Justice for the 96

Yesterday (26/4/2016), 30 years after Chernobyl blew up, and 27years since Hillsborough, a jury in Warrington delivered perhaps the most condemnatory set of responses to 16 questions that the UK establishment has ever suffered.

There cannot be justice without truth.  That is why the State acts in the way it does, even today.

Few will have been able to hold back the emotion, partly due to the sheer length of time and hostility the families have had to endure.  And partly that they have, finally, overcome a powerful establishment intent on wearing down and destroying them and their lost loved ones.

Now that reality has returned to the Hillsborough story, attention is quickly - and rightly - turning to those several who modified witness statements, and pursued a 27-year long campaign of falsely blaming Liverpool fans for the tragedy that unfolded.

For me, whilst the lies, cover ups and unlawful killings are terrible, the really important point I see is this: just how quickly the establishment began orchestrating a sophisticated web of deceit and false information, such that these lies were fed, as the tragedy happened, to BBC commentators at the stadium. 

This was no bungled attempt to throw mud.  Those who spun the lies were clearly well-versed and well-supported in what to do when the shit hits the fan.  It's clear a network of advisors and wonks spun into action.  Once the BBC commentators had, in good faith, repeated what the supposedly trustworthy 'authorities' had told them, the lies would propagate like wild fire. 

And so they did, appearing in the infamous Sun headline: 'The Truth'. 

This kind of 'trash the families' approach to dealing with facts that embarrass the State is not limited to enormous catastrophes like Hillsborough.  Indeed, it seems to come straight out of some handbook that all in senior public office have, hidden under their desks for retrieval when needed.

The overall response to those who dare to ask probing questions, criticise or condemn the State - from local council upwards - is to immediately cast doubt on those who are 'stirring', as they would see it.  Lies usually follow, with kagaroo 'investigations', the appointment of friends and colleagues, cast as 'independent', who are paid to prop-up the party line.  And so they do.

This 'shoot the messenger' industry in public office is endemic and destructive.  That it is destructive is, of course, it's whole raison d'etre. 

But that it is endemic is utterly unacceptable.  These attitudes - and the people who propagate them - belong to a time past.  Indeed, many of them seem not to have really understood they no longer live in the 1970s or 80s, where media management was easy, because the public had no ready and immediate access to the papers and broadcasters.  Today, anyone can alert a material-hungry media to an interesting story as it unfolds.

Justice for the 96 was long overdue.  That much is clear.  Less clear is that those in wider public office are learning any lessons at all about falling on their sword, rather that trashing the public, when they make even the slightest of mistakes.  Let also their legal departments, full of lawyers who have long forgotten their professional duty to the truth, learn that they are not in post to spin-out lies in support of their masters.  From little lies, big tragedies grow.

Let's hope that the terrible conduct of the State, such as it has been during the 27 years of searching for truth in Liverpool, brings much more than peace for the families.  Let's hope it opens the door wide open on the ways of the State, and just why it prefers to blame the affected, rather than stand up for justice.

Above all, let's hope it brings lasting change to accountability.

Gareth Winston Roberts - Reprise.

Yes folks, no sooner than you thought ol' GWR was ready to meet the Grim Reaper, than he pops up in local meetings recently.

Missed him?  He's planning to come back from the Amlwch shadows.

Accompanied by long-term associate and solicitor, Myrddin Owens, GWR has bounced back from some illness, believed to be cancer, and started banging desks on County Council issues again.

GWR was, apparently, full of his old enthusiasm for power, and kept repeating "I haven't gone away".  He also had difficulty in comprehending regulations about services spelled out to him.  But that sort of thing comes with age - and a belief in getting his own way.

This, of course, will ring alarm bells in those who hold Roberts responsible for much of Anglesey Council's past woes, from which it is only just now emerging.

So, it seems GWR is the original Comeback Kid, and will be gracing the voting slips, come the next County Council elections, just a year or so away.

Post phoebus, nubila...

What Did The Judge Say to Anglesey Council?

Followers of the ups and downs - mainly downs - of Anglesey County Council will not have missed Judge Gareth Jones' condemnation of that basketcase organisation during 2014.

