Lawyers On The Make

Fraudulent War Crime Inquiry Was Abused By The Investigators [ 23 March 2014 ]
The Iraqis making major allegations of murder, torture et cetera admitted they were lying. Their fraud was used by Public Interest Lawyers, a bunch of chancers on the make, set up by Phil Shiner, a Socialist.. There were trips out to Beirut, flying business class, a five star hotel. Police were on this jolly too. They achieved millions in expenses. Can you guess who gets to pay for it? If you are not sure just look in the mirror. Are these rogues going to be forced to pay back the money they made off with? Not a chance.

Phil has practised as a solicitor in the UK since 1981. He has written extensively on international and human rights law, and has spoken at many conferences around the world on issues arising through PIL's work.

Phil is a committed socialist and the roots of his career as a lawyer are firmly planted in the law centre movement of the eighties. Phil has had a diverse and high profile legal career where he has always acted for the victims of injustices borne of many different circumstances.

Phil is the lawyer that succeeded in establishing two separate judicial Public Inquiries arising out of alleged unlawful behaviour of UK forces in Iraq. Firstly the Baha Mousa Inquiry and most recently the ongoing Al Sweady Inquiry.
PS Read it as Propaganda or as lies.

Public Interest Lawyers ex Wikispooks, a propaganda operation
Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) was founded in 1999. In its early years PIL led the way in Claimant Environmental Judicial Review cases successfully challenging the proposed building of a wide range of facilities from incinerators to open-cast mines where the respective authorities had not complied with their legal obligations and duties. PIL soon established a reputation for having the tenacity and skill to litigate cases at the very highest level to ensure that the Rule of Law was upheld.........
PS Read it as Propaganda or as lies.

Phil Shiner gives lawyers a bad name - Hilary Meredith Solicitors.htm
I see from Saturday’s Daily Mail that Phil Shiner’s cases against the British Army on behalf of Iraqi civilians have collapsed. What a waste of our taxpayers’ money, suing our brave troops who are having such a tough time in any event.

I sincerely hope Mr Shiner is not paid by the Legal Aid Board and, win or lose, this puts an end to these cases which only serve to give lawyers and our justice system a bad name.

Accused lawyer hires big guns in MoD case [ 21 May 2015 ]
QUOTE
The lawyer being investigated over claims against the armed forces in Iraq has hired one of the City’s biggest legal firms to defend his reputation. Phil Shiner, who is accused of professional misconduct, has instructed Baker & McKenzie to fight his corner.

Mr Shiner and his firm, Public Interest Lawyers, are being investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority after the Ministry of Defence called for him to be struck off. The authority has brought in a leading City firm, Simmons & Simmons, to help. The involvement of heavyweight lawyers is an indication of the high stakes involved.
UNQUOTE
He might need to run more fraudulent cases to pay this other lot of leeches.

Lawyer Destroyed Evidence
QUOTE
Iraqis’ solicitor 'shredded’ torture file
A solicitor for nine former Iraqi detainees is to be investigated after shredding key document at centre of inquiry into claims they were tortured by British soldiers

Anna Crowther, 31, could be facing a disciplinary tribunal and if found guilty, she could be barred from legal practice

A leading firm of solicitors which destroyed a key document at the centre of a controversial inquiry into the actions of the British Armed forces in Iraq is being investigated by the solicitors’ watchdog.

The document had the potential to stop legal proceedings in their tracks − saving the taxpayer at least £27 million − but it was shredded by solicitors acting for nine Iraqi former detainees.

It appeared to show that the men, at the centre of what is known as the Al-Sweady Public Inquiry, were members of an armed insurgency militia, not the innocent farmers and students they claimed to be.

Although the document was given to the London-based firm Leigh Day in 2007, it was not made public until last year. Remarkably, it was then destroyed the day before it was due to be handed over to the inquiry’s officials. The Telegraph can today name the solicitor who arranged for the destruction of the document as Anna Crowther, who works in Leigh Day's international and group claims department.

The Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) has begun an investigation into the incident which could result in Miss Crowther, 31, facing a disciplinary tribunal. If found guilty, she could be struck off and barred from legal practice.

For the past six months, the Al-Sweady inquiry has investigated claims that British troops tortured and maltreated Iraqi detainees following the Battle of Danny Boy in May 2004, when 20 Iraqis were killed after British troops were ambushed at an isolated checkpoint.

The document that could have halted the hearing was an English translation of an Arabic record which suggested that some of the Iraqi claimants were members of armed Mahdi Army units. In other words, it undermined their credibility and potentially destabilised their legal case; it also contradicted evidence they had given to the inquiry.

Although the contents of the document survived in other forms, it is believed that the destruction of the original handwritten translation has made it impossible to establish its true provenance, and therefore harder for the Government’s lawyers to establish its true significance in court.

