Tag: Malpractice

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How Establishment Judges Protect The System

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

Judge Nicholas Lavender

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. 

The High Court

 

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. 

 

Image: The Guardian. Disquiet has been expressed over the number of senior judges who are members of The Garrick Club.

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:

—————

 

“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.”

 

———————————————-

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

Extract from The Guardian article on High Court judges who are members of The Garrick Club. 19.3.24


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.

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Elder Abuse? Social Worker Coverup in Evidence to The High Court



This article, as seen below, was originally printed on this blog in August 2022.

Following an application made in September 2022 by the legal firm Weightmans of Liverpool at The High Court the blog was temporarily removed.

It is clear why the firm wished to remove the contents of this post. This is because they intended to commit significant malpractice towards Mrs. X, the subject of legal action brought by the firm on behalf of Wakefield Council as can be seen in a new blog entry which can be found at:

https://legalbabble.law.blog/2023/06/27/what-is-the-cost-of-a-human-life-in-modern-britain/

That entry details matters in more depth. The data seen here shows the position as of mid-2022 before the more significant misconduct carried out against Mrs. X took place.
The level of professional misconduct by the firm alongside the negligent handling of the case by the Court, who were well aware Mrs. X had protected characteristics and suchlike, led directly to the death of Mrs. X in February 2022. I have, therefore re-published this blog post, and it should be read in conjunction with the more recent post, the link to which can be seen above.



The position of Social Worker provides unique opportunities to the holder of such a post.

People who have a manipulative desire to insert themselves into the lives of others for malignant intent have a golden set of opportunities in such as social work.

When such a person is found out there is invariably an attempt to cover up their tracks. Often assisted by the Local Authority that employs them.

Just such an incident is the subject of this blog post.

In this post you will learn of the efforts of a social worker from Wakefield District Council to harass an elderly person within their region and the subsequent medical effects of the harassment on the elderly person. For the purpose of this we shall call her Mrs. X.

You’ll also see how the social worker then attempted to lie regarding communications with the elderly persons general practitioner.

Most damningly the social worker’s lies appear in a statement to the High Court made in order to try to cover up her actions and distance herself from being the cause of Mrs X’s subsequent deterioration.

Joanne Cave is a social worker for Wakefield District Council.

There have been a series of errors, omissions and malpractices from Wakefield District Council Social Services over a period of time lasting more than a year. Mrs X, the pensioner concerned, has had to suffer a series of significant errors in documentation created by the council, and the creation of reports by social services which failed to properly mention Mrs X’s medical conditions in order in part to deny her access to council services.

The Council has also sought to withhold documents requested as part of subject access requests and mishandled applications for such as discretionary disregard. In short Mrs X has been subject to appalling service by Wakefield District Council who refuse to accept responsibility for such.

An NHS assessment of Mrs. X in May 2022 at which social worker Joanne Cave was also present was the turning point for this.

This assessment showed that the prior reports written by social services at Wakefield District Council which failed to mention Mrs X’s medical conditions were clearly factually incorrect and that the medical conditions suffered by Mrs X are severe and have a significant effect on her quality of life.

Mrs X commenced series of legal proceedings regarding the council over such matters as their failure to correctly record data on her. Social worker Joanne Cave rang Mrs X to ask her questions about such legal proceedings and did so in such a way as to place Mrs X under undue stress and anxiety.

You may well wonder why a Social Worker was ringing to question someone under their care about legal issues and the claim they were bringing when Wakefield District Council has its own legal representation employed to do such things.

Social worker Joanne Cave and her immediate superior Mehmun Nessa were aware that these calls were placing Mrs X under undue stress and causing anxiety. This is clear from the content of a separate statement to The High Court not included here.

This does not stop them calling Mrs X on three separate occasions however to ask about legal proceedings Mrs X brought.


Medical report showing UTI contracted in the immediate aftermath of the call.

Because of a frail health suffered by Mrs X the stress she was placed under by the initial phone call from Joanne Cave induced in her a urinary tract infection which has since led directly to a permanent nocturnal incontinence. This can be seen in the above medical report. The UTI was contracted immediately following the phone call as a result of worry and anxiety caused by it.

Above is an extract from the GP’s medical report showing this UTI. As stated during this call Cave attempted to question Mrs X about legal proceedings, putting her to great distress and anxiety.

As a result of this a complaint was made to Social Care Complaints at Wakefield District Council. The council acted immediately on this complaint By deciding to ignore it and refusing to take any action.

However Joanne Cave herself was made aware of the terms of the complaint by Social Care Complaints and attempted to contact Mrs X’s GP to determine the extent of the urinary tract infection caused by her oppressive and distressing phone call.

Email from the GP practice confirms no data was passed to Joanne Cave.

It is clear from the data above that social worker Joanne Cave attempted to obtain information on the medical situation regarding the UTI from Mrs X’s GP.

However this was not obtained as Cave failed to obtain or to supply copies of any form of authority and indeed no authority to access her medical records was given by Mrs X.

What are the significant errors in Cave’s statements to the court?

 Cave tactically lies in her statement and claims the contact with the surgery for help came 31.5.22.

The medical record show the matter was actioned by a GP on 24.5.22. This is to minimise her involvement in the UTI contracted by Mrs X. There is no other reason Cave would have miss-reported the date of the call for help by Mrs X to the GP.

 Cave purposefully states that Mrs X was seen in the surgery. This is clearly incorrect.

 Cave claims she emails the surgery twice.

This is not the account given by the surgery. They do not state an email was received. Instead they explicitly state no email was not received. Cave claims they were emailed twice. No copy of any consent was received by the surgery. This is clear.

 Cave seems to claim asking the surgery to contact Mrs X on her behalf.

The surgery did not make contact with Mrs X or relatives in respect of any matter related to Cave’s call to them.

 The dates of calls etc. given in the surgery email and Cave’s statement are also inconsistent.

The content of the GP email seen above are clear on this. Joanne Cave appears to have acted to mislead The High Court.

The issues are now clear. Joanne Cave sought to mislead the Court in respect of information passed over from Mrs X’s GP.

There are numerous claims across each of Cave’s two statements to The High Court regarding dates of calls with the GP and data passed over. Invariably these claims seek to put the date of the UTI contracted outside of the timeframe around the call made by Cave to Mrs X.

