THE Times recently carried a piece with the headline ‘Let women use weapons against abusers, urges QC’. Dame Vera Baird, the ‘Victims Commissioner’ wants Priti Patel to change the law to allow victims of domestic abuse to use disproportionate force in self defence. At present a domestic abuse victim can lawfully use only strictly proportionate force to protect themselves.
This woman is a QC and one might expect she would have given some thought to the possible consequences of such a change. Aside from the problem of a woman murdering her husband under the guise of self defence, it has the potential to change a violent, but non-lethal, attack upon a woman into a killing, if the perpetrator feels himself threatened with a weapon being wielded by the victim.
Any competent defence lawyer make the most of this.
A JUDGE today has refused to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US.
In a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court this morning, Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied the extradition on grounds that Assange is a suicide risk and extradition to the US prison system would be oppressive, given the likely impact on his fragile mental health.
The US, which has been seeking to bring Assange to the country to put him on trial for conspiracy to hack as well as a number of charges under the controversial Espionage Act, has said it will appeal.
Assange, she said, is "a depressed and sometimes despairing man genuinely fearful about his future," and if extradited, would be "housed in conditions of significant isolation," hampering contact with family.
There was evidence of a risk to Assange's health if he were to face trial in the United States, Baraitser said, adding that the 49-year-old activist's risk of committing suicide appeared to be "substantial."
Lawyers for the United States immediately said they would appeal the ruling.
Assange was arrested in April 2019 and has since been held in a high-security prison. He had been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012, where he sought asylum to dodge sexual assault charges in Sweden.
Assange was arrested after Ecuador withdrew its offer of asylum. Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno said the country's patience for Assange had "reached its limit" after "repeated violations to international conventions and daily life."
Assange was indicted on 17 new charges of violating the Espionage Act in 2019 and already faced a charge from March 2018 of conspiring to commit unlawful computer intrusion, which carried a maximum five years in prison.
He was accused of working with former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain and publicly release classified information. The new charges brought his total charges to 18 counts with each violation of the Espionage Act carrying a maximum 10-year sentence.
Assange has consistently claimed he was acting as a journalist but Baraitser said earlier in extradition hearing that his receipt of thousands of classified files went beyond investigative journalism.
In her ruling, the judge dismissed arguments from Assange's legal team that he couldn't be afforded protections under the U.S. Constitution, but agreed that he could not be extradited on health grounds.
FOURTEEN membersof Labour’s 39-member National Executive Committee (NEC) have written a damning and explosive letter to Labour general secretary David Evans about the conduct of party leader Keir Starmer – one that blows open the opaque events of this week surrounding Jeremy Corbyn’s reinstatement.
The letter:
Condemns the ‘double jeopardy’ and ‘deliberate political interference’ of withdrawing the whip from Corbyn after he was reinstated by an NEC panel;
makes clear that the decision of the panel was based on independent legal advice and the recommendation of Labour’s disciplinary investigative unit;
implies that their advice was that there were no valid grounds for Corbyn’s suspension;
confirms that the whip had been restored to Corbyn on the lifting of his suspension, making an utter mockery of Starmer’s excuse that he was ‘not restoring’ the whip rather than withdrawing it;
makes clear that the meddling in the disciplinary outcome is exactly that kind of ‘political interference’ the EHRC has ruled unlawful;
accuses Starmer and other right-wing MPs of smearing the NEC panel members who acted in accordance with the party’s rules and the legal advice they gave;
says that Starmer has put NEC members in a legal bind – and that as a highly-qualified barrister he has no excuse for his ‘unconscionable’ choice;
demands that Evans rebuke Starmer for his political interference in party processes and undermining public confidence in Labour’s disciplinary process;
‘requires’ Evans to immediately ‘demand’ that Starmer upholds the NEC panel’s decision and restores the whip to Corbyn:
Dear David,
On Tuesday 17th November a Disputes Panel of the NEC sat to consider current discipline cases one of which was the complaint against Jeremy Corbyn MP. The Panel after many hours of consideration and deliberation, including advice and guidance on process from the Head of Disputes in GLU and an independent Barrister provided by the party, established that there had been no breach of Labour Party rules. As such the Panel determined that Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension should be lifted.
As with all other cases considered by the Dispute Panels, as soon as the panel’s decisions have been ratified as per the agreed process, Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension was required to be immediately lifted. Any consequence of the suspension, namely the suspension of the whip, was of course to immediately fall away as a consequence of the NEC panel decision.
The decision of the Leader the following day to withhold the whip from Jeremy Corbyn MP is an act of deliberate political interference in the handling of a complaint. It defies the decision of the NEC panel, is a matter of double jeopardy that flies in the face of natural justice, it undermines the Rule Book and it is precisely the type of action found to be unlawful indirect discrimination by the EHRC report.
We would remind the leadership that the political interference criticised by the EHRC included interference intended to speed up the disciplinary process.
The Leader of the party in addition made commentary that the Jewish community have no faith in the process of the Dispute’s panel. Although intended to be a damning comment on the Dispute’s process generally it is of course a direct criticism of the decision reached by the Dispute’s Panel on Tuesday. This criticism has been joined by other MPs, no doubt following the lead of the Leader.
Neither the Party nor the Leader have made clear that the Disputes Panel in question received legal advice on the day and as is the norm that includes a recommendation from the GLU staff, in particular the Head of Legal appointed by the Leader as to the sanction that should be awarded.
This is an unacceptable attack on the lay volunteers elected to uphold the Rule Book, it is direct political interference and it is unacceptable.
