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APPEALS AGAINST THE OUTCOME OF LOCAL RESOLUTION

For Internal Use Only

We must receive your complaint within 29 days of the date of the letter telling you about the
outcome of the complaint. This includes the time your appeal spends in the post.

Please tick the appropriate box: Mr Mrs Miss Ms Other (please specify)

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First name: (Please write clearly) Surname: (Please write clearly)

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Your address:
…………………................... …………………………………………

…………………...................Grimsby……………………

…………………...................North East Lincolnshire………………………………………

…………………Postcode…DN32 ………..

Daytime telephone number Evening telephone number

None… ……….. ……………

Email address: … @googlemail.com………………………………….

_______________________________________________

Date you made on your complaint Reference number (if known)

…………………7/02/18…………….. ……… CO 49/18 ...……………………

If you have received a letter about the outcome of the local resolution of your complaint,
please give the date of that letter: ………15/06/18………………………………………….

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Do you agree with the outcome of the local resolution? Tick one box only.

Yes No

If your answer is no, please provide further information, continuing on a separate sheet if
necessary.

I don’t consider that the complaint was suitable for Local Resolution. Humberside police
must be satisfied in accordance with the Police Reform Act 2002 that the complaint is
suitable for local resolution. The criteria for whether a complaint can be dealt with by
Local Resolution are set out in paragraph 6 (sub-paragraphs 6 to 8) of Schedule 3 of that
Act. Paragraph 6 provides so far as is relevant, as follows:

“Handling of complaints by the appropriate authority

6. (1) This paragraph applies where a complaint has been recorded by the appropriate
authority.
........
(4) If the appropriate authority determines that the complaint is suitable for being
subjected to local resolution, it shall make arrangements for it to be so subjected.

(5) If the appropriate authority determines that the complaint is not so suitable, it shall
make arrangements for the complaint to be investigated by the authority on its
own behalf.

(6) A determination that a complaint is suitable for being subjected to local resolution
may not be made unless the following conditions are both met.

(7) The first condition is that the appropriate authority is satisfied that the conduct
complained of (even if it were proved) would not justify the bringing of any criminal
or disciplinary proceedings against the person whose conduct is complained of.

(8) The second condition is that the appropriate authority is satisfied that the conduct
complained of (even if it were proved) would not involve the infringement of a
person's rights under Article 2 or 3 of the Convention (within the meaning of the
Human Rights Act 1998).

(9) ........ “

IPCC guidance on handling complaints elaborates on the relevant provision of the Police
Reform Act 2002 in this matter. It is evident from the guidance that the force need not
take into account anything other than the conduct complained of, i.e., the strength of
evidence has no bearing on whether the matter is deemed suitable for being subjected to
local resolution as opposed to an investigation.

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Though no question arises, the guidance does state ‘if there is doubt about a complaint
being suitable for local resolution, err on the side of caution and conduct an
investigation’. Quoted from page 2 of the August 2014 issue (Focus) the following
provides clarification for assessing suitability for local resolution:

”The test is whether the conduct complained about, even if proven, would not justify
criminal or disciplinary proceedings. Therefore, when considering if the conduct would
justify the bringing of proceedings, there should be no consideration of the strength of the
evidence, whether the complaint is likely to be upheld, or the likeliness of prosecution.

When assessing a complaint using the suitability test, the complaint should be taken at
face value, focusing on the substance of the conduct being complained about. The
decision should not be based on the wording of the complaint alone (the relevant appeal
body test is applied in this way). It also should not be based on reviewing the evidence
available and exploring the likely outcome (the special requirements test on investigations
is applied in this way).

The person assessing the complaint’s seriousness should consider contacting the
complainant to better understand their complaint and to get further information. A mini-
investigation to assess the strength of evidence for the complaint (such as getting custody
records, incident logs, speaking to the officers concerned, etc) should not be conducted. If
the evidence does not support the complaint then the complaint is not upheld following an
investigation, it does not make it any more suitable for local resolution.