But regardless of the distress and medical effects caused by the first call a second call from Joanne Cave’s supervisor Mehmun Nessa was made in July 2022 and then a further call from Cave herself in August. A statement provided in proceedings by Cave makes is clear Wakefield Social Services are aware of the distress this places on Mrs X.

In statements to the High Court Cave have sought to mislead regarding information passed over by the GP surgery. That the surgery is clear that no information was passed over and no forms of authority were returned.

Joanne Cave’s assertions in her statements regarding data passed over by Mrs X’s GP are therefore total fabrications.

Recordings made by the GP surgery confirmed this, and the surgery itself confirms that no data was passed over to social worker Joanne Cave.

It’s clear then that Joanne Cave has misled the court in her statements. This amounts to perjury, misconduct in public office and an attempt by Cave to absolve herself of any responsibility for inducing in Mrs X a urinary tract infection in May 2022.

That anyone should lie in a statement in court is a serious matter. Any person doing so has committed perjury and is liable to find themselves in contempt of court for such behaviour. Generally we would expect that anyone acting as a social worker, who has regular and frequent contact with the vulnerable, the confused and the easily harmed should hold themselves to higher standards.

In this matter Joanne Cave rang Mrs X in May 2022 to attempt to obtain information which was related to legal proceedings. This is clearly not her job as a social worker but Mrs X was more likely to “let her guard down” with such a person than if a solicitor called. In order to be able to discuss these mattes with Mrs X Cave began the conversation on a separate matter, discussing any care that Mrs X may want and her medical needs. Joanne Cave then began to broach the subject of civil legal issues causing Mrs X distress and anxiety. This a direct cause of a UTI and subsequent lasting nocturnal incontinence.

Mrs X is currently therefore worse off medically and in terms of her health and well-being as a result of contact with Wakefield Social Services.

In happier days a Social Worker would not lie to a court in order to try to cover up the fact of their own misconduct toward a client.

These are not happy days. These are days in which people who work for large organisations will lie, conceal, dissemble and manipulate in order to cover up facts around their own professional misconduct and incompetence.

Joanne Cave, Social Worker for Wakefield District Council has been thoroughly and completely caught out on this matter.

Will we have to wait too long to see the effect of any internal investigation into the provision of knowingly incorrect data in court proceedings by Wakefield District Council? An internal investigation as been requested but those familiar with this Council’s propensity for dissembling, hand-wringing and wrangling would be wise not to hold their breath.

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Evading Scrutiny – West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s problem with the truth

You will be advantaged by learning four things from this blog entry:

  1. The means by which police force’s skew complaint investigations in their own favour. 
  2. How local Mayor’s office’s deliberately mishandle appeals regarding how police have handlined a complaint. 
  3. How the Mayor’s office then themselves avoid accountability for their behaviour. 
  4. The degree of contempt with which all of the above hold the public.

The issue concerns a mishandled complaint to West Yorkshire Police, then subject to an appeal to West Yorkshire Combined Authority Policing and Crime office. The appeal to WYCA was actioned so poorly as to amount to an unacceptable breach of standards and so a complaint was made about this. That office’s Jane Owen then arguably commits misconduct in public office with a misleading response designed to avoid any accountability for West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

Prior to reading this blog entry you may wish to look at the other post regarding how West Yorkshire Combined Authority deflects complaints made about itself and minimises complaints made about West Yorkshire Police. This can be found at:

Turning a Blind Eye. How West Yorkshire Combined Authority Helps Local Police to Evade Accountability.
My prior blog post on how West Yorkshire Combined Authority assists police to evade accountability.

Well it appears that little has been learned from that prior matter and appeals to the Combined Authority that West Yorkshire Police have mishandled a complaint made are still subject to evasion and avoidance by the office of Deputy Mayor Alison Lowe, who has ultimate responsibility for the mishandling of the appeal.

Alison Lowe, Deputy Mayor and the person responsible for policing issues at West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

Here’s how this happened in this specific instance… 

A complaint was made to West Yorkshire Police Professional Standards Department (PSD). The result of this was the usual lazy evidence-free shonking off of the complaint. The matter was referred to the Deputy Mayor’s Office at West Yorkshire Combined Authority who deliberately or accidentally failed to spot where PSD skewed their complaint investigation. 

There are a number of investigative criteria for the Deputy Mayor’s office to follow.

These are:

[Whether due regard was given to relevant guidance]

In this matter reference was made in the PSD or Deputy Mayor’s responses to College of Policing guidelines and how these were supposed to have been followed. The Deputy Mayor’s Office failed to locate the College of Policing Guidance to compare the outline of how police should have behaved in the incident subject to the complaint with objective standards.

The response of PSD was not set out in a format that showed a correct formal investigation had taken place. This was ignored by the investigator for the Deputy Mayor, Karen Gray. 

The next line of investigation missed by Karen Gray was:

[Whether reasonable lines of enquiries were undertaken to be able to provide a reasonable and proportionate outcome] [Where any aspects of your complaint were not addressed, or any lines of enquiry were not pursued, whether there were sound reasons given for this]

Neither the Mayor’s Office nor West Yorkshire Police made any enquiries with third party witnesses to establish what happened. 

In similar prior incidents it is known that and attempt has been made to contact witnesses by PSD, but not in this matter.

Again this shows that the standards outlined above in regards to the following of reasonable lines of inquiry have not been undertaken by PSD. The Deputy Mayor’s Office failed to consider this matter. 

[Whether enough information was given to the complainant to address the complaint and support the outcome]

PSD failed to respond to a request for information in their complaint response. Again the Deputy Mayor’s Office fail to spot this. Here a potentially significant breach of established protocol at the incident complained of has not been addressed by PSD & the matter has been ignored in the appeal to the Combined Authority.

[Where any aspects of your complaint were not addressed, or any lines of enquiry were not pursued, whether there were sound reasons given for this] 

The initial response of PSD failed to reply to the issues raised in the original complaint. This was again not addressed or spotted by Karen Gray in her appeal investigation. And the format for a formal, structured complaint response from PSD was not used.

[Whether reasonable lines of enquiries were undertaken to be able to provide a reasonable and proportionate outcome] 

The Deputy Mayor’s office failed to consider that the actions of the officers complained of forms a pattern of behaviour from West Yorkshire Police. 