We understand that the Party will now face legal action as a result of the decision of the Leader to undermine the disciplinary processes. This will inevitably mean that members of the panel are asked to give evidence in a Court of law. It is unconscionable, given that the Leader is Queens Counsel and must have read and digested the EHRC report, that members of the NEC should be placed in this position by his actions.
As members of the NEC with responsibility to uphold the Rule Book we require confirmation that the General Secretary will now write to the Leader of the Party to admonish him for interfering in the NEC processes, for levelling public criticism intended to undermine confidence in the dispute process and for taking a decision that is directly contradictory to the NEC Panel decision. The General Secretary must demand that the Leader upholds the decision of the Dispute’s panel and immediately reinstates the whip to Jeremy Corbyn MP.
By Zaki Sarraf Justice Gap reporter 3 November 2020 |
The public inquiry into undercover policing Inquiry began yesterday five years after the then Home Secretary Theresa May announced the inquiry. It will examine the contribution that undercover policing has made to tackling crime, how it is supervised, regulated and the effect on individuals involved. The inquiry will also examine whether individuals may have been wrongly convicted in cases involving so called spy cops.
Bindmans Solicitors are acting for a number of the core participants. ‘Our clients have waited more than five years for this Inquiry to commence,’ the firm said. ‘During this time the Inquiry has granted anonymity to most of the undercover police officers being called to give evidence, in some cases to their cover names as well as their real names.’
‘Those of us who have been following the Undercover Policing Inquiry go into the start of proceedings today with very little faith in the process,’ commented core participant Tom Fowler. ‘The huge concessions to police anonymity that that has been partly responsible for the delays that have taken five years for the Inquiry to get started gave made sure of that. We will however be watching proceedings closely in the hope that some droplets of truth will sneak out. Myself and others will be providing live updates over the duration of the hearings, using the #spycops hashtag on Twitter.’
Theresa May’s announcement of the judge-led inquiry in 2015 was in response to Mark Ellison QC’s review which sought to answer whether there was evidence of corruption in the Metropolitan Police during the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence; whether the Met had evidence of corruption it did not disclose to the Macpherson Inquiry into the murder; and whether there was inappropriate undercover activity directed at the grieving Lawrence family.
The Ellison review found undercover officers being deployed to influence and smear the Lawrence family campaign whilst the Macpherson inquiry was ongoing. Specific allegations by police officers of corruption against other officers were ignored by their superiors and not brought to the attention of Macpherson; key evidence was shredded by the Police; and undercover officers failed to correct evidence given in court which they knew was wrong. In March 2014, Theresa May May described its findings ‘profoundly shocking’ and ‘of grave concern’.
The Lawrence case is one example of undercover policing and there are over 230 core participants in the UCPI including individuals that have been duped into relationships with undercover officers, families of victims of murders, politicians, trade unionists and more – a full list of the core participants can be found here. Sixty-nine officers’ names have been published from the Special Demonstration Squad to enable members of the public to determine whether they were affected by undercover policing and come forward with evidence.
AN article in The Guardian caught my eye this week because it dealt with the use of what it termed “controversial and discriminatory joint enterprise law.” It also involved the order to deport the person involved in a crime.
I will outline the case first but then look at how double standards seem to be involved when it is a 'black' person rather than a 'white' or 'brown' person involved.
Osime Brown is 21 years old Jamaican born man who came to the UK aged just 4. He is autistic and was slow as a child even in learning to walk. He had behavioural and learning problems at school and it resulted in exclusion aged 16. It would seem his problems had not been forensically diagnosed until then so he never received adequate support, merely being labelled disruptive.
He had been engaged in low level criminal behaviour but the latest crime involved the theft of a mobile phone. Although he was part of the group who took the phone witnesses said he had asked the other teenagers he was with to stop the street robbery, but he was convicted under the joint enterprise law which anyone considered complicit in a crime can be arrested even if they played no part in the crime. Critics say this law has disproportionately criminalised many young black men with those imprisoned through it being 11 times their presence in the community.
I used the term double standards in the headline for a reason. Our local Campaign Group, BOLD, have been following up the way our local authority have appeared to 'sweep under the carpet' the conviction of only 4 out of nearly 20 men who were present when a local workman suffered three broken ribs, a punctures lung and nearly had his hand severed in an axe attack. They were summoned by one of the gang by phone after the victim interceded in a dispute between the man and a lady driver.
The judge quite clearly termed it gangsterism and when local MP was asked to condemn the case as gangsterism he was happy to publicly acknowledge it as such also. Despite councillors, including the leader, the Local Authority officials being asked not just to condemn the gangsterism and how they can work with the police to reduce it in area no one is prepared to comment. A contrast here is that the police have been very open and forthright about how they are working on this issue.
That is one comparison with how Osime has been treated but let me turn to a more startling disparity, that of deportation.
The effect of imprisonment itself on Osime has been considerable. He has suffered racial abuse and bullying. Without, his mother says, a mentor or support worker his health has deteriorated and he is self harming. He does not fully comprehend how he would cope in Jamaica, thinking he could catch a bus to visit mum from there!
I have over time felt that those now termed Immigration Enforcement Officers will use easy targets to boost their figures for deportations. Now I come to another very worrying comparison again from my town Rochdale.
Few people will not have knowledge of the grooming scandal involving vulnerable young girls in Rochdale. Three members of the grooming gang remain in the UK more than 18 months after they lost an appeal against losing their British citizenship. I concur with the Independent's sub headline: 'Home Office accused of prioritising offenders with Jamaican roots over sex abusers.'
