43
Wednesday 16 December 2009
Maya Walker called Brian at 6.30 that morning, offering
some support. But the conversation did not flow as their conversations usually
did. It was strained. Brian instinctively knew that something was not quite
right, that something was ‘in the air’. He is a man who trusts his intuition.
He arrived at court at 9.15. He went to the toilet and then sat
outside Court 4 by 9.25. The monitor outside the court read “Both cases, part
heard and status TO BE HEARD.”
As usual, there was no sign of Dominic
Bell.
Brian’s good friend and fellow
counsellor, John Callow sent a text saying “You are in the right.
Several police wrongs don’t make them right.” Brian felt gratified to have
received the text, but this was matched by some deep sadness that throughout
this trial – and, indeed, for the past 18 months – his daughter had not been in
contact. He was missing his beloved grand-children. He wished they were around
him. He wanted to be reading to them, telling them stories, or going
rock-climbing or for walks in the woods. Instead, he had to cling to their
memory rather than hug them close as loving grand-parents do.
He felt nervous in case the exposure
case wasn’t thrown out and the jury not dismissed. It would mean he would have to
go into the witness box which was not something he relished. His doctor had
told him that he was not well enough to attend his trial, yet here he was.
By 10:00, Dominic Bell had not arrived at Court. He failed to meet
with his client on numerous occasions throughout this trial in order to explain
court procedure or how he saw the trial unfolding. In our view, and from the
available evidence, he neglected his client.
Forster brought his wife into court and she sat in the
public gallery. On a bitterly cold day, only six jurors had arrived by ten
o’clock.
Then Brian noticed several things that
caused him some alarm. He saw that DC Robbie was ready to go back on the stand – why? Is the
trial still going ahead?
Then he noticed DC Saib, the man who had offered Brian a deal (with the
tape recorder off) back at Bexleyheath police station on 20 May 2008 if Brian would
accept a caution. ‘Why is he here,’ thought Brian, ‘if the trial is off?’
At 10:02, the Judge entered court.
Two minutes later, Bell arrived, out of breath, probably the result of
his chain-smoking habit.
Much to Brian’s great disappointment,
the trial was to continue. Bell told his client that Forster had to finish his case, including interviewing
Brian.
DS Tunn arrived at Court – then went outside. There
was a great flurry of activity as the actors and actresses move on to the stage
and exited stage left.
At 10:15 the judge returned and the jury
entered, all of them sitting in the same places each day.
Forster explained that DC Robbie had been recalled to discuss more DVDs of Brian’s
online activities.
Forster: When you set up the Shelley
account, what details did you use then?
Robbie: The details were the same, Shelley,
14 and a photo of a girl in hockey uniform.
Forster: Look at the transcripts of
28 January 2008 at 16:13.
Robbie: My log books show that I was
available from 15:54. The recording starts at 15:54 and ends at 17:04. I went
on to MSN at 15:58. I am available and visible. I
engaged him in conversation at 16:13. He
did not make contact for 15 minutes.
This testimony from Robbie raises two important issues: (i) although
Robbie refers to his log books, they were never shown to Brian or his defence team and (ii) Brian
did make contact within a few seconds.
Robbie: On 7 February 2008 I made
myself available at 15:32 and had been online for about 2 hours. At 17:32 the
defendant came online. On 25 February 2008, I went on at 16:50 and the
defendant came online at 18:24.
Forster: During the time before you
chatted to the defendant, what were you doing online?
Robbie: I talked to other suspects.
Forster: Was the flavour of the
conversation different from that with the defendant?
Robbie: No.
Forster: Did you ever participate in ‘sex4money’
chatrooms?
Robbie: No. Absolutely not.
There is considerable evidence online
and we have briefly referred to it here, that there were numerous chatrooms
operating on Faceparty at this stage with names such as ‘Cash4Sex’.
Robbie has clearly lied here and he is guilty of
perjury and perverting the course of justice.
Notice how neither Forster nor Robbie refer to the all-important fifth conversation:
the one on 15 May 2008 on the computer belonging to Geoffrey Bacon in Chislehurst. This conversation left a
digital footprint on that computer.
Dominic Bell then commenced his cross-examination.
Bell: The Faceparty website. Do you have to be over 16 to become a
member?
Robbie: No.
This response clearly does not accord with
the terms and conditions on the Faceparty website itself. At this point, the judge and
Bell debate over site policy and it is established
that the site policy was that no-one under 16 should be on the website.
Bell: DC Robbie, isn’t it true that the terms
and conditions stated that a person under 16 could not be a member and isn’t it
true that a 14-year-old person should not be using the website?
Robbie: Yes, a 14-year-old shouldn’t be there.
The emphasis is ours – DC Robbie has confirmed what Brian Pead originally told
the police on 4 June 2008 – that he always knew that no-one under 16 should not
be on the Faceparty website and, more specifically, that he knew
no-one aged 14 should be on the site and that, upon coming across such a person
claiming to be 14, he felt duty bound to investigate just as he had felt duty
bound to investigate his brother’s untimely death in 1972. We have to ask why
this trial was allowed to continue beyond this point, since it is clear that beyond reasonable doubt Brian could not
have believed this person claiming to a 14-year-old really was only fourteen. Robbie continued to confirm that which Brian had
already told the police eighteen months previously.
Robbie: There were some sexual chatrooms. Teens4oldmen; there were rooms
where people were swapping indecent images of children; various sexual interest
chatrooms. I can’t say I have ever seen one called ‘Escorts’. I’ve never seen
one. In May 2008, Faceparty deleted millions of accounts.
This accords with the evidence on
numerous websites about the demise of millions of member accounts on Faceparty. Notice, however, that Robbie does not inform the Court that the Faceparty website is still currently active. Notice,
too, that Bell fails to ask him that question.
