bbcni

A cautionary tale

In February of this year, being a little bored, I hatched a cunning plan.

I would take my forensic costume, board the Easy Jet and go to London. There, I would pretend to be Peter Sefton Q.C. and appear in the High Court. What could go wrong?

I found a victim, Carmen Mazo. This lady was unhappy with the damages she had obtained at first instance.

I persuaded her and her solicitor that I had extensive experience at personal injury work in London. They were completely fooled. I could have found a whiplash or a broken leg case but no, I was reckless, I wanted to go for the big money. I advised that there should be an appeal and that we should seek millions in damages.

It was easy from there on.

We went to the Strand, I appeared before Lord Justice Laws [what a great name for a judge, surpassed only by Lord Chief Justice Judge].

If he wondered about my accent he probably thought that I had spent too much time in Belfast with Orlando Pownall.

He addressed me with the gravity befitting my senior status.

He acceded to my application and the case will be re-heard soon.

Result! I headed back to the Province, heady with my achievement. I began to calculate my brief fee.

But I had forgotten about the Fourth Estate. A reporter was present. The story took off! The Daily Mail was outraged and I was quoted. Other papers also published it.

I held my breath. Had I got away with it? Was the NI Bar Council awake?

Weeks passed and I relaxed.

Then BAM! The English Bar Standards Board were tipped off. By whom I know not.

A complaint has been raised against me. I am charged with holding myself out as a barrister and performing reserved legal activities when not authorised. I suspect that if they could have charged me with being an “Uppity Paddy” they would have done so.

So what now, I hear you say. I’m pondering my next step. Should I confess? Have I got a legal leg to stand on? Mistaken identity? Do I have a OTR letter? Shall I plead insanity? I mean I must have been good enough to persuade Laws LJ to give Ms Mazo an appeal.

Perhaps I should put it down to experience. Write a book. Get film rights. What would the movie be called. The Man who fooled Laws. The Q.C. who never was. Silky Smooth Sefton Suckers Solicitors. I’ll ring Jimmy Nesbitt….

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Will I also be charged by the NI Bar Council. Crossing the state line for the purposes of advocacy? Is there a European dimension?

So , Dear Reader, if you are tempted to such a thing, make better preparations. Steal the identity of a dead barrister, or one that doesn’t practise, or who has gone to Hong Kong. Choose a less unusual name, call yourself Laws or Judge or Chancery.

Meantime, I’m off to do a little brain surgery at the Royal.

The strange silence of Willie Frazer PartII

Regular readers will have read Part I.

Wille, when tasked by the media about the alleged missing money , said “There is no money missing. Every penny we get goes towards victims. There were paperwork errors, nothing more than that”

You might suppose that Willie learned a lesson  and that paperwork would be to the forefront of  what he is pleased to call his mind.

Willie is involved in two victims’ groups, which are non profit making, allegedly.

The first in time was FAIR. It is no longer possible to access its website, which has been suspended. FAIR  was registered with HMRC as a charity. However, new laws have been applicable to FAIR for several years now. It is required to register with the Charity Commission and , in due course , to provide statements of financial dealings. It was notified of this obligation over a year ago but to date FAIR has provided no accounts. So FAIR’s financial dealings are a mystery.

The other organisation which Willie is intimately involved with is the Family Research and Policy Unit. It too is non profit making and is therefore a charity. There is no record of this organisation with the Charity Commission at all. So you, the tax payer cannot find out its  financial affairs through the Commissioner. In fact there is no trace of this organisation , except premises in Markethill. No telephone number, no email address and no website.

Worse, this second organisation receives government funding. I asked the Victims and Survivors Service  for details of any conditions applied by it and any accounts held by them.

Their reply was that they did require FRPU to be registered as a charity and they had no accounts for it.This despite making a grant of over £50,000 to it. So you , the public, who fund this organisation can know nothing about it.

So the two vehicles used by Willie to push his “victims'”  agenda are not transparent.

The big  question is, how does Willie pay his way? How does he travel back and forward to London so frequently? What does he do with any public money he gets? Does he have access to any other money? Is he in receipt of benefits? Do individuals or groups ,  make charitable contributions? To whom does he owe money?

Can he tell us which victims he has helped? Has he any vouching documentation? How many cookers did he buy? Were they new or second hand?