The shredding raises important questions for Leigh Day, which has been paid £50,000 of taxpayers’ money for work connected to the inquiry.

Miss Crowther joined the firm in 2006 and her profile on its website says she is working with senior partner Martyn Day “on a number of claims arising out of Iraq following the occupation of Basra by British forces in 2003”.

The Al-Sweady inquiry has heard accusations that members of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders not only tortured and subjected the nine Iraqis to mock executions, but also that insurgents were killed in cold blood and the bodies of others mutilated.

The murder and mutilation claims were dropped after lawyers for the nine admitted there was no evidence of these. However, the inquiry’s chairman, Sir Thayne Forbes, is still considering the allegations of torture and brutality.

In its closing statement to the inquiry last month, the Ministry of Defence said: “On Aug 16 2013 the inquiry asked Leigh Day to confirm whether it held material that was relevant to the inquiry’s terms of reference. At that stage Leigh Day were in possession of an original English translation of the Arabic original.

“This was potentially of assistance in establishing the provenance of the documents. Arrangements were made for the inquiry to attend on Aug 27 2013.

“Ms Crowther was aware on Aug 26 2013 that the inquiry was due to attend the following day. On … the day before the inquiry’s attendance, Ms Crowther arranged for relevant documents (namely the translations) to be shredded.”

The MoD statement added that Leigh Day was now seeking to “maintain a claim for privilege and have refused to disclose further relevant information”. Mr Day told the inquiry he considered the letter was “privileged from inspection”. But the MoD took a very different view.

“This does not address the question,” its lawyers said. “He could have responded to the inquiry’s request by saying that he was in possession of relevant material but that he declined to grant inspection on grounds of privilege. Instead, he allowed the false impression to be created that he was not in possession of further material.”

Leigh Day said the original Arabic document was given to it in Damascus in August 2007, by a local leader, Khuder Al-Sweady, the uncle of Hamid Al-Sweady, one of the men killed in the Battle of Danny Boy. The document, which contained the names of the former detainees, along with the insurgent militia platoons to which they belonged, was translated locally and written up by hand into English, before being typed. The document should also have been sent, in November 2007, to another law firm, Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), which was to represent the former detainees at the inquiry, as part of the exchange of relevant documents to be disclosed to all sides. But it was not received.

A spokesman for Leigh Day said: “We have a copy letter on file to PIL, dated November 2007, enclosing a file of material, which appears to include the document. However, it is unclear whether that letter was ever sent to PIL.”

PIL admitted that if it had come to light earlier it would have reduced its chances of winning a High Court case forcing the Government to hold the inquiry and led to the men being refused Legal Aid to pursue their case.

Leigh Day maintains the document would only have formed part of the wider picture examined by the inquiry.

Its spokesman said: “We obviously accept this document is significant but it has to be weighed against the rest of the evidence which we have not seen or been involved in, we cannot therefore say how significant this one page is, in relation to the whole inquiry.

“As soon as the inquiry team served us with notice under the terms of the inquiries rules asking us to go through our files and produce all relevant material in our possession we did so. We have carried out a review and to our knowledge we have not breached any of the regulations that govern our professional standards.”

Leigh Day is bringing separate compensation claims on behalf of the Iraqis and dozens of other legal challenges in relation to the Iraq war.

PIL was paid tens of thousands of pounds to represent the men at the public inquiry. The bill, part of the £5 million legal costs for the inquiry, was picked up by the MoD, which also paid for the rest of the inquiry’s costs.
UNQUOTE
Go to law and pay. The other side get to pay. Who wins? The lawyers every time. That is before you account for the corruption.

Victim Of British Brutality Tells All
His mates were beaten to death for refusing to dig their own graves - allegedly.

Compare this with the comment from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10806582/Iraqis-solicitor-shredded-torture-file.html, which deals with legal corruption:-
mackinlay 2 years ago

One can not imagine a junior solicitor in a major legal firm of "ambulance chasers" destroying this file off her own bat!!!

The various legal firms in the UK (and the same in Australia) who leech off the 'milch cow' that the armed forces are have made serious money over the past 16 years, ever since Mr Blair's Labour Government backed down on the Kenyan unexploded bombs class action. It is still beyond me, as I wrote in a book in 2008 "even though the areas used were also used by the Kenyan Armed Forces and others (and that many of those allegedly injured, by standing on mines – that were never used by the Army there), and that the Army had a long proven and documented record of range clearance during and post exercise!"

Since this destruction involves the potential for fraud of public funds (read taxpayers money) the crime should be investigation by a police, not the SRA which is basically a self protection society for grubby lawyers. It exactly the same as the BMA investigation medical practitioners who kill patients (in such large numbers) and just get a slap on the wrist and are allowed to continue doing it.