It is possible for a complaint that uses exaggerated language to be locally resolved, but
the right of appeal is to the IPCC. It is also possible for a complaint to be deemed
unsuitable for local resolution, but then the appointed investigating officer, upon reviewing
the evidence, does not apply special requirements to the subsequent investigation.”

Humberside police could not conceivably have been satisfied that if proven the conduct
complained of would not have justified the bringing of criminal and/or disciplinary
proceedings against the officer complained about.

The complaint raised a wide scope of concerns ranging from the failure to provide
updates within the appropriate time period to the improper exercise of police powers (an
offence under s.26 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015). The response focussed

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only on the matter as it was described briefly in the recorded complaint report, i.e., the
failure to update within the appropriate time period according to the IOPC Statutory
guidelines.

The force has confirmed in its findings that it could not be relied on to pursue all
reasonable lines of enquiry, though, this would be more accurately expressed if it was
said that the force pursued all irrelevant lines of enquiry in a systematic effort to
obfuscate the investigation process. The present complaint was raised because it was
clear that the investigating officer had no serious intentions of satisfying himself that a
Crime had occurred and the exercise was merely Humberside Police going through the
motions.

After eventually being referred the matter to deal with on 17 September 2017 after being
instructed to do so by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) DI Foster
communicated by email regarding the investigation on 3 occasions up until the outcome
of 25 May 2018. Within those emails it was manifestly shown that he had no intention of
seriously pursuing the matter. He wrote 7 weeks after he had received signed copies of
the 10 letters purportedly sent by the Justices’ clerk to confirm that he had ‘now identified
the person within the Justice clerk system’ who he needed to speak with, and asked for
‘the content of the letters in question’ to be identified. Other information which he had
already been provided weeks earlier was also asked for.

Another anomaly casting doubt as to the seriousness with which the investigation was
being pursued was an email apparently sent by the Judicial Appointment and Conduct
Ombudsman’s Office (JACO). The authenticity of the email was in question (hence
‘apparently sent’) as the encoding revealed within the file’s properties was inconsistent
with that of other JACO employees’ emails and appeared not to have been sent from an
official government email server. However, it was stated in the correspondence that the
Ombudsman had been approached by Humberside Police in connection with a complaint
of corruption that had been made regarding North East Lincolnshire Council, including
that the complainant had not received letters that the Council had sent (a possible red
herring).

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Putting to one side the email’s questionable origins, the anomaly in respect of the focus
being on the Council rather than the Ministry of Justice was consistent with the outcome
of 25 May 2018, because this report also supports, either by incompetence or design,
that there was a misunderstanding about what was required to be investigated. For a
start, the report irrelevantly referred to enquiries that were made with a number of
Officers from North East Lincolnshire Council (NELC) and Andrew Hobley from the Local
Government Ombudsman. DI Foster had not been led to believe that NELC was involved
in the dishonesty (at least not in this matter). He had in any event the opportunity to re-
evaluate what lines of enquiry were pertinent when I asked him to clarify why it was
relevant that he enquired about whether a complaint had been made to NELC (and if so
any contact details). He was asked for clarification but this was never forthcoming.

The report is littered with what are effectively red herrings to distract anyone from what is
really going on, especially anyone unfamiliar with the case who had no idea how
compelling the evidence was that was omitted from mention in the report. The objective
clearly with this ploy has been to dupe those in the dark into believing that thorough
enquiries had been carried out. The reality however, is that to anyone informed it would
be so overwhelmingly obvious that the content was not worth the paper it was written on.

For example, it is not difficult to see how the following might have succeeded in
prejudicing the opinion of any uninformed person considering the merits of the
investigation to the extent that they were satisfied that all reasonable lines of enquiry had
been pursued:

“The [Judicial] Ombudsman did not consider any issues regarding the Local Authority's
handling of its correspondence to you nor did they make any enquires, the Ombudsman
have no knowledge of any other letters being produced to them.

I also made contact with the Local Government Ombudsman, they were not in a position
to provide any details of complaints made to them as these are strictly confidential and
they are statutorily barred from sharing this information.”