Yes Osime has been involved in low level crime, but deportation would be extremely cruel for him with no family support in Jamaica and a condition which will make him even more vulnerable there. It is known that at least 11 have died as a result of unjust deportation from the Windrush scandal, it is likely that Osime could be another unnecessary death.
I urge you to sign the Change.org petition for Osime Brown.
* Editor's note on Joint Enterprise:
'Why joint enterprise is unfair and needs changing' by Sandra Paul in The Law Society Gazette 23 December 2014
Exactly two years ago, I stood in tears outside Wood Green Crown Court, having just left my 16-year-old client, one of four teenage black males of previous good character, in the cells facing a three-year custodial sentence for GBH. Some 18 months earlier, he had been part of an altercation at Hendon tube station.
He was guilty of common assault, even ABH, and certainly affray. All of these were offered as guilty pleas to the prosecution. However, they were rejected on the basis that joint enterprise would convict a group of the more serious offence of GBH.
CCTV footage shows my client was as far as 20 feet away from the victim at the time he was stabbed. However, my client was convicted of section 18 GBH on the basis that it was ‘reasonably foreseeable’ that others might get involved when he punched the complainant and that ‘serious harm might’ result, irrespective of whether that was what he intended. My client was 14 at the time of the incident and I am convinced could not have forseen that his action could have led to the ultimate outcome which resulted.
Looking at the CPS guideline published since then, I am hopeful, but not convinced, that a review on the same facts would lead to a different result. Consideration of the judge’s directions for the jury outlined in the Crown Court Bench Book is equally problematic for young people.
I
WROTE the article italicised below in October last
year. I thought that the topic and the approach would make it
suitable for Peace News. It would not be correct to say that
the editor refused to publish it, he simply did not acknowledge it.
Given
the recent ruling by Mr
Justice Julian Knowlesin a case brought by
Harry Miller.
I have included it below this link to
a Guardian
article. In
his ruling Knowles
stressed 'the
vital importance of free speech”,
saying it included “not
only the inoffensive, but the irritating, the contentious, the
eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative.'
In
one of this year’s Reith lectures Jonathan Sumption, who between
2012 and 2018 sat as a member of the Supreme Court, raised the
question of whether the law may be returning to its earlier role as a
means of enforcing social conformity. As instances of how it had
exercised this function in the past he cited the use of the law to
enforce a single pattern of religious worship in the 17th
century and the continued discrimination between denominations into
the 19th century.
To
act as a mechanism for social conformity it is not necessary that
this be exercised by the state, only that the state passes laws which
allow individuals to use the law in a way which forces others to
conform to their views.
In
October of last year a case came before the Supreme Court in which
a Gareth Lee had placed an order for a cake decorated with the words
‘Support
Gay Marriage’.
The owners of the bakery, Daniel and Amy McArthur declined the order
because as Christians they were being expected to express a view that
they disagreed with. Lee argued that they were discriminating
against him because he is a homosexual. Two lower courts had
accepted this argument
but the Supreme Court did not.
The
president of the Court Lady Hale said:
‘It is deeply humiliating
to deny someone a service because of that person’s race, gender,
disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief’.
‘But that is not what
happened in this case. As to Mr Lee’s claim based on sexual
discrimination, the bakers did not refuse to fulfil his order because
of his sexual orientation’.
The
court accepted the argument of the McArthur’s lawyer that forcing
them to bake the cake would be forcing them to go against their
religious beliefs.
Lee was trying to use the
Courts to force the McArthur’s to accept his view of the world. His
mistake was to argue that the couple were being ‘homophobic’ when
they simply had a different view about the world. A view to which he
took exception.
But, as I have argued
previously in Peace News, Lee’s approach is far from uncommon.
Increasingly we see people
who express a view which the listener or reader does not like being
labelled as antisemitic, homophobic, islamophobic, mysoginistic or
some similar pejorative epithet.
The court’s ruling means
that provided we do not discriminate against someone because of what
they ARE, we will not find ourselves in court for expressing our
dissent from the views they hold. In other words such an expression
of dissent is not ‘judiciable’, to use a word which has recently
been rediscovered.
I would not expect to find it
a matter for a court to consider if I decline to call someone who
says they are transgender, ‘she’ or ‘her’, if I sincerely
believe them to be a man. If however referring to such a person as
‘he’ or ‘him’ becomes seen as ‘hate speech’, as some
people wish it to be, then it could be claimed that this is a matter
for the courts.
Commenting
on the ruling in the wedding cake case the chairman of the Equality
and Human Rights Commission said:
‘Freedom of expression –
including the right not to express a view – and freedom of belief
are rightfully protected in a democratic society and this case
demonstrates the need for a more nuanced debate about how we balance
competing rights’.
Debate, nuanced or
otherwise, has been noticeably absent from anything surrounding what
have become known as ‘trans’ issues. Are claims of being cis,
trans, non-binary and gender-fluid simply ephemeral affectations as
some people see them or do they go to the core of an individual’s
being and identity? Unless we are willing to discuss the question we
will never resolve the matter.
IT was reported today that the United States has turned down an extradition request for Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US intelligence officer, who is to be charged with causing the
death of teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn. Mr Dunn, aged 19, died after a
crash in Northamptonshire in August which led to the suspect Anne
Sacoolas, the wife of a US intelligence officer, leaving for the US
under diplomatic immunity.
A Dunn family spokesman Radd Seiger said they had taken the news of the US decision "in our stride".
