was the arrogant contempt of the suspects in refusing to answer any questions at the inquest, citing their legal right to silence.

But it was the devastating report on that night's TV news that the coroner's jury had taken just thirty minutes to decide unanimously that Stephen had been unlawfully killed – the victim of a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths – that was the catalyst.

It was about 8 o'clock. I reached for a layout pad. This was in the days before on-screen make-up and I literally wrote down with a thick pencil the words "Murderers" and underneath it the sub-deck: "The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us".

After about five minutes on my own, I walked back onto the floor. The 'Murderers' page was made up with an alternative front page next to it. The mood was electric. 'Let's go,' I said. 'You can always come and visit me in jail…'

I showed it to the senior sub-editors. There was a kind of nervous laughter but then contempt of court is drilled into every newspaper executive's thinking. And this was contempt of a cosmic order.

They obviously thought I was mad. Someone muttered libel and I remember snapping – "The bastards haven't got any reputation to lose".

It was now that Eddie Young, the Mail's lawyer and one of the shrewdest men I've ever met, became involved. To his eternal credit, he was unfazed by the headline.

He reinforced my feeling that the five had very little reputation to defend as is required in a libel case. Some had records and came from notorious criminal families with long histories of appalling violence.

Yes, if it went to court, the Mail would have to establish that the men murdered Stephen Lawrence, but since it would be a civil case, we would only have to prove that it was probable that they had done so, which we were confident could be done.

I, Eddie and my deputy retired to my room to rehearse the arguments. The mood, surprisingly, was very calm. Clearly, there were many powerful reasons against the headline. But there wasn't one over-riding reason NOT to do it.

The paper was due off at 9.45 pm, and by now it was 9.30 pm – the loneliest time of the day for any editor when only one man can make a decision. Of course, I was desperately aware of the enormousness of what was being proposed. It's not up to newspapers to accuse people of murder or act as judge and jury.

But if the suspects did sue, we would achieve what British justice had failed to do – get Stephen's alleged killers into a court to answer questions.

After about five minutes on my own, I walked back onto the floor. The "Murderers" page was made up with an alternative front page next to it. The mood was electric. "Let's go," I said. "You can always come and visit me in jail…"

I went home and rang my wife to tell her what I'd done and how dangerous the men concerned were. As always, she totally backed me.

That night I took a sleeping pill. Despite it, I woke up at four o'clock in the morning – the time when all the decisions of the previous day suddenly assume terrifying proportions. I was drenched in sweat and convinced my career was over.

Next morning, the proverbial hit the fan. The whole media went into meltdown. TV carried our front pages but with the suspects' pictures pixelated.

The Telegraph declared I should be jailed and carried a cartoon of me flicking ink at the Old Bailey's scales of justice. For days, the story dominated the TV and radio news shows and even made international headlines.

The former Master of the Rolls, Lord Donaldson, pronounced his surprise and horror at the front page and accused me of contempt of court.

But other distinguished lawyers supported us, as did Doreen Lawrence who said the front page was "wonderful". Her local MP, Peter Bottomley, and Frances Lawrence, the widow of murdered headmaster; Philip Lawrence, also weighed in on our side.

But perhaps the thing that thrilled me most was the intervention of a hero of mine, Britain's greatest judge, Lord Denning, who congratulated the Mail on "a marvelous piece of journalism", adding "it was a brave and courageous thing for the Mail to do".

That week we published, for the first time, the devastating pictures and dialogue from a secretly filmed police video of the suspects which horrifically revealed their racism, violence and use of knives. These had never been published before because of legal restraints.

Three days later, the Prime Minister, John Major, backed the Mail. And on March 6th the fax machine in the room outside my office came to life with a letter from the Attorney General saying he had decided, after Lord Donaldson's intervention, that there were no contempt of court implications for the Mail.

But the most heart-warming thing about those few days was the reaction of the Mail's readers. For days, our phones went into meltdown with their calls and, God bless them, there was not one dissenting voice. To the last one, they supported us.

It was, I believe, a highly significant moment – the first time that many people in Britain realised that black readers were as important to the Mail as white ones.

Of course, that headline, while hugely significant, was only the first step. For the next few months, our campaign moved into overdrive. In June, the Home Secretary, Jack Straw ordered a judicial inquiry into the Lawrence case to be conducted by Sir William Macpherson. Jack, whom I'd known at university, told me that it was the Mail's coverage that persuaded him of the necessity of this move.

In September 1997, we carried a major story saying that senior officers were desperate for new laws to allow the suspects to be re-tried for Stephen's murder.

In December, we reported that the police watch dog had found conclusive evidence of appalling errors by detectives which had allowed Stephen's killers to escape justice.

In July the next year, we disclosed a jury-nobbling scandal involving one of the suspects, David Norris, when he was controversially acquitted of attempting to murder another man.

In December, we revealed that a draft copy of the Macpherson report declared that the Lawrence murder probe was hampered by racism across virtually all ranks – the first indication of the devastating conclusion of institutional racism which would be unveiled in his final report.

In January 1999, in another front page exclusive, we revealed how not a single police officer would be disciplined over the botched investigation.

The following day under the heading "The Untouchables" we named and shamed the officers who'd been responsible for the shambles and revealed how urgent reforms of police disciplinary rules were being demanded by the police watch dog.

Throughout the Mail campaign, we highlighted the need for the double jeopardy law – which prevented an individual being charged with the same crime twice – to be reformed. Such a change would allow Stephen's suspected killers – who had been charged in the family's private prosecution – to stand trial again if new evidence emerged.

The 800-year-old law was finally reformed in 2005 by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, a man whom I'd come to like and respect. Many senior police officers and prosecution officials believed that this momentous change would not have occurred but for the relentlessness of the Mail's campaign.

I always tell people who ask that the secret to editing is to be both bold and cautious. It's knowing when to be which that's the problem. That day in February 1997 I think we were bold in a way that the Mail can always be proud of.”

Paul Dacre, Editor, Daily Mail

A Public Hearing:

2011-10-27T19:34:00.001+01:00

Graham Power;

Stuart Syvret;

Giving Evidence to the Sub-Panel:

Friday, 28^th October, 11.00 a.m, the States building.

Some months ago, a Jersey parliamentary committee was established to examine how a major accountancy firm, BDO Alto, came to be engaged to “review” the financial management of the historic child abuse investigation in Jersey, but then undertook this “review” without interviewing – at all – the key, centrally involved person, former Senior Investigating Officer Lenny Harper.

The Sub-Panel is also examining a number of closely related issues – not least the nature of that “review” -and how it, and its subsequent presentation, was used by certain media outlets to falsely undermine the child abuse investigation and to attack its integrity.

That Sub-Panel will be hearing evidence - in public - from two witnesses, this Friday, 28^thOctober, from 11.00 a.m, in the Blampied Room of the States building.

Those two witnesses are Graham Power, and me.

Mr. Power is giving evidence from 11.00 a.m, via live-link, and I will be giving evidence in person, once the Panel have concluded hearing Mr. Power.

These are the terms of reference of the Scrutiny Sub-Panel:

· To examine the instructions under which BDO Alto was engaged to review the financial management of Operation Rectangle and their methods for gathering evidence for this review;

· To clarify the connection between the BDO Alto review and the review on the same matter separately commissioned by the Acting Chief Officer of Police;

· To identify the reasons why the Senior Investigating Officer for Operation Rectangle was not interviewed by BDO Alto and was not given the opportunity to respond to the report’s findings;

· To clarify the liaison between BDO Alto and the Wiltshire Police, in particular the references in the BDO Alto report to the Senior Investigating Officer’s statements to Wiltshire Police;

· To investigate how details of the review into the financial management of Operation Rectangle came to be published in a national newspaper in October 2009; and

· To consider the implications of the Sub Panel’s findings.

Regular readers will be aware that former Police Chief Officer, Graham Power, Queens Police Medal, produced a 94 page statement as a submission to the Wiltshire police inquiry. Certain parts of that document are of direct and very significant relevance to the work of the Sub-Panel – and I imagine that evidence, and the issues that arise, will be the focus of the public hearing this Friday.

Certainly – for my part, being in possession of a copy of the report, I can say now there are a number of matters I will be addressing, that fall foursquare within the Sub-Panel’s terms of reference - and which are supported by the evidence of the document.

Additionally, there are other matters in my knowledge, which will form a part of my live evidence to the Sub-Panel.

This will be the Sub-Panel’s final live, evidential hearing before it concludes its report.

As the hearing is open to members of the public, I recommend attendance if you have time.

It promises to be most interesting.

Stuart

BRITISH “JUSTICE”:

2011-10-26T02:16:00.012+01:00

How the “Law” Really “Works”

In the Hands of the British Establishment.

I’m publishing four items of evidence below.

I’m not even going to bother explaining them in detail.

For any thinking person who reads the material below – the picture should fall into view; no further explanation necessary.

Couldn’t make it up.

Stuart.

1: A quote from the speech made by Sir Phillip Bailhache, when swearing-in to Office as magistrate, Bridget Shaw on the 2^nd July 2008. The “senior politician” he was referring to in such a prejudicial manner was me.

“Mrs Shaw, you take up your post at a time when the judiciary and those in public office in the Island are, for better or for worse, under greater scrutiny than has been the case for some time. No-one can object, of course, to holding individual members of the judiciary to account for their judicial conduct or indeed for their conduct outside the court room. Indeed you have become, by virtue of your office, a member of the Jersey Judicial Association which last year adopted a Code of Ethics and Conduct setting out quite clearly what is expected of judges and magistrates in this Island. But wholesale attacks upon the judiciary and suggestions that they are collectively incapable of dealing with any outcomes of the current child abuse inquiry are ignorant and unwelcome, and I deplore them. Senior politicians, should know better than to attempt to subvert public confidence in our judicial institutions in pursuit of a personal agenda.” [emphasis added]

2: Two paragraphs extracted from the 94 page statement made to the Wiltshire police force by Graham Power, Queens Police Medal, the then Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police Force. The Stephen Baker referred to is the same Crown Advocate Stephen Baker who is paid with tax-payers money by William Bailhache and Tim Le Cocq to prosecute me, the then politician who led on exposing the child-abuse cover-ups:

208. It might be useful to offer some comment on the role of Stephen Baker. Mr Baker is a highly regarded lawyer who is experienced in working with the police. He is liked and respected by police officers. From his evidence the impression may have been given that he was a lawyer dedicated to Rectangle whose efforts at engagement were frustrated. This is not entirely the case. He is a busy criminal lawyer with a heavy and varied workload. I see from the disclosure documents he was first appointed to the case in late January and had some involvement in issues around the charging of the accused Wateridge. I will return to that matter in more detail a little later in this statement. The point I wish to make at this time, is that in the period which followed his appointment the force was having exchanges with Mr Baker of an entirely different nature. He was at that time representing a man called Curtis Warren who had a few years previously, been described as the U.K.'s leading criminal. Warren was in custody locally, having been arrested in Jersey following a covert operation by the force. Warren, who at one time appeared in the Sunday Times Rich List, was reported to have substantial criminal wealth, which he had successfully hidden from the various agencies which had sought its recovery. This led to an interesting exchange of correspondence between David Minty and Stephen Baker. David asked if Baker was being paid for his services, and if he was, whether he proposed to make a disclosure to the financial crime unit. I think that this was eventually resolved in favour of Baker, who successfully argued that he did not have to do so.

*******

214. The core of the story is that Wateridge was in the process of being charged, when Stephen Baker attempted to intervene but apparently was too late to change matters. My notebook for that day records that in my briefing from Mr Harper I was told that there had been an "issue regarding charging. JJ (Notebook 07/358 page 68.) Stephen Baker's intervention came at a time about which he states "At that stage I knew nothing about the cases. JJ (Statement of Stephen Baker paragraph 7.) He had clearly been retained by the Attorney General to work on the abuse enquiry. He knew that, and obviously the Attorney General knew that.

3: A quote from the Jersey Evening Post of the 13^th October 2011, in which the paper reported my appearance on the 12^th October, before magistrate Bridget Shaw. The quote – from Jersey’s only “newspaper” - should be borne in mind, and contrasted with the facts as evidenced in the actual transcript, published further below:

"Throughout yesterday's 70 minute hearing the 45 year old repeatedly interrupted the magistrate or spoke over her as she repeatedly asked him to be concise and relevant with his argument."

4: The actual transcript from the appearance before Bridget Shaw on the 12^th October. I had to force this court hearing because it was the only chance I had to attempt to use evidence that had been unlawfully concealed from my defence during the prosecution and the appeal. (I was prevented from using that evidence – as the grimly amusing transcript shows.) Key amongst that evidence is the 94-page statement by Graham Power - the importance and relevance of which I’ve scarcely yet touched upon. That key evidence was unlawfully concealed from me by William Bailhache’s prosecuting lawyer, Stephen Baker. The person who refused to give me access to court to raise this fresh evidence – until after the election - was William Bailhache.

“In the Magistrate’s Court of Jersey

12th October 2011

Before: B. Shaw, Magistrate

HER MAJESTY’S ATTORNEY GENERAL

-v-

Stuart Syvret

Centenier Huelin

Crown Advocate Stephen Baker

Defendant representing himself

Verbatim Transcript of recorded proceedings

AG v Syvret: 12/10/11

MAGISTRATE: Good afternoon.

