Fit Up

by Faith Clifford

  Out of the corner of my eye, Lord Justice Hooper, who had been sitting quietly throughout and had made absolutely no comment during the proceedings, was waving a sheet of paper to gain the attention of his colleagues. For the first time he spoke out and said, ‘It says here that there was no evidence to charge Mr Clifford but he had. How spiteful.’ Paddy leapt in to punch the point home to all of them that this was exactly what the case was about.

  Lord Justice Dyson, appearing satisfied that they had understood enough to consider a decision, nodded to both his colleagues. He addressed Paddy and said that it was late in the day and they were retiring to consider judgment. If it was in our favour they could only offer a retrial to which point the police’s QC, who was immediately on his feet parting the papers in his file and pointing to one of the pages, called out in a desperate, last-ditch attempt, ‘But we are now in a position where we know much more about what was on the Tiny computer.’ Oh, give over on that bloody report, I thought angrily. It’s not holding water for your argument because Hopkins would not have known this at the time of charge. Anyway, there were no illegal images discovered on the Tiny but I hoped it would not influence their decision, whatever that might be.

  The judges stood up to leave the court. Jeremy and I were disappointed that judgment had not been made there and then, considering how long we had to wait for Cranston to return his verdict. This could go the same way if they were left to think about it too long. Paddy came striding over, shook Jeremy’s hand and said, ‘Well done, you’ve got your retrial.’ We both looked at him, completely perplexed, and before we could ask him how he had come to that conclusion he was rushing off to some other appointment. As Andre was gathering his belongings we asked him how Paddy had deduced we had won the appeal and he said it was because they could only offer a retrial, not an overturn of the original judgment. Also, Lord Justice Carnwath had suggested that before considering the retrial route both parties should consider mediation and reach a solution out of court.

  It had turned out that Friday the thirteenth had not been unlucky for us and, although when we left the High Court the sky was still dull, our future was starting to look a whole lot brighter.

  Chapter 46

  FOUHEY DEFECTS

  Just before Christmas, Andre called to say that Fouhey had contacted him out of the blue. Astonishingly, he had requested to meet to talk over his part in the case and a meeting was arranged for 3 January 2010.

  Fouhey had insisted that Andre meet him in a public place, which sounded quite conspiratorial, giving the reason that he did not like to take work home. The eventual venue was the Bedford Hospital restaurant which was quiet at the time of their afternoon meeting.

  Andre was keen for the meeting as he wanted to see if there was anything Fouhey was likely to add to his evidence. He opened by explaining the harm that Jeremy had suffered and continued to suffer and why he was so determined to hold Hertfordshire Constabulary and Hopkins to account. Fouhey understood and firstly gave a synopsis of his background and career. He said he was not an expert and did not like being referred to in those terms but was confident and competent regarding his work.

  As he understood it, incitement prosecutions were not being followed up by a lot of police forces because even if there were credit card transactions, there was no evidence that the owner had been aware of them and the card could have been used by another fraudulently or without permission to purchase illegal images. There would need to be some other corroborative evidence, such as communications on a PC and credit card details linking the images to Landslide. There would also be images from Landslide that would have been paid for and they would have been saved to a specific folder, thus showing that the user had taken a deliberate step. There was definitely none of this activity on Jeremy’s PC.

  He showed Andre a document which so far had not been disclosed by Grundy. It was written in the first person and so was clear that it was from Hopkins to Fouhey. Hopkins was aware that he had charged Jeremy incorrectly for possession of the Tiny computer on 30 October 2003 and he needed to address this, because this computer wasn’t in Jeremy’s possession on that date as it was with Gerard at Video Action.

  Fouhey confirmed to Andre that he remembered meeting with Hopkins and telling him the location and significance of the images but knew it was a matter for the officer in charge as to what charges would be brought as they would need to be justified. Hopkins would also have known how to open the disk as Fouhey would have had to give him a password to open it. The meeting was not documented as it was not practice at the time but Fouhey thought this would be the end of the matter. I thought it strange that Fouhey was so clear on events all these years down the line but Hopkins could not recollect this event at all.

  Andre asked him what instructions he would have received from Hopkins, to which Fouhey responded that he would have been given enough information to know what he should be looking for on the computers and media data. Keyword searches would include ‘Landslide’, ‘Credit Card number’ and ‘child porn’ plus searches for illegal images of children. Nothing he had said to Hopkins would make him believe that the computer had been cleaned. He was not asked to check and if he had he would have reported this. Hopkins had believed Gerard though and let him put it in a witness statement. If the computer had been cleaned, the spam illegal images would have been erased. Fouhey certainly did not agree with Hopkins’s observations that he had changed his stance and left Hopkins with no evidence. Fouhey had been upfront with Hopkins from the outset. There was no way he would hand over a disk with images and say nothing about them as there would have to have been some verbal communication. Further, Fouhey was shocked when he got Jeremy’s letter of claim against him. He had immediately called his solicitor and then realised he required insurance. He referred to Hertfordshire Police and Grundy confirmed that they would act for him. However, he admitted he felt that he was on the outside and naturally they were going to have first loyalty to themselves and he was concerned as to where this would leave him.