Extradition proceedings had been launched earlier this month.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Seiger said the latest move had been "factored it into our planning and strategy". "The
reality is that this administration, which we say is behaving lawlessly
and taking a wrecking ball to one of the greatest alliances in the
world, they won't be around forever whereas that extradition request
will be," he added. "We will simply plot and plan for a reasonable administration to come in one day and to reverse this decision."
"A denial of justice"
The Home Office said the decision appeared "to be a denial of justice".
In December 1943, George Orwell wrote an 'As I Please' essay in which he observed: "...it is difficult to go anywhere in London without having the feeling that Britain is now Occupied Territory.'
Orwell continued: "Before the war there was no popular anti-American feeling in this country. It all dates back from the arrival of the American troops, and it is made vastly worse by the tacit agreement never to discuss it in print... As a result things have happened which are capable of causing the worst kind of trouble sooner or later."
And he adds: "An example is the agreement by which American troops are not liable to British courts for offences against British subjects - practically 'extra-territorial rights'.'
In these circumstances, the current decision to block the Anne Sacoolas extradition request by the US would merely seem to be business as usual.
No date yet set for review of Asia Bibi case by Pakistan's Supreme Court
THE Pakistani solicitor, Saiful Malook, who successfully fought a long legal struggle to
get Asia Bibi, the Christian woman at the centre of the current high-profile blasphemy case acquited, now says he
will return home to represent her whenever the country's Supreme
Court takes up a review petition against her.
Saiful Malook, who fled in fear for his life to the Netherlands following threats to
him from radical Islamists after the Oct. 21 acquittal of Asia Bibi,
said on Christmas Day that no date has been set by the court to hear
the petition.
This announcement by Malook came as Asia, the 54-year-old mother of five,
celebrated Christmas amid security despite being freed. Bibi had been
on death row since 2010 on charges of insulting Islam's Prophet
Muhammad.
The extemely radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik political party held violent
nationwide protests demanding her public execution after her release.
A
person who was born a male, identifies as a woman, uses the name
Karen White, posted pictures on Facebook looking like a woman and
claims to be ‘transitioning’ was jailed yesterday for life
after admitting sexually assaulting two female inmates whilst being
held on remand in HMP New Hall, a women’s prison in West Yorkshire,
and the previous rapes of two other women.
The
lawyer for the prosecution said:
‘She
is allegedly a transgender female. The prosecution says allegedly
because there’s smatterings of evidence in this case that the
defendant’s approach to transitioning has been less than
committed.’
The
judge told White:
‘You
are a predator and highly manipulative and, in my view, you are a
danger. You represent a significant risk of serious harm to children,
to women and the general public’.
White
is currently in a male prison and even after gender transition
surgery it is unlikely that a transfer to a female prison would
occur.
A
man who tricked four men into having sex with him by pretending to be
a woman online has been convicted. A jury at Kingston Crown Court
found Duarte Xavier guilty of six counts of causing a person to
engage in sexual activity without consent.
What the first case
demonstrates is that allowing an individual to claim that they have
changed from the sex they were born with to the opposite sex and
treating them as such, purely on their say so, is an exercise fraught
with danger. In
spite of the guarded words of the prosecution lawyer it is apparent
what he meant. Translated into commonplace English he was
saying that White is
still equipped with a full set of wedding tackle and
has shown no sign of wanting to lose it, but
every sign of wanting to use it.
What the second case
demonstrates is that when we engage in intimate acts with another
individual we have a right to be aware of all the facts about them.
That would include what
sex we would identify them as, not simply what sex they claim to be.
An
‘intimate act’isn’t just about sex.
It covers who we are willing to share a changing room with, who we
are willing to have
examine us medically, who
we are willing to assist us with bodily functions at times we cannot
do this for
ourselves, how closely we
feel comfortable with allowing a stranger or a friend to approach us,
etc. I see no reason to
assume that men and women will apply exactly the same ‘rule
of thumb’ in each
case.
As a society we accept an
asymmetry in attitude between men and women. Women
will in general be more conservative in these matters
than men. We
acknowledge that a ‘Peeping
Tom’
is more likely than a ‘Peeping
Thomasina’. An asymmetry
in attitudes is also
found in those who
identify as ‘transexual’.
The few people I have
read of making the transition from
female to male seem to
have got on with it without fuss. The
noisy, belligerent individuals are (frequently)
those who grew up as male and want to be identified as female. This is a new phenomenon.
None of the three people at the links below behaved like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Ashley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Morris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson For me the red line is
whether or not someone who has lived as a male and now wishes be
identified, and be treated as, a woman, is still sporting a full set
of wedding tackle, even
though their
secondary sexual characteristics, e.g. the presence
of breasts, gives them the sort of appearance we associate with being
a woman. If they are I
am unwilling to treat them as a woman and I do not believe it is
appropriate for the law to treat them as women either. I
consider they are perpetrating a deliberate deception.
If they have made the level
of commitment required to undergo full ‘gender
reassignment’
surgery I am happy to
treat them as a woman and in
circumstances where the law continues to treat men and women
differently, to have them treated as a woman.