His Honour Gareth Jones is a Family Court judge who presides over the kinds of cases Anglesey Social Services department bring.

Well, sometimes.

You see, last year, Anglesey Council took it upon itself to prevent a child being returned to his mother after she had spent a short period undergoing treatment for a psychological illness.

That sounds all find and dandy, until you realise that Anglesey had not bothered with applying for a Court Order to keep the child in care.  In other words, it acted outside of - and contrary to - law.

His Honour Gareth Jones.  Not impressed by Anglesey Council.

His Honour Gareth Jones, apparently supporting the efforts of Lord Justice Munby and other senior Family Court judges, took to condemning Anglesey in public.  He said that Anglesey was "not above the law" and that he had formed suspicions from earlier cases that the reason it was apparently acting in this cavalier manner was that it was trying to cut costs by not bothering with proper legal processes.

The Council, for its characteristically ridiculous part, asserted it was "acting in good faith" in the case.

Quite how anyone acts in good faith when they are failing to follow basic elements of the law that dictates their work is anyone's guess.

Even after this public humiliation, this blog became aware of what might appear to outsiders as prejudices in case handling.  In one case seen by this blog, a referral was made to a fairly senior officer.  She forwarded the referral to a colleague, adding - entirely without justification or reason - that "maybe they've [the family] have been opened [complained about] before!"

The use of an excited exclamation mark to conclude the e-mail was deeply troubling.  The family had never been "opened before", and the complaint, when properly considered, was found to met no bar for action, and was later shown to be a complaint from a neighbour with a decade-long list of calls to police about his malicious conduct, of which this was the latest incarnation.

In a later, 2015 case, His Honour Gareth Jones took again to criticising Anglesey Council, this time for failing to make its mind up - he called it an "S-turn" - over how a child ought to have been processed in the care system.

This seems to have been the last straw for Judge Jones, who issued in his judgement on the case the remarkable news that he had "set in train" arrangements for a meeting with Anglesey's senior legal officer and head of Social Services.  It would seem Judge Jones had some form of carpeting in mind.

That was in 2015.  What has happened since?  We don't appear to know.  Anglesey, of course, always keen to suppress bad news, doesn't seem to have made anything public.  A FoI request to it would probably lead to lots of foot-dragging and excuses for not releasing the data.  We've seen that kind of thing an awful lot, and the ICO has taken them to task many a time.

The FoI request acknowledgement from the MoJ.

So, this blog can confirm a request under FoI has been lodged with the Ministry of Justice to reveal details of when this meeting between Judge Jones and Anglesey took place, and what was covered in that meeting.

The outcome will be published here, just as soon as it's received!

UPDATE:

The response was received on April 07, 2016.  It asserts that the Ministry of Justice does not hold the information sought.  But, outside of the FoIA, it did ask His Honour Gareth Jones for any response he may wish to make.

HH Gareth Jones was willing to reveal the meeting between himself and Anglesey Council took place on 14th December, 2015, but that no recordings were made, nor minutes taken.

It is disappointing that HH Gareth Jones didn't appear willing to reveal even the general topic of the meeting held with Anglesey, more especially as he has clearly sought to bring Anglesey's failings to the public attention through his statements in judgement texts.  But we can reasonable infer that the topic was dissatisfaction with the Council's Social Services unit, given the very public criticism HH Jones has made in 2014 and again in 2015.

So, it seems that if no recording of the meeting took place, then Anglesey Council will also likely claim they have no information about the meeting.

The very strange and unsatisfactory outcome of this extraordinary meeting that the judge chose to tell the public would happen, is that it happened behind closed doors and nobody appears to have taken any notes.  From the outside, the public might be concerned that this could appear to be an attempt to evade FoIA.

In effect, despite HH Jones' venture into the public arena, the public have nevertheless been kept thoroughly in the dark about a public authority's failings and a Family Court judge's involvement in, apparently, trying to improve matters.

So there you are.  The Telegraph's recent concerns about Family Court secrecy do seem well-founded, with Anglesey Council being avoided any potential embarrassment.  Nice one!