Loraine-Smith interjected once again, “How many chatrooms
were there? The jury need to know why you missed it.”
Robbie: There were only ever ten chatrooms
on Faceparty. I do know about the Adultwork website. I have
never seen a link from Faceparty to Adultwork, though. I believe it was 1-to-1 chat in each room.
You get to see a list of users. I never posed as a teen after money.
Bell: Is there a physical log of Faceparty?
Robbie: Yes, I had to press play to
record everything that I typed as Shelley14. It didn’t happen as the defendant
says.
At this point, Bell asked to stop the trial so that this physical
log of everything that was happening on Faceparty could be brought into court, but the judge
would not allow him to hold up cross-examination for the paperwork.
You might well be thinking that Dominic
Bell was working in the best interests of his
client, but this was all mere pretence. All of the material he is now asking
for – and which the judge is refusing him to obtain – is material which should have
been sought during the Disclosure process. In the event, Bell concedes to the judge: “No further questions.”
Robbie told the Court that each time he logged on to
pose as a child, he would press ‘Play’ on the machine that was recording in
real time and that everything he typed and everything the ‘suspect’ typed would
be recorded. But Brian believed that this was only part of the true story. It
would be easy, for example, for a police officer to log on as ‘Shelly14’ and
‘Shelly_k14’ and behave normally using the first email address and record that
session and act as an agent provocateur using the other email address and not record
that session in which he was acting illegally.
Forster: Are there other sessions you
had online which haven’t been recorded on DVD?
Robbie: No. I have to hit the record
button as soon as I start working online. I watched the DVDs last night of 15
May 2008 and I wasn’t in any of the chatrooms.
This was the date that Brian claimed he
had told the ‘girl’ to “Fuck off! You are a fake!” and this was witnessed by
Geoffrey Bacon. It is evident that, just
because Robbie stated that he was not in any of the chatrooms on 15 May, it
does not mean that no other police officer using the ‘Shelley’ email address
was not working online. In fact, one of them would have had to have been
because Geoffrey Bacon witnessed Brian ‘chatting’ to the person purporting to
be a 14 year old girl, as we have shown earlier. Bell, of course, ought to have
asked this question; he ought to have asked for further disclosure – in the
event, he did neither.
According to Robbie, he claimed that he had taken
the DVDs recorded on 15 May 2008 out of the police store room and taken them
home and watched them to see if the conversation had occurred as Brian
described it. Had this occurred as Robbie stated, it would have been improper
procedure in any event.
The judge asked, “How long did it take
you to watch them?”
Notice that Loraine-Smith does not ask about serious breaches of
protocol. Notice that he does not ask why the defence team had not had the opportunity
to also examine these DVDs.
Robbie: The DVD of 28 January lasted
for an hour and ten minutes. On 7 February it took two hours and fifty-two
minutes and on 25 February it took me two hours and thirteen minutes to watch these
DVDs. I did not see any communication with the defendant on 15 May 2008. It
didn’t happen.
Note that no-one challenges Robbie’s statements. This is what he
says, but he has not provided any evidence
to support this part of his testimony. Worryingly, neither Dominic Bell nor Judge Loraine-Smith asks him to provide evidence of his assertions.
Forster: Did you ask for money for
sex?
Robbie: If I was found out I would
be imprisoned or sacked. Nothing in the conversations refers to chatroom or
escort work.
Notice that Robbie failed to answer the
prosecutor’s direct question. This does not make sense – the CPS’s entire case had been built
on Brian allegedly inciting a child to engage in sexual activity – it is
therefore inconceivable, we believe, for Robbie to suggest that there had been no references
in these conversations to ‘escort work’. Besides, numerous people had mentioned
this in blogs, as we have shown in part.
Bell had an opportunity to drill this point home,
and to question why these DVDs had not been made available to the defence, but
he merely stated: “No further
questions.”
At 11:00, Bell continues the sleight of hand and pretence.
Bell: There is a lack of
disclosure. It was signed off by the Reviewing Officer. There are no logs or
disks of the dates Robbie claims. This is a fundamental flaw.
Judge: This seriously undermines the Crown’s
case.
This was the second time that the issue
of non-disclosure had been brought to the attention of the Court, yet the trial
was still continuing. It was by now a clear case of Abuse of Process.
Bell: On page 102 of my client’s
statement to police, he stated that he had been investigating Faceparty. On page 104 he said, “If I
had any intention of meeting this alleged ‘girl’, I would have given ‘her’ a real mobile number, but I didn’t do that. Also on page 104 he told police “You
need to look at the chatlog in the Faceparty chatroom log.” I doubt the Reviewing Officer
looked at DC Robbie’s DVDs.
Judge: What are you saying that should
have been disclosed?
Bell: The chatlogs on Faceparty should have been disclosed and all the DVD
disks that DC Robbie has only now just brought into court should
have been disclosed. Was there collusion between the management of the Faceparty website and the police and were the police
involved in the liquidation of Faceparty? Disclosure has failed. Two highly significant documents
have not appeared.
Whilst this looks on the face of it to
be a case of a barrister robustly defending his client, a vitally important
question needs to be asked here: “Why is Bell only just bringing this to the attention of
the prosecution?” This is a significant part of his role – to ensure that the
CPS and the
police comply with the Criminal Procedure Rules with regard to disclosure. Notice at this
point how Forster responds to this extreme failure of
disclosure.
Forster: Whether or not disclosure
had been done properly is not relevant.
Judge: There is an extraordinarily scant
Defence case.
Forster: Yes, very scant and
delivered late!