CENTENIER HUELIN: Good afternoon.

GREFFIER: Be seated, please.

CENTENIER HUELIN: Thank you, Ma’m. Stuart Syvret.

MAGISTRATE: Good afternoon. Will you confirm your name is Stuart Syvret?

DEFENDANT: Yes, yes, that’s correct.

MAGISTRATE: Thank you very much, date of birth 30th of July ‘65?

DEFENDANT: Yes, that’s correct, Madam.

MAGISTRATE: Thank you.

DEFENDANT: Obviously before these proceedings begin, I want to begin by making a recusal application concerning yourself.

MAGISTRATE: Well, I am going to----

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, there has been a recusal application previously.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: It has been rejected as far as the Court of Appeal. There should be no recusal application.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: Well, with all due respect, if I may be----

MAGISTRATE: Mr Syvret, is there any different from anything you’ve said to me before on this issue?

DEFENDANT: Oh indeed there is, absolutely. (Magistrate conferred with Deputy Greffier)

MAGISTRATE: I want to get these proceedings started, Mr Syvret. I am going to ask that the Representation is put first and then we will deal with any substantial matters.

CENTENIER HUELIN: Centenier Huelin of the Parish of St Helier, on behalf of the Constable of the said Parish, has the honour to present to the Court that, in virtue of the terms of the Criminal Justice (Community Services Orders)(Jersey) Law 2001, he is of the opinion that, for the reasons given in the attached statement submitted by the Community Service Officer, it is necessary for the Magistrate’s Court to re-examine the conditions imposed on Stuart Syvret, who, by Act of the said Court, dated 17th of November 2010, was convicted of the offence of Contempt of Court by failing to attend a hearing at the Magistrate’s Court on the 9th of November 2009, and sentenced to a term of eight weeks’ imprisonment. The said Stuart Syvret made an appeal to the Royal Court of Jersey against the said conviction of the Magistrate’s Court and, on the 8th of August 2011, the appeal against conviction was dismissed, but the appeal against sentence was allowed, in part, by ordering that the term of imprisonment be substituted with a Community Service Order of 80 hours or eight weeks’ imprisonment. The said Stuart Syvret has failed to conform to the conditions of the Community Service Order. Therefore, the said Centenier, on behalf of the said Constable, presents the aforementioned information to the Court in order that it may ordain on the facts contained in the above mentioned statement; the whole in accordance with the terms of Article 7 of the said Law.

MAGISTRATE: Thank you very much. Mr Syvret, do you understand what has been said and why you are here?

DEFENDANT: Yes, I do.

MAGISTRATE: Thank you very much.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, the Defendant has said that he intends to apply for you to recuse yourself. You spent a considerable period listening to recusal applications some 18 months ago now, I anticipate. The complaints went in that regard as far as the Court of Appeal and were entirely rejected. The complaints as to bias and recusal were rejected by Commissioner Pitchers. There has been a full hearing of these allegations, these repeated allegations. The last time that they were repeated was before Commissioner Pitchers in the middle of August this year and, if you are minded to ask the Defendant whether he has anything new to add from that which was said to the Court in the middle of August 2011, then that is understandable, but he should immediately identify what it is that is new.

MAGISTRATE: Yes. Yes, Mr Syvret, if there is anything new, I want you to say very concisely what is new. If I don’t hear anything new within the first couple of minutes, then I am going to stop you.

DEFENDANT: Yes, Madam, there are new grounds. Obviously I remain of the view that the old grounds were valid.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: And indeed I think the events showed that that was the case, but Advocate Baker has referred to the Judgment of the Royal Court, which is before you, I believe.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: And if one looks, for example, at paragraphs 59 and 60, it does there describe how the inappropriateness of your conduct on the day of sentencing and the way you applied contempt of Court charges against me without proper due notice and without proper due process against me; and indeed the Royal Court found that these were plainly so insupportable that they were, these particular charges were thrown out by the Royal Court.

MAGISTRATE: Yes, thank you.

DEFENDANT: The conduct that you exhibited on that day, Madam, on that ground, does show very clear, powerful and dramatic actual bias. One doesn’t even need anything approaching a complex or well versed understanding of law to know that, if you lay a charge before a person, if you accuse them of a criminal offence of some description, especially one that is so significant you’re going to impose a significant sentence upon it, you have to allow that person an opportunity to defend themselves. You have to give them a reasonable notice of the charge, allow them some time to prepare their defence case and to make their defence. You did not on that occasion, Madam, do any of that. Your decisions concerning me were wholly extraordinary, wildly, massively at variance with even the most rudimentary and simple understandings of how the administration of justice operates in a clear and fair and impartial manner. Clearly your conduct was not compliant with Article 6 on that day; and I make the point that this was such a very, very clear matter because it is not as though it could be argued that this was some complex consideration, perhaps an error in law of the kind that can get made or perhaps a misunderstanding of some factual item. This was an extremely aggressive, overtly actually biased decision/decisions on your part on that day and quite extraordinarily so. I mean, I am not aware of another case where a person has been faced with charges of that nature, even contempt of Court charges, when the matter normally can be dealt with summarily of course, but that is in the cases of contempt, direct contempt, in the face of the Court. I have not been able to locate a similar case anywhere that corresponds to your conduct, your attitude towards me as displayed on that day. The charges I had less than 24 hours’ notice of. I applied to reserve my plea. You wouldn’t even allow me to do that. You then entered a not guilty plea on my behalf and I then applied for time to then prepare some defence, some defence argument or possibly some mitigation argument to the charges in question and you absolutely refused an adjournment to me to do that, which was quite extraordinary given that these charges had only been notified to me less than 24 hours beforehand. You then proceeded to find me guilty of these charges and I then sought another adjournment in respect of sentence and sentencing so that I could appeal, and you refused that too and you also pretty much instructed the Prosecution to prepare further charges on the day, which were worked into the proceedings. Now, these are absolutely very clear crystallisations of the bias that you displayed to me throughout the whole proceedings and it was very powerfully and dramatically overt and on display in your conduct in that particular instance, and these were, indeed so insupportable was your conduct on that occasion that not even the Royal Court could uphold it.

Now, the conduct that you displayed towards me, the attitude that you displayed towards me on that occasion in that kind of kangaroo court approach that you took does display actual bias, very clearly evidenced actual bias. There is no other word for it. We are not even talking about potential bias here or conduct that might risk appearing to be biased. This was overt, aggressive, biased conduct and one has to also read the Judgment that you delivered on that day and see that there are various passages in it, various observations that depart considerably from consideration of the verdict and the law and so on and effectively amount to a Jersey establishment press release condemning me in all kinds of ways, calling me a liar and things of that nature for having tried to protect my constituents by making the public interest disclosure that I did. Indeed, the evidence that you refused to allow me to use in my defence case is now published so that the public can see for themselves how serious that matter was. You brought, as it were, the Prosecution argument that somehow it had been wrong of me to have published that information, the original information, with some kind of a political commentary alongside it.

Now, that may or may not have been a legally correct decision. I don’t believe it was a legally correct decision judgement or yours, nor of the Royal Court consequently, but it is quite one thing, even if I were wrong to have published that material, for me to have published it in a way that didn’t suit your particular interpretation of the law, but then to write at great length of how I was some kind of malicious liar in what I have written----

CROWN ADVOCATE: This can’t be relevant.

MAGISTRATE: Is there any … the Royal Court has ruled on my previous Judgment, Mr Syvret. The Royal Court has upheld it and I am not going to reopen anything regarding that. Have you anything else directly to say to me that you haven’t said to me before about why I shouldn’t sit?

DEFENDANT: Yes, the, the case uhm that, of the uhm, the uhm, sorry the contempt of Court matters that you put before, that you put before me, this does demonstrate very clearly and dramatically actual bias on your part.

MAGISTRATE: Yes, you said that.

DEFENDANT: As did a lot of the other proceedings. It is also since those events occurred, which takes me onto the second plank of the argument, and that is really why I am here today, because I obtained some evidence recently from a source in the----

CROWN ADVOCATE: This can’t be relevant to recusal.

MAGISTRATE: I don’t think fresh evidence can be relevant to why you are here before the Court or why I shouldn’t sit in the case.

DEFENDANT: Well, I think it is. Perhaps you would care to listen to the explanation before coming to a judgement?

MAGISTRATE: Well, we’re talking about fresh evidence and the evidence in the case has been heard and that stage of the case is over.

DEFENDANT: The evidence in question is a 94 page statement to the Wiltshire Police Force by Graham Power. Now, clearly in a variety of different ways that evidence is of dramatic and central----

CROWN ADVOCATE: I am sorry to----

MAGISTRATE: I just don’t follow this.

CROWN ADVOCATE: I did not interrupt Mr Syvret at all----

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: -----in the substantive proceedings, but it is my intention to interrupt him if it is apparent and obvious that he is going to address the Court on matters which are utterly irrelevant to the issue before it. What you are being asked to do at present is to recuse yourself because of actual bias. A 96 page statement by Mr Power to Wiltshire can have nothing to do with that whatsoever and was canvassed in the Royal Court on appeal and dealt with on appeal by the Royal Court and unless----

DEFENDANT: That’s not true.

CROWN ADVOCATE: -----and unless Mr Syvret can show that it has anything to do whatsoever with the recusal application, you shouldn’t hear him. He shouldn’t be given any more indulgence than any other citizen in this position.

MAGISTRATE: Mr Syvret----

DEFENDANT: The----

MAGISTRATE: -----I don’t see on the surface of it what the 96 page statement by somebody else will have to----

DEFENDANT: It is 94 pages actually.

MAGISTRATE: Will you tell me in two sentences what the link is between my sitting and this statement?

DEFENDANT: Certainly. You, Madam, are mentioned in the document, I think in a couple of points, in your previous capacity as being involved as a legal adviser with the police force in respect of the child protection issues and investigations and that does have a bearing on the recusal application. This was not evidence or knowledge that was in my possession before and this is not an argument that has been advanced before.

MAGISTRATE: But I don’t see what that can have to do with breach of a Community Service Order.

DEFENDANT: This is in connection with the recusal application, Madam. You have----

MAGISTRATE: Yes, but what I am sitting on is a Representation to do with a breach of a Community Service Order. I’m not sitting on the trial. Mr Syvret, you haven’t raised anything else.

DEFENDANT: But this is a part of the recusal application----

MAGISTRATE: Which can be----

DEFENDANT: -----this is evidence that I was not aware of previously that I am now aware of which goes further to the fact that you have a history, as it were, of involvement in the background issues and that goes further to the strength of the argument that you must recuse yourself from this case. Your past involvement with these matters and your acquaintance with a number of the individuals involved, of the interested parties as it were, is magnified and made even clearer by the fresh evidence.

MAGISTRATE: Okay, well----

DEFENDANT: That is fresh evidence that goes to----

MAGISTRATE: -----well that is your point, right.

DEFENDANT: -----the recusal ap----

MAGISTRATE: I hear what you are saying. Thank you very much.

DEFENDANT: -----the application.

MAGISTRATE: Right.

DEFENDANT: The evidence is of further relevance, and I must address this because Advocate Baker raised the point, I did not. Advocate Baker suggested, and he used the word “canvassed”, he suggested that the matter of the 94 page statement of Mr Power had been dealt with in detail in the Royal Court. It in fact had not. That is simply incorrect and that is another one of the numerous untruths uttered by Advocate Baker throughout these proceedings. I repeatedly, indeed before you and before the Royal Court, sought disclosure of this document. Advocate Baker throughout most of the proceedings repeatedly asserted that this document would not be disclosed because, in his judgement, it was of no relevance to the Defence arguments of things like abuse of process and malicious prosecution.

MAGISTRATE: Mr Syvret, thank you very much. I have heard enough about that.

DEFENDANT: But----

MAGISTRATE: I don’t see that----

DEFENDANT: Am I allowed to actually make my case?

MAGISTRATE: I have heard enough, thank you very much. Would you, would you sit down?

DEFENDANT: I haven’t finished making my case.

MAGISTRATE: Well, you might not have finished, Mr Syvret, but you’re saying there is something in this statement to say that I worked for the Law Officers and had some involvement in child abuse cases in the past. From what you’ve been telling me, I cannot see that this can have any possible relevance to whether I should sit on a breach of Community Service Order in the Court now, so would you just take a seat for the moment?

DEFENDANT: Well----

MAGISTRATE: No.

DEFENDANT: -----well, Madam, I must respond to that. What you are hearing today, whether it is a breach of Community Service Order or any other matter, the nature of the case you are hearing is immaterial. You are sitting in the capacity of a judge and, if I have grounds for considering that you are conflicted or that you have exhibited bias towards me, I am entitled to make that argument. The particular nature of the case you are hearing is immaterial. If there is a credible argument that you have exhibited actual bias, then you have exhibited actual bias and the nature----

MAGISTRATE: You have made that point----

DEFENDANT: -----the nature of----

MAGISTRATE: -----in relation to the contempt of Court. Now you are bringing in something that doesn’t seem to me to be directly relevant.

