Nick Wallis has posted a second advice from Simon Clarke. This one deals with a directive to shred documents associated with disclosure (emails and minutes of meetings) and hand other notes to the director of security in the PO. This prompted a robust response Mr Clarke warning about potential breaches of professional misconduct and perverting the course of justice. It was a major focus of the Court of Appeal decision quashing convictions in Hamilton.
Mr Clarke’s advice was sent, promptly, to the PO General Counsel, by what I suppose might be described now as the client relationships partner. His letter states, "It is fully accepted you may wish to take a second opinion on the views expressed." The GC took about two weeks to respond.
You can read about what our research team thought of the situation in our third working paper which we have released today, a year after we submitted it to the Inquiry, now that some of the matters in there are less sensitive and have been publicly aired by various counsel to the Inquiry. This looks at the conduct of criminal matters more broadly across the life course of the Horizon saga. When we wrote that paper we did not have the advantage of having the Swift Review or the speeches of various Counsel to the Inquiry. In the main, I would say, those speeches reinforce or deepen my own concerns; but much yet remains to be explored, judgement would be premature.
In summary: what happens, and what does not happen, after this second bomb drops is crucial.
We have also finalised and released our working paper on the Swift Review. This refines some of the thinking developed in earlier blogposts here, but rather mildly, and adds an executive summary.
In your third working paper, you state "For good reasons, Criminal Court of Appeal processes are not vehicles for individual accountability; nor are academic working papers."
I disagree profoundly.
To contribute to the search for accuracy and truth as an academic, I am held informally to high standards by my peers. Formally as has been shown in various cases that if I falsify results and conclusions, I could (and should) be sacked - normally after examination of the research records and methods.
I see no reason why lawyers in the Criminal Court of Appeal should be held to lower standards or that their processes should be privileged. They are usually making more important decisions and therefore should be held to higher standards of transparency and accountability.
We can see your principle has been enthusiastically adopted in many areas of life where secrecy is the name of the game, for the very good reason that it protects the person with power, e.g. government advice and decisions, official reports on medical mal-practice, commercial contracts to public bodies, advice to the PO, with little care for those on whom the power is exercised.
The situations where your principle should apply are rare. Certainly not the law (from top to bottom), as Horizon has demonstrated in spades.