The Department of Health’s legal response to 38 Degrees

September 6 2011

Guido Fawkes today drew attention to two responses by Conservative MPs to the legal opinion published by 38 Degrees about the Health and Social Care Bill – one by Stephen Phillips, and another by Guy Opperman.

But the Department of Health has also published its own response – no doubt written by the lawyers working on the Bill. It covers only the changes the Bill makes to the Secretary of State’s functions – in particular the repeal of his duty to provide a comprehensive health service – not the EU law points I wrote about last week. I may get a chance to comment on it later – but in the meantime, here it is.

DH legal response to Stephen Cragg and 38 Degrees

2011-09-06T22:58:23+00:00Tags: , , , , |

A cautionary lesson: the Vicky Haigh and Liz Watson judgments

September 6 2011

Sir Nicholas Wall has published his judgments in these cases involving Vicky Haigh, the woman John Hemming named in Parliament as a potential “secret prisoner” back in April after she spoke at a public meeting about the court case involving her child, and Elizabeth Watson, the woman who wrote e-mails and articles on the web in support of Ms. Haigh, and who made serious and false allegations against the father of the child.

Here’s the judgment in Doncaster v Haigh; and here’s Doncaster v Watson. Vicky Haigh has been barred for two years under section 91(14) of the Children Act 1989 from making any Children Act application relating to her child, X, without the court’s permission; Liz Watson was jailed for nine months for contempt of court.

I won’t quote extensively from the judgments: I simply recommend you read them in full if you’re interested in John Hemming’s campaigning about family justice – especially “The Information” Sir Nicholas publishes as an addendum his judgment in the Haigh case, and which consists of the core information regarding the case which he ruled should now be put in the public domain.

What’s clear from the Vicky Haigh judgment is that she was found by a judge in 2010 to have coached her child into making false allegations of sexual abuse against her father, in order to obstruct the father’s contact with the child. At paragraph 6 of “The Information” published with the Doncaster v Haigh, we’re told that

The consequence, the Judge concluded, was that X had repeatedly incurred unnecessary and ‘potentially distressing’ intrusions into her life by professionals. The allegations had resulted in a cessation of X’s contact to her father and the process had, in this way, been emotionally harmful to her.

At para. 12 of Doncaster v Haigh, Sir Nicholas Wall explains that

Miss Haigh has not been able to accept the findings of either judge. What renders the case unique, however, is that Ms Haigh, aided and abetted by one Elizabeth Watson, is not only unable to accept the judges’ findings but has put into the public domain the false allegations that she has not had justice and that X, contrary to both judges’ findings, has been sexually abused by her father. Those allegations have been posted on the worldwide web and are in the public domain. In addition, the mother has circulated the allegations to the parents of X’s school and to Mr. Tune’s fellow employees at his place of work. All this, of course, has been done illicitly and in breach of orders of the court.

Sir Nicholas tells us the police have had to be called to X’s school on occasions when Vicky Haigh had been there.

He was invited by Doncaster council to “deprecate the use of parliamentary privilege” by John Hemming MP “on the basis of inaccurate and misleading information supplied to him” – but rightly, Sir Nicholas declined. Parliamentary privilege and its abuse is exclusively a matter for Parliament, and what John Hemming said cannot be questioned in the courts. That’s why it’s so important MPs themselves properly scrutinise his conduct.

At paragraph 5o of the Liz Watson judgment Sir Nicholas says

.. this case demonstrates .. the dangers of partisanship. The mother and Ms. Watson think they are right and that everyone else is wrong and, moreover, everyone who is wrong is also corrupt. Such an unbalanced view is likely to do grave harm to the child. The fact that Ms. Watson has quite unlawfully put the matter in the public domain is very worrying and, in my view, gravely exacerbates the contempt which she has undoubtedly committed. Anyone who receives a partial account, be they a campaigner or journalist, should appreciate that the account is precisely that; it is partial. In family proceedings it is likely to be tendentious.

At one point Sir Nicholas calls Liz Watson’s case a “cautionary lesson”. So it is.