DEFENDANT: Madam, this is of relevance as to whether you are capable of being an objective judge in any matter concerning me and I do not believe that you are capable of being an objective judge in this matter before the Court today or, frankly, in any other matter concerning me. That is the argument I am making and now if I could please----

MAGISTRATE: Right, thank you. No, I understand the argument you are making, Mr Syvret. Would you sit down, please?

DEFENDANT: But I haven’t----

MAGISTRATE: I want to hear from Mr Baker.

DEFENDANT: But I haven’t finished making----

MAGISTRATE: No, I don’t wish to hear any more, Mr Syvret.

DEFENDANT: Well----

MAGISTRATE: I understand the nature of what you’re saying.

DEFENDANT: But----

MAGISTRATE: If what you’re saying is right, then----

DEFENDANT: With respect, Madam, there----

MAGISTRATE: -----you’ve said sufficient already on the contempt matters.

DEFENDANT: There are entire strands of the argument that I have not yet addressed.

MAGISTRATE: Mr Syvret, I just don’t see that you’re saying anything to me that I can see is relevant to the proceedings today.

DEFENDANT: Any matter that demonstrated conflicts of interests or bias on your part----

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: -----is of relevance.

MAGISTRATE: Yes, but you have raised it and I understand that you’ve raised it.

DEFENDANT: I haven’t yet----

MAGISTRATE: And, therefore, I shall take it into account----

DEFENDANT: I haven’t yet finished.

MAGISTRATE: -----when I consider what to do.

DEFENDANT: But I haven’t yet finished making the argument.

MAGISTRATE: You have raised the matter and said that I was involved in child abuse cases when I worked for the Law Officers’ Department. Where does that take you?

DEFENDANT: Well, we go back to the earlier considerations and they do have to be put forward again in that----

MAGISTRATE: No, no, you have said the earlier considerations.

DEFENDANT: Madam----

MAGISTRATE: Can we go back to the----

DEFENDANT: -----when you----

MAGISTRATE: -----to what you are saying to me now because I really don’t follow what you’re saying.

DEFENDANT: When you made the earlier decision not to recuse and you considered yourself able to hear this case, you did on that occasion refuse, as you did on several occasions throughout the proceedings, you refused to itemise and declare openly who your particular acquaintances were, who you knew and so on and the extent to which you may have worked with them. Now, if you worked further with these people, as indeed is indicated by this statement, then that is further grounds for me, new grounds for me, arguing that for you to meet the test of coherence of objectivity, you must declare quite openly the full extent and nature of your acquaintance with any of these interested parties. That is a perfectly reasonable test of openness and transparency. If you do not declare openly each such acquaintance, then you can’t meet the test of the appearance of objectivity.

MAGISTRATE: Right.

DEFENDANT: And the recently obtained evidence adds weight to my previous argument that there is a requirement for you to declare quite openly your acquaintances with any of the involved parties.

There is another dimension to this argument too, which I advance against you hearing any case concerning me, and----

MAGISTRATE: What is that?

DEFENDANT: That is the question of judicial, simply professional competence. Anyone has a right to a fair hearing under Article 6 of the ECHR----

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: -----and part of a fair hearing has to be competency. If a judge isn’t fully competent, then they are not capable of presiding over a hearing in an effective manner.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: Now, you, Madam, agreed with the Prosecution throughout that they not be required to disclose to me any of the evidence I sought that was of relevance, obviously central relevance, to what were in many ways the very key foundation stones of the Defence argument. Those arguments were abuse of process, malicious prosecution, politicised prosecution and personal conflicts of interest on the part of the prosecutor. Now that was, if you like, the very centre, in many ways the foundation stone of the defence case throughout. You repeatedly refused, quite remarkably, to disclose any of that evidence, in particular and expressly and directly the evidence provided by Mr Power to the Wiltshire investigation. That was never a decision I accepted. I always knew perfectly well that there would be, quite obviously, material within that evidence that would, could not be anything other than of relevance to the Defence arguments, but you refused and that evidence was not disclosed to me.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: I have now obtained the evidence and I will be exploring it in some detail and it shows in fact, precisely as one would expect, I think as any reasonable person even without legal training would expect, and fully as I expected, that in fact substantial parts of that evidence do without question go absolutely directly and most powerfully to the Defence case I was running----

MAGISTRATE: Hmm hmm.

DEFENDANT: -----namely abuse of process, malicious prosecution and essentially a structural set of proceedings by the prosecution authority in Jersey that were wholly non-compliant with the ECHR. Now that Defence argument now is effectively proven and Mr Power’s statement proves it, as it was probably always going to do. I believe that so extraordinary was your decision not to order the disclosure of that evidence to me and indeed some other similar decisions that it has to raise very serious questions about your basic competency as a judge.

MAGISTRATE: Right, okay, that’s your third point.

DEFENDANT: And there are also other questions that have to go towards the whole consideration of competency. It is entirely right that when considering whether judicial proceedings are Article 6 compliant, the person before the tribunal has a right to consider that everyone taking part in it is fully competent and to understand what the methodology and the standards are of the proceedings taking place. Further to that end, I repeatedly sought disclosure from you of whichever third party or parties you’ve taken advice and guidance from during the course of the proceedings against me and during adjournments and so on and again you have refused to disclose that information, much like----

CROWN ADVOCATE: This must be a repeat.

DEFENDANT: -----much like you refused to disclose … well, it is a different argument if you don’t mind.

CROWN ADVOCATE: It is a repeat.

DEFENDANT: You refused to disclose----

MAGISTRATE: All right.

DEFENDANT: -----the acquaintances you had.

MAGISTRATE: So you are saying for various reasons I am incompetent, yes?

DEFENDANT: Yes, Madam, I think you are on the evidence, and this is not merely an assertion of mine.

MAGISTRATE: Right.

DEFENDANT: And this is an important point because obviously it is very easy for any accused person just to stand up and cast condemnations upon the Court that is hearing them and, you know, justice would not function if such claims were to be taken seriously without any kind of evidential background to any kind of robust grounds for making such claims, but in this particular case I do have such robust claims. I am able to argue in powerfully evidenced detail that you have in fact made many decisions in this case certainly concerning me and possibly in other cases too that do cast the most telling light on your basic competency as a judge. Now that is an entirely legitimate argument. If it is true, then the proceedings you preside over will not be Article 6 compliant, so, if I can show to the tribunal, if I can demonstrate that you have made basic errors and that you’ve been incompetent in some regards as a judge, then your capacity in the past tribunal and indeed any other tribunal hearing matters concerning me becomes vitiated.

MAGISTRATE: Thank you.

DEFENDANT: So----

MAGISTRATE: I understand what you’re saying.

DEFENDANT: -----that is an argument I am entitled to make and to make on an evidenced basis.

MAGISTRATE: No, you can make representations----

DEFENDANT: I want to tell you----

MAGISTRATE: -----which you have just have done. Mr Baker?

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, the Defendant has, as he so frequently does, utterly overstated his case. He accuses you of actual bias and incompetence and what the material that he has drawn to your attention shows is only this, that the Appellate Court concluded that you had made errors in procedure. It makes no comments whatsoever on the merits of the conduct which was under consideration. By that I mean merits of the conduct by the Defendant, which was under consideration. There is absolutely nothing to suggest actual bias. There is nothing to suggest apparent bias and any reasonably or properly informed independent observer would come to no conclusion other than the Appellate Court had concluded that you followed the wrong procedure in what is a difficult area and an uncommon area of law to have to deal with.

His attacks upon your competence are wholly misplaced. Your Judgment at first instance was upheld in its entirety effectively by the Appellate Court. The Court had no criticism whatsoever of your conclusion that the Defendant had lied to you. It concluded that the convictions on the main charges were entirely justified. In fact, the proper reading of the transcripts and the whole of the case shows that you have demonstrated remarkable patience with the Defendant, as in fact have all the judges who have had to deal with this Defendant’s case, and you have shown remarkable patience in the face of unprovoked and unsustainable and (in the words, in the mouths of a lawyer) utterly improper allegations against you. There is nothing whatsoever in this application that you recuse yourself and you should sit.

MAGISTRATE: Thank you very much. Mr Syvret----

DEFENDANT: I haven’t actually finished.

MAGISTRATE: Well, I have heard four headings under which I shouldn’t sit. Is there a separate heading?

DEFENDANT: Well, I mean, I am dealing with the evidence under those headings.

MAGISTRATE: No, no. I have heard those headings. I have heard you outline what your arguments are. It is not an occasion on which to bring evidence. I will deal with this matter by way of submissions. I have heard submissions from you and I have heard them from Mr Baker. I would say I am not going to recuse myself in this case.

DEFENDANT: But----

MAGISTRATE: I do not have actual bias against you and any informed bystander I believe would not think that there is an appearance of bias.

DEFENDANT: No informed bystander----

MAGISTRATE: The case against you was taken on appeal to the Royal Court. The Royal Court found that I did make procedural errors in dealing with your contempt. The Court has dealt with that. That doesn’t mean that any judge who is overturned by a superior Court bears malice towards a defendant in that case. Nor does the procedure I adopted on that occasion demonstrate actual bias towards you. In terms of my competence, the vast majority of my decision at first instance was upheld by the Royal Court. I was right, they said, on the disclosure issue and I don’t think my competence is being, can seriously be called into question.

DEFENDANT: Well----

MAGISTRATE: So, Mr Syvret----

DEFENDANT: -----with respect----

MAGISTRATE: -----I intend to----

DEFENDANT: -----I haven’t yet finished.

MAGISTRATE: No, that is the recusal matter over with.

DEFENDANT: Well, I have to state that it is not the recusal matter over with as far as I am concerned because you have not permitted me to explain the facts properly.

MAGISTRATE: No, you have brought up the planks of your argument, Mr Syvret. I don’t think they are sustainable.

DEFENDANT: We have not seen, we have not examined, we have not considered the evidence.

MAGISTRATE: No, well we’re not going into the evidence. We don’t go into the evidence in cases like that.

DEFENDANT: But there is----

MAGISTRATE: We deal with the matter by way of representation.

DEFENDANT: There is ample evidence available which could be explored and argued about here and now that would indeed seriously challenge your competency. Indeed, one of the factors that makes that relevant to be dealt with at this particular time is the fact that that evidence was not in fact before the Royal Court and was not in fact heard or considered by the Royal Court, largely due to the mendacity of Advocate Baker; and that evidence does in fact now, as it is before this Court at the moment, does in fact go powerfully to questions of your competence, and this is not a matter that has been dealt with in any other Court----

MAGISTRATE: Right.

DEFENDANT: -----because of the failure to disclose the evidence. It is now before this Court for the first time and it does indeed form a substantive argument, evidenced grounds for exploring whether you are competent as a judge and I have a right to make that argument. For example----

MAGISTRATE: Mr Syvret, we are here to deal with an allegation of breach of a Community Service Order.

DEFENDANT: Well, with respect, we’re here first of all to----

MAGISTRATE: No, no, Mr----

DEFENDANT: -----we are here first of all to deal with----

MAGISTRATE: Mr Syvret----

DEFENDANT:-----the question of whether your presiding----

MAGISTRATE: No, we are not.

DEFENDANT: -----over this Court case----

MAGISTRATE: I have ruled on that matter, Mr Syvret.

DEFENDANT: -----is Article 6 compliant.

MAGISTRATE: I don’t wish to ask, I don’t wish to hear any more.

DEFENDANT: So you’re not----

MAGISTRATE: That matter is, that matter is closed.

DEFENDANT: So you’re not prepared to hear the evidence?

MAGISTRATE: Mr Baker, can we carry on?

DEFENDANT: You’re not going to permit me to explain the evidence?

MAGISTRATE: No, no.

DEFENDANT: No?

MAGISTRATE: I’m not.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, before I do, can I just say that the suggestion that the “mendacity of Advocate Baker” could in any way persuade a High Court Judge not to look at something is utterly ridiculous and it should be dismissed for the piffle that it is. Can I then move on to the breach of the Community Service Order?

DEFENDANT: I can bring the transcripts up.

MAGISTRATE: No.

CROWN ADVOCATE: This matter is listed before the Court today because the Defendant has been ordered to serve 80 hours’ community service. That 80 hours’ community service was imposed for an offence of contempt of Court. The contempt of Court was his absconding from Jersey for some six months and thus not being available for his trial. In England, the matter would have been dealt with under the Bail Act in all likelihood, but in Jersey by our law it is dealt with as a contempt of Court and it is dealt with frequently as a contempt of Court in this Court. He was convicted and sentenced by you for contempt of Court on the 17th of November 2010. A transcript of what transpired is in the bundle before you and will be easily in your recollection in any event, Madam, but he was sentenced to eight weeks’ imprisonment for that contempt of Court. The reason that he was sentenced to eight months’(sic) imprisonment----

MAGISTRATE: Eight weeks.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Eight weeks, I do apologise, eight weeks’ imprisonment that day was because he refused the offer of community service as an alternative. You specifically gave him the opportunity of undertaking community service and he declined it and you therefore sentenced him to eight weeks’ imprisonment, which was inevitable. He thereafter, as soon as he could, applied for bail from the Royal Court and he was granted bail by the Royal Court pending his appeal in regard to a series of convictions and sentences which had been passed, but it is only the contempt for absconding which concerns you today.