To anyone informed it is glaringly obvious that Humberside police has been complicit in a
cover-up of serious criminal wrongdoing carried out by the Ministry of Justice. It is also

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obvious that pretending to misunderstand the allegations thereby inventing matters to
investigate is a well practiced tactical ploy to obfuscate the process.

It is telling that the evidence which proved the allegations beyond reasonable doubt was
not even mentioned in the 25 May 2018 outcome, so is the fact that myself, who was
under no statutory duty to keep the complaint details confidential, could have provided
what the LGO refused but I was not asked to. However, it is puzzling what DI Foster
thought could be achieved anyway by pursuing the Council and LGO. Even the Judicial
Ombudsman who has been most closely involved was hardly going to reveal anything to
the police willingly which would materially assist an investigation. The Judicial
Ombudsman had already made it clear it was only his concern that he had obtained the
letters; it was immaterial to him whether the letters had been created after the event to
cover their tracks once enquiries were made.

It also does not look good for the police that I had made it clear early on that I considered
it unlikely that the dishonesty would not have been known about or even instigated by
officials more senior than the Justices' Clerk. A response on 6 October 2017 contained
the following to the police asking me if there were any further comments I would like to
add in regards to my complaint:

“Regarding further comments, I think it is appropriate given that you have referred to the
Judicial Ombudsman etc., that it is my opinion that the Ombudsman HMCTS/MoJ are
more likely than not complicit. I would think it highly unlikely that the Justices' Clerk would
make the decision herself to attempt to pull this off, and suggest either she has been
pressured to do so by someone more senior or has known she could rely on being
backed up by her employer. This has already been implied in an email (attached) to
HMCTS' Head of Customer Investigations, Richard Redgrave, responding to his 6 April
2017 outcome of the investigation”

Apart from the deliberate obfuscation tactics employed it is also noted that the report’s
findings amount to zero. The declaration below tells me nothing I do not already know or
reveals to DI Foster anything that was not available to him in the various documents that
the police had already been provided:

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“I have spoken with Alison Watts (HMCTS Humber and South Yorkshire), I am aware she
has responded to some of your concerns in past correspondence. She has indicated that
any letters issued would have been sent in the normal course of events and posted with
any other mail, copies of letters would be kept which would be dated. She has no
knowledge of why you did not receive these letters.

I have also noted a response sent to you by the Cluster Manager for HMCTS (Paul
Hopgood), in this he sets out the response regarding the number of letters sent by
HMCTS Humber and South Yorkshire that were not received by you nor returned to
HMCTS by the Royal Mail. This response states that they could not identify why you did
not receive these letters nor if they were sent by recorded or registered delivery as set out
under the Magistrates Courts Rules 1981, they apologised for this.

I have also spoken with the Judicial Ombudsman's office (JACO), they have reviewed two
complaints to identify whether there was any maladministration in the Judicial conduct
Investigation process, one of the issues was that you did not receive three letters from the
advisory committee, these letters were subsequently obtained and sent to you in February
2016......”

Clearly all the force has done here is exploit the findings of the Judicial Ombudsman and
HMCTS who were only ever, at the very most, going to concede that there had been “a
very poor level of service” which had incidentally taken a total 408 days from first being
aware of the fraud on 23 February 2016 until 6 April 2017 when the admission was
eventually prized from the multi stage Complaints handling mechanism.

The force is clearly implying that because these two bodies are apparently satisfied there
has been no criminal wrongdoing it has been handed a get out from carrying out its duty
to investigate. But the force already tried to pull this one and failed in its attempt to
circumvent the correct process in a previous complaint. The IOPC found that this along
with other grounds were unsatisfactory so they upheld my complaint and directed the
force to record it. The IOPC letter of 28 July 2017 upholding the appeal contained the
following:

“I do not consider that your complaint dated 25 February 2017 is an abuse of the police
complaints procedures. I note the force have referred to the Judicial Ombudsman and
HMCTS being the correct forum for this matter. However, I believe that the crux of your

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complaint is that the police have decided not to criminally investigate the Magistrate's
Court for conduct which you consider to be criminal.”