Notice how the smoke and mirrors, the
sleight of hand, ensures that the major issue of a lack of disclosure and an
abuse of process which has been brought to the attention of the Court, has been
dismissed by both the trial judge and the prosecutor, who then take it in turns
to discredit the defendant by claiming that the defence statement is ‘scant’
and that it was ‘delivered late’ (neither of which was Brian’s responsibility).
Notice, too, how Forster claims that, “Whether or not disclosure had been done
properly is not relevant.” Of course it is relevant in any case, let alone Brian’s case here. Such a lack of Disclosure
meant that the trial was a nullity. Yet it was to continue.
At this point, Bell called for a recess.
He spoke with his client outside Court
4. “I will go for the jugular with Tunn. He bullied my wife at school
and this is my chance to get him back for that. I’ll challenge him about the
Asian woman on 2 June 2008 and not providing you with chatlogs on 28 January
2008.”
“But what about Geoff Bacon?” asked
Brian. “When are you proposing to call him? He needs to know because of his
job.”
“Well,” replied Bell, “I don’t think I will call
him because I can’t see how he can advance your case.”
“What do you mean? He’s a fucking
critical witness. I want him called and he wants to be called.”
“Let me make these decisions. You’re too
emotionally involved. Keep this simple. We don’t want to confuse the jury.”
“But that’s bollocks!”
In his journal, Brian wrote ‘conveyor
belt justice!’ He went back inside the Court and asked, “Do all cases move
along at this pace?”
“No,” replied the usher. “This is moving
much faster than any case I’ve ever seen.”
With the judge back behind his bench,
Forster said to Bell, “Tunn has the logs of Robbie’s work in his briefcase.”
Bell thanked the judge for the recess.
Forster: Nicola Noone is an anti-character witness.
At 11:40, the jury filed back in.
Forster: We return to Count 1 –
Exposure. The Crown calls Detective Sargeant Saib.
Saib is sworn
in.
Saib: I work in the Sapphire Unit at Bexleyheath. I was not involved from the
start. I was present on 20 May 2008.
Forster spends a long time going over the exposure case.
DS Saib plays the part of WPC Jane Sergeant at interview.
Forster plays the part of Brian.
At 11:55, Brian wrote in his journal
‘They are still reading. Why are they wasting such time?’
At 12:05, the two protagonists are still
reading. All they are doing in reality is reading from Brian’s witness
statement, a copy of which the jury have. This is purely a show, designed to
extend the trial because (i) there is no real evidence against the defendant
and (ii) to increase the level of revenue that can be claimed from the legal
coffers. Brian writes in his journal, ‘Deliberate play by Forster to re-enact this for the jury and sow a seed
of doubt in their mind. Why is Bell allowing all this with no objections?’
At 12:30, Forster and Saib are still
reading. Fifteen minutes later, they finish.
Forster: You weren’t aware of the
search of the defendant’s house?
Saib: I believe so. I would have looked for computer
equipment. I was only aware of the internet case many months later.
This is difficult to believe. Saib interviewed Brian on 20 May 2008 on the day of
his arrest. The police did search his
house and no laptop was found because it had, as we have seen in earlier
chapters, broken down and he had disposed of it for that reason.
Bell began his cross-examination of DC Saib.
Bell: Can you be shown PET101 and
PET 102. Which window did the offence
take place? Was it the far left window?
Saib: I can’t really answer.
Note that this is the lead officer in
the case. Here he is, in a Crown Court, saying that he has no idea at which
window the alleged offence of exposure took place.
At 12:50, the Court rises for a short
recess. At 1:05pm, the trial continues.
Judge Loraine-Smith asked Forster and Bell to reduce the length of time they spent on
examination and cross-examination.
Given that there ought not be time
constraints on justice, this is an astonishing request from the trial judge.
Saib: I did not offer the defendant a caution. It’s
against the rules when the machine is off.
And Saib left the
stand. He had had an easy ride.
The Prosecution then call DS Tunn, who swears by Almighty God.
Tunn: I was on duty on 4 June
2008. I made a statement and that’s been entered into court. [Authors’ note: This statement was not signed and there was
no URN (unique reference number) - making it inadmissible as evidence.] There
was a premises search at 89 Days Lane and six computers were recovered. There
was an ITV camera crew present.
At 1:15, the Court rose for lunch and
re-started at 2pm.
Forster is speaking with Bell: “I want to speak about the
interviews of 4 June 2008. Nicola Noone is here; we have an exhibit for her.”
DS Tunn is back in the witness box and Bell asks for a copy of the search warrant used on
Brian’s house, but Tunn fails to provide it. [Authors’ note: This should have been requested months
earlier by Bell under the Part 22 disclosure rules.]
Loraine-Smith enters at 2.10pm and the jury files in.
Bell: I want to ask you DS Tunn about the stop and search you made on my
client on 2 June 2008 at New Eltham railway station. Please explain to the
Court why you stopped him.
Tunn: I was at an observation post
near Mr Pead’s house. I spoke to him at the railway station. I don’t recall what car I was driving. I don’t
recall what I said to him.
Notice the ‘Court-speak’ that Tunn uses: “I don’t recall…” All police officers of
any rank are obliged to maintain pocket notebooks and official records. If Tunn was keeping Brian under surveillance – and there is no doubt that he was – then all
of this data should ordinarily have been recorded. But Tunn’s saying, “I don’t recall…”
sheds doubt on the legality of this covert operation on Brian, and we ask as
authors why these logbooks were never disclosed – if they ever existed.
Bell: Where is the Stop and Search
form? I want the Surveillance document.
Tunn: I don’t recall a search. He
provided a bank card as proof of ID. I do not recall searching his bag.