His appeal against conviction was rejected by the Royal Court on the 11th of August of this year and, as to sentence, the learned Commissioner and Jurats offered him the opportunity of doing community service and he accepted that opportunity. Commissioner Pitchers told him on that occasion that he had no doubt that he could do community service and asked him whether he was willing to do it as an alternative to prison. The Defendant said that he was. The Commissioner then substituted 80 hours’ community service for the contempt and told the Defendant that, if he failed to comply, he could be resentenced and made it clear “This is the sentence that the Magistrate wanted to pass the first time round”, so he was left in no doubt as to what the consequences might be should he fail to co-operate and carry out his community service.

It is alleged that he has failed to comply with the requirements of the Community Service Order. He has refused to attend a single appointment for work. He attended one meeting at the Community Service, at the Probation and was largely offensive and insulting at that meeting. You have before you a report prepared by Mr Le Marrec, who sits behind me, dated the 12th of October 2011 and who is available to give evidence or answer questions, as is the normal course in this Court. I hope I can encapsulate the Probation Service’s position, but they can speak for themselves if and when you have questions for them, Madam, but that they consider that the Defendant has been dismissive of them and has effectively been contemptuous of them in the casual use of the word. You will see that in paragraph 4 of the report “You don’t really expect me to take this seriously” is what he says to Community Service, and this days after he has been sentenced to community service as an alternative to custody. (Pause)

MAGISTRATE: Carry on.

CROWN ADVOCATE: As I say, the Probation Officers can speak for themselves, but arrangements had been made for him to attend Community Service on a Wednesday morning, on a day when lighter work and more vulnerable prisoners – sorry, not prisoners, more vulnerable convicted persons – are carrying out their order. They tend to carry out tasks at the zoo, at Durrell, sweeping up leaves and the like. What I submit to you – and you should ask the Probation Officers some questions – but what the report which the Probation Service has prepared for you reveals is just exactly the same type of conduct as you have faced for 18 months and which the Royal Court faced, with him playing a medical card when he thinks its suits him, being dismissive of people when it suits him and not engaging and then making allegations against people when it suits him. So that when he comes across people who don’t see the world as he does, or who want him to do something he doesn’t want to, he seems incapable of engaging with them and, rather than engaging in reason and reaching compromise with them, he accuses them, makes wild allegations with virtually no evidence or no evidence at all to back it up. What you see in the report, I repeat, is what you’ve seen throughout these proceedings and he is “swinging the lead. “

Commissioner Pitchers was in no doubt in the middle of August that he was capable of doing community service. He is Exhibit A as to why he is capable of doing community service. He is a man who will argue with you until he is blue in the face. He will talk across you. He will insult you and he is more than capable of engaging with things when he wants to. It is just when he doesn’t want to, when it doesn’t suit him that he decides that oh he’s too ill, “I’ve got a doctor’s report saying that I’m unfit for work” and he resorts to insults and excuses as to why he can’t comply with something he has been ordered to do; this in circumstances where a retired High Court Judge says that he is certain that he can carry out community service. Again, you doubtless will ask some questions of the Officers, but 95% of people who are ordered to do community service in Jersey carry it out, and in the Wednesday working group at the moment there are several people who have doctors’ certificates saying they are unfit for work, who carry out community service. It is about seven hours on a Wednesday. It can be as low as four and a half hours and any sensible engagement with Probation leads to persons being able to carry out community service.

Madam, you have power to deal with the alleged breach under Article 20(3) of the Magistrates’ Courts Law. I don’t intend to take you to it unless you wish me to.

MAGISTRATE: Article 23?

CROWN ADVOCATE: I have got 20(3).

MAGISTRATE: Yes, sorry 20.

CROWN ADVOCATE: It is behind divider 8----

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: -----of the bundle I have put before you.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Do you wish me to read it?

MAGISTRATE: Yes, the Royal Court has effectively varied a decision of the Magistrates’ Court. Is that what you’re saying?

CROWN ADVOCATE: Yes, that is right.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: The Defendant claims to have material which affects the safety of his conviction on one of the data protection offences. Any such material is entirely irrelevant to this Community Service Order, which he has been ordered to complete for contempt of Court, not for the data protection offence, about which he says there is evidence which may affect the safety of that conviction. It is plain that he has been told that in terms by Commissioner Pitchers, and there is an email behind divider 6.

MAGISTRATE: Hmm hmm.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Mr Syvret wrote to the Bailiff’s Judicial Secretary saying he needed an immediate injunction, or something of that type, to suspend the orders which had been made against him, and Commissioner Pitchers replied through the Bailiff’s Judicial Secretary, saying that he had read the documents submitted by Syvret, “he wishes to seek a stay of the orders made on appeal, applications properly made to me, he argues a new witness is relevant in the defence of public interest under Article 55 of the law” – that is the offence I was referring to.

MAGISTRATE: Hmm hmm.

CROWN ADVOCATE: “Accordingly whatever the outcome of this application for convictions and sentences to do with the data protection offences, the two motoring offences and the contempt of Court offence will be unaffected. The fines and the community service for those offences will remain.” So he knows, because Commissioner Pitchers has told him, that any material which might be relevant (and there will be a dispute as to that doubtless) to the data protection offence is not relevant to this.

Madam, if the breach of Community Service Order is proved or admitted by the Defendant, then you have various options. One option is to allow the order to run with a final warning to the Defendant that, if he does not complete community service, then you will have no option but to send him to prison. That is entirely your decision and the Crown in this Court has no role in submitting as to what it believes you should do, but, should the Defendant refuse to undertake community service, then the likelihood is that the Court will be left with no option but to send him to prison to serve the eight weeks’ imprisonment. The Prosecution indicates that it has no desire that the Defendant be sent to prison. It is in highly unusual circumstances, that people get themselves into a position where a Court has to send them to prison where they have been sentenced to community service. If he is sentenced to imprisonment, it will be entirely a consequence of his own acts and he would effectively have chosen to be imprisoned. It is all his doing. It is all his choice. Madam, I have told you that there is a report from the Probation Services dated the 12th of October 2011. Mr Le Marrec is here behind me, as is his boss, if you will excuse the colloquialness, and they are here to answer any questions you might have.

MAGISTRATE: Has that report from Mr Le Marrec been supplied to Mr Syvret?

CROWN ADVOCATE: Yes.

MAGISTRATE: Thank you. Mr Syvret, you’ve----

DEFENDANT: Can I make my----

MAGISTRATE: Sorry?

DEFENDANT: Can I make my case now?

MAGISTRATE: No, I’m going to ask you some questions about what Mr Baker has just said. Firstly, he said that there is an allegation of a breach of a Community Service Order, and the details of what is alleged to amount to the breach is contained in a report by Mr Le Marrec. Have you read the report by Mr Le Marrec?

DEFENDANT: I only received the report, it was handed to me in a physical copy today. I’ve glanced at it briefly. I haven’t had time, sufficient time to absorb it, properly read it and absorb it all.

MAGISTRATE: Has that been emailed to you before?

DEFENDANT: No, it has not. The first I have seen of this was today.

MAGISTRATE: Right.

CROWN ADVOCATE: As for me, as with me.

MAGISTRATE: You saw it for the first time today?

CROWN ADVOCATE: Yes, I did.

MAGISTRATE: The report.

DEFENDANT: With respect, Advocate Baker is a trained lawyer. I am a lay person.

MAGISTRATE: I beg your pardon?

DEFENDANT: I said, with respect, Advocate Baker is a trained lawyer. I am a lay person. I haven’t had sufficient time to consider this.

CROWN ADVOCATE: You have had all day. He has had all day. He has had from ten o’clock to read this.

DEFENDANT: No.

MAGISTRATE: Well, Mr Syvret, this isn’t so much a matter of law but a matter of fact. All the law requires for you to do is to do the work as directed and to keep appointments and Mr Le Marrec’s report is saying what he says happened. So have you actually read the report?

DEFENDANT: I have glanced through it briefly. I haven’t had a chance to study it or absorb it, no.

MAGISTRATE: At this stage are you able to say whether you agree or disagree with the basic allegations that Mr Baker has just----

DEFENDANT: I can’t, no.

MAGISTRATE: -----enunciated, that you failed to keep appointments?

DEFENDANT: Well, I failed to keep the appointments, but I have been signed, signed off ill. I mean, that is, that is the case. I mean, as far as the specific detailed allegations, I have not yet had time to consider them.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, it is entirely a matter for you, but let’s give him 15 minutes to read it.

DEFENDANT: Well, with all due respect, I haven’t yet----

CROWN ADVOCATE: He has had all day. He has had all day and it is not acceptable to be in Court for breach of community service, to be given the report and not to bother reading it.

DEFENDANT: But with all due respect----

CROWN ADVOCATE: He knows he is here for breach of community service. This is the report and to tell you that he has skimmed it is utterly unacceptable.

DEFENDANT: Madam, this, this, this grandstanding and this PR speak by Advocate Baker playing to the gallery is really quite transparent and quite tiresome.

MAGISTRATE: Well, what I want to know----

DEFENDANT: If people are being thrust documents upon them that they are then being expected to comment upon in a case that day, it isn’t adequate. It is simply basic rudimentary due process that people are given adequate time to reflect upon documents. People might want to take advice on documents. This is not unreasonable. This is a perfectly proper approach and----

MAGISTRATE: Yes. Mr Syvret, can I just stop you there? The other question that I wanted to ask you is whether you wish to be legally represented in these proceedings and have you thought about applying for Legal Aid?

DEFENDANT: Well my view on that remains the same as it has always been. I would like to be legally represented by a paid lawyer of my choice, but, as that is not going to happen, then I have to represent, I have to try.

MAGISTRATE: So you accept that you are going to represent yourself in this matter?

DEFENDANT: With reluctance, yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, this matter has been dealt with in entirely the usual way. He has been treated exactly as any other citizen.

MAGISTRATE: Well, yes. Mr Baker, I was just going to make the point that it is the usual practice in this Court to ask a defendant whether they wish to seek legal advice and, if they do, to grant a two week adjournment. That is perfectly standard practice and Mr Syvret will be afforded that opportunity should he wish to take advantage of it. From what you’ve just said, you don’t seem to want an adjournment to seek legal advice. Is that correct?

DEFENDANT: Well, I may well try and take some pro bono legal advice on these matters, yes, I may well do that.

MAGISTRATE: Well, I----

DEFENDANT: But, you know, the question you put to me was whether I would be represented by a lawyer.

MAGISTRATE: Well----

DEFENDANT: And my answer to that is no. If the question is will I, would I like an opportunity to seek some pro bono advice on these matters, the answer is yes.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: They are two different questions.

MAGISTRATE: Well, right. Can I just stop----

DEFENDANT: But, but----

MAGISTRATE: -----can I just stop you there, because this matter, if the Court is, if the matter is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that you were to be in breach, then clearly you would be at risk of going to custody. You understand that, don’t you?

DEFENDANT: I do.

MAGISTRATE: Very well. In that circumstance, the Court would normally make an adjournment available for someone to seek legal advice. Now, whether that is pro bono advice or whether that is advice that you pay for or that is advice under the Legal Aid Scheme, that is a matter for you, but you can face custody if this matter is found against you.

DEFENDANT: Yes, I fully understand that.

MAGISTRATE: You have been given this report from Mr Le Marrec today. I would have thought that you would have been able to read that in some detail because you have had several hours today, but I want to give you an opportunity, if you wish to take the opportunity, to take legal advice as to your situation----

DEFENDANT: Well, I----

MAGISTRATE: -----including any matters raised in the report and any matters you would like to raise if you want to say that you are not in breach of this Community Service Order.

DEFENDANT: Yes, indeed. I would indeed want to take advice on those points because there are----

MAGISTRATE: Well, yes, I don’t really need to know why----

DEFENDANT: Well----

MAGISTRATE: -----but that is the normal procedure of the Court. So----

DEFENDANT: I’m trying to, well, to answer you, and I am trying to assist the Court, Madam. To answer your question, would I wish an adjournment to take advice on the report and the options in it and what arguments I might make----

MAGISTRATE: And what arguments? Because what would happen if I did find----

DEFENDANT: The answer to your question----

MAGISTRATE: -----if the Court did find----

DEFENDANT: -----the answer to your question is yes.

MAGISTRATE: Yes, because, if the Court did find that you were in breach, then the Court has various options, and sentencing, re-sentencing for the original offence is one of them, for which you might like to take advice.

DEFENDANT: If----

MAGISTRATE: -----and you might like to take advice as to, and sit back and think about what position you’re in and what your approach to the Community Service Order is in the cold light of day.

DEFENDANT: Well, if----

MAGISTRATE: So what I am going to do, Mr Syvret, is adjourn the case for two weeks. That is the standard adjournment.

DEFENDANT: But before----

MAGISTRATE: Is that a convenient date for the Court? (Magistrate conferred with Deputy Greffier) Tuesday the 25th?