John Hemming, apparently carried away by his own partisanship for Vicky Haigh, chose to draw very public attention to the case at a time when much of the media was concerned about “superinjunctions”, and both before and after his intervention, some journalists and bloggers made a connection between his naming Vicky Haigh and “superinjunctions”. How anyone came to make that connection, we can only speculate of course.

This, let’s remember, is what he said on his blog after naming Vicky Haigh:

My objective was to identify the parties in the Vicky Haigh / Doncaster case where Doncaster tried to Jail Vicky for talking in Parliament.

All the other details of the story are in the public domain, but an injunction prevented the parties being identified.

Later, in comments here, he said

.. the point about her name being known publicly is that those people who know here (which is a lot) can then check whether they think the state is at fault or not.

In response, I asked:

I wonder what on earth you meant when you said

the point about her name being known publicly is that those people who know here (which is a lot) can then check whether they think the state is at fault or not.

What could you possibly have meant, except that they could now search for any “information” there is about the case on the internet?

I put that question to him again and again, but don’t think I received an answer.

No doubt John Hemming would categorically deny any intention to aid Liz Watson in her utterly wrong-headed and harmful internet campaign. But as Unity has said at Ministry of Truth,

whether he realised it or not at the time, Hemming’s statement appears to have helped to facilitate the actions for which Elizabeth Watson has .. been committed to prison for nine months.

Objectively speaking, John Hemming’s intervention, by enabling more people than otherwise could do so to search the internet and find Liz Watson’s writings on the case, must have helped the spread of her falsehoods and risked further harm to a child – never mind the rule of law. To anyone who cares about Parliament, this episode is a matter of real concern. I hope MPs look seriously into it.

By the way, Liz Watson has now purged her contempt, and been released from Holloway prison. Her sentence is suspended.

2012-01-24T21:50:22+00:00Tags: , , , , |

Why were there no arrests at the Proms?

September 2 2011

I was listening to the Proms last night, when the concert was rudely interrupted. As most readers will know, protesters disrupted the concert because the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was playing.

I’m attracted by Norman Lebrecht’s view (expressed in response to an earlier, similar outrage at the Wigmore Hall, apparently involving at least one of the same people, Deborah Fink) that such disturbances are an assault on an element of civilisation and that no cause that can ever justify the desecration of the sanctuary of the concert hall. If I were forced to philosophise about it for an hour or so I suspect I couldn’t be sure no cause could ever justify this sort of thing in any circumstances (the Springbok rugby tour protests in 1969 give me slight pause). But this is real life, 2011, and art not sport; and I can’t think of a cause that would justify it. I think protests like these are irrational and ignorant.

This is about the importance of artistic expression, and raises exactly the same issues as earlier controversies about The Satanic Verses, Behzti and Jerry Springer – The Opera. Fanatics of every stripe regularly try to disrupt art they don’t like. I’m against them. I’m for freedom of expression.

Incidentally, I find it depressing that mainstream human rights organisations like Liberty seem to have nothing to say about incidents like this – it’s one of several reasons why I’m not a member. Perhaps we need an organisation that will specifically stand up for artists’ freedom against zealots. Some people might lazily think this is a complex issue pitting artistic freedom versus the right to protest – but it’s not. I think there is a legitimate case to be made for Palestine, and I have no problem with people protesting outside the Albert Hall.

In this case there’s another reason why I found the disruption unacceptable. I know criticism of Israel isn’t the same as antisemitism. I realise every protester would deny they’re antisemitic, and say they’re against Israel, not Jews. I dare say they all mean it sincerely, and I know at least some were Jewish. But boycotting shops because of Israel reminds me of this, and disrupting an Israeli orchestra reminds me that the Kampfbund für Deutsche Kultur used to disrupt concerts by Jewish musicians in the 1930s. Surely no one can fail to see the moral problem here, particularly as the IPO seems to have been founded as a result of Jewish musicians being sacked from orchestras in Nazi Germany. I don’t see why it matters whether or not you’re Jewish.