In short then the appeal investigation by West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s Karen Gray was the usual mix of evasion of issues that she would have to find against police. Combined with a total failure so spot the ways in which police had skewed their own investigation to favour themselves.

A complaint was made about the exceptionally poor service provided in the appeal investigation by Karen Gray. 

This was responded to by Jane Owen, Casework Officer at West Yorkshire Combined Authority Policing and Crime office.

The response was:

Having carefully considered all your complaint points, I have concluded that this is not about the service this office has provided but rather is about how West Yorkshire Police handled your complaints CO-1490-22, CO-3251-20 and CO-2771-21 and is also about the outcome of the review of CO-1490-22 which was provided to you by Karen Grey on 20 October 2022. 

This is clearly outright mendacity. The complaint was clearly directed at Karen Gray’s seeming inability to be able to conduct a proper investigation and avoidance of consideration of key issues within the single complaint raised of poor service in this matter.

It is also an outrageous attempt to deflect any investigation into the very poor service standards at West Yorkshire Combined Authority Policing and Crime office. This is the kind of response provided when an organisation knows full well that their behaviour would not stand up to any form of scrutiny. 

Jane Owen goes on to state: 

As you are aware, the statutory guidance does not make provision for review outcomes to be challenged through the complaints process and consequently, if you wish to challenge the outcome of Karen’s review of CO-1490-22, you should consider seeking independent legal advice. 

This is also clear misdirection and also untrue. The link seen above details the complaint investigation into a prior mishandled appeal to WYCA carried but by Jane Owen’s colleague Julie Reid.

There is an offence in law of misconduct in public office. Attorney General’s Reference No 3 of 2003[2004] EWCA Crim 868. 

The offence is committed when: 

  • a public officer acting as such; 
  • wilfully neglects to perform his duty and/or wilfully misconducts himself; 
  • to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder; 
  • without reasonable excuse or justification. 

Let’s pause a moment and consider the overall picture.

The police failed to investigate a complaint made correctly and in line with their own prior procedures for so doing. When this was referred to West Yorkshire Combined Authority Policing and Crime office as an appeal to their Karen Gray, Gray lets police off the hook by failing to investigate several issues that show police failed to act correctly and in line with The Police Reform Act 2022. When these are pointed out in a complaint her colleague Jane Owen intervenes and outrageously claims that the issues raised as complaints about West Yorkshire Combined Authority Policing and Crime office are not in fact about that office as a means of deflecting any investigation into the suboptimal nature of their appeal investigation.

If you can think of a more blatant effort to conceal a public body’s failings performed in such contemptible way then please let me know. The actions of both Karen Gray in failing to conduct an appeal investigation correctly (not for the first time, it must be said) and those of Jane Owen in attempting to conceal or deny the failure of Gray by refusing to action a complaint amount to misconduct in public office.

You can see a video below of the hot air West Yorkshire Combined Authority spouts about their Police and Crime Plan. None of this concerns efforts to hold Plod to account for misdemeanours.

Outside of the Met West Yorkshire Police is regarded as the most corrupt and incompetent force in the UK.

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Turning a Blind Eye. How West Yorkshire Combined Authority Helps Local Police to Evade Accountability.

In this blog post you will learn how local authority organisations tasked with holding the police to account will fail to do so. Because even when there is significant evidence of misconduct on the part of the force, including attempts to suppress a reasonable investigation, the supervisory organisation will ignore this and prefer instead their own tick box review of police misconduct which fails to address or examine the police’s deliberate mishandling of a complaint.

The issues raised concern West Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

One of the issues we continue to return to in this blog is the inability of supervisory organisations to be able to hold other organisations lower down the food chain to account.

This occurs for a number of reasons. In this matter it is both historically the case that locally based organisations tasked with holding West Yorkshire Police to account are incapable of doing so, but also when such organisations commit an error in their own review of an investigation they ignore the error in any subsequent correspondence. At all stages the emphasis is maintenance of public confidence in the police complaint system, which results in a failure to properly examine and investigate complaints raised with proper rigour.

This matter concerns West Yorkshire Combined Authority and their inability to be able to hold West Yorkshire Police to account when the police’s Professional Standards Department Standards Dept. fail to properly investigate a complain. Indeed even when they appear to have deliberately scuppered a complaint investigation WYCA do nothing. The authority’s website states that one of their functions is “holding the Chief Constable to account” categorically this is not true. When an instance of abuse of power or process occurs WYCA look the other way.

Alison Lowe OBE is the West Yorkshire Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC). She is pictured below. The supervision of the local force is her responsibility and ultimately that of West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin.

Alison Lowe is currently the person next in line responsible for supervision of police after the local mayor.

But first let’s travel back into the mists of time. 

Prior to West Yorkshire Combined Authority taking over supervision of police complaints in relation to West Yorkshire Police there existed a Police and Crime Commissioner. This was Mark Burns-Williamson.

During his time as police and crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire he proved not only significantly gaffe prone but also incapable of holding West Yorkshire Police to account.

The reason for this inability to hold the force to account is widely known. Burns-Williamson was involved in a messy love triangle in which he wrote an unfortunately worded letter to his rival. This matter was suppressed by West Yorkshire Police DI Simon Bottomley and since then until the end of his tenure in post in 2021 Burns-Williamson would avoid using PCC powers to hold the force to account. He was literally caught by the nuts by West Yorkshire Police who because of their suppression of the complaint about the letter had a significant hold over him. This prevented the Police and Crime Commissioner from fully exercising their reasonable duties in holding Police to account.

The Burns-Williamson inaction figure is available in bearded and clean-shaven variants. Optional dodgy contents of his office safe play set also available!

Burns-Williams time as commissioner was characterised by a series of notorious exposures of misconduct in public office on the part of the organisation he was tasked with supervising. West Yorkshire Police have an international reputation for incompetence and dishonesty practiced even on those in their own ranks and the period of a Police and Crime Commissioner supposedly supervising them was characterised by a new intensity of incompetence, corruption and smearing from all levels of the force.  

Now let us move forward to the present. 

The College of Policing publishes a Code of Ethics, which is routinely ignored and in fact the subject of of humour amongst many police forces. It also provides a series of guides of behaviour and conduct that it deems reasonable for officers to be able to show in the course of their duties. This covers a number of different aspects of policing and is in effect a Code of Conduct broadly similar to The Highway Code in that it provides a structure of behaviour that would give the public confidence they are being policed correctly. The more an officer adheres to what the College of Policing guidelines are in a situation the less likely it is that they will go off on their own tangent and open themselves and their Chief Constable to a charge of misconducting themselves.  