Notice how Tunn again escapes accountability by claiming that
he cannot recall searching Brian or his bag. But notice, too, how Bell is merely going through the motions – a
barrister who is really working on
behalf of his client would have demanded the surveillance document during the process of disclosure and
he would have demanded that Tunn provide his log books. He would also have
contacted British Rail to obtain the CCTV evidence of the unlawful stop and
search because Brian stood near an entry gate onto the platforms which he knew
would be monitored by CCTV.
We also believe that had Bell really been working in his client’s best
interest, he would have demanded that the trial cease immediately based on the
appalling lapses in procedure that we have indicated here.
Furthermore, later that day Brian had
told his line manager at Off Centre, Thelma Mathews, that he had
been unlawfully stopped and searched. He asked her to record his concerns about
the incident and to include the incident in the Minutes of their meeting, which
she did.
[Authors’ note: Did you notice the unusual spelling of ‘Mathews’? It is more commonly
spelt with two ‘t’s, as in ‘Matthews’. It is these almost insignificant details
that Brian notices – ‘shelley’, ‘shelly’]
Tunn: I wanted to know if the man
who had been communicating with Shelly14 was living at the defendant’s home
address. We tried to ascertain who was living at 89 Days Lane. I don’t accept I
searched his bag.
Notice here how Tunn claims that he kept Brian under surveillance because they were not sure who lived at 89
Days Lane. It is inconceivable to the authors that this Special Command
division of the Metropolitan Police had not contacted the local Bexley Police force. From this force, and from neighbours,
they would easily have established who lived at that address. Furthermore,
Brian was on the electoral roll, having lived there since 1989. Whilst this
does not provide conclusive evidence of whoever is residing at any particular
address, it is a very good starting point.
The authors believe that Brian was being
held under surveillance illegally and that he had been targeted
because of what he uncovered at Lambeth Council and because the police had
worked out that Brian’s motives for communicating with the ‘girl’ were not the
usual sexual motives of paedophiles and other sex offenders. The ‘girl’ had
provided ‘her’ mobile number on three separate occasions and Brian had not
texted or called it. And Brian had provided three false mobile numbers. One
does not have to be a Columbo or Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the person operating as Brian
did must have had a different motive from the usual offenders in making contact
with ‘Shelly14’.
[Authors’ note: We should explain here for the removal of all doubt, that the number
‘14’ in ‘Shelly14’ does not automatically suggest a person’s age. Searches on
Google and other such providers will show names such as ‘John 78’ or ‘Tracy8’
and so on. We accept that on occasion a person will put their age alongside
their name, but this is usually done by way of the year of their birth, such as
‘John1975’ because anyone calling themselves ‘Shelly14’ will no longer be
fourteen, of course, on their next birthday.]
Notice, too, how Tunn claims, “I don’t accept that I searched his
bag” whereas just a minute or two earlier he had claimed, “I do not recall
searching his bag.”
Furthermore, Tunn claims he did not recall searching Brian’s
person, that he did not recall searching Brian’s bag, but he did – somewhat
surprisingly, we feel - have an instant recall that Brian had shown him his
bank card by way of identifying himself. This was without reference to his pocket
notebooks (which he is required to maintain) which never made their way into
the Courtroom.
Tunn scans his (alleged) copy of the surveillance document. This document was never provided to
Brian. It may well have been provided to Dominic Bell and Angela Shaw, but it was never shown to
Brian. This, of course, renders the trial a nullity, because evidence was
allowed to be produced and discussed in court which the defendant had never
seen.
Bell: Have you got a copy of the
search warrant issued?
Tunn: Yes.
Bell: You were given permission to
search for indecent photographs of children, computers, videos and all
computer-related paraphernalia, yes?
Tunn: DC Godfrey got the warrant from the City of Westminster
Magistrates’ Court. Yes, we were looking for
computers etc. and anything which might have had images of children or child
pornography on them. I admit that we went far beyond that which was permitted by
warrant.
Judge: Mr Bell, what is the relevance?
Bell: I am trying to show that the
police overstepped the mark where my client is concerned.
Judge: Carry on.
Tunn: In respect of the ITV film
crew, the Assistant Commissioner of the Met gave permission for the documentary.
I don’t recall why the defendant was handcuffed in his own home throughout the
duration of our search. I recall that the house looked like a building site. I’m
not disputing that the film director came into the defendant’s house during our
search.
Notice how Tunn concedes that the ITV film crew unlawfully
entered Brian’s house, invaded his privacy and breached his rights under
Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Hopefully you will also have noticed how
Tunn’s selective recall didn’t
extend to his remembering why Brian was handcuffed (why did he not note this
down in his pocket notebook?), although he did
recall that the house looked like a building site (which it was at that time).
Bell: Would you say that my client
was very co-operative?
Tunn: Yes.
Bell: At his house and at the police
station?
Tunn: Yes.
Bell: So, he had the manner of
someone who had nothing to hide?
Tunn: Yes.
Bell: Why did you take Inland
Revenue items and other correspondence belonging to my client since these were
not mentioned on the search warrant? In fact, why did you take any other items
at all?
Tunn: We had arrested him, so we
were then entitled to search for any items under section 18 of PACE.
At
this point, we need to turn to the document which governs the conduct of the
police during searches and arrests and their behaviour at police stations and
in interviews. It’s commonly referred to as PACE – the Police
and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Sections 60(1)(a) and s.66(1)(a) to (d) are the Codes of Practice A-E which came into effect after
midnight on 31st January 2008. There have been later editions of PACE, but
because these alleged crimes occurred between January 2008 and May 2008, we
refer throughout to the 2008 edition of PACE.
Code B of PACE is the code of practice for
searches of premises by police officers and the seizure of property found by
police officers on persons or premises. This
Code applies to applications for warrants made
after midnight on 31 January 2008 and to searches and
seizures taking place after midnight on 31 January 2008.
