Occasionally, High Court judges get in the news for all the wrong reasons. As the text below shows I am unfortunately burdened with having to deal with a judge called Nicholas Lavender. He is known as The Honourable Nicholas Lavender. Unfortunately, I get stuck with his evil twin The Dishonourable Nicholas Lavender. He’s recently been in the news for two key issues. The first of these is his incorrect sentencing of a MP caught committing sexual misconduct, more on this below. The more recent of these two stories concerns his membership of the Garrick club, an all male organisation, which appears to contain a suspicious number of high-level judiciary. More can be seen on this here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/18/garrick-club-bastion-male-elitism
In 2016, I was subject to a wrongful conviction. The conviction was wrongful because evidence which showed factual innocence was withheld from the court and further evidence which would have undermined the prosecution in respect of the complainant was also withheld. Such information has subsequently been located, such as the complainant publicly being named as serial complainant and compensation seeker. This has resulted in her being the subject of articles in the national press showing her patterns of behaviour for the purpose of obtaining compensation.
It was known at an early stage that the prosecution was wrongful, evidence was being withheld and the whole matter conducted by officers who we have subsequently discovered had committed prior misconduct including data manipulation and computer misuse offences. Humberside Police is still known to be in possession of a significant amount of data showing factual innocence. Efforts have been made to obtain this data via civil proceedings and judicial review.
The British court system seeks at all stages to maintain wrongful convictions by a number of underhanded methods. One of these is that efforts to obtain evidence which is known to exist showing factual innocence will be blocked via a number of methods. One of these is simply hiding the evidence and failing to show this to a defence team. This is illegal and contrary to The Criminal Procedure Investigation Act. This happened in my case. However another means of hiding evidence known to exist is for a judge to effectively act as a “gatekeeper” placing restrictions and denying access to evidence which will show the police, CPS and the court itself have missed conducted themselves in order to obtain and maintain wrongful conviction. This enables any police and legal professionals involved in a deliberate miscarriage of justice to avoid blame for misconduct in public office.
In my own matter the judge Nicholas Lavender known as The Honourable, Mr Justice Lavender (pictured) acts as gatekeeper to block applications made to obtain data showing factual innocence which would open the way to overturn of the wrongful conviction.
As such, Nicholas Lavender knows full well that he is acting to maintain an injustice and doing so oppressively by the continual application of a series of civil restraint orders which act to limit and restrict my ability to use the civil court system to obtain information that would enable the matter to be returned to the Court of Appeal.
This has now become a personal matter for him: in the orders that he makes in relation to myself he insures that the wording he is as disparaging and borderline offensive as possible. In return I am happy to publicise his abuse of office in order to protect persons within the criminal justice system who have committed misconduct in public office.
It is of course quite logical that one judge would seek to protect his colleagues within the criminal justice system via abuse of his position. This maintains the professional reputation of the criminal justice system and also the idea that mistakes do not happen. It is more important for sitting judges, and HMCTS, to preserve the professional reputation of the criminal justice system that it is for them to look into and find where injustices have happened, and correct them.
Below is the text of a statement given to Mr Justice Lavender at The High Court in May 2023. This was in relation to his stated aim of renewing a civil restraint order against me for another three years. In any encounter I have had with Lavender. His aim is always to restrict and curtail my ability to be able to obtain redress in relation to wrongful conviction & and any other civil proceedings.
At this hearing were Francesca O’Neil from The Ministry of Justice and Lynn Temp from the Government Legal Dept. it is telling that these two people from these organisations were invited by the court to this hearing. Because these are two people from two organisations who have the most to lose from a wrongful conviction obtained by manipulated evidence being exposed publicly. They both argued that the civil restraint order should be maintained. This is because the maintenance of such enables them to avoid civil action for failure to produce data showing factual innocence made under relevant data access legislation.
Any application made in civil proceedings is immediately referred to Lavender, who then strikes the claim out for a variety of inapplicable and tenuous reasons and always with an order which just skims the boundaries of being personally abusive towards myself.
My statement began with some preliminary discussions. I then went on to say to Lavender:
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“What this suggests [I referred to other judges who approve applications made in civil and other proceedings] is that it is only you who has a problem with applications that I make, restricting such applications in order to cause unfair disadvantage.
It also suggests that the restrictions put in place by a CRO are not immutable. That, depending upon circumstances, it is perfectly possible to make an application in any set of proceedings. The wording of the CRO should not have allowed any such applications to have been made. Whereas if I were to make a new claim, this would be immediately put before you, and you would seek any reason possible to strike it out despite the validity of the claim and the clarity of the particulars of claim.
It is my misfortune that any claim I make is immediately passed to you. When other judges are involved the CRO is not treated as an issue when it comes to making applications.
You seek irrelevant grounds for striking such a claim out. I will discuss the reasons for this shortly, but the reasons are no different to how they were when we were last at this juncture in 2021.