One of these guidelines covers how officers should conduct themselves when undertaking visits to the home of a member of the public. The code is clear in how officers should behave when on home visits.

This isn’t photoshopped.
A lot of modern Plods really are this out of condition!

In an October 2020 visit to a member of the public’s home two officers of West Yorkshire Police attended. One of them breached the guidance in a clear and obvious way. So clearly in fact that the breach was obvious to all, including the colleague they attended with. This was subject to a complaint to West Yorkshire Police made shortly afterwards.

Complaints to West Yorkshire Police are examined and considered – although more often than not dismissed on spurious grounds – by their Professional Standards Department. The logic of allowing police to investigate themselves is perhaps better left to others to explain.

In this matter they did three things to dishonestly skew the complaint in their favour. The three facts below represent a salutary warning to anyone who makes a complaint regarding the police that they will seek to loose evidence not in their favour and misdirect the investigation.

One

A complaint of the breach of the Code was made shortly after the visit. The officers in attendance wore body worn video, which could have proved the substance of the complaint to be factually accurate. But the body worn video was allowed to be destroyed before being viewed by Professional Standards Department at West Yorkshire Police. No attempt to retain the material for viewing was made. Thus the first piece of clear evidence that misconduct occurred on the home visit was lost. Likely deliberately.

Two

Significantly also a witness present at the home address during the visit was not questioned or approached in any way by police investigating the complaint. Again as with the loss of the body worn video footage this likely occurred to skew the process of the complaint investigation in favour of West Yorkshire Police exonerating the officer whose conduct had been highlighted. In the same way police failed to interview the other officer not subject to the complaint of a breach of the Code. Again this is deliberate action to skew the complaint investigation in the police’s favour.

Three

Then in the most devious manipulation of the complaint process West Yorkshire Police misdirected the complaint by investigating the officer who had not committed the breach of The College of Policing guidance rather than the one who clearly did. This together with the destruction of body worn video footage – which would have proven the complaint was factually sound – and the refusal to approach a witness to the facts are suggestive of an organisation which has attempted to suppress an investigation which would have found against one of their officers.

This is not however a new thing for West Yorkshire Police. Their Professional Standards Department standards department has dozens of different ways of minimising, trivialising, diffusing and reducing a complaint to the point where, however reasonable and valid it may be, the matter will not be investigated or assessed with rigour due to it. The point of this is of course the maintaining of professional reputation.

What price police reputation and integrity? Well at the moment about the same as this old badge goes for on eBay.

The 2021 independent report into the murder of journalist Daniel Morgan and the failure to solve the crime by the Metropolitan Police defined institutional corruption as:

“Concealing or denying failings, for the sake of the organisation’s public image, is dishonesty on the part of the organisation for reputational benefit and constitutes a form of institutional corruption.”

In circumstances large or small the police are prepared to manipulate cynically the complaints system in order to get officers off the hook. And in such situations the need for reasonably effective and careful supervision of police Professional Standards Departments is clear.

However staff at West Yorkshire combined authority specifically the Deputy Mayor’s office, who are tasked with supervision of police complaints where the complainant seeks review, seem to be suffering an unfortunate hangover from the days of Mark Burns-Williamson.

Police failed to find in favour of the complainant. The mishandling of the complaint worked rather well for them. So the matter was referred to the Deputy Mayor’s office at West Yorkshire Combined Authority. This is the next stage in the procedure of the complaints process. 

The matter was initially assessed and investigated by Karen Grey of West Yorkshire Combined Authority. 

And important fact to remember in relation to any complaint that you may refer to such as a Police and Crime Commissioner, a local authority, or The Independent Office of Police Complaints is that the matter that was originally under investigation by the police’s Professional Standards Department will not be investigated again.  

This means that police can misdirect any complaint made about their behaviour at the initial stages of that complaint and that the later appeals stages will not look for or attempt to correct those errors. The complaints system is being tactically gamed therefore to maintain the police’s professional reputation. Local authority organisations and IOPC are assisting in this.

The body tasked with review of the Police findings in respect of a complaint will conduct a tick box exercise which is essentially to review if the police have fulfilled their own tick-box exercise within their earlier complaint investigation. There will be no investigation into egregious breaches of procedure or abuse of process.

In keeping with this the investigation of the wrong person was missed by Karen Gray. The destruction of body worn video footage barely warranted a mention and the failure to interview a witness or the other officer present likewise. In short the means by which West Yorkshire Police had skewed the investigation, by dishonest means and to evade finding against one of their own officers for a breach of the College of Policing Code, were ignored by the review process.

This does not in anyway represent effective oversight of the police’s own handling of complaints. The same personnel who were present when the organisation was the Police and Crime Commissioner up until 2021 have moved to the new Combined Authority / Mayor’s office. Given that the reasons PCC Mark Burns-Williamson was incapable of holding police to account are well-known I’m forced to ponder what the WYCA’s excuse for the same lamentable lack of diligence is?

The suboptimal nature of the Combined Authority’s review of the police handling of a complaint, the critical facts of West Yorkshire Police’s own purposeful mishandling of the complaint in order to draw conclusions that police had handled the complaint in line with their obligations

A further review by Julie Reid, Head of Policing and Crime at West Yorkshire Combined Authority, failed to acknowledge that Karen Grey had made any errors in the handling of the complaint. So in effect then while the original complaint was subject to malfeasance from police, the complaint to WYCA about Gray’s mishandling of the original matter was also covered-up.

The ultimate price of this is paid by the public of course. While police are able to cover up misdeeds with impunity and the review organisation also fails to admit it has failed to spot key errors in its own investigation the standard of policing will never improve

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A Culture of Concealment: National Probation Service and Complaint Mishandling

National probation service has a history of apathy, obfuscation of truth, lack of accountability and an unwillingness to learn from its failings.

One of the easiest ways to see this is in the way complaints about NPS services are handled. This is a three stage process.

The initial stage is communication with a person’s probation officer, who will attempt to settle the issue informally. The next step is what is known as a stage one escalation. This is where a formal response is received and the matter investigated by a local office. In this case this is Yorkshire and The Humber Regional Hub which can be found based at West Offices, Station Rise, York.