Section
1.3 of Code B of PACE states that:
“…The
right to privacy and respect for personal property are key principles of the
Human Rights Act 1998. Powers of entry, search and seizure
should be fully and clearly justified before use because they may significantly
interfere with the occupier’s privacy. Officers should consider if the
necessary objectives can be met by less intrusive means…”
We believe that by handcuffing Brian throughout his
arrest on 4 June 2008, his privacy was breached in a number of ways, not least
because he was subjected to inhuman treatment by being forced to urinate when
handcuffed.
Section 1.4 of Code B states:
“…In
all cases, police should:
(i) exercise their powers courteously and
with respect for persons and
property
(ii) only use reasonable force when this is
considered necessary and proportionate to
the circumstances…”
We do not believe that five officers storming into Brian’s
house minutes after his partner had left, handcuffing him throughout the ordeal,
refusing entry to a friend and removing items from his house which were not
covered by a search warrant is in accordance with PACE. It is our opinion that
Brian had been treated abysmally and that the raid on his house had been
designed to cause him as much disruption to his life as possible – and all
because he had uncovered an illegal police sting operation.
Bell: The Reverend
Nicholas Kerr, the vicar of the Holy
Redeemer Church in Days Lane which is right opposite my
client’s house received a call from Maya Walker that her partner – my client – was in some
kind of danger and he came knocking. Why did you send him packing when he came
to support my client?
Tunn: We were investigating a
crime scene.
Section 6.11 of Code B – the conduct of searches states
the following:
“…A
friend, neighbour or other person must be allowed to witness the search if the
occupier wishes unless the officer in charge of the search has reasonable
grounds for believing the presence of the person asked for would seriously
hinder the investigation or endanger officers or other people. A search need
not be unreasonably delayed for this purpose. A record of the action taken
should be made on the premises search record including the grounds for refusing
the occupier’s request…”
A friend or neighbour must be allowed to witness the search if the occupier wishes. Being
handcuffed in his own home and under imprisonment in his own home by five
police officers, Brian naturally welcomed the sight of his friend and neighbour,
Nick Kerr. Since the only reason under PACE to deny entry to a friend or
neighbour (or other person) is that a police officer must have reasonable
grounds for believing the presence of the person asked for would seriously hinder the investigation or endanger officers or other
people, it is the authors’ belief that the presence of Reverend Kerr was
wrongly denied by the police and that the search was, therefore, an unlawful
search under PACE. We find it hard to imagine a scenario in which a man of the
cloth would be likely to impede the progress of a search or to endanger
officers or others. Nicholas Kerr was hardly likely to harm the officers and he
would not harm Brian, the only other person present at the ‘crime scene’ as
Tunn described it.
There is little doubt that this was an illegal house
search, which had been designed to destabilise Brian because of what he had
discovered on Faceparty and at Lambeth Council. Nor is there any doubt that
Brian’s human rights were severely breached. Nor is there any doubt that Tunn had conducted a second illegal house search on
Geoffrey Bacon’s house on 31 July 2008. We
have reason to believe that DS Tunn was operating like a maverick sheriff in the
Wild West. He displayed a blatant disregard for the rules and procedures around
proper policing methods.
Furthermore, Brian asked to be allowed to call his
daughter because he wanted her present during this search, but his mobile phone
had been taken from him and he was not allowed to make a call to her in yet
another breach of protocol.
Bell: DS Tunn, please turn to page 104 of my
client’s statement. You are questioning him are you not?
Tunn: Yes.
Bell: Can you please turn to page
108. Does it say there that my client asked you – in fact challenged you – to
obtain the logs of the Faceparty chatroom he was in on 28 January 2008 because
he told you it would prove his innocence?
At this point, Brian – a student of body
language and a trained counsellor, noticed that Tunn had his tongue in his cheek, clearly denoting
his discomfort at such a question. The detective was also looking around the
courtroom for support. He did not respond, so defence counsel asked the
question again.
Bell: So my client asked you to
obtain the chatroom logs, did he not?
Tunn: Yes.
Bell: Is it your assertion that the
police were working with Faceparty ?
Tunn: Yes.
Bell: What efforts did you make to
address my client’s request for the chatroom logs?
Tunn: I did not get a copy of
Faceparty’s server, no.
At this point, the judge intervened: “Mr
Bell, you’re not always the
politest.”
Notice how the judge fails to concern
himself with the real matter here –
that of yet another failure of disclosure and a most serious failure at that.
Bell: You made no efforts at all
to investigate my client’s claims?
Tunn: No. DC Godfrey did.
This was another lie. The police never obtained the chatroom logs that
Brian requested because he knew these logs would prove his innocence and that
the ‘girl’ had entered the chatroom claiming to be fourteen-years-old (on a
website that claimed in its terms and conditions refused membership to those
under 16) and stating that ‘she’ wanted money for sex.
It is clear to the authors that at even
this stage of the trial it should never have proceeded and nor should it ever
have come to trial in the first place. There was no evidence against Brian and
all of the evidence that proved his innocence was either not sought by the
police or it was destroyed by the police. But, as this story unfolds, matters
get significantly worse for Brian.
At 2.45pm Bell completes his cross-examination of DS Tunn, and Timothy Forster takes over.
Forster: The search warrant. Do you
feel that you went beyond its powers?
Tunn: I dispute that the search
warrant went beyond its scope. This was the first time we knew that the
defendant was using that particular MSN email address. Having got his admission, we
went on to search for anything and everything. We had power under the Arrest
Act to seize papers etc. I don’t accept I rattled the defendant’s cage.
There is no Arrest Act. The judge would
know this; the prosecutor would know this; defence counsel would know this.
Brian, at this stage in his development as a human being, did not know this,
despite the fact that he had always maintained a keen interest in legal issues.