DEFENDANT: Before the, I am trying to assist the Court here----

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: -----so as not to have be accused of raising these issues again in the future. I am trying to be helpful. I was going to apply for an adjournment in any event because I want to subject your decision today to a judicial review. You are, that is your decision to refuse to recuse.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: You are a public authority exercising a statutory power.

MAGISTRATE: Well----

DEFENDANT: Exercising a discretionary power. All public authorities bar statutory waiver are susceptible to judicial review.

MAGISTRATE: Well----

DEFENDANT: Now, there is no appeal of course that lays from interlocutory decisions in the Magistrates’ Court. I think we have established that on past procedures. There are, however, grounds, and this does relate to the matter that we have just discussed actually, the question as to whether I have breached the order, there are matters that I need to take advice on and there are grounds upon which I would seek judicial review of your decisions in this matter.

MAGISTRATE: I think the 25th of October should be sufficient, Mr Syvret.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, I am not available on the 25th of October. It is a half term week----

MAGISTRATE: Oh yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: -----and I have arranged to be away for some considerable time.

MAGISTRATE: Yes. What about the beginning of the following week?

CROWN ADVOCATE: I am in Court on the 1st of November.

DEFENDANT: Madam, could I finish the point I was making, because it may help the Court in making its arrangements?

MAGISTRATE: Hmm hmm.

DEFENDANT: Advocate Baker made a number of assertions which are untrue. For example, he accused me of not engaging with these procedures.

MAGISTRATE: Hmm hmm.

DEFENDANT: Well, I am more than happy to engage with the full range of judicial procedures and I am more than happy to use those, and I am entitled to use them in ways that meet my human rights. Advocate Baker also asserted quite volubly that I make “wild allegations” that are not substantiated with evidence. Well, as I think today’s proceedings have demonstrated, as indeed did a lot of the other proceedings, I do have in fact ample evidence that does prove my concerns, but I am repeatedly prevented from using that evidence in Jersey’s courts.

Now, one of the reasons that I wish to judicially review this matter is that the key argument I am bringing forward – and this does address a point that was advanced by Advocate Baker in his arguments a moment ago – he suggested that this matter was simply a question of whether I had complied with the order in respect of the contempt of Court charge. Advocate Baker asserted, therefore, that any matters I might raise or bring before this Court or other courts were, or this Court, were of no relevance. The other charges, for example, were of no relevance.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: Well, that isn’t the case because my key argument is that the entire proceedings against me dating from the very original decisions of the Attorney General to have me investigated, raided, arrested, charged and prosecuted, right back from that day forward, the entire proceedings against me are structurally unlawful and evidencedly so an demonstrably so. Now, the case, if I had access to a higher Court where I could run these arguments, let us suppose hypothetically, I know you don’t share my views on this matter, but it must be regarded as a hypothetical consideration. Let us suppose hypothetically I were to win that argument which did show and did prove that the basic fundamental administrative decisions and decisions of the Attorney General concerning all of the actions taken against me in the first place and all of the charges and so on, were structurally unlawful, then all of the proceedings against me and all of the charges and all of the convictions would fall away.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: And that would----

MAGISTRATE: You have----

DEFENDANT: -----true of all of them.

MAGISTRATE: Yes, but----

DEFENDANT: Now----

MAGISTRATE: -----but you have exhausted those remedies, Mr Syvret.

DEFENDANT: With respect, Madam, no, I have not. Since the decision in the Royal Court to reject the appeal, two things have occurred. A witness came into my knowledge who could well have placed an entirely different complexion upon the whole public interest disclosure argument I ran, and in fact that witness was known to the Court Greffier, Mr Le Heuze, yet the identity and the existence of that witness was not informed to me, not notified to me and I came, I had no knowledge of this witness until after the appeal when the witness themselves approached me. The second factor that has changed is of course I have come into the possession of the 94 page statement of Mr Power.

Now, both of these dramatic bits of evidence do clearly at the very least more than justify the reopening of the appeal. These clearly are matters that should have been considered and I should have had access to as evidence to enable the working of these considerations into at least my appeal and frankly probably the proceedings beforehand. Now, had I been able to do so, it is conceivable, it’s possible that such evidence, particularly for example the report of Mr Power, would have demonstrated sufficiently to the Court indeed my argument that I have always made, the actions of the Attorney General were unlawful, would be upheld, in which case all of these proceedings would be overthrown. Now the difficulty I face from a legal perspective is that I sought----

MAGISTRATE: I can’t see that, Mr Syvret, at all.

DEFENDANT: Sorry?

MAGISTRATE: I can’t see that as a matter of law is possible.

DEFENDANT: It is.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, the----

DEFENDANT: Well, it is possible---

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, his comments are legally illiterate. He is being sentenced for contempt of Court, namely absconding.

MAGISTRATE: Yes, yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: That is what you are dealing with.

MAGISTRATE: Yes, I entirely take your point, Mr Baker.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, I am not going to suggest that you depart from your normal procedure and an adjournment for legal advice.

DEFENDANT: Madam----

MAGISTRATE: No, no, no.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Excuse me, I am speaking.

DEFENDANT: Well, I was speaking actually.

MAGISTRATE: No, I want to hear Mr Baker at the moment. I just want a date.

CROWN ADVOCATE: If that is the normal, if that is the normal procedure, then I don’t in any way suggest----

MAGISTRATE: Yes, yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: -----that you should not follow it, you should, but I do make it plain that, on 16th September, a month or so ago now, Mr Le Marrec wrote to Mr Syvret saying “It has been decided to return your case to Court because, in the opinion of the Community Service Officer, you have failed to comply with the conditions of the Community Service Order. This is known as breaching the order. You will be notified when a Court date has been set----

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: -----You are strongly urged to seek legal advice. If you wish to apply for Legal Aid, then you should call the Legal Aid Office or email the current Acting Bâtonnier. You may then be given a personal appointment.” So what you have here, you should of course follow the normal procedure, but what you have here is this man again manipulating events to his benefit.

MAGISTRATE: Well, I am afraid that the experience of this Court, Mr Baker, is a lot of people appear before this Court without having taken legal advice first when they perhaps should have done.

CROWN ADVOCATE: I am sorry, Madam, I didn’t mean to sit down, yes.

MAGISTRATE: All I want to do at this stage----

DEFENDANT: In response----

MAGISTRATE: Mr Syvret----

DEFENDANT: May I respond?

MAGISTRATE: No, Mr Syvret----

DEFENDANT: Well, Madam----

MAGISTRATE: -----the things you are telling me----

DEFENDANT: -----you have just allowed----

MAGISTRATE: -----no, Mr Syvret, the things that you are telling me----

DEFENDANT: -----you have just allowed Advocate Baker----

MAGISTRATE: -----are not----

DEFENDANT: -----to lie. You have just allowed Advocate Baker----

MAGISTRATE: No.

DEFENDANT: -----to make a misleading assertion.

MAGISTRATE: I am----

DEFENDANT: I received that email that he has----

MAGISTRATE: I am not interested in that email, Mr Syvret.

DEFENDANT: -----referred to. The report in question that I was given today----

MAGISTRATE: I am saying I am not interested in it.

DEFENDANT: The report in question----

MAGISTRATE: A lot of people don’t----

DEFENDANT: -----that had the detail I was only----

MAGISTRATE: -----get the Legal Aid that they need.

DEFENDANT: -----handed today.

MAGISTRATE: I am adjourning this case for you to seek Legal Aid and I am asking for a date from the Greffier----

DEFENDANT: But----

MAGISTRATE: -----which is convenient to the parties.

DEFENDANT: But, Madam, I was in the middle of speaking when Advocate Baker interrupted.

MAGISTRATE: But you’re in the middle of saying things, Mr Syvret, that really don’t make a great deal of sense. You’re hypothesising that you might have a third route of appeal, sorry a second route of appeal beyond the Royal Court and hypothesising that a number of not only the case to which you think you might have a route of appeal would be thrown out but everything else besides. I really don’t think that that is tenable in any way. Therefore----

DEFENDANT: But, Madam, with respect, you----

MAGISTRATE: -----I am going to allow an adjournment for you to seek legal advice.

DEFENDANT: -----you have just expressed a prejudiced view and you haven’t even considered the evidence yet.

MAGISTRATE: It is not a question of evidence, Mr Syvret, at this stage----

DEFENDANT: Well, if Court cases are not questions of evidence----

MAGISTRATE: -----it is a question of allowing you an adjournment for legal advice and, therefore, I am asking for a date from the Greffier.

DEFENDANT: May I finish what I was saying when Advocate Baker interrupted?

MAGISTRATE: No, you may not.

DEPUTY GREFFIER: Madam, if Mr Baker is not available on the 1st, if Mr Syvret is also available, the 2nd in the afternoon. Might I suggest Wednesday the 2nd pm?

MAGISTRATE: 2nd of November.

DEFENDANT: Can I finish what I was saying?

MAGISTRATE: Well, no, you can tell me whether you are available on the 2nd of November.

DEFENDANT: Well, this was the point I was attempting to address.

MAGISTRATE: No, you are saying that you would like to take my decision on recusal to judicial review. 2nd of November would give you time to make an application should the Court entertain that and, if you wish to take legal advice you can do so and, if you don’t have any other reason why you shouldn’t attend on 2nd November, then I shall adjourn the case until that date.

DEFENDANT: Well, if I may continue with the explanation I was making before Advocate Baker interrupted----

MAGISTRATE: No, no, Mr Syvret, I just don’t see the relevance of what you are saying. I am going to adjourn the case----

DEFENDANT: With all due respect, Madam----

MAGISTRATE: -----until the 2nd of November.

DEFENDANT: -----you’ve not yet heard what I was going to say, so how can you gauge whether it is going to be relevant?

MAGISTRATE: Well, you have prefaced it with a long introduction relating to additional evidence that you might have in other cases. I just don’t see how they can impact on the case that we’re dealing with at the moment.

DEFENDANT: Well, admittedly----

MAGISTRATE: 2nd of November----

DEFENDANT: -----admittedly I’m not a lawyer, but let me try and explain my thinking----

MAGISTRATE: -----at 2.30pm.

DEFENDANT: -----on the question. My thinking is that if, as I believe it does, the statement of Mr Power demonstrates structural unlawfulness of the office of Attorney General in respect of me, then all of the decisions of that office in respect of me are vitiated.

MAGISTRATE: Yes, yes, I understand that that is what you think.

DEFENDANT: That is, well it is not a question of what I think, Madam. There are, there is substantial case law on the requirement, the very strict requirement from public authorities when making discretionary decisions such as those to prosecute. There is a very clear body of evidence that such public authorities must not be conflicted----

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

DEFENDANT: -----and that officers within them must not have direct personal conflicts of interest. Now, this is rock solid, uncontroversial, English jurisprudence.

MAGISTRATE: Yes, I understand you want----

DEFENDANT: I am pointing----

MAGISTRATE: -----to raise these matters, Mr Syvret----

DEFENDANT: -----I am pointing to that.

MAGISTRATE: -----but now is not the time or the place. It is the 2nd of November at 2.30 in the afternoon.

DEFENDANT: Well, Madam, you were fixing the date and that date might not be possible because of the proceedings I am going to bring----

MAGISTRATE: Well, then you will have----

DEFENDANT: -----in the other Court.

MAGISTRATE: -----to come back to the Court and say so, Mr Syvret, but for the time being it is the 2nd of November at 2.30 in the afternoon. (Magistrate conferred with Deputy Greffier) Is there any need for conditions on the bail?

CROWN ADVOCATE: No, I don’t think he is on bail. Is he on bail?

MAGISTRATE: Well, he will be on bail from now on. The Court will grant bail to that date. Mr Syvret, you are under an obligation to attend.

DEFENDANT: Madam, may I----

MAGISTRATE: -----and you know you will be arrested if you don’t.

DEFENDANT: -----may I point out at the end of these proceedings that I consider your conduct today to again exhibit actual bias.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Madam, I do apologise, the Probation have raised this with me. The Probation have prepared a report upon this man. I have referred to it. It has been prepared for the purpose of these Court hearings.

MAGISTRATE: Yes.

CROWN ADVOCATE: And they are concerned to ensure that it doesn’t get published to the world on a blog or something of that type and they invite me to invite you to remind Mr Syvret that there are conditions upon him being given a copy of that report, namely that it is used for this.

MAGISTRATE: Yes. Mr Syvret, you know the obligations. You are familiar with the Data Protection Law.

DEFENDANT: Yes.

MAGISTRATE: And there has been a report given to you in connection with these proceedings and, apart from your legal adviser, if you have a legal adviser, then that report should otherwise remain confidential.

DEFENDANT: Can I just be clear about this? Does that mean that I can’t publish it on my blog, but it’s okay for it to be given to Channel Television by the Probation Department and they can publish it?

MAGISTRATE: No.

CROWN ADVOCATE: Of course it is not.

MAGISTRATE: Of course it is not.

CROWN ADVOCATE: That is an absurd suggestion.

MAGISTRATE: Very well.

Court adjourns.”

A REMINDER:

2011-10-19T11:38:00.000+01:00

The Policies - and Qualities

Of Stuart Syvret

A brief reminder for those who may not have made their mind up yet, of some of the policies I support – and the personal qualities I offer as a politician.