The real issue here is that Frazer promotes himself as a non-sectarian victims’ campaigner. It’s hard to see how he qualifies on either score.

Willie continues to say it’s not about the money, perhaps that’s a message to you and me that he is going to keep it a secret.

Let’s wait and see.

The victims’ industry

It must be interesting to be one of the folk that inhabits this strange world.

One day you are an ordinary Joe or Josephine and the next , courtesy of the PIRA’s bullet or Semtex, you are propelled into the heady world of Victimhood.

This means that your pronouncements, however crap they are, have to be solemnly  followed and that you must be invited to every “Victims'” event known to man.

At these occasions, you must get on your fake tan, do up your hair with the latest blonde  rinse and if you are a girl, wear a nice frock.

Why? Because a reporter will ask about your feelings and you must give a sound  bite.

Where will you go? Westminster, Stormont, Titanic, anywhere where the State thinks you can be plonked to do the least amount of harm.

Because the last thing the State wants is you , bleating and crying all over the place, annoying people and frightening the children of the Peace.

So the more silly events you can go to and speak at , like todays European Day of Victims , the less impact your story will have.

Occasionally , just for show, a State official will turn up, to express his solidarity , support and condolences and you will go away, energised.

Why? Because you were at the Top Table. You had a Reserved Seat. A Minister, some Tory Boy from London spoke to you.

Every so often, when the Peace Process is wobbly, Liz sends a family member over. What Joy! You get invited to Hillsborough, which is owned by the masses but which everyone pretends is owned by the Queen. You get on your best bib and tucker and you go through security , as if anyone would want to kill any Royal Prince.

At these events , if you are lucky , one of her relatives will speak to you, asking if you have ‘come far’.

You will go home, glowing with the fairy dust of Royalty.

The next day you will be just what you were, the son, daughter, husband, wife or other, of a victim of the Troubles. In that still quiet moment, before dawn, you will reflect on what might have been.

And you will, hopefully ,  rejoice that you are not one of the 268 people who took their life in 2014.

But also reflect on this. Not one organiser of any event that you have been to cares much for those 268 dead.

If they did, the events would be completely different.

Tony Blair and history

Blair once felt the hand of history on his shoulder. [Psychopaths often have such hallucinations]

That same hand has continued to re-write Tony’s role in Northern Ireland.

Last week he issued a statement from his opulent offices, paid for by nefarious world wide deals. It dealt with his role in the failure of victims of Libyan supplied Semtex to obtain compensation. Despite kissing Gadafy in a tent in the desert, he has denied that he had any role or influence over the settlement which Bush concluded with Gadafy. He is subject to the scrutiny of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, who have indicated that, if he does not be transparent with them , they may go to Washington D.C. to investigate further.

One ‘fact’ that Blair repeats , ad nauseum, is that we were not entitled , by law, to receive compensation.

Here is a recent example of this. “The decision by the US not to include British victims was , I believe , because they were precluded legally from such an action.”

We are used to weasel words from Blair, after all , he was the architect of the Good Friday Agreement, the biggest con of the twentieth century. He structured  the ‘on the runs’ arrangement and he established immunity from prosecution for Adams, McGuinness and Slab Murphy.

The fact is that the 160 claimants were able to sue Gadafy and others from the regime, under US Federal law. Lawyers were appointed in the UK and the USA. The non-US claimants were  legally “aliens” under the legislation. Proceedings were taken and responded to by the defendants in the US Federal Court. Each side was shaping up for a trial. What happened  next was that Bush intervened and passed an Act preventing Britons from obtaining compensation but facilitating payment to US citizens. The decision by Bush , to exclude Britons, came after the court hearings , the Act followed later. In that sense , we were legally  precluded from compensation.

Where was Blair in all of this? Out of office but in the desert. He has never been able to properly explain what  deal he was doing with Gadafy, which benefitted Americans but not Britons.

