Out 535 17-appeal 49-18

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED
Serving our communities to
make them safer and stronger
CO 535/17
1/1 •.•.
Grimsby
N.E. Lincolnshire
DN3~
Humberside Police
Professional Standards Department
Police Headquarters
Priory Road
Hull HU55SF
Te1No:01482578240
Fax No: 01482 305004
Switchboard: 101
This matter is being dealt with by:
DJ Foster
psb@humberside.pnn.police.uk
www.humberside.police.uk
25 May 2018
Dear Mr (: _~l,
I am writing to inform you of the outcome of the complaint you made on 27th February
2017. Your complaint has been dealt with by way of the Local Resolution Procedure
and I agree that this is a suitable course of action in the circumstances.
Humberside Police is committed to providing a quality of service to all members of
the public and I am grateful, therefore, that you have taken the trouble to bring this
r matter to the Force's attention. Accordingly, the matter causing you concern was
recorded and I was appointed to enquire into it.
On 17th September 2017, I sent a letter to you informing you that I would be reviewing
this file and be in contact with you, subsequently I have made numerous contacts
with you by way of Email to update you and clarify some points.
I note that this complaint has been deemed suitable to be resolved by the Local
Resolution process, I believe you would have had sight of the Key Facts document
which sets out how this type of resolution works, as such I will try to set out details of
enquires I have made and my conclusion.
In the course of my enquires I have made contact with a number of Officers from
North East Lincolnshire Council, I have also spoken with Alison Watts HMCTS
Humber and South Yorkshire, Also Andrew Hobley from the Local Government
Ombudsman Office and reviewed numerous pieces of documentation.
Allegation in brief.
Operational Policing Policies.
The Complainant states the Police have failed to Investigate Criminal Allegations of
Malfeasance and Fraud involving a false claim made by the justice's clerk for Humber

and South Yorkshire that 10 items of post had been sent to him between the
19/12/2013 to 22/07/2016 which the complainant claims never to have received, and
believes they were dishonestly constructed later to satisfy enquires made by the
judicial ombudsman. The complainant considers these matters should be
investigated by Humberside Police as a Crime.
During the course of reviewing this allegation I have conducted extensive
enquires and contacted a number of people.
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. The 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.
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
ofRVGHOSH.
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.
Whilst there may be some differences between other people's explanation and your
account, I do not question your genuine belief and perception of the incident.
However, I hope the explanation provided goes some way towards allaying your
sense of grievance.

Please be aware that as your complaint refers to an organisational issue there is no
right of appeal against the outcome of the Local Resolution process. This is in
accordance with Paragraph BA Schedule 3 of the Police Reform Act 2002.
YOursSi~
.--?~~
f( 01 Foster
On behalf of the Appropriate Authority

Representations in respect of appeal
Ref: CO/49/18
Do you agree with the outcome of the local resolution? [No]
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.
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 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).
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 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:
“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
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 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? [No]
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.
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 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.
20 June 2018

Out 535 17-appeal 49-18

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Out 535 17-appeal 49-18