The polls opened at 8.00 a.m for the island’s general election, and people will be able to vote until 8.00 p.m.

I am a candidate for the post of Senator.

I’m asking that people vote for me because I believe I have the abilities – and the qualities – this community needs in its parliament.

I am keeping this posting brief; I hope the public will already know enough, to understand the issues.

I have written below two, brief, lists. The first itemises ten key policies I pledge to pursue should I be elected.

The second is the list of qualities – as a politician – and as a person - that I offer the people of Jersey.

If I am elected – I pledge that, within the first twelve months of the term-of-office, I will bring before the States assembly propositions that will address the following policy areas:

Taxation and Economic Policies: A Transparent Inquiry:

In 2004 – at a time when Jersey’s taxation polices faced great upheaval, I studied the matter carefully, and recognised just how shallow and defective was the thinking of the traditional establishment when trying to address the problems. Many options were not examined – certain obvious and key strategic issues not properly appraised – and the policies they proposed, such as 20 means 20, and zero/10 were never going to work properly. In an attempt to get the States to at least undertake a detailed examination of the real issues, I wrote a detailed report and position, “Taxation Policies: A Transparent Inquiry”, which asked the States to examine the issues properly. Predictably, the assembly rejected my proposition. It gives me no pleasure to say “I told you so” to those politicians. Now – we need to undertake that work more urgently – and more comprehensively - than ever.

Protection of Employment Opportunities for Resident People:

Jersey faces many serious economic challenges, not least growing unemployment. We have the ability and right to introduce a system of work-permits, to protect employment opportunities for those already resident in Jersey. Such a policy has always been resisted by the traditional political establishment, but it can no longer be avoided if we are serious about tackling unemployment.

A Public Inquiry into Jersey’s Child Protection Failures:

The States has recently agreed to ask the Council of Ministers to establish an inquiry into the decades of child protection failures on the part of the States. Whilst credit must be given to those States members who drove that decision – the reality is, it’s too little – too late. And any meaningful and robust inquiry cannot involve the Council of Ministers, or the Law Officers in drawing up the terms of reference. Those two bodies are the two most culpable authorities in Jersey for the gross failures of governance, oversight and the application of the rule of law that lies at the heart of the systemic problems. The child protection issues will remain a source of injustice – and of division – until finally examined properly.

A Revision of the Island Plan and the Planning Law:

The States has recently approved an Island Plan. Whilst it has good aspects – it does not protect our environment well enough. It needs improving and refining. Our Planning laws, too, are inadequate. The Planning Minister has too much power. We must revert to a Committee which works in a transparent manner.

A Public Inquiry into Jersey’s Accommodation Industry:

When Jersey’s economy is discussed, it is usually in terms of sectors such as finance, tourism, retail, agriculture etc. What we never hear discussion of is the accommodation industry. That whole sphere of economic activity – which includes property speculation, construction, land-ownership, housing, home-sales, the rental sector, re-zoning, estate-agents, building supplies etc – is - after the finance industry – the second largest economic sector in Jersey. But yet – remarkably – the States has never undertaken a strategic appraisal of that whole industry – and the economic and taxation polices that are associated with it. I believe we must finally get to grips with, and fully understand, the accommodation industry, and its role in Jersey’s economy and society.

A Separation of Powers:

Virtually every respectable, functioning democracy in the world has a separation of powers. That is – a clear separation between the legislature, the executive, the prosecution system and the judiciary. Those necessary powers are separated – so that they be independent of each-other and capable of acting as a check and balance on each-other, to protect the public good from the excesses and failings of any public authority. Jersey does not have an effective separation of powers. The result has been disastrous for this community. For example – the extent of the child protection failures – and the failure to hold the public sector to account – is a direct result of our present, conflicted system. We must have a separation of powers.

A Review of Policing in Jersey:

Events of recent years – such as the illegal suspension of Police Chief Graham Power – and other examples of corrupt, politically motivated interferences with policing – have shown that law-enforcement in Jersey needs protecting improper pressures and corrupt manipulations. We must have a judicially empowered, external inquiry into policing – to ensure the great majority of ordinary, decent people are protected from illegal acts by the powerful, the influential and the States.

A Public Interest Disclosure Act:

One of the most important methods of ensuring that public authorities are acting reasonably, effectively and lawfully, is to ensure that there is robust protection for whistleblowers. Jersey has no such protection – indeed, the opposite is the case – with it being the standard practice of all of Jersey’s public authorities to unit in the persecution of anyone who has exposed wrong-doing. The island must introduce a Public Interest Disclosure Act to give protection to those who reveal failures and crimes.

A Public Inquiry into the Role and Conduct of the Media in Jersey:

In a functioning democracy like the United Kingdom, the established media often exposes failures and wrongdoing by the powerful and the government. In Jersey, the mainstream media acts in the opposite way, frequently helping to conceal failures and criminal acts by the island’s public authorities. In the UK, a major public inquiry is underway into the conduct of the media and its relationship with politicians and business. Jersey must undertake the same exercise.

Citizens Juries: Involving the Public in Contributing to Policy Formulation:

In Jersey, we don’t embrace party politics. Some people see that as a good thing. However, the consequence is that we, the voting public, have no control over the actual policies our government pursues. We have to change that. A system of Citizen’s Juries would enable representative cross-sections of the community to contribute to the formulation of States policies.

In addition to an understanding of the policies your politicians will pursue, it’s also important to have an understanding of the personal qualities of those who would be your representatives. And in the absence of party-politics in Jersey, it’s even more important for voters to choose people of high integrity and personal calibre.

These are the personal qualities I possess:

I am honest.

I am intelligent.

I am sincere.

I am ethical

I work hard.

I bring a degree of intellectual rigour to researching political polices.

I do not come from a privileged background – so I genuinely understand the day-to-day realities faced by working families.

I am empathetic.

I am principled.

I am fearless.

Today we are participating in Jersey’s first general election. I hope as many islanders as possible use their right to vote.

Stuart

PHILIP BAILHACHE

2011-10-16T21:49:00.004+01:00

And the Jersey Establishment:

Time for Accountability;

Time for the Facts.

Here is an important question for Jersey voters; which do you prefer?

Transparency, scrutiny and accountability?

Or genteel posturing, omerta and “politeness”?

What you about to read is a considered examination of the record and conduct of Philip Bailhache; a study of some of his evidenced failings – from 1990, to the present day.

And to introduce the subject of the failure of scrutiny and accountability in Jersey – and how the public are conned – I thought it would be helpful to begin with the St. Brelade hustings meeting which took place last Friday – given the presence in the audience of one of Bailhache’s allies, Deputy Sean Power.

There was a good illustration of the inadequacy of our traditional, deferential, “polite” political culture to be observed at that St Brelade meeting. At present, most people in Jersey don’t like the idea of party politics. But – be honest – do you really believe that because the establishment don’t have a declared political party – they don’t organise, and work together behind the scenes – secretly – along party-political lines?

Sat in the audience was former Senator Frank Walker – who has organised and encouraged a slate of candidates in many of the contested seats across Jersey. For example, Walker party candidates include Andrew Lewis in St. John, and the dreadful Kristina Moore in St. Peters. But sat right alongside Frank Walker on Friday was St. Brelade Deputy Sean Power – another Walker party candidate.

But is it not in the public interest to know where all of these secret allegiances lie?

Of course it is. The vast majority of people in the hall, and the rest of the constituency would be far better served if there had been open debate about such matters. But if I had chosen to speak of that subject – there would have been mutterings of discontent around the room. “Irrelevant”, some would have said, “we want to hear about policies that matter”. As though being aware of secret allegiances that lead to your government servicing the short-term interests of property speculators was not in the public interest.

But an even more hostile – yet self-defeating – reaction would have come from the audience had I really striven to serve the public good – by speaking of the conduct and true nature of Deputy Sean Power directly. There is, it would appear, no greater offence in the eyes of the Jersey electorate, than to be “impolite” about other candidates. Which, of course, means that the public – unwittingly – end up protecting a load of rapscallions, chancers, mountebanks, grifters and spivs from the kind of robust and deserving scrutiny only other candidates would give them.

Deputy Sean Power is a liar and a crook. Can people have forgotten so soon his efforts to grift his way into a commercial relationship with the Irish consortium that was in-the-running to develop the Waterfront? The obscenities he wrote to the company in question when they wouldn’t get involved with him? Of course, Sean Power has the blarney – a great actor, to be sure – who can seem interested in your issues, and to be caring – as all good confidence-tricksters and con-artists can. A “man of the people” – who will listen to your problems with social security, over a pint in the Horse & Hounds. But why – when he washed-up in Jersey – leaving an “interesting” past in his wake – and quite a few people in the UK and the Irish republic who would like to have a chat with him - did he change his name from Sean Dooley to Sean Power?

Perhaps the voting public of St. Brelade would have liked to know – so they could ask Sean Power, why, back in the day before he was elected, he would pretend to be friends with another candidate – but be secretly passing all that candidate’s e-mails on to Frank Walker? You see – at the moment, most Jersey voters would regard such a question as terribly “impolite” – but wouldn’t the quality of our political culture be improved with such robust scrutiny?

The voters of Sean Power’s district in St Brelade have a right – and should also have the wish – to see those who are their elected representatives properly held to account for their actions at election time. But alas – such is Jersey’s uncritical and deferential political culture, Sean Power was not asked to explain why he - directly and personally – participated in the straightforward theft of private, personal data – of zero public interest relevance – and then leaked that stolen material to third-parties, and helped to publish it? It would also have been an important public interest discussion, to question why Sean Power was not prosecuted for the evidenced theft of that personal data – data of no public-interest merit – in contrast to the massed police raid, arrest, search without a search-warrant and prosecution mounted against me by Philip Bailhache’s brother, William Bailhache – for the publication of an item of data that I had in my possession legitimately, and which was unarguably a public interest disclosure?

The electorate in St. Brelade would also have been far better informed – had someone explained to them the fact Sean Power writes – anonymously, like the wretched little coward he is – tirades of obscenity-laced abuse on a pro-child abuser web site he helps to run.

Jersey’s political culture is so “unfit-for-purpose”, that voters will go to the polls in St. Brelade, with none of those absolutely legitimate public-interest matters having been openly questioned and discussed – and consequently risking unwittingly voting for Sean Power – a liar, con-man and thief.

Those who were present at the St. Brelade hustings meeting on Friday will have seen this culture of silence – this protection of election candidates from scrutiny – at work in a particular example. One candidate was attacked and criticised for daring to question – in the most mild of ways - the performance of another whilst in Office.

Senator Freddie Cohen has, rightly, been criticised for the design of the monstrous Costa del Sol-style apartment block he gave development permission for when he was Planning Minister. Election candidate David Richardson – quite accurately and reasonably – described the resultant excrescence as “architectural savagery”, and criticised the performance of Senator Cohen, to applause from the audience.

What followed was a powerful example of Jersey’s failed and inadequate political culture. Although 90% of the population would agree with Mr. Richardson’s view – when it was Philip Bailhache’s turn to speak, he made a point of saying words to the effect that “the remarks of Mr. Richardson criticising Senator Cohen were quite unacceptable.”

And – amazingly – quite a number of people in the hall applauded the former Bailiff’s words. In many cases – the same people who – only a few minutes earlier – had been applauding Mr. Richardson’s accurate condemnation of the vast building that has blighted their coastline.

But – this example of the failure of accountability becomes even more remarkable.

When it was next his turn to speak again – Mr. Richardson caved-in to the criticism from Mr. Bailhache – and apologised to Senator Cohen.

Do voters really – if they stop to think about it – seriously believe that such a genteel approach to politics serves their interests? Is it really imagined that all of those States members – who most of the population feel dissatisfied with – can ever be properly scrutinised and held to account for their performance if robust debate is considered “impolite”?

The Jersey establishment have carefully maintained and nurtured this defective and inadequate political culture over the years and decades. For as long as real politics – real debate – real scrutiny is considered “impolite” – they are protected from ever being held to account for their failures.

It is no surprise, therefore, that Philip Bailhache often opens his speech by saying words to the effect that he seeks to “reform the States” to put an end to political “bickering” – to bring an end to “time-wasting debates” – and to bring an “end to the division” and the “personal criticisms” between members which – he suggests – have “disfigured” the States assembly.

And in what I’m tempted to describe as “Exhibit 1” in my claim that Jersey’s deferential and uncritical political culture is our greatest problem – those words of Philip Bailhache are often met with applause.

But perhaps I’m being unfair on those members of the public who applaud in the heat of the moment? After all – who likes “division”, and “personal criticisms”, and “time-wasting”, and “bickering”? It all sounds - if you don’t think – like such a reasonable observation, doesn’t it?

But the States assembly is a legislature – filled with politicians – who will express the views of their differing voters (that’s you) by challenging and arguing with each-other – and holding members to account for their actions. It is called democracy. That Mr. Bailhache is so very keen to try and convince members of the public that it is mere “bickering” is a fearful warning to voters.

Elect him at your peril.

In truth, Mr. Bailhache’s words are a very thinly veiled attack upon public scrutiny – democratic debate – transparency – challenge – and, in particular, personal accountability.