I wholly
reject the notion that we have to accept that ‘gender
is fluid’ and
therefore we should simply accept an individual’s declaration that
they are henceforth male or female and can change this status
whenever they wish. This
simply opens the door for individuals to take advantage of
circumstances that favour them. The
only person who seems to have had the courage to go public with this
view is the writer Ben Elton who used his script for the BBC1 comedy
‘Upstart Crow’
to make exactly this point. If
so called ‘trans
activists’
can steal from chemistry the ‘cis
trans’
pairing I will label this ‘keto
enol’
behaviour. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keto%E2%80%93enol_tautomerism
The
views I have put forward will not please everyone. I have already
had doubts expressed to me about my willingness to treat someone
who having
lived initially as a male, but who has later had gender reassignment
surgery,
as
a woman. I do not doubt that my refusal to accept ‘self
certification’
as the sole requirement for treating someone as a woman will draw
criticism from so called ‘trans
activists’.
If you want to label me ‘transphobic’
go ahead, it will not intimidate me into silence. I
will simply quote to you Article 10 of the European Convention.
I
am not a feminist, a creed which I believe is designed to preserve
hierarchies
not
abolish them. The fact that I have dealt almost wholly with the
problems which
can arise when men self certify themselves to be women, is because I
believe that the potential
negative
impacts will fall on women much more than on men and
because there have been attacks on women who have expressed doubts
about self certification or in two cases simply tried to promote
discussion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL26jtQXSJw https://www.socfem.net/2017/11/helen-steel-labf
That
there is disagreement seems to me to be healthy. Any
changes in the law surrounding transex/transgender individuals will
affect all of us.
As such we all ought to have the opportunity to make our views
known. The
government has launched a consultation about changes to the 2004
Gender Recognition Act.
If you wish to take part the consultation closes in
one weeks time on
19 October. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/reform-of-the-gender-recognition-act-2004
TWO years into the public inquiry into undercover
policing and campaigners spied upon by the state this week claimed
that progress has stalled and no information had been revealed about
the officers involved. Jon Robins reports:
Speaking at an event at the Labour fringe on undercover policing
and police surveillance, core participants in the undercover policing
inquiry together with their lawyers accused the government of
delay and expressed concerns about the new chair of the inquiry.
Helen Steel is one of eight women activists who began legal action
against the police having discovered that former long-term partners
had been undercover policemen. Steel, who was representing the Police
Spies out of Lives group, told delegates they were as much in the
dark as the day that the inquiry was launched in July 2015. ‘More
than two years into the inquiry and we still have had no disclosure
about the relationships or the officers involved. The public has
learnt absolutely nothing new about the extent of police in the abuse
or how this was allowed to happen,’ she said.
In May this year, Sir John Mitting took over the chairmanship of
the inquiry from Lord Justice Pitchford, who had been diagnosed with
motor neurone disease. The inquiry has long become bogged down
as the police have called for proceedings to be held in secret to
protect the identities of the undercover officers – as reported on
the Justice Gap (here).
‘The inquiry has finally acknowledged upwards of a thousand
groups were spied upon but still hasn’t released the names of those
groups,’ Steel told the meeting organised by the
Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers. Steel argued that whilst
the police were prepared to confirm that they sent undercover
officers into Isis, ‘they claimed it would be too dangerous to
confirm the names of the thousand campaigns spied upon by the Special
Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit,’
she said. ‘It beggars belief.’
In a message to the meeting Michael Mansfield QC, the president of
the Haldane Society, claimed to be ‘under no illusions as to the
extent to which agencies in the state have taken an interest in me’
in relation to his work on political cases such as Orgreave,
Hillsborough and the Shrewsbury pickets.
Some
blacklisted workers have made reference to a gun being held to their
head last year by their union lawyers in relation to the High Court
settlement figures.
More recently, blacklisted workers
(including myself) have formally raised their concerns with their
union about trade union officials and their involvement in the
blacklisting.
If trade union officials were involved
in the blacklisting, then why was the union not liable to pay any
compensation to blacklisted workers?
Independent
Inquiry
It
is now over four months since my correspondence to the General
Secretary raising my concerns about the union's cover up back in
2005/2006, and other matters relating to the involvement of senior
trade union officials and politicians in the blacklisting. This can
be downloaded HERE.
Mr
McCluskey rejected my correspondence by email stating that I was not
a member of the union, which is incorrect. I have advised him of
such, but as yet have received no response.
For those
holding out for this so called independent inquiry, I would say the
following:-
Please
wake up and smell the coffee!
This
is not going to happen!
There
will always be an excuse/reason to not conduct this!
And
if one is eventually conducted, it will not be anywhere near the
level of investigation needed if we (blacklisted workers) are to
eventually get to the truth of this matter.
For if it is
found that trade union officials were complicit in the blacklisting,
then that could possibly lead to significant legal claims from
blacklisted workers against their union.
Editor of Northern Voices: THE letter below was sent last Thursday by Len McCluskey, the leader of Unite, to the blacklist whistle-blower, Alan Wainwright, and to members of the Construction NISC (National Industrial Sector Committee) and to Unite Construction members of the Executive Council. We publish Mr. McCluskey's letter in full. This letter comes now following an earlier promise from Mr. McCluskey that he would set up an independent inquiry into alleged collusion by paid trade union officers in Blacklisting:
24 August 2017 To: All Unite Construction NISC members and Unite Construction Executive Council members
Dear Colleague, Blacklisting Documents Review
As you are aware Unite have, since I have been General Secretary, put the full resources of the union behind supporting victims of Blacklisting. We have successfully litigated against those companies that engaged in Blacklisting, run a successful Leverage campaign and are now gathering evidence to tackle contemporary blacklisting. There have recently been calls for us to consider all documents that have been disclosed in the High Court litigation to see if there is any evidence of officer collusion in Blacklisting. I have committed to undertaking that review. Presently Unite have a further 70 plus cases being taken for victims of Blacklisting. It is vitally important that any review of documentation does not disrupt that litigation. As such I have given instructions that a Counsel from Doughty Street Chambers be instructed to review all of the disclosure documents from the litigation and to provide a report for use in the current litigation that deals with general issues as well as the specific issue as to whether there is any evidence of officer collusion. This report will remain confidential whilst there is ongoing litigation but when that litigation is concluded it will be available. If there is any evidence arising from the documents it will be acted upon. I have asked Howard Beckett to attend the next construction NISC to update the NISC as to the current litigation and the intended strategy of trying to get those individuals responsible for the Blacklist into Court. Yours sincerely, LEN McCLUSKEY General Secretary
excerpt from analysis by Eimear McCartan and Sam Blewitt, Campaign Volunteers at the
Greater Manchester Law Centre
REACTIONS of grief and anger have been voiced by not only the
affected community, but also by the wider community as residents in
similarly constructed housing all around Britain justifiably raise
concerns about their safety.