Archbold devotes several pages to a definition of an
arrest, but we feel that the Liberty Human Rights website www.yourrights.org.uk provides a
succinct description:
“...(1) Arrest
means placing a person under lawful detention against their will for the
purposes of law enforcement. When is it fair to arrest someone? Individuals
have a right to liberty, and it has been held by the courts that if the police
do not adequately respect rights to liberty by ensuring that (i) they have some
evidence to justify the arrest before it takes place, (ii) that they tell the
person why they are being arrested and (iii) that they release the person as
soon as possible, then the arrest becomes unlawful. This was the position in a
case called Christie v. Leachinsky [1947] A.C. 573...”
It appears to the authors that Brian’s arrest on 4 June 2008 was
unlawful because it did not satisfy all of the relevant criteria. The police
had no evidence to justify his arrest because it is evident that they had
information which showed his innocence, not alleged guilt. Tunn has just told the Court that the police were
working with Faceparty and so it would have been easy for Tunn to have obtained the chatroom logs that Brian
requested. But Tunn failed to take such a step. Why? We believe
that there can only be one reason.
Tunn: My notes showed that at
07:54 Mr Pead left to walk to the train station at New Eltham on 2 June 2008. I
notified DC Godfrey that I had got the man. This was a covert stop
because I wasn’t going to go back to the house and look for evidence. I don’t
recall the story I gave to the defendant but I had to tell him a lie to get him to stop and produce his ID. He showed
me his bank card.
Under oath, Tunn has now admitted lying to Brian in order to
undertake an illegal stop and search at New Eltham train station. We suggest
that if he is prepared to lie so readily, what other lies has he told during
this trial? He claims – once again – that he doesn’t recall what he told Brian
in order to get him to stop, but this should have been noted down by him in his
pocket notebook or other log.
After this unlawful stop and search, Brian wrote to the Independent
Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and asked for the Crime Report relating to
the ‘young Asian woman’ that Brian had allegedly sexually assaulted on his way
to the station. The Metropolitan Police failed to produce the CRIS or CAD report and the IPCC failed to find a problem with
that failure to produce. We believe that no such reports exists.
There was a short recess after DS Tunn left the stand and the jury returned at 3.15pm.
Defence counsel took the opportunity to examine Tunn again.
Bell: Did you recall the
defendant’s Liverpool books – the books that he had written on the entire history
of Liverpool Football Club from 1892?
Tunn: I recall he had a large
collection of Liverpool FC memorabilia.
Now, a barrister acting in his client’s best interest would have
robustly challenged the policeman at this point about Brian’s level of research
and his intellectual abilities and whether the police had seen this as a threat
in any way, but Bell failed to ask even these most straightforward
of questions. In fact, during the unlawful search of Brian’s house on 4 June
2008, DS Tunn had stepped onto the loft ladder and peered into
the loft (which Brian had neatly boarded out) and he noticed the large number
of archive boxes neatly stacked and labelled (with help from his
grand-daughter, Emily Birch) and asked what they contained. Brian told him that
they contained the world’s largest private collection of newspaper reports on
football matches played by Liverpool FC from 1892. What was remarkable was the fact
that Tunn did not open a single archive box to check
this fact out. He merely stepped off the loft ladder and closed the hatch.
Remember the powers of the search warrant at this point: to thoroughly search
the house for child pornography and all computer or computer-related
paraphernalia. That loft could have contained thousands or even millions of
indecent images and the detective failed to search it. We believe that the
reason he did not search the loft was because he already knew that Brian was
telling the truth. Brian had been an author since 1986 and is regarded in some
quarters as the world’s leading authority on the history of Liverpool Football
Club. It is inconceivable that the
police would not have conducted this basic research on him before arresting
him, since it is obvious that he had been “under obbo” (observation) for many
months previously, since he uncovered the cover-up of child grooming in
Lambeth.
With Tunn’s testimony complete, there
was a short recess before Nicola Noone entered court as an ‘anti-character’ witness
for Brian. She swore by Almighty God.
Forster: The jury needs to know who you
are what you do.
Noone: I am a director of Off Centre, a charity in Hackney for
young people up to the age of 25. We provide
support for people who have problems with drugs or alcohol and those who have been sexually abused. Referrals
are made by people themselves or other agencies, such as doctors. The defendant
started working with us on 9 January 2008 and was dismissed on 13 June 2008.
Police removed his computer from Off Centre. They gave us full details of
the allegations. In April 2009 he sent a request for a reference. We did not
provide any references for him.
The emphasis above is ours. At this point, we need to pause and
reflect on what Noone has told the Court. She admits that the charity Off
Centre provides support for those who have been
sexually abused – this corroborates what Brian told the police. She also
confirmed the dates that he worked at Off Centre and the fact that the agency did not support Brian
at all with character references. She continues:
Noone: His role was as a counsellor. This was never at a private
house, but always in our offices. I don’t have with me the exact qualifications
he had. I’m on the admin side.
Notice this further appalling admission by Noone: she is claiming that
she does not have his exact qualifications with her despite being ‘on the admin side’ and despite being called to court in
a criminal trial. This lapse was not picked up by the judge, the prosecutor
(of course) or defence counsel.
Noone: He said he had been conducting research, but it was not
official Off Centre research. The first I knew about any research
was in a disciplinary meeting.
A reporter entered the court at this point.
Forster: Can you tell the court
whether the defendant ever undertook staff training?
Noone: Not to my knowledge did
he ever undertake staff training. I understood from John Hilton that he merely disseminated training
information to others and never actually delivered training.
The emphasis is ours. We have shown in earlier chapters that Brian did undertake staff training on 28 March
2008 at the offices of Sub19. The evidence is noted in the
Time Off In Lieu logbook and also Maya Walker’s diary. It is evident that
Maya Walker ought to have been called by Bell to show the court these important documents.