If issues are still unresolved following this matter moves to a stage two escalation. At this stage, the complaint is examined by a panel made up of people who work for National Probation Service and the results reported back to the complainant.

This procedure for dealing with complaints is outlined in a document in public circulation. This is Probation Service Instruction (PI) 51/2014.

Here is a link to that document:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/handling-complaints-pi-512014

I mentioned earlier that NPS has a tendency towards unaccountability, and willingness to learn from its failings.

One of the of the most pernicious aspects of this organisation is the degree to which it will attempt to protect probation officers, and their supervisory staff from the effect of their own misconduct.

Pauline Forbes Williams works for National Probation Service based in York. Her job title is Head of Complaints Team for NPS Yorkshire and the Humber.  

She is effectively the first line of defence for NPS when a stage one complaint is raised. The purpose of her intervention very often is seen in early-stage attempts to get a complaint dismissed without any form of examination and more often on questionable grounds.

It would appear from evidence obtained that the means of her doing this include misrepresenting Probation Service Instructions on handling complaints. For example, she may say that a complaint is time barred from being examined when in fact, no such time bar exists. She may say that a complaint is has already been dealt with in other matter when in fact this is not the case.

All of these are ways and means by which NPS – often with knowing and deliberate dishonesty – seeks to evade proper examination of complaints brought to it.

As a consequence lessons regarding poor service are never learned and the service fails to improve.

It appears NPS don’t like complaints much and this relates back to the matter of lack of accountability and willingness to learn from failings. It may also be the case that NPS is aware that the service provided is in many ways wholly inadequate to the point being on the verge of collapse.

Consequently, there is a massive incentive on the part of NPS to minimise, trivialise, diffuse and fragment any complaints put to it and to do so via any means at its disposal. Even if it means the methods for discontinuance of a complaint are contrary to the duty of care and PI 54/2014 instructions for handling complaints.

Or contrary to the truth, as in this matter.

This brings us back to Paulette Forbes-Williams.

A complainant who we will call Mr X for the purpose of this article made a complaint which was dealt with at stage two. The complainant requested details of the appeal panel, and who sat upon it.

This is not an unreasonable request for information!

The fact that the information was not provided by NPS at the conclusion of the second stage of the complaint response suggests that they were seeking to hide details of who was sat upon the appeal panel, possibly, because there was some conflict of interest or prior knowledge of Mr X by one of the persons sat on the panel that may have prejudiced their opinion and the way they approached the complaint.

The response of Paulette Forbes-Williams is seen below.

So in short the reasons Mr X was not provided with a copy of the names of the appeal panel – according to Forbes-Williams – was because Mr X posed a medium risk to staff.

This is clearly wrong because Mr X obtained a copy of information from National Probation Service around a month prior to the letter seen above from Paulette Forbes-Williams.

Two extracts from this are seen below.

These clearly state that Mr X was not in fact a risk to NPS personnel as stated by Forbes-Williams. That he was classified in fact as a low-risk offender. That the risk presented to probation staff was low and a risk presented to the public was low.

Therefore, in her grounds for refusal to provide the information requested, Forbes-Williams wholly misrepresented the situation in order to deny access to the information.

It’s reasonable to imagine that prior to issuing this complaint response Paulette Forbes-Williams would have checked the records of Mr X and the level of risk he supposing presented before making such broad comments as appear in the letter.

Or maybe not!

When the facts were put to Forbes-Williams from NPS’ own documents this response was received:

As stated there are clear grounds for why NPS might have sought to withhold information on the composition of the appeal panel from Mr X and it would appear on past form based on evidence seen that Forbes-Williams will utilise any means to avoid either progressing a complaint or providing information.

In any case, it is beholden upon someone whose job title is Head of Complaints to be able to provide the correct information in complaint responses and data access requests and not to act in bad faith to unfairly disadvantage Mr X in the pursuit of information he has requested.

Some hope of that here!

Given Paulette Forbes-Williams, history of malfeasance, misfeasance, and purposeful misconduct in public office in relation to complaint handling I favour, the explanation that the data was knowingly & deliberately withheld forming a breach of Section 77 of The Freedom of Information Act as well as misconduct in public office on the part of Forbes-Williams. S.77 of FOI makes it a criminal offence for a person to do anything with the intention of preventing the disclosure of information pursuant to an FOI request. You can read more about this Act here:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/77

All quite predictable so far. You’ll recall the opening lines of this article discussed apathy, obfuscation of truth & lack of accountability.

Here’s where these factors come into play in relation to this matter.

Lynda Marginson CBE. Presume that stands for Can’t be Bothered Explaining!

Paulette Forbes-Williams’ supervisor for the purpose of such matters as this is Lynda Marginson CBE. She is the Regional Director for the Probation Service in Yorkshire and the Humber. You can find her on Twitter @lyndamarginson where she relentlessly bangs the drum that all is good in the world of NPS.

The matter of Forbes-Williams misconduct in relation to this and other matters was put to Lynda Marginson. The response as seen below.

Bland assurances that a proper investigation was carried out fall somewhat short of the Probation Service Instructions for how a complaint should be actioned. You will recall that PI 54/2014 for dealing with complaints specify a three stage process. Mr X wrote back to state:

…and expressed concerns regarding the rigor of the investigation into Forbes-Williams for what clearly amounts to misconduct to try to retain data. A stage one complaint is supposed to provide some explanation of the means by which a matter has been investigated. In this case it looks likely that with a senior member of NPS being caught out the proper procedure and process has been skipped.

What Marginson has sought to do is to stop the matter proceeding on to being a stage two complaint response by herself deciding that there is no further aspect of this complaint that needs to be examined. You can see for yourself, the paucity of a response given by Marginson and the lack of rigor by which the matter was investigated.

It is clear that the process by which investigations are conducted into complaints about NPS is designed to block any reasonable investigation into a complaint made by such as Mr X by any means possible. Paulette Forbes-Williams being the first stage gatekeeper in that.

However when she is found out for misconduct don’t count on the likes of Lynda Marginson offering appropriate oversight: organisations such as NPS need people like Forbes-Williams to limit, restrict and deny legitimate and reasonable complaints by all means possible. This means someone like Forbes-Williams – because they are prepared to bend the rules to protect NPS – must themselves be protected by their immediate superiors when they do so.