Lucy Powell, Labour’s MP for Manchester Central has expressed
concerns about housing safety in Manchester and has called for tighter
safety regulations in an interview with the Manchester Evening News. She
amongst others, have raised concerns that all high-rise buildings
should be reviewed, and not just council flats. “We shouldn’t just be focusing on former council blocks, because in
Manchester – particularly in the city centre – we have had a huge
increase in the number of high rise blocks,” she said.[2]
However, steps have already been taken in Greater Manchester to
assuage the community’s unrest. Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham
has set up a scheme headed by Paul Dennett (Mayor of Salford) in which
every high-rise building above 6 stories will be reviewed, providing
residents reassurance about fire safety standards.
On 23rd June, the Mayor of Salford also announced that
cladding used on nine different high-rise blocks in Salford that were a
similar material to the ones used to insulate Grenfell Tower would be
removed.
What every student of
constitutional law should know
THE shock some people felt about the decision of the English High Court only
serves to remind us how little attention most English people pay to the nature
of our unwritten constitution.In 1610
following 'The Case of Proclamations' Sir Edward Coke ruled: 'The King hath no prerogative but that which
the law of the land allows him'.
Last week over 400
year later the English High Court has sought to cite that ruling and affirm that
principle with regard to Brexit.
The High Court has now
required that parliament should pass a bill to invoke Article 50.Though the government is now going to appeal
it would be surprising if the Supreme Court would reverse this decision.
Any first-year law
student should know what a leading editorial in the Financial Times' last
Saturday declared:
'It has been found that the government cannot
trigger Article 50, initiating the UK's departure from the EU, without
parliamentary approval.... Brexiters complain that the will of the people is
being subverted.But this is the rule of
law; it is how UK democracy works.'
The government case
had sought to argue that it could use perogative powers deriving from the
concept of the royal prerogative to reverse the decision of the European
Communities Act of 1972 to put the UK into Europe by triggering Article 50 of
the Lisbon Treaty.
The High Court
rejected this argument, deciding that the European Communities Act was designed
'to introduce European Union law into
domestic law'.
For the supporters of
the Leave campaign to now object to this decision of the High Courtis absurd, because it upholds the primacy of
parliament, which is what they have always insisted upon throughout.
Curious comment from Andy Meinke on the Freedom Collective, Friends of Freedom & the OFIN program:
'THE Freedom Collective does not rent out any of the
property. We're a Collective of Anarchists who work in the building and
on various Freedom projects such as publishing, website, news sheet. Everyone
involved pays what they can to keep the project going. Freedom is run by a
Collective that has meetings every month open to anyone in the movement. You
get to join the Collective by turning up and doing stuff. The 'Friends
of Freedom Press' are a company who owns the building in trust. As you
might guess from their name they are 'friends' (editorial emphasis in bold) of the
Collective. Mostly former Collective members and generally good eggs. If we
need a group called 'Annoying Dicks who want to fuck up Freedom
Press' (editorial italics and bold print) we'll leave (sic - let?) you know on 'Who is David?' post below.'
NV Editorial Reply to Andy Meinke:
ANDY Meinke above writes: 'If we need a group called "Annoying Dicks who want to fuck up Freedom Press we'll let you know".'
CAN this be the same Andy Meinke, who in 2014, wrote in the Freedom free-sheet words to this effect: 'Kropotkin started it (Freedom newspaper) but we fucking finished it (Freedom)' ?
CAN this be the same Andy Meinke, who in November 2012, banned a northern regional anarchist publication from the Freedom Bookshop?
CAN this be same Andy Meinke, who in the Summer of 2012, verbally abused the photo-journalist, David Hoffman, over a claim he had raised with Freedom about the theft of intellectual property? Resulting in Mr. Hoffman having to pursue a formal complaint the consequence of which was that Freedom Press had to pay him a large sum of money?
CAN this be the same Andy Meinke, who in late 2012, allegedly failed to pay the insurance on the property belonging to Freedom Press? The consequence being that the insurance cover on the building ran out and some two weeks later a fire occurred resulting in extensive damage and further cost to Freedom Press?
Need we go on further? What is the position pray regarding the insurance of the property now? Will the building pass fire regulations? Will anyone insure the property owing to the earlier mismanagement? What happens if there is another fire at Freedom and it takes the Whitechapel Art Gallery together with the current Barjeel Art collection*, with it? HOW many tens of thousands of pounds will it take to bring the Freedom building at 84B, Whitechapel High Street up to standard, so that it meets all the regulations required of it? Who will take responsibility? The Friends of Freedom Press, or will it be Andy Meinke and his mates who turn up for a drink and enter the revolving door of the Freedom Collective? As Andy apparently lives with his parents and is seemingly an employee who manages the Freedom bookshop, perhaps in event of a crisis he will escape legal liability.