And it’s hardly surprising that – of all people – Philip Bailhache should be trying so hard to maintain the fiction that we shouldn't robustly and directly hold people to account for their actions.

Because Philip Bailhache has behind him, a catalogue of the most disgraceful professional and ethical failures. Truly despicable conduct. Some of which is so bad, as to constitute unambiguous criminal offences. Or, at least would do, if the prosecution authority did not consist of his close friends – and his brother.

Mr. Bailhache does not want the public to be reminded of these matters; he does not want to be challenged; he does not want his performance and conduct to be scrutinised; he does not want the voting public to be fully informed – he does not want to be held to account.

So of course he, and the Jersey oligarchy he leads, are going to do all they can to condemn any such scrutiny and challenge as “unacceptable personal criticisms” and “needlessly impolite”.

Our political culture is not “fit-for-purpose” – because we do not challenge and scrutinise enough. And Mr. Bailhache and his friends very much want things to stay that way.

But unfortunately for Mr. Bailhache – and fortunately for the broad public good – I was honest and absolutely serious when, announcing my candidacy in this election, I said “it was necessary so that there be some meaningful challenge and scrutiny placed upon the former Bailiff; I had to shoulder that public responsibility, because no other candidate would.”

I keep my electoral promises.

So what follows is an examination of some of the failures, offences and inadequacies of Philip Bailhache.

And when reading what follows – consider this; I have twice, in the course of this election, invited Philip Bailhache to have a head-to-head debate with me concerning these, and other issues.

He failed to accept the challenge.

Selling a Crown Property at a Knock-down Price, from under the feet of Sitting Tenants.

In the early 1990’s , a large and very valuable terraced building in St. Saviours Road was in Crown possession when its legal owners could no longer be traced, at a time when Philip Bailhache was the Attorney General, and had a responsibility for such properties.

Without giving the sitting tenants an opportunity to buy their apartments – or even notifying them of an intention to sell – Philip Bailhache agreed to the sale of the building to a multi-millionaire property speculator – via the law-firm Becquet and Syvret (no relation, I think) of which, Edgar Becquet and Ken Syvret were friends of Bailhache’s, and Becquet was the then Deputy for Trinity.

The existing tenants all then faced eviction – and attempting to help them was one of the first major battles I became involved in when elected as a Deputy in 1990.

So scandalous was the nature of the sale and questions concerning the conduct of Attorney General Philip Bailhache that I took a proposition to the States assembly to establish a Committee of Inquiry. I made the proposing speech, and the then Bailiff Peter Crill immediately invited Bailhache to respond – which he did, with a tirade of threatening and intimidatory ranting.

Then – instead of there being a debate – the then Senator Dick Shenton used a procedural device to move to the next item.

That was my first experience of the Jersey oligarchy – and Philip Bailhache – avoiding scrutiny and accountability for their actions.

The Limited Liabilities Partnerships Law – and Illegally Excluding an Elected Member from the Chamber.

In 1996 a long, complex piece of legislation – the Limited Liabilities Partnerships Law – appeared on States members’ desks – as though it had sprung from nowhere. The establishment were very keen to rush this through, but a few of us – former Deputy Garry Matthews and me, for example, were very concerned at the mysterious appearance of this major example of legislation, when no law-drafting time had been agreed by the States, and there had been no ‘in-principle’ agreement for the introduction of such a law. We succeeded in getting the debate delayed for a couple of weeks whilst we researched the matter.

What I discovered in the coming days was nothing less than staggering.

The law in question was being introduced at the sole and express request of the law firm Mourant, du Feu and Jeune - who were being paid by their clients – accountancy firms Ernst and Young and PriceWaterhouse - to secure the introduction of an LLP law in Jersey, so as to put pressure on the UK government to compete, by introducing LLP legislation in the UK. Mourants had even drafted most of the law themselves with the assistance of a London law firm.

This was your parliament – the States of Jersey - being used a “legislature-for-Hire”.

As scandalous and unlawful as that was – it gets worse.

The draft LLP law had had to be tweaked a little by States law drafters. The decision to allocate that public time and resource to the task was made by the then Policy & Resources Committee – the President of which was former Senator Reg Jeune.

Reg Jeune was a founding partner of Mourant, du Feu & Jeune, and retained a close working involvement with the law firm – and a continuing financial relationship with it.

But – quite staggeringly – notwithstanding those direct conflicts of interest – Reg Jeune failed to declare his conflict of interests when the law drafting time request – and a decision to “fast-track” the law - came before the P & R Committee, and he continued to chair the meeting and to participate in the decision.

Equally as bad – during that first debate in the assembly on the LLP law, at which we had had it delayed, Jeune made a speech in favour of the law being adopted. Again – he chose to not declare his direct and stark conflict of interests.

In the coming days I discovered the evidence for what I describe - including a five page letter from Ian James of Mourants, to the then President of the Finance & Economics Committee, that explained their whole request and wish to have the legislation introduced.

When the draft LLP law next came before the States, I raised, as a “matter of privilege”, Reg Jeune’s conduct – said he had a financial interest in the matter which he had failed to declare, and that this was a very serious matter that needed inquiring into. (Consider the current scandal concerning UK politician Liam Fox; the situation Jeune had placed himself in was a thousand times worse. He’d actually used the law-making process and the entire legislature to introduce controversial legislation – for no other reason than his law firm wanted it introduced. This would be immediate resignation from the legislature in any law-abiding democracy – and probable prosecution for corruption.)

To cut a long story short – rather than supporting me and the high standards of parliamentary behaviour and conduct that he claims to endorse – the then Bailiff, Philip Bailhache – attempted to criminally coerce me into withdrawing my complaints against the illegal actions of Jeune (a senior Jersey Freemason) and tried to coerce me into apologising to Jeune.

Philip Bailhache demanded a meeting with me – at which his threats were made. The conversation went like this:

PB: ‘You will have to withdraw everything you have said concerning Senator Jeune and apologise to him and the assembly.’

Me: ‘Why on Earth should I do that? Everything I said is true – and evidenced.’

PB: ‘I don’t care about that; you will have to withdraw everything and apologise.’

Me: ‘Senator Jeune’s actions are very serious and appear to be a breach of the States of Jersey law. This should be reported to the police and he should be prosecuted.’

PB: ‘That’s a hell of thing to do to a man at the end of his career.’

Me: ‘Well, that’s not my problem. Senator Jeune should have thought of that before engaging in this corruption. He’s used the States as a legislature-for-hire.’

PB: ‘Look, you are going to withdraw everything and apologise – or there will be very serious consequences for you.’

ME: ‘Upon what basis do you make that threat? My actions are correct and proper and Jeune’s are unlawful. What might those consequences be?’

PB: ‘Never mind that! Just take my word for it; there will be very serious consequences for you. And that would be such a pity as you had such a lot to offer as a States member.’

That conduct of Philip Bailhache was a straightforward criminal offence.

It is illegal to try and interfere with States members, to coerce them, and to try and prevent them from fulfilling their Oath of Office – all of which Bailhache was doing to me in an effort to protect his friend Reg Jeune from the consequences of his corrupt actions.

Philip Bailhache’s conduct also constituted a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice – and of misconduct in a public office.

Because I refused to give-in to Bailhache’s reprehensible blackmail - he carried out his threat. He tabled a proposition in his own name before the States – to have me “named” – and excluded indefinitely from the States assembly until I gave into his threats. Unless I abandoned my public duty, and resiled from the true, evidenced facts concerning Jeune – and lie to the States by saying he was “innocent” – Bailhache would have his proposition debated – and I would be thrown out.

I refused to be cowed by this criminal coercion.

Philip Bailhache put his proposition to the States assembly – and refused to allow me to speak in my defence – he refused to allow any other States member to speak in my defence or even ask questions. He put the matter straight to a vote, and, of course the oligarchy carried it.

What is even more remarkable about this episode – is that Bailhache was ignoring the rules of the assembly, and instead just inventing “procedures” to suit his purposes. There was no provision – at all – in the standing orders of the States assembly, for “indefinite suspension”. The indefinite suspension imposed upon me was just an unlawful act of coercion invented by Philip Bailhache in an attempt to help rescue his friend from the consequences of their corruption being discovered and exposed.

In the end – I was illegally prevented from taking my seat in the Jersey parliament for six months as a consequence of this corrupt action by Philip Bailhache. That was six months – of direct, unlawful, anti-democratic attack upon the rights of my then constituents to enjoy my representations in their parliament.

Philip Bailhache is an anti-democratic criminal.

When Philip Bailhache speaks of his wish that politicians “should not personally criticise colleagues” – and that States members should be “polite” – and that ““standards” in the assembly should return to an earlier era” – what he is really saying – is that he wants to turn the clock back – to the era of people like him and Reg Jeune and others – when it just “wasn’t the ‘done’ thing” – to “expose a chap’s malfeasances”.

Unlawful Interference with my Mail:

During that unlawful six-months suspension that Philip Bailhache caused to be imposed upon me – under his orders – all mail – including some letters from constituents – that was sent to me via the States Greffe, was illegally retained there, and not given to me. Some of the letters in question had even been opened and obviously read.

Interfering with anyone’s mail is a very serious criminal offence. Even more so when the mail in question is from constituents to their elected representative.

I gave a detailed formal statement of criminal complaint to the police.

The report went to Philip Bailhache’s friend and close colleague, then Attorney General Michael Birt – who ignored it completely.

Biased Interrupting of Speeches:

There are so many occasions, it would be impractical to list them – when Philip Bailhache has interrupted me (as he has frequently done to other non-establishment members) and tried to improperly interfere with, deflect and obstruct me when making speeches. This would usually occur when he knew perfectly well the establishment politicians were in serious difficulty – or I was about to use information that would be deeply embarrassing to the oligarchy.

Biased Obstruction of Questions:

Similarly, and in many ways even more powerfully evidenced than in the case of speeches - Philip Bailhache would frequently interrupt questions – or “disallow” perfectly good questions, when it was clear the questioning was dangerous for the establishment. Again – I and my constituents were not the only victims of his repressive conduct in this matter; several other non-establishment States members suffered in similar ways.

Interference and Obstructions to Propositions, Amendments and Questions:

It may not be commonly understood, but the Bailiff and Deputy Bailiff have the power to vet – and to “approve” - or “amend” - or “veto” – the wording of any proposition, amendment or question tabled by any member.

On many, many occasions Philip Bailhache misused and abused this power to water-down, emasculate, obstruct and to block entirely, propositions and questions from me. The grounds upon which the power can be used are – in theory – very narrow – and limited to issues of ‘order’ and coherence. But the use of the power has been abused and stretched far beyond that function – and into the territory of straightforward denial to you, as constituents, of your right to have your concerns debated in your parliament via your elected representatives. I will now turn to a particular example of such conduct by Philip Bailhache.

States Members Business Interests and Secrecy:

With the move to Ministerial government, the new States of Jersey Law (2005) was under development and debate. I studied it very closely, and tabled a range of amendments to it. Amongst those amendments of mine was a serious strengthening of the requirement upon States members to fully declare all of their business interests.

In researching that matter, I studied the rules of the parliament of the Isle of Man. Their requirement used a well thought-out form of words that would capture all kinds of business interests – thus ensuring members could not dodge around the requirement to disclose and declare business interest by using such devices as nominee directors, proxy-shareholders, trusts, etc. The wording the Isle of Man used was “effective economic ownership” – with the emphasis on the word ‘effective’ – to describe any kind of business or asset that must be declared. An entirely reasonable requirement and wording – already in use in a jurisdiction similar to Jersey.

I duly wrote that wording into my draft amendment, in the hope the States would agree to adopt it in Jersey.

Philip Bailhache vetoed the words.

He refused to let me table an amendment that used the phrase “effective economic ownership” to describe when a States member would be required to declare an interest or asset.

Quite aside from his interference being obviously designed to maintain a system in which States members could declare certain things – but keep others secret through arm’s-length “ownership” – it was also unlawful, as the wording of the proposition was perfectly “in order” – so he had no power to so obstruct it.

Unlawfully Protecting the Connétables from Scrutiny:

Most people in Jersey may not be aware of this – but the twelve parish Connétables are able to receive additional financial support of one kind or another – from the public moneys of their rate-payers. Some Connétables also receive financial support and benefit from central sources – such as the budget of the Law Officers’ Department – and the Criminal Offences Confiscation Fund.

I can’t be precise - because it is such an opaque and mysterious area.

Which is why I decided that I should – in the public interest – table some questions concerning the subject of Connétables and public money. I duly prepared some questions and – in accordance with standing orders, submitted them to be answered by the Chairman of the Committee de Connétables.

The relevant standing order is 9 (5) which says this:

“A question relating to a function or official responsibility which each Connétable has in his or her parish shall be addressed to the chairman of the Comité des Connétables.”

Quite extraordinarily – and without any authority or power to do so – Philip Bailhache simply refused to let the question be asked, issuing an order to the States Greffe that the question not be processed.

These are the actions of a dictator.

Clearly – my curiosity about the Connétables – and their receipt of public money from other sources – had absolutely hit the target. So Philip Bailhache was motivated by a wish to protect the Connétables – the hard-core of the Jersey establishment – from what might be a deeply embarrassing series of public revelations about a flow of public money from various sources into their pockets.