The answer could be , of course, that the UK had much to hide. After all, the Libyan deal for Semtex and arms was concluded between Gadafy , Moussa Koussa and other Libyans on the one hand and Slab Murphy, Gerry Adams , Martin McGuiness and other members of the Army council, on the other. Given Blair’s close connection with Sinn Fein/IRA and given the number of IRA  informants being run by the State, any probing into how it was that Libya admitted liability for its actions towards Americans but not Britons had the potential to be embarrassing.  One could hear Gadafy saying to Blair, in the tent after the snog , “I have given you the list of arms and explosives we gave Sinn Fein/IRA. I have told you how much money we gave them. I have told you who we did the deal with. Martin did the Enniskillen bomb as a thank you and revenge for the Yanks killing my daughter. What more do you need to know? Shall I tell who was an agent and what was the role of MI6?” This position is borne out by British Ministers telling the House of Commons that Gadafy had come in from the cold and had helped Britain in respect of the IRA . As far as the Foreign Office was concerned, the matter was closed.

Victims and survivors were only legally barred from payouts after Blair did the deal for Bush.

What was in it for Blair? Money, enough to impress Wendi Deng.  Contacts with states around the world. Adviser to many dubious regimes.

I hear someone saying “how can he sleep at night?”

Psychopaths sleep well.

 

Villiers and ‘Legacy”

Much ink has been spilled about how State intelligence about terrorist killings is to be made available to the judicial process and to victims and survivors.

Predictably, Republicans accuse the State of deception and bad faith and ,inexplicably, Unionists side with the Government.

This is an issue which affects all victims and survivors.

The extent of British and RUC collusion is unknown but verified  as a practice by de Silva.

An indication of how little the NIO or the Secretary of State  thinks of us can be gleaned from the following.

In February 2015 I wrote to the Attorney General , enclosing a seven page letter, arguing that he should direct a new inquest into the murders of my parents. I met with him on 4th March 2015 and his view was that he had no power to direct a new inquest unless the State had some prior knowledge of the operation, through an agent informant. He wrote to the Secretary of State in March 2015. An answer was only forthcoming after I threatened to have the matter raised in the House of Commons.

She said that “neither the Ministry of Defence, the Security Service, the Police Service of Northern Ireland nor the Northern Ireland Office hold any material relevant to the Attorney’s request”.

Note the use of the word “hold”. It is a word which tries to  convey much but which means little. An organisation is likely to archive material after a number of years. They send it to a store , managed by others. Then they no longer ‘hold’ it. Worse an organisation destroys documents, then they no longer ‘hold’ them. Given forty years of state denials and cover ups, I’m sure , Dear Reader , that you will forgive my cynicism.

Meantime the State has achieved its objective. As a result of this reply, no new inquest will be held into the murders of my parents.

The Docklands bomb

On 9th February 1996 Slab Murphy’s South Armagh IRA gang bombed the Docklands. The bomb consisted of a fertiliser mix , accelerated by Semtex, supplied by Libya.

Readers of this blog will know of the history of British involvement with Gadafy and the current Parliamentary inquiries.

Victims and survivors of Semtex bombs still await reparation from Libya. Over 150 took legal action in April 2006 and were blocked by the unholy alliance of Bush,  Blair and Gadafy. Over 1,000 others have a moral claim to reparation.

The big issue is ‘from whence will the money come?’

The British Government says that we must await a stable Libyan government. There has been chaos in Libya since 2011. Given that there are currently three rival governments, stability seems a long way off.

Frozen in UK bank accounts is £9.4 billion , most of it the property of Gadafy, his family and  his henchmen. This would provide reparation  to thousands of victims all over the United Kingdom but presently, the government will not legislate to release it.

A campaign has been under way since the middle of 2015 to secure release.

McCue and Co , solicitors in London, have led this campaign and they and a number of other people have given evidence in support , to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Further activity is planned for 2016.

Imagine my shock  to find that Diane Dodds MEP, told the European Parliament; “we must see a relative and sustainable peace in Libya in order to further our goal of negotiating a fair financial settlement for those innocent victims”. So the DUP’s MEP agrees with the British Government.

In fact in January 2016, and under her watch, the EU renewed its legislation for the freezing of funds and neither she nor any other unionist politician seemed to notice.

Jeffrey Donaldson is DUP Chief Whip. In the DUP 2015 election manifesto, the DUP  said ” the DUP is not beholden to any national party”. At that point they were in a fever of expectation that they would hold the balance of power. In November 2015 David Cameron appointed Donaldson Britain’s Trade Envoy to Egypt. Jeffrey gushed in the press about his appointment.