THE current issue of Private Eye reports that '... after its dirty employment tricks were exposed, the (British) construction industry has finally - if reluctantly - agreed to cough up £75 m to settle the claim brought by hundreds of people who were unable to find work because they were on an illegal blacklist (Eyes passim). 'Hundred of victims are to receive between £20,000 and £200,000 for having their livelihoods blighted because they protested about safety or working conditions, or simply because of their trade union activities.... 'Companies funded Ian Kerr, who had worked for the (Economic) League and who set up the Consulting Association to hold blacklisting files which also featured troublesome politicians, journalists, lawyers, and academics. The full scale of the operation was exposed in 2009, when the Information Commissioner's Office seized files and shut down Kerr's outfit. (Even then the practice continued, however.) 'As Roy Bentham, a carpenter blacklisted since 1995, told the Eye: "They finally made us an offer we could not refuse, because of the threat of astronomical legal costs. But it was to save their reputations; it wasn't about justice.' As a Hillsborough survivor, he knows all about justice. "It's about getting to the truth. We want to know exactly who did what and who we ended up on the dole". 'Despite the group apology from Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O'Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK, and Vinci (companies involved since the 1990s), the Blacklisting Support Group cast doubt on its sincerity. After all, the firms could have put their hands up when the Information Commissioner caught them red-handed... 'Nor is it lost on the workers that the companies preferred to pay fees to ranks of lawyers to protect corporate reputations and defeat claims, rather than offer reasonable compensation. The legal costs for the case are estimated to total about £50 m for both sides - nearly the size of the compensation bill itself.... 'Lawyers for the companies told the court they hoped the apology meant "this matter can be treated as a closed chapter". Not so: the blacklisting victims allege that some senior executives were involved in destroying evidence and a cover-up. A detailed dossier alleging perversion of the course of justice is being prepared. The victims may still have their day in court.'
BLACKLIST campaigners have called for parliament to change the law after a Court of Appeal written judgement issued today (17th March 2015) failed to provide justice to an agency worker, even when the company admitted blacklisting. The Smith v Carillion test case was based on Dave Smith, an engineer and safety rep for the construction union, UCATT, who was kept under surveillance by construction companies and the notorious Consulting Association, the body that orchestrated the building industry blacklist. Smith was forced to leave the construction industry due to the blacklisting he suffered after complaining about unpaid wages and raising concerns about safety issues such as asbestos and overflowing toilets on building sites under the control of different Carillion Group companies in the 1990s.
The written decision was delivered by Lord Justice Elias, Lord Justice Fulford and Dame Janet Smith.
Paragraph 5 of the judgement noted that:
'Carillion accepted that Mowlem had provided information about the appellant to the Consulting Association between 1997 and 1999; that it was for the purpose of penalising him for taking part in the activities of an independent trade union and acting as a safety representative; and that the provision of this information caused him a detriment.' Adding 'the evidence against the company was very powerful.'
*Mowlem now trade as Carillion (JM) Ltd.
But despite this admission by Carillion, Smith still lost the Court of Appeal hearing because he was working on the site via an employment agency and is therefore not protected by UK employment law. Because Smith was not directly employed by the blacklisting firm, he was not covered by the legislation.
Paragraph 22 notes: “It is not against public policy for a contractor to obtain services in this way, even where the purpose is to avoid legal obligations which would otherwise arise were the workers directly employed. That will frequently .. be the reason why the employer enters into a relationship with an agency. A contract cannot be implied merely because the court disapproves of the employer’s objective”.
Smith was defeated by what is known as the "necessity test"which has been developed by legal precedents in Tribunal rulings by judges over the past few years. The effect of the 'necessity test' is to deny any agency worker the right to win a claim for unfair dismissal or in this case, victimisation for raising safety concerns -even when the documentary evidence of wrong doing is overwhelming.
John Hendy QC acting on behalf of Smith has raised the issue of breaches of Human Rights.
Para 42 of the judgement notes “Section 3 of the Human Rights Act requires courts to interpret legislation so as to give effect to the rights conferred by the Act “so far as it is possible to do so”. In this case the submission is that the acts of the employer amounted to breaches of both Articles 8 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights protecting private life and freedom of association respectively; and in accordance with section 3, the courts should construe these domestic statutory provisions so as to give effect to those Convention rights”.
But again because of the initial hurdle of the 'necessity test' the written judgement declares that "the Human Rights Act has no application to the particular complaints advanced in this case".
In Para 52, the judgement concludes by stating that : the test case“raised interesting and complex issues which may have to be resolved on another occasion”.
Dave Smith commented:
"What is the point of employment law or the Human Rights Act? Even with mountains of documentary evidence and an admission from the company that they blacklisted me because I was a trade union member who had raised safety concerns, I still cannot win. This might be the law, but it is not justice.
The endemic use of agency workers, zero hours contracts, umbrella companies and bogus self-employment means that millions of workers are being treated as second class citizens. If agency workers are denied their most basic employment rights and even human rights because of the 'necessity test', which was never introduced by government but is an invention arising from legal precedents by judges, then it is time for parliament to change the law".