This is one of the reasons all of the Connétables have a clear interest in obstructing and repressing me.

Reg’s Skips and “Voisinage”:

Philip Bailhache – when Bailiff – was judging a case involving ‘Reg’s Skips Ltd.’ (RSL) – the small local firm who were facing eviction and immense legal expenses due to failures by the Planning Department. Even though the parties seeking to close down Reg’s Skips were family friends of the Bailhaches – Philip Bailhache persisted in hearing the case, failing to withdraw because of this conflict of interests.

It gets worse. Philip Bailhache advised that the party use an ancient, feudal property law, known as ‘Voisinage’, upon which to base their application to halt the business’s activity.

Not only did Philip Bailhache advise the party in that way – he also found for them when the case came to a conclusion. He later went on to award costs against the defending party, Reg’s Skips.

This one act alone would be a resigning matter for any UK judge.

Anti-Democratic Blocking of Ministerial Comments:

Although, as explained above, there is a provision in the States assembly rules that creates a power to edit or veto the words of questions or actual propositions – there is no such rule, provision or power that gives to the Bailiff the power to edit, veto or censor the words written in reports to the assembly.

Nevertheless – much like his decision to invent a non-existent “power” to cause “indefinite” suspension of members – Philip Bailhache also invented and took to himself a non-existent “power” to edit and sensor member’s reports.

He improperly interfered in that way with reports of mine on several occasions.

There is, however, one case that will always stick in my mind for the sheer unlawful, repressive and anti-democratic nature of what Bailhache did.

In the first half of 2007, I discovered and uncovered many examples of concealed child protection failures – and many examples of concealed child abuse. And it is worth noting that the vast majority of these issues did not – at that time – involve Haute de la Garren. The many and differing issues and cases that had come to my attention and been investigated by me, involved places like Le Chenes, Greenfields, Heathfield, Blanch Pierre and others – and a number of specific, individual examples of contemporary grotesque failures by Social Services.

I revealed these concerns of mine in July 2007, when giving an honest and frank answer to a question I was asked in the States. I discovered – only much later – that within two and half hours of me giving that answer, the senior civil servants at Health & Social Services and elsewhere had set about engineering my dismissal in an attempt to stop me exposing their failures and to discredit me.

Much later still, I obtained dramatic and powerful evidence of this unlawful plot, in the form of a file-note written by no-less a witness than good, straight Police Chief Graham Power, who the civil servants had attempted to draw into their conspiracy. In the July 2007 file-note, Graham Power wrote this:

“Bill Ogley and the others were persistent and I was left with the clear impression that they were attempting to draw me, in my capacity as Chief of Police, into a civil service led attempt to remove a Minister from Office.”

Nevertheless, in the mean-time Frank Walker and his Council of Ministers – including Philip Ozouf and Freddie Cohen – had decided to help the corrupt civil servants cover-up child abuse.

They tabled a proposition seeking my dismissal as Health & Social Services Minister. I therefore knew that I had only the summer recess to do as much work as I could on behalf of the survivors and to investigate as much as I could.

When dismissal propositions are brought, the person who is the target, has the right to table an Official Report – the case for the ‘defence’, as it were – in response to the no-confidence proposition. I wrote a report and appended to it sixteen appendices of documented evidence that prove my case – that showed numerous examples of child protection failure, examples of child abuse that could have, and should have been stopped, examples of gross incompetence, examples of the unlawful suppression of whistle-blowers – and hard evidence of cover-ups.

I was working closely with many different survivors, and a number of them had previously been utterly failed and ignored by Jersey’s authorities. I was the first person – ever – in any position of authority in Jersey who had listened to them, and taken them seriously and tried to help them.

They were upset that I was being persecuted and oppressed for my troubles – but nevertheless, I told them to take heart – at least we were – for the first time ever – going to get significant documentary evidence that showed the failures of the authorities placed permanently on the public record in the form of my Official Ministerial Comments, which would be published as a States of Jersey Report.

I received an e-mail from the Greffier on Monday 10^th September 2007 – the day before the debate – informing me that Philip Bailhache had ordered that my Official Ministerial Comments not be published and tabled.

This is without precedent.

It has never happened before – or since.

Philip Bailhache had zero power to block and prevent the tabling of a formal parliamentary document. But he did it anyway.

He should have had zero involvement at all – because he was directly, personally conflicted.

He had been a member of the Board of Governors of Victoria College when that institution was concealing complaints of child abuse. The evidence – “The Sharp Report” – was one of the evidential appendices that he improperly prevented from being published.

It was bad enough that I was unlawfully denied the right to have my ‘defence’ published – and that a criminal plot by corrupt civil servants was going to be supported – directly counter to every public interest consideration; far worse was the impact on the survivors I was working with.

That Monday evening – and I remember having to steel myself to do this, to this day – I had to telephone several of them – and explain to them that we were now not going to get any of the evidence of States failure and cover-up published. They had been denied justice – again.

At least two of them wept in despair. One was so wracked with sobbing, I was worried for their welfare.

Philip Bailhache had no right – simply no right at all – to do that to those people.

He unlawfully obstructed parliamentary procedure in order to protect himself and his establishment friends.

The Christmas Speech:

Later in 2007, the police went public with what had been their covert investigation into concealed child abuse - thus vindicating everything I had said, showing that I had been right – and humiliating the Jersey establishment.

At that time I was ‘Father of the House’, so come December, it fell to me to make the customary end-of-year Christmas speech. I chose to use the occasion to express some empathy and recognition towards the survivors of child abuse – and one or two who didn’t survive – and to acknowledge failures by the States of Jersey. This was the first occasion - ever – when any States member had attempted to make such an acknowledgment.

I was interrupted, barracked and shouted-down by people like Frank Walker and Terry Le Main. They had no legitimate reason for any such interruption; nothing I was saying was out-of-order.

Quite staggeringly – Philip Bailhache – rather than acting as any decent Chair would have done – and tell the interrupters to shut up and sit down – joined in with them – ordered me to stop – cut my microphone – and adjourned the meeting.

Again, an act of barbarism by Philip Bailhache that reduced some survivors to tears.

The Liberation Day Speech:

Not content with doing all he could to assist in concealing child protection failures as described above – we then come to Liberation Day 2008.

The day Jersey celebrates Liberation from the Nazis is the most important day in this community’s calendar. It is not – in any way – a day for politicking, divisiveness or political manipulations. It is – or should be – a day of happiness and unity for all people in Jersey.

In an act of frankly breathtaking barbarism, Philip Bailhache chose to hi-jack Liberation Day and Liberation Square – for his own political purposes – to mount a disgraceful attack upon the investigation of child abuse in Jersey, and those who were helping the victims and fighting for justice for them.

It was an occasions that now lives on – in infamy – in the history of the celebration of Liberation day.

Philip Bailhache never apologised for that disgusting act.

Coercing States Members in an Attempt to Conceal Planning Corruption:

In November 2008 – shortly before the illegal suspension that was carried out against Graham Power, largely at the instigation of his brother, then Attorney General William Bailhache – Philip Bailhache made an illegal direct, personal attempt to coerce and intimidate a States member into withdrawing complaints to the police concerning allegations of planning corruption; complaints that had been made to them by their constituents.

Philip Bailhache – in engaging in this act of intimidation – had illegally come into possession of the States member’s e-mails to Police Chief Graham Power. Philip Bailhache had been unlawfully given those e-mails by his brother, William Bailhache, who had, himself, improperly obtained them.

No-less a witness than the former Police Chief himself refers to this episode in a sworn-statement he prepared for me. I quote some of it here:

““I had some email and telephone exchanges with the Attorney General about the above allegations. …….

……..In any event the outcome was that we could not agree, and the exchange finished with what I took to be an angry email from the Attorney General expressing apparent frustration at my perceived failure to sufficiently oppose the criticism of his brother the Bailiff, [Philip Bailhache] and finishing with a phrase something like “so be it,” which I read as having a threatening tone. So far as I can recall, that was the last email I received from the Attorney General. Not long afterwards I was suspended. Initially it was claimed that my suspension was as a result of information relating to the Historic Abuse Enquiry which was received on 10^th November 2008. It is now known that this is untrue because the suspension notices were in fact prepared on the morning of Saturday 8^th November 2008, which implies that the actual decision to suspend must have been taken in the week-ending 7^th November 2008. So far as I can recall this brings the decision close to my exchanges with the Attorney General regarding the need to investigate allegations of corruption at the heart of government.”

The Child Abuser Roger Holland:

In 1992, the convicted child abuser, Roger Holland was elected to the St. Helier Honorary police.

The legal procedure for preventing any such person from taking-up the Office involves the Royal Court, when they appear before it, to be sworn-in. At that stage, the Jersey Attorney General – who is the head of the island’s honorary police forces – must make any representations or observations to the court concerning the suitability of the candidate to take Office as a police officer.

The Attorney General at that time was Philip Bailhache.

He failed to make any representations to the court concerning the fact Holland had convictions for sexually abusing children.

Roger Holland then – when in post as an honorary police officer - committed further offences.

Philip Bailhache claims not to have been aware of Roger Holland’s previous convictions at the time of Holland’s swearing-in.

However, when a public inquiry was later held into this scandal – the evidence and witness testimony that the Committee received was altogether more ambiguous.

I quote here paragraph 4.1.19:

“4.1.19 There was a conflict of evidence regarding the requirement to inform the Attorney General of the criminal records, if any, of prospective honorary police officers. The then Attorney General insisted that this was a matter for the Connétable, and correspondence from his successor supports that understanding. However, in written evidence to this Committee, the then Clerk to the Attorney General paints a different picture. She stated that: As a matter of routine, all prospective honorary police officers were automatically checked out with the Criminal Records Office, both by the Greffier on behalf of the Town Hall and by myself on behalf of our department. My requests to the Criminal Records Office were made by telephone and that office would fax the records through to us with no other paperwork being created. Criminal records are not usually kept on file as a safeguard against a Data Protection breach. She also stated: Should I or one of my colleagues have omitted to do this, it would have been picked by the Attorney General or Solicitor General before going to the Samedi Court for the swearing in process. However, in written evidence, the Attorney General has challenged that recollection. He stated that it would have been impractical to have undertaken such checks as a matter of course because of the short time between receipt of notification of the elections and the appearance of the officer before the Royal Court.”

Of those two directly conflicting accounts – I know which one I consider to be the more credible. And it is not that of Philip Bailhache.

In any event – Philip Bailhache could not deny that he definitely did become aware – shortly after the swearing-in of Holland, of his previous criminal convictions. But rather than doing what he should have done – make a representation to court to have Holland stripped of office, Bailhache chose to remain silent, and do nothing. Holland, of course, went on to commit further crimes.

Seeking Holland’s dismissal from office by the court would, of course, have meant publically acknowledging a mistake by Philip Bailhache. He would have had to accept publically – and to the court – that he erred in not making a representation to the court at the time of Holland’s swearing-in, concerning Holland’s record of offences against children. But that – surely – would have been the professional – the responsible – the ethical thing to do?

After all – failing to do so, meant leaving a man in a position of significant public trust – where he may get access to vulnerable people; a man who was a convicted child abuser – with all the associated risks that brings.

Philip Bailhache chose to do nothing – and instead remain silent.

The rest is history.

Conclusion:

Many times – and not only during this election – we hear and read claims by the Jersey establishment that it is “impolite” to challenge people – to examine the performance of those in positions of public authority – and to expose their failings.

It isn’t difficult – is it – having read the above catalogue of grotesque failure, authoritarianism and inadequacy by Philip Bailhache, to understand why they should seek to condemn those of us who have striven to uphold the public interest. Indeed – expect more such condemnation and suppression to be heaped upon me before this election is over.

Our political culture is too deferential – too polite - too genteel – and lacking in accountability, to properly serve the public good.

And there could be no better illustration of that problem – than the candidacy of Philip Bailhache in this election.

I did challenge Philip Bailhache to a head-to-head debate in respect of all these evidenced matters. Unfortunately he lacked the courage and integrity to face such debate – instead preferring to hide behind pomposity and empty rhetoric.

As we are considering the true nature of power – of ‘real’ power – in Jersey, I invite readers to imagine what fate would have befallen me – had I committed even one-quarter of the misfeasance of Philip Bailhache as described above?

I wrote earlier in this article:

“Our political culture is not “fit-for-purpose” – because we do not challenge and scrutinise enough. And Mr. Bailhache and his friends very much want things to stay that way.

But unfortunately for Mr. Bailhache – and fortunately for the broad public good – I was honest and absolutely serious when, announcing my candidacy in this election. I said ‘it was necessary so that there be some meaningful challenge and scrutiny placed upon the former Bailiff; I had to shoulder that public responsibility, because no other candidate would.’

I keep my electoral promises.”

I have done my public duty in attempting to bring the true nature of Philip Bailhache to the attention of the public.

Behind the ‘emperor’s new clothes’ of Philip Bailhache, there is nothing more than a corrupt and fundamentally inadequate individual; a dangerous and silly little man.

Should he be elected – it will be another example of Jersey getting the government it deserves.

Stuart