  Fouhey had met with Grundy on a couple of occasions, again in public places, and told her that he had informed Hopkins that there was no evidence to charge regarding the images and understood that there would only be one charge for incitement. Fouhey’s statement had not been prepared to support a charge of possessing and making. He remembered the investigation by DS Bob Willcox in which he had told Hopkins of the location of the images and their significance and that there was no evidence to charge. Fouhey informed Grundy of this document and that Willcox would back him up. The SID document would support this account. He didn’t want to be left high and dry and enquired to Grundy as to what Hopkins had been saying. He wanted to know if Hopkins was going to put him in the frame – Grundy had told Fouhey that Hopkins had admitted to her that Fouhey had told Hopkins that there was no evidence to charge and that there had never been any suggestion, at least to Fouhey, that he was lying or mistaken about the conversation.

  Andre called Jeremy after his meeting with Fouhey and said he could not have wished for a better result. He was rushing back to his office to have the details typed up. ‘This is good, Jeremy, very good,’ he said.

  Chapter 47

  THE SLOW WHEELS OF JUSTICE

  Despite the mediation meeting and offers on our part to encourage Hertfordshire Constabulary to settle Jeremy’s claim, they were still stubbornly refusing, and by the end of March 2010, after yet another case management meeting, it had become evident that we were heading for a retrial. I hoped we could be finished with all this one way or another well before 2010 was out but with so many diaries to coordinate and other cases that the legal teams were already dealing with, I could have screamed when I heard it would be as late as January 2011.

  Although it wasn’t Jeremy’s fault, I went into a full-on rant about how we had only been married for just four and a half years before police and litigation had come into our normal, peaceful lives. By the time of the retrial they would have been involved
for just over seven years and Andre and Leslie had become comfortable acquaintances. In my heart, I knew it was right for him to fight to clear his name but I was beginning to resent being dragged along with his crusade. Looking for blame and the what ifs, my thoughts had gone back in time to 1998 when it was just me and an uncomplicated life. Compared to this living hell, I was happy then despite the lack of companionship. I looked at Jeremy, suddenly feeling very guilty that I had wished I had never met him. I was so caught up in my own simmering resentment it took a while to notice that there were subtle changes in him also. My disposition was predominantly quiet, patient and resilient with only the occasional passionate outburst – Jeremy, on the other hand, was noisy, a real chatterbox, impatient and, despite being fairly extrovert, lacking confidence. He relied on me always for strength and that was wearing at times. However, he was becoming more quiet and withdrawn and when we did converse it was always about the case. It became that there was little else to discuss and he had taken to spending time on his own, going for a drive, shopping at midnight for nothing in particular or just browsing the internet for information about court cases. I distracted myself by watching television but I could not watch anything to do with police or law and they used to be my favourite programmes.

  I had tried to engage Jeremy in other things but was met with terseness, which only irritated me further, and we only communicated with fervour after conversations with Andre bringing fresh news.

  Andre had sent to us a copy of a letter that he had written to Grundy regarding preparations and what we would require from her on our side. What did come out of the latest case management hearing was that forensics were now going to be permitted. Challenger had requested it and even though previous judges had not deemed it pertinent to the case, we were glad that Duncan’s report could be disclosed to show Challenger that there was nothing hidden. What a shocker that was going to be in contrast to the Fellows report. Duncan had found nothing incriminating and Challenger had repeatedly suggested to the court that Jeremy had searched the internet for child porn. Andre had asked Grundy to assist in his enquiries of where in the Fellows report this was evidenced by stating times and dates of deliberate searches and details of websites visited, as we had been through it with a fine-tooth comb but could not find anything to support Challenger’s insinuations. By her answering these queries he could then properly instruct Duncan to do a further report on the Tiny computer.

  It had also been ordered by the court of appeal that Grundy should be interviewed by Andre about her dealings with Hopkins, but she vehemently declined to give evidence and the legal services of Hertfordshire Constabulary had stated categorically that she did not wish to be interviewed by him and she would not be forced to do so. Thus, she remained forever silent on where the evidence of Jeremy’s trawl for child pornography was gained from and deflected the question by suggesting that our expert could discuss the matter with Fellows when they were to meet to compile a joint report for the court.