It is also evident that Nicola Noone is withholding evidence, because, as the
Director for Administration, she would know what qualifications Brian had
achieved in counselling and she was in possession of his application form for
the initial post of counsellor and then his application for the post of Group
Therapist in which he clearly informed Off Centre about his experience in counselling those who
had been sexually abused.
With full knowledge of the laws of libel, the authors state that
Nicola Noone committed perjury and perverted the course of
justice. She is fully aware that he had taken Staff Training, and if she didn’t know, why
didn’t she ask staff to provide such evidence? We are talking here about a
man’s reputation and his liberty, so why weren’t such basic checks undertaken
by her, the Trustees of Off Centre or the police?
We believe that these checks were
actually taken, but once again they proved Brian’s innocence and seriously
undermined the weak case against him.
Dominic Bell, whom - as defence counsel - one
might expect to robustly cross-examine Noone and ensure the acquittal of his
client, asked her about Off Centre and Sub19 as organisations.
Noone: There are 12 employees at Off Centre. Sub19 is a partner company. We shared staff and the
defendant worked at Sub19 too. We have troubled souls.
Bell: But do you have any clients
who have been sexually abused?
Noone: Yes,
we have sexual abuse clients. I’d say that only about 5% of our clients have
been sexually abused in childhood.
At this point, Bell might have been advised to ask her on what
basis she was making such an assertion. She was not a counsellor, but an
administrator and she never asked for such information from counsellors by
which to arrive at such a conclusion. The figure of 5% had not been robustly
corroborated or scientifically arrived at. The figure had been plucked from the
air to make it seem as though it was an insignificant part of Brian’s role.
Bell: So do you encourage your
counsellors to undertake continuous professional development?
Noone: There is always room for more learning.
Bell: Do some counsellors go to
college independently to further their counselling knowledge?
Noone: Yes, some counsellors go to college.
Bell: Were you present when the
defendant was appointed?
Noone: Yes, I interviewed him for the job. I’m a manager not a
counsellor. The interim manager, Christine Mead, was a therapist. He was the
best candidate for the job at the time. He was line managed. We have an
individual training budget, but Off Centre had no control over further learning.
I didn’t know he attended
college. I wouldn’t expect to know all courses taken by all counsellors.
This is an appalling admission by Noone. As the self-proclaimed
Administrative Director (as she has just informed the Court), she had access to
all the curricula vitae of all of the employees. He had, as we have seen in
previous chapters, applied for the post of Group Therapist in April 2008 and on that application form he
had, on page 3 of the 8-page form, included the following two entries:
Secondary
and Higher Education/ Courses Attended
|
|||
|
|||
Examinations
passed and professional qualifications obtained with grades and dates
including current studies, if any
|
|||
Dates
|
School/College/University
|
Course
|
Grades
Obtained
|
2008
|
CPPD
(www.cppd.co.uk)
|
Advanced Diploma in
Humanistic Integrative
Counselling
|
Not graded
|
|
|
|
|
2007
|
CPPD
(www.cppd.co.uk)
|
Diploma in Humanistic
Integrative Counselling
|
Not graded
|
There can be no doubt, therefore, that Nicola Noone was in possession of the information that she
claimed not to have been in possession of. She claimed, “I didn’t know he attended college” and this is perjury. The Off
Centre application form that Brian completed for the
post of Group Therapist clearly asks candidates to provide evidence of
examinations passed and evidence of ‘current studies’. This is unequivocal and
this document provides incontrovertible evidence of Nicola Noone’s perjury.
Bell: Do you know if the defendant
used to engage in conversations with other therapists around counselling
research and theory?
Noone: I expect that counsellors share experience, yes.
Bell: Tell the court about the
computer that my client used at Off Centre. Did he, for example, have
his own computer and email address?
Noone: Yes, he had his own computer and dedicated email address at Off
Centre. I can’t remember if I gave this to the police.
We find it inconceivable that a person claiming to be the
Administrative Director of a charity would not have kept a record of whether
she had given such important information to the police, and just as incredulous
is the fact that she claims she could not remember such a fact. Nor does she
tell the Court whether the police produced a forensic test against that
computer (which they ought to have done as the result of seizing it). Nor does
she tell the Court that all of Brian’s research – including his research into
child sexual abuse for Staff Training – was wiped off the Off Centre main server on the day of his arrest on 4 June
2008.
Nor does Bell pursue this line of questioning.
Noone: We followed all legal procedures in getting rid of him in June
2008.
They didn’t. They breached Off Centre’s own policies and procedures
and they breached several elements of the Employment Rights Act 1996. Noone is
evidently trying to distance the charity from a claim for unlawful dismissal.
With defence counsel sitting down after letting perjury occur – this
was known to him by documents that were produced to Angela Shaw and Bell himself – it was the prosecution’s turn to examine
the witness.
Forster: Did you conduct an interview
with him when dismissing him?
Noone: Yes, I didn’t consider his behaviour appropriate. He told me
the conversation started in a global chatroom and then moved to MSN for a one-to-one chat. He told John Hilton and me that he had known it wasn’t a 14-year-old
girl and he said he had taken the piss. The organisation could no longer trust
that individual. He had not been conducting research on our behalf and his job
didn’t entail such research.
The witness
than left the court – her part played out.
She had, in fact, misled the Court. Whilst Brian told police upon his
arrest that he had been conducting research into child sexual abuse he did not
tell them that he was doing it on behalf of Off Centre. He said it was necessary as
part of his role at Off Centre, which the job application form
proves. The purpose of witness Noone was to try to mislead the Court into the
belief that Brian’s research was not part of his role at Off Centre because the Administrative Director had said
that it wasn’t. The implication being that Brian must have lied. But he hadn’t
lied at all – Noone had, and the evidence is incontrovertible.
