Fit Up

by Faith Clifford

  Leslie then requested Hopkins to view the letter that Grundy had written on behalf of the Chief Constable, which was in reply to Jeremy’s letter of claim stating that Hopkins had maliciously prosecuted him and had withheld evidence. He pointed out that Grundy could not have written the letter without taking instructions from Hopkins and Fouhey. ‘Let’s look at the instructions you gave. This is before charge.’ Leslie read out the paragraph regarding Fouhey, pointing out the twelve images recovered on the computer, making a statement and informing Hopkins verbally that the files were in temporary internet folders and that he was of the impression that Jeremy would be charged with incitement and not possession. Now Hopkins was asked to look at another of Grundy’s paragraphs. ‘It appears that DC Hopkins had not passed the information given to him by Mr George Fouhey that the images had been found in temporary files. This was an error on Mr Hopkins’s part but it is denied that this is evidence of negligence or that he acted in any way unlawfully.’ Having finished, Leslie looked at Hopkins and asked, ‘Why were you giving instructions back in October 2005 that you had received the information but you had just failed to pass it on to the CPS?’ Hopkins replied that he did not recall giving those instructions.

  Leslie looked around the court and then said, ‘Mrs Grundy cannot make this up. Let me get this straight with you, Mr Hopkins. Are you saying you suddenly have a recollection? Because a moment ago you said you could not recall.’

  Hopkins was feeling the pressure, I thought, and answered, ‘What I am saying is that I believe I was interviewed by the Complaints and Discipline Department and asked questions and this is where this would have come from.’

  So now he remembers that interview with Willcox, I thought, but earlier he had said he could not recall it!

  To try to tease more from Hopkins, Leslie asked him to clarify his evidence. ‘For the avoidance of any doubt, you did not give these instructions which are here on page twenty-one, paragraph five. Is that your evidence on oath?’ Hopkins replied, ‘That appears to be the case.’ Not satisfied with the answer, Leslie then asked Hopkins for a yes or no to the question, ‘Did you give these instructions or not?’

  Suddenly Challenger leapt to his feet to interject, to try to stop the onslaught on Hopkins. He believed that the question had been answered adequately but Cranston asked Leslie to continue. There was to be no respite, but no matter which way Leslie tried to get Hopkins to answer a yes or no, he continued to wriggle and evade. The discomfort that Hopkins was feeling was evident with the vivid flush of his neck and face.

  Cranston indicated to Challenger that he saw no problem as Hopkins was answering Leslie’s questions, so in turning back to Hopkins Leslie asked if he had given instructions to Grundy. Unable to answer a yes or no, he offered no explanation as to how Grundy was able to reply with information regarding Jeremy’s claim.

  Tiring of this subject, Leslie moved on to the Service Improvement Document and asked Hopkins if he knew DS Willcox, to which he replied that he didn’t. Referring Hopkins to the report in the file bundle in front of him, Leslie read out the paragraphs hoping to incite some recollection from Hopkins that this interview with DS Willcox took place. Despite the detail of how Fouhey passed a CD to Hopkins with images, explaining that they were found within the temporary internet files and could not be relied on for a basis of charge as the user would not know that they were on the PC, Hopkins still stuck to his inability to recall events.

  Leslie impatiently reminded Hopkins that ‘don’t recall’ can mean two things. ‘“I do not recall it and if something like that had happened I would remember it” or “I have no recollection of it.” Which of the two are you saying you meant when you used the expression “don’t recall” – the former or the latter?’ Hopkins’s response was that he did not think he could answer in that way. He persisted with the explanation that he did not recall the conversation with Fouhey and that Leslie was trying to get him to say that it might have happened. He reiterated he did not know. Leslie looked at him and said, ‘I am trying to get you to tell the truth.’

  Leslie then quoted from the SID document that Hopkins had agreed with what Fouhey had said to him, that Professional Standards had interviewed him and Fouhey about what was said in July 2005. Hopkins kept repeating he did not recall agreeing to this.