  We could see by the wording in the exchanges of correspondence between Andre and Grundy that their relationship was deteriorating but each still trying to remain professional. For some reason Grundy was being obstructive about allowing Duncan access to the Tiny computer. ‘Access to the Tiny computer will not be possible’ was her stance, and she said that during the criminal procedure an image of the hard drive was made and that would be sufficient for our purposes! She knew damned well that Duncan had correctly returned this to Hertfordshire Constabulary after the criminal case was over. It appeared they were happy to hand this disk over for the criminal proceedings, but not for the civil proceedings. She explained that to release to us an image of the hard drive would be committing an offence due to copying of alleged illegal images, and that Duncan would be able to access information if he were to travel to their headquarters in Welwyn Garden City. This would not be practical for him as all his tools and references would be to hand at his own office, plus costs would be increased by travelling backwards and forwards from Sussex to Hertfordshire. Andre quoted from a judgment of a previous trial that orders by the High Court must be obeyed, which would be their defence to a possible prosecution. In any case, were Hertfordshire Constabulary really going to arrest and facilitate a prosecution of themselves? It seemed to be a stalling nonsense.

  Chapter 48

  CHALLENGER’S PAY DAY

  While browsing through the Daily Mail online on 9 October, I was drawn to the bold headline, ‘BARRISTER WHO WAS DRAGGED FROM COURT IN HANDCUFFS WINS £100,000 FROM THE MET’. I nearly choked on my coffee wondering how he had managed to get that kind of compensation. I was suddenly filled with rage.

  The next paragraph described how Challenger had fallen into a diabetic coma in a police cell because the arresting officer had confiscated his insulin medicine, resulting in a trip to hospital. Challenger said he was relieved that the Met Police had settled the case for ‘completely outrageous behaviour’. He had declined to reveal the compensation figure but sources close to the case said it was £100,000 plus printed apologies in various legal media. Jeremy said he would have happily swapped places with Challenger for £100,000 and an apology.

  He was also quoted as saying that it had taken six months for the Met to bring any charges against him and that they had only dropped the case in January, five months and three weeks after his arrest. Then he went on to whine about the business he had lost due to potential clients looking up his name on the internet to find pictures of him in handcuffs and that the treatment by the Met Police had been outrageous.

  What angered me most was the amount of compensation Challenger had received from the public purse and the idiotic Met Police for making such a mistake as to confiscate his insulin and then not monitor him during his incarceration which, in turn, led to them being sued. On top of that, they were dealing with a barrister who knew his way around the law and went for the easier option of settling out of court.

  Then there was the sheer hypocrisy of how long he thought his case had taken and the worry about his reputation and the resultant loss of business. Compared to Jeremy and a lot of other people, he had an amazingly quick and successful ending to his case after his arrest last July. Try waiting years, matey, with your business going down the tubes and being constantly referred to as a paedophile, I thought. Now that was something to feel outraged about!

  From that morning Jeremy’s screensaver was changed and Challenger’s pay day did nothing to improve our views about police behaviour or the judicial system.

  Chapter 49

  RETRIAL PREPARATIONS

  Although Jeremy was updated with copies of emails and correspondence between Andre and Grundy there was, fortunately, little involvement from us during the summer months. I had insisted that Jeremy visit the doctor again as he was always tired, wavered from happy to moody and would well up too easily. These were typical signs of depression and they had always been evident in some measure since his arrest. To please me he did make an appointment but refused to take the prescribed drugs as he wanted to remain ‘in control’. There was the option of counselling and he said he would look into that. I had to leave him to decide what he wanted to do as I could not force him. Although I emotionally struggled at times, I did not feel I needed any help because I could sound off to my friends.

  By the end of August, Andre had interviewed DS Bob Willcox, the author of the Standards Improvement Document who clearly remembered talking to Hopkins and Fouhey in order to create the report. He said he could not have done it without their cooperation and was willing to be a witness for us if required. After Andre had told him about the history of Jeremy’s case, Willcox hoped we would win.

  Jeremy was also asked to do a second statement which would go to the support of assessing damages if he was to succeed at the retrial. He said his interview with Andre was kind of cathartic because he had the opportunity to sum up all the injustices that had been done to him. The list of these injustices both saddened and angered me:

&
nbsp; Hopkins says that he has not thought about this case much and not bothered by the accusations levelled against him.

  Hertfordshire Constabulary still continue to deny any wrongdoing.

  Special occasions have been marred by the stress of this litigation.

  Throughout the litigation being insulted, humiliated and degraded by the repeated suggestions of Jeremy being a paedophile and trawling all through the night for child pornography.

  Allegations reported in the local press after the first trial adding to the distress and humiliation.

  The police had maintained that computer evidence should be admitted into evidence from the very beginning and when this was granted after the appeal they sought to prevent Duncan full and proper access to the Tiny computer that allowed him to properly consider the material.

  The manner in which disclosure had been given of crucial documents, particularly in relation to documents that touched upon fraud within Landslide.