I see that the standard invite has been sent out for today’s hearing and the usual ghouls [named above] are clearly in attendance. These are the two organisations which have a most to lose from my being able to make applications at court. Both organisations were intimately involved in a severe and prolonged miscarriage of justice. Relevant data has been obtained showing that this is a wrongful conviction on the basis of evidence showing factual innocence being withheld in order to obtain wrongful conviction. Evidence was withheld contrary to the order of the trial judge in the case. Despite efforts on my part to obtain this since directly from the organisations concerned.
This is how you when I first crossed paths because I made an application for judicial review into both CPS and Humberside police for withholding information contrary to the Criminal Procedure & Investigation Act. The matter of the appeal into wrongful conviction is now before a London-based barrister and solicitor.
Your actions in striking out the judicial review applications, one against each organisation, meant that the information showing factual innocence could not be obtained via reasonable means through the civil courts process.
You knew this full well when you made the CRO – and the purpose of extending the CRO in June 2021 – and today (because I am confident that you will decide for, however tenuous a set of reasons that you intend to extend this for a further two years) is to prevent applications being made which will produce further evidence showing factual innocence.
Rather hilariously North Yorkshire police have also decided to pitch in. Since there has been no contact with that organisation between 2019 and today it makes me question why they would bother. And it seems that this is in relation to the fear that at some point in the future that proceedings might commence against North Yorkshire police. This is not a reasonable justification for maintenance of the CRO.
At some point in the future they may be a form of misconduct against me from any organisation. It’s hard to countenance the idea that a public funded organisation would seek to restrict a person’s ability to be able to make legitimate claims by extension of a CRO which would prevent action against any organisation or individual who commits a tort against them purely out of fear that that individual might at some point launch in action against North Yorkshire Police This is either something that I’m missing the point on or entirely or it’s spectacularly, selfish and the argument is bad on its face being made to protect an organisation but causing significant disadvantage to an individual.
As I mentioned the existence of a CRO prevents legitimate and reasonable claims being brought on the back of torts committed against me. As far as I’m aware it is unreasonable in the extreme for such an organisation to request that the CRO is extended on the basis that they may be future claims against that organisation, including for torts they have not yet committed.
There is an obvious interest in this matter from organisations, such a CPS and Humberside Police. They have committed clear misconduct putting their professional reputation and the careers of serving personnel at risk.
At the last such hearing to decide whether this CRO should continue I spent a considerable amount of my time outlining all of the instances in which you have acted unfairly, unreasonably, or otherwise to abuse your position in order to assist organisations, such as Humberside Police and CPS in maintaining the wrongful conviction. I do not intend again to go over each of these instances in which a judgement has been made which is illogical and contrary to the evidence produced.
Suffice to say that in all of the instances of claims I have made that have been outlined in documentation for this hearing that there has been a deliberate ignoring of key pertinent facts in the judgment made striking the claim out.
It is of course much easier to strike a claim out if you ignore a key aspect of the particulars of claim and key evidence that supports them. You even have a set template on which you will issue such judgements. This template is worded identically on each occasion. Particularly choice phrase that appears within these judgements is “Mr XXXXXX wastes public money and has done so for years.“
What isn’t a waste of public money is your salary. Because you are prepared to act to protect the reputation and interests of bodies within the criminal justice system that have clearly missed conducted themselves. And the evidence that they have misconducted themselves clearly exists and is presently with a London-based solicitor and counsel.
These organisations have themselves attempted via every means possible to conceal the evidence of professional misconduct for the purpose of reputation management. Your primary concern in imposing and renewing a CRO is therefore to maintain the reputation of the convicting court, police and CPS.
In the last hearing of this nature in June 2021 I pointed out salient facts. Firstly, that evidence proving both these organisations acted to cause a deliberate miscarriage of justice and obtain a wrongful conviction has been secured. I also stated that rather than you taking the reasonable line of requesting to see the withheld evidence showing factual innocence and then making an order [to CPS and Humberside Police] to supply the missing data you instead decided to support the misconduct carried out by the state and its agents by again extending the restraint order. This is despite the fact that it was pointed out to you clearly that there has been a significant miscarriage of justice and sufficient evidence exists of this for solicitor and barrister to have received several hikes in their legal aid funding.
However the professional and public reputation of the CJS comes first regardless of how obvious the miscarriage of justice is. Hence, the reason some very high-profile miscarriage of justice cases spend years languishing in prison, despite the fact that it is known where the evidence of factual innocence is and who is holding it.
Maybe your role is not to assist in finding of fact but rather to support the reputation of a system in which you work while you have a little fun yourself along the way. I refer to the case of your sentencing of Labour Party Peer Lord Ahmed. Having myself been on the receiving end of your florid pronouncements, made without any form of justification about me in your judgements, I can imagine the joy you got in being able to pronounce in the Lord Ahmed case. A matter in which you spent so long proclaiming about actions that Lord Ahmed has carried out that you forgot the basic issues involved in sentencing, leading to a successful appeal and a reduction in his sentence.