So I’m surprised and disappointed there were no arrests last night. I think there could have been, under section 68 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which makes it an offence to trespass on land and do anything intended to disrupt lawful activity there. You might initially think the protesters were not trespassers in the Albert Hall, having been let in with tickets, but the 1976 Court of Appeal decision in R v Jones and Smith (I can’t find it on BAILII I’m afraid) suggests that you become a trespasser for the purposes of criminal law if, though entering premises with the consent of the owner, you do so intending to do something that goes beyond the scope of the implied permission you were given to be there.

Yes, arresting these protestors would arguably have interfered with the article 9 Convention right to manifest one’s beliefs, and the article 11 right to peaceful assembly. But interferences with those rights can be justified for the protection of public order and the rights and freedoms of others – in this case of course the equally important freedom of expression of both musicians and audience – and arrest and prosecution would be entirely proportionate in pursuit of either of those policy aims.

So there’d have been no human rights difficulty in making arrests. On the contrary: the human rights issue here, in my view, is the positive obligation of state institutions upholding the rule of law to prevent unjustified and disproportionate private breaches of freedom of expression.

Mahler’s on tonight: the lovely Blumine movement he cut from his First Symphony, and then that great First Symphony itself. I hope you’ll be listening too.

2011-09-02T16:19:38+00:00Tags: , , |

EU law and the Health and Social Care Bill

September 1 2011

And now for something completely different.

The Health and Social Care Bill is approaching report stage in the House of Commons, and the campaign group 38 Degrees has obtained legal advice about it from Stephen Cragg and Rebecca Haynes.

Legal advice on the Health and Social Care Bill

The advice covers a number of things, but I’m most interested in what it says about EU law. The summary provided by 38 Degrees on its website says, based on the advice, that

Taken together, these changes increase the likelihood of NHS services being found by the courts to fall within the scope of UK and EU competition law

and

The new commissioning groups will be subject to EU procurement rules whenthey commission local health services. This is likely to be costly, given the likely larger numbers of commissioning groups as compared to PCTs now and our Counsel warns that it appears the government have not planned for this significant increase in cost.

The first statement seems to me fair enough. Cragg and Haynes do advise (para. 72 of the advice) that the bill would

 make it even more likely that domestic and, in principle, European competition law applies to the NHS

although to put that in context, they advise (para. 69) that it’s

 very far from certain and it is not safe to assume that the FENIN decision determines that competition law is not applicable to the NHS, either as it currently stands or as it will emerge from the Bill

and (para. 70) that

It cannot .. be assumed that competition law does not currently apply to the NHS system, even in the absence of reforms.

That view is based on considering two key cases: the ruling of the Competition Appeal Tribunal in 2002 on Bettercare v Director General of Fair Trading, which ruled (para. 290) that the activities of a health and social services trust in Northern Ireland

in running its statutory residential homes and engaging in the contracting out of social care to independent providers are for the purposes of the Competition Act 1998 to be regarded as economic activities for the purpose of deciding whether North & West is an undertaking within the meaning of section 18(1) of the Act.

and the ECJ’s judgment and the Opinion of the Advocate General in case C-205/03 FENIN v Commission. In that case, the Advocate General suggested that whether or not health providers were undertakings within EU competition law depended on whether the state intended to exclude the market from health care or whether the private sector also plays a part. That argument was not considered by the ECJ, which considered it inadmissible on technical grounds; the Court ruled on other grounds that the health provider was not an undertaking.

In short, it’s not clear whether NHS trusts including PCTs, or the new commissioning consortia, are undertakings within EU competition law. Undoubtedly the government will try to hold the line that they’re not, and neither Bettercare (which was about social care, which might make a difference) nor FENIN establishes beyond doubt that they are. But as Cragg and Haynes say, there is already a good argument that competition law applies. Given the Advocate General’s opinion in FENIN, it is reasonable to argue that further opening the NHS to market forces increases the chances of that argument succeeding in future.