  Moving on to another paragraph, Leslie read, ‘At this time it was agreed policy that persons who had entered the Landslide site and visited a level one site were to be charged with an incitement charge. This relates to the incitement of the persons running the Landslide organisation to commit a criminal offence of supplying paedophilia. Following his liaison with the CPS, DC Hopkins charged Clifford with the incitement offence but also charged possession of the indecent images within the temporary internet files. This was to give additional weight to the incitement charge.’ Leslie asked, ‘Why did you tell Willcox that the reason why you charged Clifford with the other offences was to just – my expression – boost the incitement charge?’ Hopkins replied that he did not recall saying it to Willcox.

  Leslie told Hopkins that this would be totally improper policing to have thrown in extra charges to boost the charge sheet in the hope that Jeremy would have coughed to one of them, but Hopkins was still clinging to his memory loss.

  The onslaught continued, Leslie was relentless: ‘The making and possession charges. You had no evidence against this man and you knew that.’

  ‘I thought I had,’ Hopkins replied.

  As quick as lightning Leslie responded with, ‘Really?’, a question laced with incredulity. He asked Hopkins to refer back to an email from the investigator of the Police Standards Department in which it was indicated that the burden of proof was on the prosecution regarding the making and downloading of an image on 26 January 2001 and that he had indicated that before you can charge you need evidence. ‘Where is the evidence that he [Jeremy] had downloaded it?’

  ‘The creation date,’ Hopkins replied, and then further added, ‘There are supplemental reasons.’ Quizzically, Leslie asked what they were, as the paragraph Hopkins was referring to mentioned Landslide.

  ‘How did Landslide have anything to do with the images created on 26 January 2001? What did Landslide have to do with that charge?’ asked Leslie. Hopkins replied that Jeremy had visited those sites as he understood it but could not remember when Landslide had closed. I thought he should have remembered that one because he had already mentioned in his statement that he got evidence from America; it would have been integral to the UK police investigations plus it was in the national papers that Landslide was closed in August 1999 after a raid by the FBI. So how could Jeremy have downloaded an image from that site in January 2001 on a computer purchased on 30 March 2000? It was impossible.

  Leslie continued to press Hopkins about how he made this assumption and then drew him to the subject of the credit card transactions for Landslide during 1999 and how they related to the image created on 26 January 2001. Hopkins agreed that the transactions were from 1999 but said that they were not relevant to this charge, to which Leslie asked why this was mentioned in his statement. Hopkins said that he had the belief that it was all linked.

  Leslie looked back out to his audience and said, ‘But, Mr Hopkins, what you are doing at this stage is you are charging the specific offences. You are not just investigating this generally. That is what you did when you arrested. To charge with this specific offence, apart from the fact that the image was on the computer which belonged to Jeremy Clifford on 26 January 2001, where was the evidence that he knew that the image was there?’

  ‘I did not have any,’ replied Hopkins. Leslie, almost triumphantly, said, ‘Say that one more time?’, to which Hopkins said, ‘Didn’t have any at that point.’ Reeling him in further, Leslie asked, ‘So how did you charge?’ To our astonishment, Hopkins answered, ‘Because when I asked him [Jeremy] about it he refused to answer, because it was my belief that he’d downloaded it.’

  Leslie pointed out that his belief w
as neither here nor there, that possession was only half the offence and that there was no evidence of knowledge. ‘You did not have any, did you?’ said Leslie pointedly.

  ‘No I didn’t,’ replied Hopkins.

  At last, some form of admission after peeling away the layers. Leslie added that Hopkins had no evidence and suggested that his witness statement was a complete smokescreen for this court case created three years after the event by lawyers and not by him, which Hopkins refused to accept.