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Systemic Failures at ICO Exposed

The purpose of ICO – the Information Commissioner’s Office – is to stated on their website to be to…

…uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.

However when ICO themselves are subject to a data access request they are prepared to break the law regarding such.

Given that ICO is charged with upholding the law in relation to data access requests this evasiveness ensures that they have lost the moral authority to be able to enforce data access legislation when things go wrong.

More damming though is that a recent investigation revealed ICO’s means of investigating disclosure breaches is so weak and inept as to render it futile to raise issues before them.

Put simply here’s what happened…

I made a data access request to Wakefield Council. The Council only provided four pages to begin with, then produced more but significantly failed to include the first 53 pages of data from the request, so ICO were informed after the Council had been given ample chance to correct matters.

The original matter put to ICO as a formal complaint was:


The final response is seen attached. Not only has the data requested not been provided but also the Council has directed me to the wrong agency to seek the answers / disclosure wanted. This is clear in the attached PDF. In fact the majority of the questions I am directed to seek answers to elsewhere comprise of information from Wakefield Council that only they have access to. The response of the Council is therefore misdirection as well as a breach of the relevant Act in failing to provide the data requested on 12.4.21.

Therefore I refer this matter to you for assessment on if the Council has fulfilled its obligations in respect of provision of data. The attached Word file contains all correspondence from April 2021 onwards.

Wakefield Council is the preferred workplace of people too inept to survive in a commercial environment.

ICO responded after some months and their Case Officer Rachel Webster stated:

In my view I have fully considered the data protection issues you have raised and in light of the Council’s response I do not believe there are any outstanding data protection issues that we would want to pursue further with the Council at this time. As I have explained in correspondence to you our role is not to necessarily resolve every aspect of an individual’s complaint to their satisfaction.

My reply to this was sent shortly after, on 30.3.22 and stated:  

There are 54 pages outstanding that have not been produced from a data access request. This is something I have been clear about across this process and the disclosures remain outstanding.  

What proof have the Council shown to ICO that the relevant data has been produced? 

Further that ICO tried to shuffle off responsibility for adjudicating on the data access failure by the Council. Outrageously Webster suggested:

I understanding you are currently taking legal action against the Council and it may be that these issues are resolved as part of that process.

Now here’s where things get funky.

In my email of 30.3.22 I requested:

It is for ICO to resolve the issues put before it: the Council has failed to produce data as the result of many requests to do so and was in breach of the law in repeated failures to disclose. ICO’s responsibility is to chase such matters and ensure compliance outside of any other process.

And of course I stated:

What proof have the Council shown to ICO that the relevant data has been produced?  

And ICO’s response to this on 7.4.22 was:

We take information provided by organisations in response to data protection complaints in good faith. As a decision by our office is only a view or an opinion rather than a final determination we do not have to request evidence/proof from organisations concerned. In this case the Council believe they have fully complied with your request however it is clear from your correspondence that you disagree that this is the case and the information is outstanding. We have raised your concerns with the Council and we’re satisfied with the Council’s response and that at this time there is no further action for us to take in relation to your case.

That’s right. You read that correctly.

ICO does not seek out or require proof from organisations that they have complied with their responsibilities. Indeed in a situation such as this where a member of the public asserts that they have not then ICO will accept the comments of the organisation that they have over and above any evidence that the public has provided.


ICO then attempted to fob me off with some data in response to a request I made. The data was not that which I requested.

I in fact requested all communication between Wakefield Council and ICO. My response to ICO was sent 9.4.22 and stated:

Further that the data supplied does not support comments made in your emails to me about information supplied by the Council to ICO.

ICO claim that the Council’s attempt at a get-out-of-gaol-free card in this matter was to state that they had a particular defence in law as to why the data had not been provided. The data produced by ICO between them and the Council did not contain this claim from the local authority. So where did it come from? A further data access request was made to ICO for proof that the Council had stated to ICO what ICO claimed the Council had stated.

Simple enough you would have thought. Especially in the light of ICO’s failure to produce the relevant data in copies of correspondence with the Council.

ICO failed to produce this data. I wrote back to state:

Given ICO’s stated position as regulator for data access / information rights issues this is simply not good enough. At a minimum I would expect fulfilment of the data access request made and chased 7.4.22. That such disclosure from ICO should show that ICO has interacted with the Council on the matter of IC-134978-B9K1 and that the Council has responded appropriately back to the matters raised in this complaint.  

ICO shot back with:

Thank you for your email below. I note your comments and can provide the following response. I can reassure you I have considered all the information provided by you and the Council in relation to this case.

This amounts to two failures to provide data requested. In the second instance ICO purposefully fail to address the renewed request for specific data from their office.

Given that the data I provided showed that the Council had clearly withheld disclosure for no legitimate reason it seems odd that ICO should prefer the Council’s response, especially in a situation in which they appear to have provided ICO with no supporting data.

It’s a relief to anyone who brings a data access complaint to ICO to learn that, as stated in theur response to me of 30.3.22:

…our role is not to necessarily resolve every aspect of an individual’s complaint to their satisfaction. Rather we consider data protection complaints that are brought to us partly in order to identify issues with an organisations information rights policies/procedures.

Which in practical terms means that ICO will ignore issues in complaints brought by the public which it finds irksome to deal with. This may mean that if enquiries with a misconducting organisation are going to be long and drawn-out that ICO will ignore complex aspects of the complaint made. Historically even in matters where there is a significant breach of the law by an organisation ICO also fails to act punitively and instead builds up a file of data on the organisation’s failings.

A case review was requested and completed 22.4.22 by Lead Case Officer Alison Fletcher.

Again this failed to address the issue of the data requested from Wakefield Council to ICO which supported the comments made by ICO, as had all the prior responses from Rachel Webster. A further response from Alison Fletcher also failed to address the issue of the data not being supplied

Does ICO have a specific reason for withholding the data requested? Likely this is a matter of professional reputation. That a full disclosure of the data I requested would show that ICO failed to investigate this matter to a reasonable standard and perhaps that the Council did not provide them with the data ICO claimed they did. This has to be the case since I provided sufficient evidence to show Wakefield Council had breached its responsibility in law to provide all the data I originally requested from them. The sign of a weak investigation is in the reply provided by ICO which stated:

We take information provided by organisations in response to data protection complaints in good faith. As a decision by our office is only a view or an opinion rather than a final determination we do not have to request evidence/proof from organisations concerned

As I mentioned the practical effect of this is that if an organisation claims not to have breached the law then ICO simply accept what the organisation have said without evidence and contrary to any evidence provided by the public, however strong.