What I’m less happy about is the way 38 Degrees presents the advice it’s been given on the application of public procurement rules. Its summary,

The new commissioning groups will be subject to EU procurement rules whenthey commission local health services. This is likely to be costly …

does not say, but might nonetheless give the impression, that EU public procurement rules don’t already apply to the NHS. But the legal advice makes clear that they do. The very first line of the “executive summary” of the advice says

The current procurement law contained in the Public Contracts Regulations 2006,which derives from European law, has always applied to NHS purchasing with the effect that any goods or services required by NHS health providers to enable them to provide health care themselves are subject to those Regulations where the value of the goods or services required exceed the prescribed thresholds.

At paragraph 32 the advice says

The application of procurement law is not by any means new to the NHS

and at paragraph 45 it goes on

Just as procurement law currently applies to NHS bodies engaged in purchasing,there is no question but that it will apply to the purchasing functions of Foundation Trusts, the Commissioning Board and consortia under the new Act.

The procurement point arising out of the advice is not a legal one at all in fact, but is simply about the capacity of the new consortia, which are expected to be smaller than PCTs, to cope with procurement rules. The lawyers’ and 38 Degrees’ concerns about that may well be justified.

In response the government might argue, first that the procurement of health services, as “Part B” services in terms of EU procurement rules, do not in any event attract the full, detailed rules requiring a full tender process; second, that their smaller size makes it less likely the consortia’s contacts would pass the threshold (about £150,000) at which the procurement rules bite; and third, that current EU Commission proposals for reform of the procurement framework would help commisisoning consortia. Para 2.2 of that Commission consultation paper raises the possibility of a lighter procurement framework for local contracting authorities. If that comes to pass, I suppose it’s arguable that creating smaller commissioning consortia could even help NHS purchasing escape the full rigour of procurement law.

 

2011-09-01T16:11:14+00:00Tags: , , , , , |

John Hemming’s judicial conduct complaint against Sir Nicholas Wall

September 1 2011

I must write about something other than John Hemming MP and his causes soon, or else I’ll become an obsessed man, and start suing everyone, or something.

But before leaving the subject, I must pick up on something written by Christopher Booker on the Telegraph website over the weekend, in a piece critical of Sir Nicholas Wall, President of the High Court’s Family Division. In case you need reminding, Sir Nicholas is the judge who last week published details of the case involving Vicky Haigh, who John Hemming had named in Parliament; he’s also the judge who sharply criticised John Hemming MP for his conduct in another case, RP v Nottingham City Council, in 2008.

Christopher Booker tells us that John Hemming complained to the judicial ombudsman about Sir Nicholas. The reference to a forged document strongly suggests the complaint related to the RP case, in which Hemming claimed a solicitor had stooped to forgery.

In 2008, in another case, he was complained about to the judicial ombudsman by John Hemming MP, after he had witheringly dismissed Hemming’s arguments that a crucial document in the case was forged. “I find it not only unacceptable but shocking,” Wall ruled, “that a man in Mr Hemming’s position should feel able to make so serious an allegation without any evidence to support it. In my judgment it is irresponsible and an abuse of his position.”

Mr Hemming presented the ombudsman with several pages of transcript showing how he had produced lengthy evidence for his claim, set out in meticulous detail.

Christopher Booker merely tells us the fact that Hemming made a complaint, of course: he tells us nothing about the outcome.

In fact the Judicial Appointments and Conduct Ombudsman does not rule on complaints about judges’ conduct, in spite of the title of the office. The guidance provided at the JACO website makes clear that  it only considers complaints about the handling of complaints to the Office for Judicial Complaints. The ombudsman will only consider a case if it’s already been decided by the OJC, and the complainant is not satisfied.

So assuming – as I do – that Christopher Booker is right about John Hemming going to the ombudsman, it must follow that he complained initially to the OJC. We know nothing, again, about the outcome: the complaints process is confidential, and the OJC routinely relies on a combination of section 139 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2000 and section 44 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in refusing requests for information about them. But the OJC does issue investigation statements in some cases, and the list goes back to April 2008 – before the RP case. The earliest tells us about a reprimand issued to a High Court judge, for instance. But there is no investigation statement relating to Sir Nicholas Wall.