In  correspondence with me about Diane Dodds’ statement, where he was abusive and ill tempered, he said that he was elected to represent “ALL innocent victims”. So I thought that I would take a look at both the DUP’s 2015 election manifesto and its grandly entitled “Northern Ireland Plan”. Neither document mentions the securing of compensation or reparations for victims. If he were so elected, it seems to have happened by osmosis.

Jeffrey then referred to me as one of ‘the select few’. I’m not easily offended and I’m a big boy, well bigger that Jeffrey anyway; but I wonder if that is his view of victims and survivors generally, when they take legal action against a dictator?

Stung at my criticism of Diane,  the Egyptian Trade Envoy said;”I will be asking your legal team to reflect on the damage such unwarranted exchanges does [sic] to our combined efforts” An interesting idea. I wonder how often he approaches other lawyers about their clients? Perhaps it’s a DUP thing to try to intimidate victims and survivors. Any views, Arlene?

The fact is that neither he nor any other unionist has made a scrap of difference to the campaign for reparations for me or for the people hideously maimed.

Meanwhile , let’s think about someone more important.  Zaoui Berezag. He was injured in the Docklands bomb. In September 2015 his wife said “My Zaoui is blind , paralysed, brain damaged and has no leg’. He is very disabled and now he is in nappies.” Many other survivors of Libyan Semtex bombs are similarly afflicted.

James McArdle was convicted of conspiracy to cause the Docklands bombing and in June 1998 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

On 25 July 2000 the Queen granted McArdle  the Royal Prerogative of Mercy and he was released.

Zaoui remains imprisoned by his injuries and in dire financial straits.

Meanwhile Jeffrey , Her Britannic Majesty’s Trade Envoy, is spending this week in Egypt, where President Sisi has killed 2,500 political opponents and represses gays.

 

 

The EU calls the shots on terrorism

While the debate about Brexit rages, readers should be mindful of this.

The EU recently enacted fresh legislation, freezing Libyan funds. Despite a campaign which stretches back several years, neither of the ‘Unionist’ representatives in the EU, Diane Dodds or Jim Nicholson, seem to have been aware of it nor did any Unionist or member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. No representations were made to permit the unfreezing of funds for victims. I have tried to contact Nicholson in the past, but since I don’t farm, I’m of no interest to him.

It is an example of the EU enacting legislation which the “Mother of Parliaments” slavishly copies, although it is not obliged to.

It is possible for a member of parliament to object to the new delegated legislation and you might think that, given the public outrage about terrorists being compensated by HMG , our “unionist” politicians would be alert to this legislation.

Sadly not. Big business, farming, the International Airport , Gallaghers etc., are more important , it would seem, than human rights.

I’m sure no victim of Sinn Fein/IRA  violence was the beneficiary of corporate hospitality during the Rugby World Cup.

From my perspective, not much has changed since the 1950s. Big House, Big Business and Farming Unionists plough on. The man in the street, be he RUC, UDR or British Army counts for nothing. The Unionist parties play the orange card and the stupid masses vote for them.

The words that the DUP and the UU spout are flim flam.

Even worse, Diane Dodds makes a speech in the European Parliament, parroting the British Government line, completely missing the real issue and then publishes it , as if she is proud of her input

Meanwhile Jim Allister , that champion of the loyalists shows no interest.

We are alone in this fight , without any political support.

Oh and by the way, don’t count on Willy Frazer , he has ‘served writs’  on more republicans than you could shake a stick at. He also was going to sort out the disclosure from the ROI re Kingsmills. That didn’t happen either. One wonders where he gets his funding from and what happened to the march in Dublin.

The moral of this blog is that the experts are correct. I am not going to shoot someone or plant a bomb. I don’t count. When Sinn Fein/IRA make noises HMG listens. If the state was complicit in keeping sinn fein/ira crimes away from Alan McQuillan, what else have they done and are they currently doing?

There is no chance of any justice for anyone while this Satanic Alliance continues.

Politicians, what are they good for?

Without any notice and without the active consent of any elected representative the United Kingdom has re-enacted legislation , freezing the assets of the terrorist state of Libya and its gangsters.