These (and many other) dubious actions by what is laughingly called "the legal profession" should see their perpetrators punished to the maximum effect by the justice system, but we never will because of the potential of it happening to them all. After all we have seen a 'high flying' judge convicted in the last week! Yours Mackinlay

Lawyers Defrauded Tax Payers In Mau Mau Case
QUOTE
One of Britain’s leading human rights law firms is facing allegations that it landed taxpayers with a “fraudulently” inflated bill for the compensation of Kenyans tortured by British Army officers during the Mau Mau uprising. In 2010, the firm Leigh Day sued the Government for compensation on behalf of 5,228 former insurgents who rebelled against British colonial rule in Kenya in the Fifties. Last year, the Foreign Office agreed to pay £19.9 million in an out-of-court settlement after secret Colonial Office files revealed that the Mau Mau had been systematically tortured.

But Leigh Day is now facing legal action in the Kenyan courts over claims that a number of the torture victims it represented were fictitious, that it charged exorbitant fees and failed to pay out the compensation settlement in full.

Leigh Day strongly denies the allegations, which are contained in a statement of claim submitted to the High Court in Nairobi by the Law Society of Kenya. The matter, which is listed to be heard next month, is likely to prove highly embarrassing to the London-based firm, which has built a reputation as one of Britain’s most successful personal injury and human rights practices.

The Law Society of Kenya claims Leigh Day’s fee of £6.6 million is out of proportion to the compensation settlement reached for the former victims of British torture. It also accuses Leigh Day of representing its claimants without authority, of negotiating a settlement with the British Government without instructions from victims, of offering legal services in Kenya “without being qualified”, and of not having a valid legal licence.

The claim says that Leigh Day “abused the court process to enrich themselves by taking advantage of poor Kenyans who suffered while fighting for freedom from colonial rule”. It also alleges that the firm “acted unlawfully, unprocedurally, fraudulently and unprofessionally”.

The claim concludes that unless the court intervenes, “an illegality and or a fraud will have been committed and will continue to be committed by persons who purport to represent victims of human- rights violations”.

One of the most serious allegations is that Leigh Day did not pay out the compensation in full and failed to disclose its list of victims because some names were fabricated.

If the lawsuit succeeds, Leigh Day’s fee could be revoked and its licence to practise in Kenya cancelled.

The issue of whether the British taxpayer was defrauded is likely to be examined if the case is heard in open court.

It is understood that the Law Society of Kenya was instructed to act by individuals claiming to be victims of torture who were not part of the original case or have not received compensation they claim they were promised.

Apollo Mboya, the chief executive of the Law Society of Kenya, said: “We need to know who Leigh Day's clients were and who the compensation was paid to, because people are complaining to us that they have not received the compensation they expected.”

Leigh Day describes the claims as “nonsense”. It says each of the 5,228 victims was vetted carefully and had been whittled down from a total of 50,000 possible claimants, to find only those individuals with the most credible cases.

The firm insists the settlement and legal fees were negotiated and agreed by the British Government and their Mau Mau clients, and that the compensation was paid in full within a month of the settlement.

It says its fees were incurred by sending 20 lawyers to Kenya to investigate the claims of torture and mount a case over a four-year period.

Dan Leader, the solicitor who led Leigh Day’s team alongside Martyn Day, a senior partner, said: “This is nonsense from start to finish. There is not a shred of truth to it. Any notion that British taxpayers’ money did not go to the right place is utterly wrong.

“Not one penny of the damages went to pay our costs. They were paid for by the defendant [the British Government]. The victims we represented did not want their names disclosed for fear of being harassed by rival Mau Mau groups.”

This is not the first time that Leigh Day has been criticised for its “exorbitant” fees while suing abroad. In 2009, it billed £104.7 million after representing victims of poisonous toxic waste dumped by the commodities company Trafigura in the Ivory Coast.

Trafigura appealed against the bill, highlighting that Leigh Day claimed a £43 million “success fee” while the average compensation to the victims, Ivorian villagers, was about £1,000. Mr Day charged £5 million for his services, at a rate of £900 per hour.

On appeal, Leigh Day's’s total bill was reduced to £83 million with the success fee reduced to £25 million.

Earlier this year, an investigation into claims that British soldiers tortured nine Iraqi men, represented by Leigh Day, cost taxpayers £27 million. The Sunday Telegraph reported in May that one of the firm’s solicitors, Anna Crowther, destroyed a key document at the centre of the inquiry, suggesting some of the Iraqis were members of an armed insurgency, not the ordinary civilians alleged by Leigh Day.

The Foreign Office said it could not comment because of “ongoing legal proceedings”.
UNQUOTE
Corruption as normal?

Leigh Day

https://www.leighday.co.uk/

Trafigura