So we can’t tell whether Hemming’s complaint was dismissed out of hand by the OJC, or on the advice of the nominated judge without the need for investigation, or whether it got any further than that.

But I suspect that, had it succeeded, either John Hemming himself or perhaps Christopher Booker would have told us so. Taking that together with the lack of any investigation statement, and the fact that Hemming remained dissatisfied and applied to the ombudsman, I am led to conclude that John Hemming’s complaint against Sir Nicholas Wall was dismissed.

I am as always happy to be corrected by anyone who knows better.

2011-09-01T14:17:18+00:00Tags: , |

John Hemming’s extraordinary defence

September 1 2011

John Hemming MP wrote an extraordinary article in the Huffington Post last week, defending his actions in the Vicky Haigh case.

First I want to address one of the legal points he raises in the piece. This one’s on American constitutional law. He says:

In the USA it would be clearly unconstitutional to apply to jail someone for complaining at a meeting in Congress. This falls within the terms of Amendment One to the US Constitution.

It’s common among those who oppose injunctions issued by UK courts in privacy and family cases to cite the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and to suggest that what they’re complaining about in England could never happen in the States. The argument can be overdone, though. This case shows us that American judges can be just as fierce as their English counterparts in clamping down on self-serving publicity by parents in family cases involving children.

While admittedly Eugene Volokh thinks the ruling a breach of the First Amendment, I wonder whether he’d take the same view if the facts were like Vicky Haigh’s case – that is, if the order prevented the mother from discussing the details of her child’s case in public, in circumstances where she’s been found to have made, and coached her child in, false sexual abuse allegations against its father, and in which those same false and defamatory accusations, naming the father, are being peddled round the internet. I’d welcome the view of any US constitutional lawyer about whether or not that would be constitutionally protected speech.

Nor do I think it’s obvious the “speech or debate clause” in the US constitution would have protected Vicky Haigh if the meeting had been on Capitol Hill, any more than Parliamentary privilege protected her here because she happened to speak on the Parliamentary estate. Not being a legislator, she obviously wasn’t acting as one when she spoke at John Hemming’s meeting.

Discussion of constitutional rights in Britain – such as freedom of speech – would be better if it were free of mythologising about other constitutional frameworks. John Hemming is entitled to cite the US Constitution in his support – if he sets out a decent argument explaining why he’s justified in invoking it. An airy reference to the First Amendment, as though it simply means anyone can say anything in America, isn’t enough.

Coming back to England, Hemming says

I stand by my decision to identify Vicky Haigh as someone whose constitutional rights (Under Article 5 of the UK Bill of Rights 1688) were being threatened by Doncaster MDC.

This seems to me another unjustified invocation of constitutional rights, this time the right to petition the Queen under article 5 of the Bill of Rights:

That it is the Right of the Subjects to petition the King and all Commitments and Prosecutions for such Petitioning are Illegall.

This right can be exercised either by petitioning the Queen directly, or by addressing a petition to Parliament (of which the Queen is a constituent part, of course). The idea that speaking at John Hemming’s private meeting amounts to petitioning the Sovereign is absurd. By the way, the right to petition the Queen directly, while of limited interest to those concerned with real constitutional rights and duties, is of great concern to people like “freemen on the land” who claim they’re in “lawful rebellion” against the legal institutions of this country.

But back to earth, and John Hemming. He says

… in a small proportion of cases parents abuse their children. Furthermore at times in family court cases there are at times false allegations of abuse. Additionally at times the court decides that an allegation is false when in fact it is true ..

.. Hence if you have an allegation of abuse that is true, but the court has decided it is false then the court makes the wrong decision and potentially places the child with a parent who has maltreated the child ..

.. In Vicky Haigh’s case … the court decided she had made false allegations.

What strikes me as extraordinary here is the way Hemming’s references to a court deciding that an allegation is false when in fact it is true, to an allegation of abuse that is true, but the court has decided it is false and then finally to Vicky Haigh’s case in which the court decided she made false allegations can easily be read as implying he does not accept the court’s findings.