See The Libya (European Union Financial Sanctions) Regulations 2016, made on 19th January 2016. The day before Nigel Dodds’ jingoistic defence of the Falkland Islands.

Despite much criticism , legal action and lobbying by victims’ groups and despite an inquiry being carried on by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the new legislation, never voted on in the House of Commons but passed through as secondary legislation, makes no provision for the unfreezing of assets in order to make reparations for those killed or injured by Semtex supplied by Libya to Sinn Fein/IRA.

This also , despite UN Rapporteur, Pablo de Grief’s criticism of the lack of reparations for victims.

Despite much posturing by Unionist politicians and grandstanding in the Commons about terrorism and the Falklands, nothing has been achieved for the victims.

What a disgrace.

Why Blair should not fear the NI Affairs Committee

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee announced in July of 2105 that it was minded to enquire into the failure of HMG to secure compensation from Libya for the supply of Semtex to Sinn Fein/IRA.

Allegations have frequently been made that Tony Blair was instrumental in brokering a deal with USA and Libya and failing to secure the rights of UK citizens , when other nationalities were compensated.

The taking of evidence began in September. The weight of evidence so far points to discrimination towards UK citizens.

In October 2015 the chairman of the Committee , Laurence Robertson, wrote to Blair ,inviting him to submit written evidence. Blair replied on 11th December 2015 admitting, as far as he was aware, that he never raised the case of Semtex victims with Gadafy. You might find that in itself surprising, Dear Reader but worse is to come.

He said that the needs of the victims were being addressed through existing structures. For those of us used to Blair whoppers this was a mega whopper.

He followed this up by saying that we were precluded from legal action in the USA. Another lie.

On 11 December Blair appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

On 6th January 2016 Robertson wrote again to Blair and invited him to give oral evidence. In an undated letter from the Office of Tony Blair, he replied saying “these continued attempts to implicate me in deliberately trying to stop IRA victims receiving compensation are, as I have made very clear, without foundation”

The Committee must now decide what to do.

Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice is the authoritative work on Parliament. Let’s take a look…

“when a select committee has the power to send for persons, that power is unqualified, except to the extent that it conflicts with the privileges of the Crown and of Members of the House of Lords, or with the rights of Commons”

[see Erskine May Parliamentary Practice 24th ED  p820]

So what if the person does not attend by invitation?

The witness is formally summoned to attend as a witness by order signed by the Chairman. On the face of the summons, unlike such issued by courts on occasions. there is no penal provision.

If he neglects to appear , he will be dealt with as in other cases of disobedience.

[ibid p820]

I know that now Dear Reader , those not well disposed to Tony will have visions of Blair in chains. Not so fast!

There is no power of arrest and imprisonment.The power of committal for contempt has not been used in modern times. It was last used in 1880.

There is power, held by the House of Commons, not the committee, to punish in other ways for contempt. Nobody has been fined since 1666.  The House has not punished a non member since 1978 and the tide of opinion is against sanctions.

So if he  does not appear , members of the Committee may gnash their teeth , rend their garments,  even wear sackcloth and ashes but Tone ain’t comin!

So much for the Mother of Parliaments.

 

Lawyer, represent thyself!

Dear Reader,

You might expect that a doctor could diagnose  his own complaint or that an accountant would never go bankrupt, or that a lawyer would never fail to make a case for himself.

How often is the opposite true.

The criminal lawyers in Northern Ireland make the point, rightly, that the new legal aid fees do not allow them to properly represent their clients.

Put another way. If they were to carry out, diligently, all the work necessary to give their clients a proper  defence, the lawyer would be working for minimum wage , or less.

The same situation obtains in England. There, many senior legal figures  have spoken out. Here, Mr Justice Weir ,tentatively,  put his bewigged head over the parapet.

Ford has a budget and says that it is not his role to provide work for lawyers. True. But it is his role to see that justice is served.

Justice is something that happens to others until you are arrested.

But I digress. The Bar is at best lukewarm to the issue. You see, the fat cats and the civil lawyers are rather like the public. It’s not going to happen to them.

Worse, the lawyers who are supposed to defend the accused and make a case for them have made a pretty poor case for themselves, when compared to the junior doctors.

As some might say, in that case, they deserve all they get [or don’t].