This is indicative of ICO being an organisation that is unfit for purpose. You might of course argue that they are functioning perfectly: that one part of the State has acted to deflect and cover the illegality of another.

However it is ICO’s careful avoidance of producing data requested showing what the Council stated to them which suggests most strongly that they are unable to properly police the wild west of data legislation.

Just to recap in relation to the seriousness of the malfeasance from ICO. When data was produced showing correspondence from the Council to ICO nothing supporting the comments claimed to have been made by the Council had been sent to ICO, who then went on to be unable to produce the info from the Council supporting what they say the Council had said.

When the body charged with taking others to task for failure to observe information rights law believes itself to be exempt from such laws – and likely making up excuses for organisation’s failures – can there be any doubt that ICO cannot remain much longer in its present form?

Service standards from The Information Commissioner’s Office are frankly not very good!
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Attempted Fraud by Age UK?

Age UK used to be a charity. Used to be.  

Now only the London headquarters is a charitable organisation that gives help, guidance and suchlike to the elderly.

Like so many other organisations over the last forty years or so Age UK have given away much of their power to businesses seeking predominantly profit. This has led to significant injustice for many as services become harder to access. The example given below is a good illustration of how far things have fallen.

The social care crisis has enabled some unscrupulous activity in the care sector. As employees become harder to find firms need to be more creative about ensuring their sources of income. Some are a little too creative!

Therefore if you have an Age UK local office it is more likely this is a business run for profit as a limited company with Directors and suchlike. But they will trade with the Age UK logo and name which still makes the public think of it as a charity and not a business.

You can of course look up your local Age UK office on the Companies House website, it will be styled as Age UK Stevenage, or Age UK Bolton and so on to distinguish it from the charity and the multiple other for-profit bodies run under the same title. This will provide a list of the local Directors of the business and other useful data.

This is of course fundamentally dishonest and close to misrepresentation. It is not however the most dishonest thing about these companies which use the Age UK name, as this article will show. 

My mother is elderly, housebound and has severe medical needs. Care needs to be provided for her and we used our local Age UK for this for a period of six months or so. The service provided was… adequate. But not spectacular.

This was for home care in which carers would attend twice a day to empty commodes, make her food etc. This was of course in addition to family attending to her on a daily basis also.

The Age UK visits were to “top up” the care already being provided by relatives.

The idealised image of social care. But as the care crisis grows more severe it appears some companies are prepared to prey on the elderly.

As the service levels were not especially wonderful we said goodbye to Age UK after a time. Less impressive than anything they did to care for my mother was the tendency for workers to sit around for ten minutes in a half hour appointment after all the essential jobs were done.  

All payments to the local Age UK were of course up to date and bills were settled in good time. However when we said we no longer required their services two additional bills arrived which were over and above the work already paid for. These bills amounted in total to around £1,200 being requested when clearly all the due invoices had been settled and no additional work had been carried out. This was queried by me with the office who were adamant that the invoices represented monies due.

The local branch continued to press for payment of sums not owed. They even claimed in a letter to me that they were a charitable organisation and this is the reason the invoices should be paid, which I was able to quickly disprove by a check on Companies House, as I described above.

Eventually the matter was taken up by the firm as a civil action with my mother named as the Defendant and Age UK’s local business as the Claimant.

And this is where things start to get interesting and murkier still.

An initial hearing was due to take place in the matter in August 2021. Directions were issued by the Court that Age UK failed to comply with, in other words they failed to supply evidence, documents, a Statement and so on to the Court. The hearing was by telephone. No-one from Age UK took part in the hearing and the Court’s efforts to contact the Claimant by phone for the hearing failed. 

As a result of this the Claim was struck out by the District Judge. 

However Age UK applied to resume the claim and a further hearing date was set for September 2021. Age UK’s application for the case to be re-heard sounded impressive and worrying: in short if you believed what was written in the Application the business was tottering on the edge of bankruptcy due to the non-payment of these supposed sums owed.

What cost dignity in old age? Well if you deal with the businesses that trade under the Age UK name it could be higher than you think!

Again prior to the hearing in September 2021 Age UK had failed to enter any Statement and failed to comply with the directions of the Court. The fact that on the second go around they were still failing to produce any evidence showing that any sums were owed is telling: the claim was an abuse of process to try to obtain payments Age UK were aware were not owed, and the misuse of the civil system was to make my mother fearful of the proceedings such that she paid up to stop them.

What’s more a day before the hearing they issued a Notice of Discontinuance to stop all proceedings, recognising that severe costs would be awarded against them for their vexatious misuse of the civil court system.

And vexatious misuse is exactly what the local branch of Age UK tried.

They had no intention to go forward to a hearing with this matter but rather by the threat and then the issue of civil proceedings they sought to frighten an elderly lady in ill-health into paying sums they were fully aware were not owed.

Nor do I think my mother is the only elderly person or their family that businesses operating under the Age UK title have tried this sort of thing with: its a nice little earner when a client says goodbye to try squeezing them for funds one last time. Perhaps this is common practice in the care sector?

Had my mother not been so frail that she pushed all financial matters to family to sort out she would likely have seen those final two duplicitous invoices and paid them without thinking.

In any event she would likely have paid the sums they claim were owed at the threat of Court action. And she would certainly have paid them at the receipt of papers from the Court. In this way Age UK sought to misuse the civil court system to obtain around £1,200 they were not owed from a vulnerable elderly lady.

In a way the most disturbing thing about this is that no evidence was laid before the Court to show the sums were due. Even when their case was struck out Age UK considered it worth a punt to apply to re-start the case on the off chance this forced a payment from fear of proceedings without them having to show evidence of it being due.  

However we kept our nerve and called their bluff right up until the second hearing, just before which they folded.

Does this not raise some interesting questions?

That the charity based in London’s good name is being abused by organisations focused totally on profit, often by underhanded means. I am certain that there will be some financial kickback to the charity for this in the form of a ongoing licence to private businesses to use the name.