  Further on in Hopkins’s statement, Leslie pulled up the fact that there was a comment about evidence being given to him by an expert in computer forensics, which he confirmed was Fouhey, and that when his evidence was challenged by Duncan Campbell, acting for Jeremy, he changed his stance, leaving Hopkins without evidence in the case. Leslie pointed out that he was told that from the beginning, to which Hopkins replied, ‘No, not until December.’ Delighted by this response, Leslie asked, ‘Why, when I asked you that question earlier on, you said you could not remember. That was one of my very first questions.’ Hopkins appeared to look more worried and replied that he thought Leslie was talking about picking up the CD in July not December.

  Hopkins was now falling back to his inability to recall the exchange between himself and Fouhey, but it did not make sense that a CD would be handed over with no explanation of its contents and then for Fouhey to provide an explanation almost six months later on a second statement.

  ‘I do not accept what you say,’ Leslie said to Hopkins. ‘We say, for avoidance of doubt, that you are a liar and you are lying throughout this. I want to be clear that we are accusing you of blatantly lying. You understand what we are saying, do you not?’

  Hopkins quietly replied, ‘Yes.’ If I had been in Hopkins’s shoes I would either have been ashamed to be called that or angry that Grundy and Challenger had put him in this position.

  I glanced over to Grundy and Challenger. They both had their heads down staring at the pages of their files, not daring to look up at Hopkins and probably praying for Leslie to finish.

  Leslie was far from finished, however, and asked, ‘If you had been told that these [images] were in temporary internet files at the very beginning before you charged, you would never have charged.’

  Hopkins responded that he was not clear at that moment but he thought he still would have done. Leslie followed: ‘You have a feeling?’ to which Hopkins replied, ‘Yes.’

  ‘What? Police officer’s intuition? Tell us, because before you can charge you have to have evidence.’

  Hopkins explained that because Jeremy had given a no comment interview to the questions asked he was going to leave it to a court of law to make the decision. Leslie was all over him, raising his voice saying, ‘No, no, no, no! You then have to decide whether you have evidence before you can charge. What is the evidence? Tell us, this is your opportunity.’

  Hopkins replied that there were illegal images on Jeremy’s computer and that he had downloaded them because there was a creation date, plus the computer was in his possession.

  Leslie paused, looking irritated, and took Hopkins back to his witness statement. He read out loud the relevant paragraph emphasising the point that if he had known that the files were in temporary folders and that there was no evidence suggesting the user of the computer would know that they were there, he would not have asked for Mr Clifford to be charged with these offences. Hopkins jumped in, saying that he did not know that Jeremy did not know they were there, because he wouldn’t answer the questions. I whispered to Jeremy that just because your solicitor asks you not to answer the questions, it does not mean you are guilty. It just does not help the police when fishing for evidence or admissions. You can’t charge someone because they don’t answer questions, you have to rely on evidence, which Hopkins did not have.

  Hopkins accepted that the issue for the judge to consider was whether he was told by Fouhey where the images were but was still standing by the fact that he was not told and yet, with step-by-step questions, Leslie brought up the facts chronologically. That, on 8 June 2004, Fouhey gave Hopkins a disk with images on it but that he could not recall a conversation about what was on it. On 19 July Jeremy was interviewed and charged with downloading and yet Hopkins did not have Fouhey’s written statement until 21 July, two days after charge.

  Leslie continued: ‘My question is this. Why did you tell the investigators that your expert had changed his stance? What stance was there to change? When you charged on the 19th you did not have anything from him and you haven’t spoken to him of anything of substance. What was changed?’

  Hopkins spluttered a reply. ‘When I submitted the statement that he did supply which didn’t mention internet—’ He had not finished his sentence before Leslie jumped in: ‘Forgive me. You had charged Mr Clifford before you had anything from the expert?’ Hopkins confirmed he had done so but that he did not know that the images were in temporary internet files. Leslie said, ‘You were not told they were anywhere if you did not have a conversation, were you?’

  Hopkins’s reply was that the images were on Jeremy’s computer, to which Leslie asked why he would not ask his expert where they were on the computer, i.e. were they on the desktop, listed under favourites, in named files? These would be important issues that required explanation. Hopkins mumbled about knowing enough about file paths, to which Leslie responded that if he were to take him to a file path of an image, would Hopkins know what machine it was from?