At 3:45pm, the trial resumed before the jury. There was no real
evidence against Brian, the charges had been fabricated and in order to give it
the appearance of a real trial, time had to be filled with meaningless content.
One example of this was where Forster decided to read out large extracts from Brian’s
interviews with DS Tunn and DC Godfrey on 4 June 2008.
We have in our possession copies of the interviews between Godfrey, Tunn and Brian Pead, with his legal representative
(not a solicitor), Marcia Weise present. Not a single one of the transcripts
of interviews that day (there were three separate interviews) was signed. Not
one record of interview had on it a unique reference number. Not one transcript
had on it the tape counter times alongside what was being said. This is normal
protocol. The entire trial had been built on thin air – just as the ‘girl’ had
been a creation of the police in order to try to entrap people. It is evident
from a thorough reading of the transcripts that they are nothing more than a
‘fishing expedition’ in the same manner in which Cathy Twist at Lambeth Council had conducted her ‘investigation’ into
spurious allegations against Brian.
On form MG15(T) – the transcript – Brian said, “I had no intention of
meeting that ‘girl’. If I had any intention of meeting that ‘girl’, I would
have given her my real number and clearly I didn’t. What I am interested in, in
that chatroom, is what is this person doing in an adult escort chatroom
masquerading as a 14-year-old girl?
That section of the transcript
was not read out in Court, yet it clearly shows Brian’s lack of intent to
engage with a real 14-year-old and it
is evident from his words that he always knew the person to be masquerading as
a teenager. Why, then, did this trial ever come to court? Why had this trial
cost hundreds of thousands of pounds? Why were the police so intent on
destroying Brian’s life?
Forster and Godfrey were merely reading out sections
of the transcript which had been taken out of context. Brian had told police
that he had been considering writing a book about the adult escort industry
after he had been involved with the Preventure programme whilst a Head Teacher
at Lambeth. Both as a counsellor and as a human being, Brian is fascinated by the
schema or blue-prints that are
usually laid down in a person’s life from birth until the age of about seven or
eight. Almost every action or pattern of behaviour from then onwards is based
on the things they have learnt up until that point – the schema. Brian was fascinated by the Preventure programme run by
King’s College in London because it sought to uncover the specific risk factors
in teenagers between 14 and 16 to try to identify whether they had a potential
for risky behaviour such as alcohol or drug abuse or a propensity to work in
the sex industry.
Brian had been asked by Nadia Al-Khudhairy, a research therapist on
the Preventure programme if he was minded to write a paper for a psychology
journal about his teaching methods, but he had not developed that idea after
his unlawful dismissal from Lambeth.
His training as a counsellor had sparked a renewed interest into not
only his own sexual abuse in a children’s home, but in females who work in the
sex industry. One of his counselling peers had lectured the group on trafficked
(disempowered) women who usually have no say whatsoever in the work that they
do, whereas Brian’s interest lay in those (empowered) women who actually made a
conscious decision to sell their sexual favours for money and those who went
into prostitution in order to feed their families, for example.
Yet none of this came out in Court, even though he had included this
in his 64-page defence statement which Bell reduced down to less than half a page.
Forster and Godfrey were engaging in reading out extracts from the
interview that the policewoman had had with Brian, but nothing of his esoteric
reasoning for his interest emerged – the focus was entirely on the sexual questions
that he had had on occasions with genuine escort workers.
Brian could not understand why Bell was allowing this to take place. Having read
the transcripts, it is evident that Bell ought to have intervened and asked what the
relevance was of taking extracts from the interviews when the full context was
not made explicit to the Court.
Nor did it emerge in Court that one of Brian’s plans was to create his
own counselling school and charity for former prostitutes and workers in the
sex industry who wanted to turn their lives around. The police had even seized
a notebook from his house where he had drafted some initial plans about this.
Friends and some colleagues knew of these plans – not one of them was asked to
attend the trial.
The police were simply ‘cherry-picking’ any odd comment that related
to sex for money.
The transcript of the third interview that the police put Brian
through on 4 June 2008 (remember, too, that he had been arrested and handcuffed
from just after 7am and it was now 7pm) shows that DC Godfrey asks “I am just going to speak to you a little
bit about your Faceparty chat on 15 May 2008.”
This clearly proves that Brian did
have such a conversation on Faceparty on 15 May and it was at his friend’s
house in Chislehurst. Why, then, was this conversation never mentioned in
Court? Why, then, did defence counsel Bell not ask about this specific conversation when
he cross-examined the police officers?
On page 15 of the 20-page third interview transcript, DC Godfrey again mentions the date of 15 May 2008 and
mentions a time, 9.30pm. This conversation clearly took place. Even the police
admit to it – twice!
As the day drew to a close, Forster mentioned Brian’s dismissal from Lambeth
Council.
Forster: Do you know if the defendant
was dismissed by Lambeth Council? Did this come up in the
course of your investigations?
Godfrey:
Yes.
Now, why would that be mentioned at all? What purpose did it serve?
From our collective points of view, we believe that it served a dual purpose:
(i) to further try to defame Brian in open court and (ii) to unsettle Brian.
However, we believe that it merely shows that this trial – built on thin air
and based on witness statements which were not signed and which had no unique
reference numbers – was a direct consequence of what he had uncovered whilst
working for Lambeth Council.
At 4.10pm, the trial ended for
the day. Unsurprisingly, Dominic Bell had to “dash off to Wandsworth jail”, leaving
his unsupported client fuming at what had masqueraded as British justice in
Court 4 at Southwark Crown Court. The trial was scheduled to
resume at 11.30 the following morning.
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