More to the point that the businesses who licence the name Age UK are at least partly presenting themselves as charities and not businesses.

Finally of course are the actions of the local office which are clearly bringing themselves and the charity into disrepute.

This is very much the way in modern Britain: rapacious companies prey upon the vulnerable, use intimidation and misuse the law to try to enrich themselves.

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Active Discrimination by Ministry of Justice?

I have been contacted by the carer of a disabled lady who has detailed a level of misconduct from such as The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), HMCTS, Judicial Conduct Investigations Office & others that makes for shocking reading.

The lady concerned has learning disabilities and for the purpose of this blog entry and to preserve her anonymity we’ll call her Liz. She required ICO to modify their communications with her in order to assist her disabilities. ICO failed to do this, which if course made communication with them very much more difficult, and so she launched a Judicial Review. This brought her into contact with the civil court system where arguably she suffered worse discrimination than originally from ICO.

The Equality Act 2010 and the United Nations Convention on disability rights are supposed to help to enforce, protect and promote the rights of disabled people to access public services and promote equality of access to such.

However as is so often the case in modern Britain the aim falls far short of the reality. As I’ve said Liz’s issues began when The Information Commissioner’s Office failed to communicate with her in a format she could read and understand; she has limited reading and comprehension skills.

Things frequently go from bad to worse when an organisation fails to make adaptations to assist the disabled. This is true of ICO but the same issues were experienced in Liz’s dealings with The Ministry of Justice.

I should add at this point that all of the organisations mentioned in this blog entry will also have guidelines in respect of how to treat everyone equally. They have all fallen far short of this leading to mistreatment and injustice.

An email to me from this lady’s carer shows that further injustice happens from HMCTS…

“When she has attempted to request accessibility from HMCTS, regarding Judicial Reviews against The Ombudsman’s refusing to send her written correspondence, refusal to contact her by phone and when she phones their services to request accessibility, complaints responses and S.A.R’s.”

When Liz called HMCTS she was apparently verbally abused by their staff over the phone. Liz has communication difficulties and it is easy for someone to misinterpret these in a phone call. There are recordings of such calls to Manchester Civil Justice Centre.

When Liz asks for responses to her complaints due to her communication difficulties staff fail to respond appropriately or make proper allowances for her disabilities. This is of course the nub of her original complaint to the Courts in the first place! She has also been supplied the personal data of another HMCTS service user, although this is not unusual given that organisation’s haphazard approach to data protection & privacy.

Most damming of all is the response of Customer Investigations at the MoJ’s head office.

This is the final port of call to get a complaint response outside of referring a complaint against HMCTS to civil action. There are also apparently call recordings retained where Richard Redgrave, the head of Customer Investigations starts laughing and finds it funny that his original land line is inactive and been inactive for the 18 months this lady has attempted to phone him on it. There has been a similar inappropriate responses from The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

The courts have failed to provide the lady with any adaptation and assistance with access to their services with the seeming result that her civil claim failed and there are presently costs against her. Any correspondence from the Court is problematic as this lady cannot read. Again a required adaptation has not been made. Rather more cruelly a Civil Restraint Order was made against her and this of course results in further disadvantage.

I have a list of several named Court staff who have apparently treated this lady appallingly on the account given by her carer.

The adaptations that are needed for her to be able to deal with the Court effectively and understand the process are not extensive but are clear and evident. The level of learning difficulties experienced means that the Court has a higher level of duty of care towards someone who has such restrictions in their everyday life. Indeed there is a simple moral duty here also.

I don’t know why the Courts have failed Liz so badly.

I suspect that it would be more time-consuming and awkward to make the adaptations she needs and that because of speech issues phone calls from her would be very difficult to understand. This requires time and patience. It is not beyond the ability of any organisation however! It is equally not beyond the ability of MoJ to ensure that all service users are treated equally and fairly.

What looks like deliberate cruelty from several members of HMCTS staff takes considerably more explaining though.

That they have not treated Liz kindly, made appropriate adaptations to accommodate her disabilities and even at times shown outright cruelty is an indication of how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.

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One Day With The NHS

My mother is a geriatric and has a series of medical issues. Therefore I need to organise her appointments etc. for her.

Without any political axe to grind here’s what’s happened over one day in my involvement with either the NHS itself or organisations it subcontracts to.

Expensive, incompetently managed and the cause of endless inconvenience.

One.

Continence nurse arrives 20mins late. Actually about four months late we requested a referral in May but the GP surgery failed to pass the referral on.

Consequently we’ve struggled on since May managing the condition on our own with occasional non-effective chase-ups of the practice.

Two.

Letter arrives from subcontracted provider. They want to do an ophthalmologist appointment by telephone. How they’ll be able to spot anything wrong with her eyes by hearing her voice is a mystery.

The letter also insufficiently explains the reason for the appointment and why it’s been requested. Half an hour on hold waiting to speak to the provider to establish need and purpose of appointment.

Three.

Her medication is delivered from the pharmacy.

This is after calling yesterday and being told they don’t accept repeat prescription orders on a Sunday. Guess what? That’s right. Not all medication has been delivered.

Call to pharmacy. Surgery has stopped the repeats on a vital tablet she takes three times a day.

Call to surgery. 40th in queue. They can’t understand why the tablet has been taken off repeat prescription but should be able to get her some more. By Wednesday.

Four.

She’s due a hospital out patient appointment tomorrow but this has been cancelled around 3.30 today. Have to then also cancel patient transport booked one week ago, which was a 45min call on its own.

Ring the hospital as the message was left with my mother who didn’t get all the details needed.

First few times it rings for a while then cuts off. This is standard for the hospital we deal with. Then get through to the wrong person who transfers me back to switchboard.

Finally get transferred to the right department. They clearly don’t like speaking to the public as there’s a voice message encouraging you to email them on an address no pensioner would be able to take down in time or likely spell correctly. Therefore still none the wiser about why the appointment has been cancelled or what happens next. No call back received.

Time taken overall: 3hrs

Cock-up’s occurred: Arguably 3-4

Patience: Exhausted

It’s the poor or non-existent communication that I find most irritating. That the patient’s representative or carer is left to chase up everything as nothing is explained in advance nor are the reasons for things happening. The experience of the NHS is therefore that you suffer the error first, then need to chase it up long before you gain the benefit of any service provided.

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