So much for John Hemming’s earlier suggestion that he’s been interested only in the free speech aspects of this case. It seems to me reasonable to infer from this Huffington Post piece that he believes there’s something in Vicky Haigh’s claims – in spite of judicial findings that they’re fabricated.

I’m happy to be corrected if in fact he accepts those findings.

2011-09-01T12:48:22+00:00Tags: , , |

Self-styled outlaws

August 26 2011

Two cases in court this week have involved people whose cause has been championed by John Hemming MP. First, on Monday, there was Vicky Haigh’s case. Today, a man called Norman Scarth, who’s in prison for contempt of court, has been refused habeas corpus by Wyn Williams J in the Administrative Court. He, too, is supported by John Hemming (see this video, at 1m 30s):

If you’ve been following as closely as I have, you may have noticed something a bit odd. According to this report by the Press Association’s media reporter of the Vicky Haigh case Elizabeth Watson, the woman jailed for contempt of court in that case as a result of her internet campaigning for Haigh

gave her name as “Elizabeth of the Watson Family”

You’ll also see that the title of today’s case is Norman of the Family Scarth (The Living Man) v (1) Governor of HM Prison Armley (2) Secretary of State for Justice.

That struck me as something of a coincidence, and after a little research, it turns out there are some people who call themselves “freemen on the land” (and perhaps freewomen on the land; I don’t know), who apparently adopt this sort of style. This blog for instance says that

In the “Freeman-on-the-Land movement, your name is written differently in a deliberate attempt to distance you from your person.

Names seem to be really important to “freemen on the land”. In this video, “Veronica: of the family Chapman” explains (at about 4m 20s) that in her view, the names most of us use are just a way for legal institutions to oppress us. She seems to run this website and this forum, where “freemen on the land” can gather. If you spend much time there you’ll see that “freemen on the land” seem to believe they can be in “lawful rebellion” against legal institutions, and discuss how to fight the council over council tax, among other things including (are you surprised?) “secret courts” and the “forced adoption of children”.

As a matter of interest, it seems former goalkeeper and snooker presenter David Icke is interested in the “freeman on the land” concept. One of his official forums is all about it.

You’ll find the odd “freeman” has apparently signed petitions being promoted by the “Forum for Stable Currencies”, an organisation apparently run by Sabine K. O’Neill, who I mentioned in my blogpost yesterday as having chaired a meeting at which John Hemming MP spoke in January, and having published Elizabeth Watson’s “chronology” of the Vicky Haigh case on the web. Signatory 340 here, for example, to a petition about family courts, calls himself “conrad of the family diraham”. As a matter of mild legal interest, on the same day that petition was also signed (number 353) by a Gedaljahu Ebert, who I dare say is this vexatious litigant. He spoke from the floor at that same January meeting John Hemming addressed, by the way. Signatory 1215 to this petition about Norman Scarth calls himself Simon of the Elder family. I can’t resist telling you that signatory 1991 calls himself “Colonel Muammar Gaddaffi”, and sends a message of support to Mr. Scarth.

I wouldn’t normally post about this sort of thing, but it is the silly season.

2011-08-26T17:51:18+00:00

John Hemming MP, Vicky Haigh, and her supporters

August 25 2011

In April I wrote about John Hemming’s use of Parliamentary privilege to name a woman involved in a family law dispute with a local authority. I concluded:

since this appears to be a family case involving a local authority, it’s reasonable to suspect it’s a child care case in which section 1(1) of the Children Act 1989 applies. The court probably therefore had the welfare of a child at the front of its mind when making that order. That’s why, in spite of John Hemming’s view, I’m not sure it’s actually in the public interest to name either her or the council involved.

I’m not sure either that it’s in the public interest for an MP, in his self-imposed role as a critic of the family justice system (as Lord Justice Wall put it), to use Parliamentary privilege in this way.

At the time I decided it was not in public interest to name her, or the council involved; I more than once had to redact comments from John Hemming in which he tried to name her, in spite of my asking commenters, and again asking him specifically, not to.