Dave Smith is secretary of the Blacklist Support Group and co-author of the book 'Blacklisted: the secret war between big business and union activists' published this week by New Internationalist. It was at the Smith v Carillion Employment Tribunal in 2012, that the police collusion with blacklisting was first publicly exposed. It was at the book launch for 'Blacklisted' held in parliament last Thursday, that undercover police officer turned whistle-blower, Peter Francis announced that he had spied on six trade unions while working undercover for the Special Demonstration Squad (to be the subject of a public inquiry announced by Teresa May).
Details
Case No: A2/2014/0395/EAT
Smith (appellant) v Carillion (JM) Ltd (respondent) and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (intervener)
Legal teams:
Mr John Hendy QC and David Renton (instructed by Declan Owens of Free Representation Unit) for the Appellant
Mr John Bowers QC (instructed by Clarkslegal LLP) for the Respondent
Mr Daniel Stilitz QC and Mr Tom Cross (instructed by Treasury Solicitors) for the Intervener
EMILY Thornberry, who until yesterday was the Labour Shadow Attorney General, packed in the job after a snobbish tweet of a photo of a terraced home with a white van outside and windows draped with the cross of St George flags. She said that she had 'never seen anything like it' after tweeting a photo of the terraced home with a white van outside.
Ms. Thornberry was born in Surrey to Cedric Thornberry, a Visiting Professor of War Studies at Kings College London. Educated at the University of Kent, she went on to practice as a barrister specialising in human rights law under Michael Mansfield at Tooks Chambers. Interestingly, she joined the Transport & General Workers Union at the same time she began practicing as a barrister in 1985.
She was nominated for Stonewall Politician of the Year in 2008, after she spoke up to defend the right of lesbian mothers to have access to IVF treatment. In the same year 2008, Ms. Thornberry claimed, according to her Wikapedia entry, that almost every child in Islington had been mugged at some stage. This was denied by the Metropolitan Police as 'speculation', pointing out that out of a population 180,000 only 750 people under 18 had reported being victims of mugging in 2007. These comments by Thornberry were seen as a hinderance to the Labour London mayor Ken Livingstone's re-election campaign.
Thornberry was appointed Shadow Attorney General in October 2011, and she has won praise for being 'very sensible and pertinent'.
YESTERDAY just as I was digesting the sentence of 15-years awarded to Mick Philpott for the manslaughter of his children when I was put off my dinner by a program on Radio Four dedicated to the American psychologist, John B. Watson, considered the father of behaviourism. Mick Philpott is today being derided as a monster for killing his kids in a reckless act in which he tried to get control over his former mistress. His defence solicitor claimed he was a 'good father' and Ann Widdercome MP, the former Prisons Minister who knew Philpott briefly, had to admit that the kids were well looked after.
The program on Watson on Radio Four, revealed he went on to prove his theory in a series of experiments involving a subject named 'Little Albert B', which would send today's ethics committees into the stratosphere! Albert B, an orphan left in a hospital since birth, was recruited for this study at the age of nine months. First, Watson established whether he had any innate fears by exposing him to different stimuli including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, a dog, masks, cotton wool. Albert showed interest in all of these, reaching to touch them; he displayed no fear, so they were deemed neutral stimuli. Watson's aim was to generalise fear in the young child, so that neutral stimuli could engender a response of fear.
During this experiment on 'Little Albert' he conducted an affair with his student-assistant Rosalie Rayner. And, it was in October 1920 that Johns Hopkins University asked Watson to leave his faculty position because of publicity surrounding the affair he was having with this graduate student-assistant Rosalie. Watson's affair had become front-page news, during the consequent divorce proceedings, in the Baltimore newspapers.
After he got himself sacked J.B. Watson used his skills to sell deodorants to the American public by convincing them that they smelled. Then to continue to test his experiments on children he started on his own youngsters. One son, together with his new wife and assistant Rosalie, he subjected to a 'jealousy test' in which he left the lad for three months deprived of all contact with the family, then he and his wife paid a visit in which they kissed, 'made love', and then staged a fake fight in front of the three-year-old until, overwhelmed and confused, the child was provoked to attack and strike the father. Later in the program we learned, not surprisingly, that the lad in later life twice tried to commit suicide. The last time successfully. According to one of Watson's grandaughter speaking on last night's program there had been in total three suicides in the family.
In the end I must confess to wondering which was the worse father? The angry, passionate and controlling Mick Philpott, who is shown in today's newspapers giving the V-sign, or the cold calculating distinguished psychologist considered the father of behaviourism.
ARTHUR Scargill today lost his long running fight in the High Court with the National Union of Mineworkers to look after him with his running costs for his London flat for the rest of his life. He will also lose his claim to fuel allowance at his Barnsley home and the NUM successfully disputed that it should pay for the preparation of his annual tax return.
Arthur Scargill has occupied the Barbican apartment - rented from the Corporation of London - since June 1982. The rent and other expenses were paid by the union until 2011, except for a period between 1985 and 1991 when Mr. Scargill paid for this upkeep.
Now the London appartment, described to me as 'Arthur's knocking shop' by one NUM miner, and valued at £1.5m, has become too much for the NUM to shoulder because it costs the union £34,000 a year.
The judge rejected Scargill's claims that the union's payment of the rent on the flat was intended to replace the benefit his predecessors had enjoyed and was therefore a lifetime benefit. The judge said the claim was not reflected in the original minutes of the NEC, was not backed up by the contract Scargill signed, and pointed out that the union had continued to subsidise the mortgage on his Yorkshire home. Arthur, for his part, claimed the judgement was 'perverse', and contradicts the evidence in the case. The judgement will come as a relief to the NUM and the working miners.
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