The only relevance of the Judicial Ombudsman and HMCTS’ involvement in the matter is
that they elicited responses from the Justices' Clerk to letters which had, as far as I was
concerned, not been responded to over a several year period which gave me every
reason to suspect they had been produced afterwards. The protracted period over which
the letters were purportedly sent and the fact that there were as many as 10 of them was
always going to make the task of covering their tracks a difficult one and one which was
evidently not managed successfully despite various officials implying differently. It was
these aggravating circumstances, along with other contributing factors which
demonstrated, beyond reasonable doubt that dishonesty was involved, and would
unquestionably have satisfied the test laid out in R v Ghosh [1982] QB 1053 (or
whichever case applies since the Supreme Court in Ivey v Genting Casinos [2017] UKSC
67 overturned the test).

The report’s findings yell out at you that the force’s handling of the complaint was no
more than a token gesture with obvious signs that generic content had been used from
templates which had not even been updated to reflect the Supreme Court’s overruling of
the Ghosh test (see its barefaced and utterly unsupported denial):

“In reviewing any allegation the Police have to satisfy themselves that a Crime has
occurred. They then need to demonstrate, beyond reasonable doubt that a dishonest act
has occurred, the definition of dishonesty is laid out in case law of R V GHOSH.

Having conducted these proportionate enquires, I cannot demonstrate that the points to
prove for the offences laid out in your complaint are satisfied, therefore the matters will
not be investigated.”

Presumably the above is officially stating that the force is not only unable to demonstrate
beyond reasonable doubt that a dishonest act has occurred but also that they are
satisfied themselves that a crime has not occurred. If so, the force must itself be guilty of
dishonesty, because the accused's conduct was incontrovertibly dishonest by the
standards of ordinary, reasonable and honest people. Incidentally, it is not now a
consideration that a jury would need satisfying that the accused must have realised that

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what he was doing was, by those standards, dishonest. The ‘proportionate enquires’
referred to, as previously highlighted, were no more than a token gesture of
accountability which revealed nothing new and were obviously not meant to. This of
course was gross misconduct as the line of enquiry followed by the force pursued the
route most guaranteed to lead nowhere and a blind eye turned to the most relevance
factors which would satisfy the force that it was dealing with crime.

Records confirm that a substantial amount of material had been collated and made
available to the force in an email of 19 March 2017 in which Christine Wilson (head of
specialist crime) was copied. This evidence fully backed up the allegations recorded in
police log of 7 January 2017 and was of sufficient strength to satisfy the force that the
matter was a criminal one and imperative that it was fully investigated. The only logical
explanation for the obstruction that involved channelling the matter through the police
statutory complaints process was that the force was complicit in a cover up (the
establishment protecting its own). There is every reason to suspect that the evidence
was given no consideration whatsoever. Instead, resources were disproportionately
diverted to initially rejecting a complaint on the basis that it was not a police matter, which
then changed to an abuse of the complaints process, because the allegations were a
repetition of previously complained of matters (entirely unconnected) and for which it
presented a case to convince the police regulator.

Do you feel the outcome was a proper outcome?

This means that, for example, you believe the outcome was not appropriate to the
complaint, or the outcome did not reflect the evidence available. Tick one box only.

Yes No

If your answer is no, please provide further information, continuing on a separate sheet if
necessary.

The outcome did not reflect the complaint I submitted on 2 February 2018. The response
focussed only on the matter as it was described briefly in the recorded complaint report
(failure to update appropriately). The force is obliged to take into account all of the
representations including those which have been provided additionally during the
process (SI 2012/1204, regulation 6). The prescribed complaint form in any event made it
clear it would not be expected that the issues were comprehensively set out initially.

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Consequently the matters raised which were not dealt with are as follows:

1. Concerns about the Professional Standards Branch’s (PSB) inappropriate referral

of the complaint to DI Foster bearing in mind his “Operational commitments”. This
matter has been raised before and therefore is inexcusable. In any event, the
seriousness of the reported crime warranted the fullest attention of an investigator
with the appropriate expertise in dealing with the type of offence involved.