But earlier this week the President of the Family Division of the High Court, Sir Nicholas Wall, named her publicly in court.

According to this Mirror report:

The judge ruled Ms Haigh, Mr Tune and the local authority could be identified. But he said the child – referred to in court as X – should not be named. He said: “Allegations of sexual abuse were first made by the mother and not by X. These were false and the mother knew them to be false. X was coached by the mother to make allegations of sexual abuse against the father.

“These proceedings have had a serious effect on the life of the father and have threatened the stability of the child.

“Her mother’s actions are wholly contrary to her interests.

“The father is entitled to tell the world, and the world is entitled to know, that he is not a paedophile, that he has not sexually abused his daughter and that the allegations made against him are false.”

The court heard how Ms Haigh never had a “scintilla of evidence” against her ex but enlisted the help of newspapers and MPs.

Ms Haigh, who is now a racehorse trainer, received support from Daily Telegraph columnist Christopher Booker, and Labour [in fact he’s a Liberal Democrat – Carl] MP John Hemming even brought up the case in Parliament.

And according to this Daily Mail report:

Sir Nicholas Wall, the country’s most senior family judge, said that Miss Haigh should be named and shamed and her former partner, David Tune, freed from the false smear that he is a child abuser.

He made the damning remarks as he jailed another woman, Elizabeth Watson, who acted as an ‘investigator’ on Miss Haigh’s behalf, sending ‘aggressive and intimidating’ e-mails and internet postings about social workers involved in the case.

Watson was given a nine-month sentence for contempt of court. The ruling was the culmination of a long-running row involving Miss Haigh which started with her allegations about her boyfriend and social workers.

Here’s a fuller report from the Press Gazette.

Hemming is now facing a demand for his resignation by the Labour MP for Bassetlaw John Mann, who was Vicky Haigh’s MP at the time – but whom John Hemming did not consult before his intervention.

Unity has written an excellent blogpost about all this at Ministry of Truth, and rightly feels vindicated for his criticism of Hemming (and Watson) at the time. But John Hemming continues to defend what he did. According to the Guardian

Hemming told the Guardian on Wednesday that, when he raised Haigh’s case in the Commons in April, he was not referring to the rights and wrongs of the custody battle.

Instead, Hemming said, he spoke out because he thought Doncaster council was wrong to threaten Haigh with jail for revealing confidential details of the custody case at a meeting in the Commons that he was chairing. Hemming said he was particularly concerned because in cases of this kind, involving contempt proceedings in the family courts, people have been jailed without the details being made public.

On his own blog, John Hemming maintains the line that

I am not making any statement as to the details of the underlying care issue … It remains that I am making no public comment about the underlying care case in respect of Ms Haigh.

while also going on to say

However,

1. Even if the court’s decision is 100% accurate – does that warrant the removal at birth of Ms Haigh’s baby. I don’t think so.

Can we take at face value Hemming’s implication that he’s only ever been interested in the free speech aspect of this, and not in giving oxygen to the complaints of Vicky Haigh and her supporters about the care case?

First, the remarks Haigh made, for which she was threatened with court proceedings, were made at a meeting Hemming chaired about transparency in the family court system.

And second, the comments he made on this blog in response to my April post seem to contradict the idea of his interest being limited to free speech. He explained that

the point about her name being known publicly is that those people who know here (which is a lot) can then check whether they think the state is at fault or not.

This relates to potential future care proceedings rather than historic care proceedings.

So he was clearly interested in allowing people to access information about matters relating to potential future care proceedings, at least. When I pressed him, he replied

Anyone who provides any details in public of the initial care proceedings is in contempt of court. Hence I cannot sensibly discuss them nor can anyone else come to a sufficiently evidenced conclusion to have any merit.

I am, however, interested in that issue and some associated issues.
I will not say any more.

I pressed him further on what he’d meant about people being able to check whether they think the state is at fault or not – except that his naming Vicky Haigh meant people could now search for any “information” about her case on the internet. He never answered.