  ‘Probably not, no,’ Hopkins replied.

  Triumphantly, Leslie added: ‘Because you would have to ask the expert, would you not?’ – emphasising the word ‘expert’. Hopkins had to answer yes. Leslie again said that he had not done this, to which Hopkins answered that he was sure he had but could not recall it. We were back to the ‘unable to recall’ again.

  ‘Ah, you are sure you did. There we go. We have got the truth now. You did ask and you were told. You have just admitted, “I’m sure I did ask.” What is the truth now? Why did you say yes, that you are sure you did ask?’ Hopkins replied that he felt sure he would have asked questions, although he could not recall and was not sure about the location question.

  Hopkins, referring to file paths again, told Leslie that he may have asked Fouhey on which computer the images were found as there were five computers taken from the shop, but Leslie dismissed this and said that Hopkins knew it was only one computer as it had an exhibit number, so there was no confusion at all about where the images had come from. ‘You knew then it was from the Tiny computer. You knew about the file path because you asked, because it would have been the very first thing you would have done, whereabouts on the computer, and you were told these images cannot support a charge of making or possession. You were told that before you charged, yet the reason why you charged was to boost…’ Before Leslie could finish Hopkins jumped in with ‘I don’t believe that, no.’

  ‘Why did you tell Willcox that then?’ said Leslie, relating back to the SID document.

  Hopkins replied, ‘I made a mistake but it was an innocent mistake. I was told.’

  ‘So you do not recall the instructions you gave Grundy in the letter of claim?’

  Hopkins was not given the opportunity to reply before Leslie jumped in with another question:

  ‘You do not recall telling Willcox that you added possession charges to give additional weight to the incitement charge? You have been caught out lying time and time again, have you not?’

  ‘No,’ replied Hopkins.

  This was all very frustrating as all the evidence indicated that Hopkins was lying, but it seemed Hertfordshire Constabulary were not letting him admit to this, which would have been an easier, less time-consuming and cheaper option. When we started the complaint all we wanted to hear was an admission with an apology but now both sides had come this far that was definitely most unlikely, as for any side to cave in now would mean astronomical legal costs. For us it would be total annihilation, but for the police, not a problem. Their f
unding would go on.

  Leslie was moving on to the malice part of our claim now, which was to give the court reasons as to why Hopkins had acted as he had done against Jeremy. Leslie brought up the fact that Jeremy had made Hopkins’s job difficult by complaining about his conduct, via the solicitor representing him at the time, regarding holding on to our possessions from the house and shop for too long. Leslie put to Hopkins, ‘“I know, let’s charge him with possession. Maybe he’ll plead. The more charges we put on in relation to this, he might put his hands up to one of them.” Was that your thinking?’ Hopkins said no to this.

  Continuing, Leslie said, ‘So you decided to bring a little pressure to bear on him and you told his enemy, Lloyd Gerard.’ Again Hopkins said no.

  Leslie then took Hopkins through his meeting with Gerard for the first time on 9 July 2004 to take his statement in relation to the Tiny computer. During the whole time of the investigation nothing had been heard from this man until then. Leslie asked a question about one of the comments from the statement, that the ‘computer was taken away for several weeks to clean it’. He proceeded to ask questions as to how a comment like that can be plucked out of thin air, that there had to be some direction or a list from Hopkins as to what the statement should include, to which Hopkins agreed but said that there was no list and that he had not told Gerard what the investigation of Jeremy was about. Leslie disputed this, because the evidence showed that within a few weeks Gerard was on the phone and emailing people about Jeremy being a paedophile. Even I knew that was a leap to be able to use that term unless you had been told specific information. Computers are confiscated from people during investigations for all sorts of reasons to look for evidence, such as fraud, so you could not make the assumption that someone is a paedophile solely because their computer is taken away. Hopkins would have had to have given some indication but continuously denied Leslie’s accusations. It made a change from not recalling, I suppose!