…I doubt that I’m the only person who you have acted to complicate their appeal into wrongful conviction by the application of a CRO.
You are fully aware on the basis of evidence put before you in the two judicial review applications in 2018, that there has been a significant miscarriage of justice, but rather than make relevant orders and allow applications that would have enabled the production of the relevant information you chose instead to apply a CRO, restricting my ability to obtain evidence for the purpose of appeal.
You now seek to extend the civil restraint order for a second time. I’m reasonably sure that such would be on unprecedented act.
Certainly, it would be unprecedented restriction upon my ability to be able to correct torts and take reasonable action to protect my own interests via the civil court system.
In the last such hearing in June 2021, I spoke at length about several civil claims that had been shut down by you contrary to established procedure, reasonableness or fairness. The entire text of a very lengthy series of submissions made at the last hearing was made available online shortly afterwards. And on my blog this forms the most accessed page.
I do not intend to repeat the contents of the submissions made in June 2021. The text of those submissions are of course freely available online. However, in this instance I will focus on one particular case which acts as a microcosm of your handling of any claim brought by myself or now it would seem also my family members.
Claim number XXX was dismissed again unreasonably and without proper grounds on the basis that it was believed that I was behind a claim made by my mother in respect of XXXXXXXXX Council. Why was this unreasonable? The answer to this is very simple. Because at any point you could’ve ordered that my mother appeared by video link or took an oath in her home witnessed by the family solicitor to say that she was the person behind the claim, directing it and instigator of it. Instead you took actions to limit her ability to be able to make a reasonable claim in respect of XXXXXXX Council mistreatment of her for an entirely unfair and inappropriate reason. It was within your capability to be able to confirm that my mother was the person behind the claim at all stages. But you did not seek this information, and instead sought to strike the claim of a third-party out. Not only the claims I bring but also those brought by my relatives and immediate family are now also liable to dismissal on the basis that they will be scooped up and put in front of you by court staff.
This is an abuse of power. It is an absence of duty of care and a clear breach of the principles established in The Equal Treatment Bench Book. You prevented my mother from being able to take action in relation to an actual harm caused to her by XXXXXXXXX Council.
On this basis it is foolish for me to assume that there will be any fairness or reasonable treatment within this hearing. There has been malpractice and discriminatory behaviour known from you towards me since 2018. The point of this hearing is simply to re-establish the civil restraint order for another two years.
The rejections of legitimate meritorious claims made of the course of the last two years, which do not in any way represent an excessive number of claims but which were rejected with wording from you that I have described in this statement, was done on purpose to enable the hearing today to further extend the civil restraint order. In other words the purpose of the of this hearing is simply to rubberstamp what has been in the your mind for around two years: that myself, as claimant should be further disadvantaged, limited and exposed to professional misconduct by other persons and organisations, without ability for legal recourse to correct torts against me. This is all to protect CPS, Humberside Police and Hull Crown Court from the effects of their own professional misconduct and negligence.
Anything I say within these proceedings, any comments I make and any legal arguments, however evidenced and persuasive will be ignored. This is because in every encounter with you over the last two years you have presented an unrealistic picture of the merits of claims that I have brought purely for the purpose of dismissing such claims. As such all the involvement that I’ve had with you over the last two years has, from your perspective, been for the purpose of establishing a case for the hearing today, in which you’re able to again justify the reimposition of the CRO for another two years.
Again, this is not fair or reasonable approach to take. But your interests lie in protection of criminal justice system from exposure of its misconduct, particularly public exposure leading to loss of confidence in such bodies as work within the CJS. As such again all of your actions over the last two years have been to enable you to rubberstamp another two-year stretch of a CRO today. As the appeal into my wrongful conviction moves forward I hope you’re prepared to be on the wrong side of history.
I also hope you’re prepared to be in a position in which your actions in seeking to maintain the wrongful conviction & protect those responsible for it and limit and restrict my ability to make applications in civil court cases in respect of it should be exposed publicly at a point where the wrongful conviction is overturned.”
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Final word.
Looking at the membership of the Garrick club, which Nicholas Lavender is a member of it is clear and logical that Lavender would seek to protect the establishment that he Is a significant part of. The more high-profile members of the club can be seen here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/gallery/2024/mar/19/garrick-club-notable-members-in-pictures
Lavender uses his position as a High Court judge to protect elements of the criminal and civil justice system, which have missed conducted themselves causing disadvantage to the public and potential loss of professional reputation to the courts. As such, Lavender is prepared to misuse his position in order to protect his colleagues and the system in which they work.
This is the low standard of British justice in the early 21st-century.
Legal Babble 