A commenter at John Hemming’s blog has said – and, if I understand his comments right, John Hemming has apparently admitted – that Elizabeth Watson has published somewhere (I can’t find it) an e-mail exchange she had at some point with Hemming. John Hemming says none of his e-mails encouraged Watson:

although I do not think it is my responsibility to discourage her I have in fact discouraged her. Very explicitly.

However strongly he discouraged her, I think many people will be amazed that Hemming was engaging in e-mail correspondence with Watson at all. The fact that a “chronology” of the Vicky Haigh case published by or for Elizabeth Watson appears according to Unity at Ministry of Truth to have been finally amended for publication only very shortly before Hemming’s naming of Vicky Haigh raises, for him,

an interesting question about the possibility of a degree of co-ordination between Hemming and Haigh and her supporters. Hemming may well have been unaware of the fact that Haigh’s supporters intended to publish this document, but the timings do at least suggest that Haigh and her supporters may well have been aware, within a matter of minutes, of precisely when Hemming intended to make his move in the House and raise his point of order. It, therefore, seems to me that there are serious questions to be asked as to whether Hemming was in contact with Haigh or any of her supporters on the day that he made his statement in the House and that this a matter that the House of Commons’ authorities should investigate as, whether he realised it or not at the time, Hemming’s statement appears to have helped to facilitate the actions for which Elizabeth Watson has no been committed to prison for nine months.

Watson isn’t the only one of Vicky Haigh’s supporters that John Hemming has had contact with, either: here he is speaking about “secret prisoners” at a meeting in Parliament in January chaired by Sabine K. O’Neill, another Haigh supporter (sitting immediately to Hemming’s right).

In the past Ms. O’Neill published on one of her websites the “chronology” written about Vicky Haigh’s case by Watson. She’s also commented recently on John Hemming’s blog, where she’s posted the URL of that website and of her newer, dedicated Vicky Haigh campaign website, where only today she has again republished Elizabeth Watson’s “chronology”. I hope John Hemming at least redacts those comments soon.

John Hemming’s conduct in this matter, and the extent of his apparent contacts with those who’ve campaigned on the internet about Vicky Haigh, need to be scrutinised by his Parliamentary colleagues. John Mann MP is right to call for him to be held to account.

2011-08-26T17:47:51+00:00Tags: , , , |

Without Prejudice

August 12 2011

In this week’s bumper edition of Without Prejudice no fewer than three guests – former (and perhaps future) LibDem MP Dr Evan Harris, the lawyer, blogger and tweeter David Wales, and the editor of the UK Human Rights blog Adam Wagner – join Charon QC, David Allen Green and me to talk about:

  • what criminal offences rioters and looters are being charged with, and why;
  • the Riot (Damages) Act 1886, and
  • whether rioters and looters should be denied social housing;
  • the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments in Al Skeini and Al Jedda;
  • the withdrawal of human rights organisations from participation in the Gibson inquiry into complicity in torture;
  • the government’s Bill of Rights Commission; and finally
  • Hackgate, the terms of reference of the Leveson inquiry, and what to hope and fear from it.

We run slightly longer than usual, at around 80 minutes – but we thought it was worth it. Listen to the podcast here, or subscribe through iTunes.

2011-08-12T01:05:29+00:00Tags: |

Without Prejudice

July 29 2011

I’ve been away for a few days (drinking beer by the canals of Amsterdam among other things), but of course that hasn’t stopped my colleagues talking about law on Without Prejudice. In fact, this week I’ve been somewhat more than adequately replaced – by Joshua Rozenberg.

He joins Charon QC and David Allen Green to discuss:

  • the Leveson inquiry into journalistic ethics and phone hacking
  • the Supreme Court’s judgment in Lucasfilm v Ainsworth (the Star Wars case)
  • legal journalism and blogging
  • contempt of court, and
  • current vacancies in the Supreme Court.

I’m looking forward to the podcast myself –listen to it here, or subscribe through iTunes.

2011-07-29T21:38:55+00:00Tags: |
Copyright 2022 Carl Gardner. Site by Samsara
Go to Top