2. Inappropriately considering the complaint suitable for Local resolution when it

should instead have been referred to the IOPC. It was brought to DI Foster’s
attention that the allegation patently concerned the improper exercise of police
powers (an offence under s.26 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015) and
any alleged conduct that could arguably fall within the definition of an offence
under s.26 of the 2015 Act must be referred to the IOCC in accordance with the
IPCC operational advice note (Mandatory referral criteria update, April 2017). This
matter has been raised before.

3. It was made clear in my response to DI Foster’s enquiries that I expected the

allegation to be recorded as a crime and an investigation undertaken pursuing all
reasonable lines of enquiry. I expressed also my opinion that the Judicial
Ombudsman and or HMCTS were more likely than not complicit as it would be
highly unlikely that the Justices' Clerk under her own initiative would have
dishonestly constructed the letters and so suggested she has been pressured to
do so by someone more senior. There was no recognition of this and the
comments obviously not considered because the outcome letter demonstrates
that the basis of the “proportionate enquiries” revolved around the decisions of the
Judicial Ombudsman etc., and other irrelevancies. The present complaint raised
these concerns but were evidently not dealt with. The previous section goes into
more detail (re, “do you agree with the outcome of the local resolution”)

4. In the same response to DI Foster I queried why I was being asked if I had lodged
any complaint to North East Lincolnshire Council (it indicated a misunderstanding
of the allegations or more seriously that they had not even been considered at all).
Again there was no recognition of this and the comments obviously not considered

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as the outcome letter stated without logical reason that ‘in the course of my
enquires I have made contact with a number of Officers from North East
Lincolnshire Council’. These concerns were raised in the present complaint after
DCI Scaife contacted me on 17 April 2018 to confirm details of correspondence
that had been sent. The anomaly in respect of the focus being on the Council
rather than the MoJ was consistent as the 17 April correspondence asked for it to
be verified that I had emailed DI Foster on 21 February to confirm that I ‘did not
receive council letters’. I had sent an email that day to DI Foster but it was to
reiterate that I had not received the 10 items of post and to stress that I had
provided evidence to support the allegation so the question of identifying whether
it amounted to a criminal offence did not come into it. Also clearly stated was that
it was the MoJ against whom the allegations were made (not council).

5. I raised concerns in a subsequent email to DI Foster (15 March 2018) about a

couple of suspicious emails sent to me purportedly by John Critchfield of the
Judicial Ombudsman’s Office. The emails also wrongly refer to missing letters
sent by the Council (referred to in more detail previously). Again there was no
recognition of this and the comments obviously not considered as there was no
evidence in the outcome letter that the matter formed any part of the
“proportionate enquiries”. These concerns were raised in the present complaint in
response to DCI Scaife’s 17 April 2018 enquiries but were evidently not
considered.

6. Also in response to DCI Scaife’s enquiries I expressed that my principle

expectation on the outcome of the complaint was to discover why none of my
communications / evidence had been taken into account and I had been
repeatedly asked for information I had already sent. Again no evidence is present
in either of the local resolution outcomes that this had been taken on board. My
response to DCI Scaife included a chronology of correspondence briefly
highlighting the anomalies with the expectation that this would assist his enquiries
into the doubt that had arisen as to the seriousness with which the investigation
was being pursued. The chronology of correspondence was duplicated in DCI
Scaife’s outcome letter as a declaration of what additional information I had
provided but to reiterate, it was omitted what my expectation on the outcome of
the complaint was which I provided in the same email.

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……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
If you have any documents that support your appeal please list below or attach to them
to this form when submitting your appeal
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_______________________________________________
Signature of the person making this appeal: Date:

…………………................................... .…… 20 /06 / 2018

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Additional notes:
For the avoidance of doubt, all the representations made in this appeal are relevant to
this complaint (ref CO/49/18) and cannot therefore, with any justification, be brushed off
as matters dealt with elsewhere. To reiterate, the present complaint was raised because
it was clear that the investigating officer had no serious intentions of satisfying himself
that a Crime had occurred and the exercise was merely Humberside Police going
through the motions.
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