I reproduce below an 'open letter' sent yesterday to both UK Justice Minister, Lord McNally (who has done absolutely nothing about the abuses of justice evident in our case - other than to offer to refer us back to the very Bailiff who had allowed it all to happen) and Her Majesty The Queen's representative here on the island, the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John McColl.
It outlines the incredible - and it must be said, deeply disturbing - latest unfoldings of what has been passed off as 'justice' in our case since we we were foolish enough to place our trust in the Jersey judicial system.
Indeed, should you be naive or perhaps simply unaware enough to still have even the smallest trace of trust that the Jersey 'justice' system is anything other than a farce; a completely hijacked tool for the Establishment to both avoid the holding to account of those amongst their ranks who merit it; and to try and bury all and any who dare challenge it please simply read this and the attached letter from current Jurat Collette Crill and think again.
A fairly long read perhaps, but five minutes of your time well spent. Finally, tempting as it was to deconstruct the shortcomings and attempted re-writing of historical fact within the letter from Jurat Crill readers of the bald Truth Jersey will perhaps understand why I felt this better to leave to others...
Keep the Faith
Dear Lord
McNally and Lieutenant-Governor
We write to
you in the form of this open letter to bring to your attention – in the remote
chance that either of you should have any genuine concern for the on-going
abuse of the justice system here on Jersey – to highlight the latest episode of
the many abuses evident within our attempt to secure justice for ourselves via
the courts.
As you will
both be aware due to previous correspondence our present situation arose from
us daring to trust that we would be afforded – just like any other person – a fair
and ECHR Article 6 compliant court process. Indeed, as is now well documented
the reality has been not only that we were instead faced with a Jurat – John Le
Breton - who has a proven history of looking the other way on evidence of child
abuse against a former friend and colleague; but who also felt quite above
accepted global judicial standards to not recuse himself from sitting on our
case – even though he is further evidenced to have wined and dined a director
of the Jersey Evening Post’s owning company the Guiton Group.
That all of
this was allowed to take place by Jersey’s Bailiff (who we copy in) and has
most recently even been rubber-stamped by three Jersey Appeal Court Judges who
– quite incredibly – attempted to re-write the findings of the 1999 Stephen
Sharp Report into the child abuse cover-up at the island’s Victoria College to
claim within their judgement: i.e. that there is apparently nothing in the
report which would warrant John Le Breton being viewed as unfit for such a role
would suggest that this leaves little more to be said.
At least
until we progress our case to the Privy Council; and more likely, we must
accept, if this abuse of justice is so acceptable to those who should be
intervening on behalf of the Queen and United Kingdom government, to the Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Nevertheless, given the latest developments which
we now outline below we will have at least placed upon record yet more evidence
of the corruption and inexcusable failings evident in our case – just as this
is within the cases of so many others.
As you may
or may not already be aware, having been brought to bankruptcy by our pursuit
of justice; following on from the Appeal Court Judges inexplicable ruling on
Friday 29th November 2013 our lawyer (yes, in Jersey you even have
to engage a lawyer to become officially bankrupt!) brought to the court a
request that we be granted the process of Remise de biens.
Should
either of you not know of this ancient Jersey aspect of law what this does is
bring about a form of bankruptcy which allows – subject to certain criteria all
of which our situation meets – for one’s property and assets to be sold off by
the court. The issue here is that there must be enough money available to pay
off in full any secured creditor: in our case just our bank as the mortgage
lender. Further still, that some surplus must remain to allow some form of
dividend to then be shared between the unsecured creditors such as the Jersey
Evening Post and Broadlands – the entities who colluded to publish the lies
claiming we had increased our income by four times by Trevor entering politics.
Once
accepted by the court and a Remise has been successfully
completed with a property being sold and the secured creditor paid in full; and
unsecured creditors having received a share of the remaining dividend, the
matter is concluded and a discharge from the bankruptcy debt may be obtained
allowing people to start again. This is clearly the best route for us to follow,
especially given the fact that having been forced to this position by the
Jersey Evening Post and Broadlands an additional consequence almost no other
individual would face is that we immediately lose our positions and income as
States Members.
Even given
the clear UK authorities indifference to the delivery of justice here in the
Crown Dependency we would thus hope that to then find the judge hearing our
request for a Remise – no less an individual than the Deputy Bailiff, William
Bailhache, attempt to wholly mislead our lawyer with false information as to
how the process works and it’s benefits and drawbacks; and indeed, to suggest –
in our view, we repeat, attempt to
mislead – that the best route for us would instead be to seek to go en desastre
is wholly unacceptable. Following this route would actually place us in a far
worse position and leave this hanging over us for a full five years
That the
Deputy Bailiff would not know of the damaging misinformation he was suggesting
as the better way forward for us is clearly inconceivable. Indeed, the true
facts have been verified by lawyers and even the Viscounts Office.
We were fortunately
tipped off to the above by a concerned person who was in the court on the day and
we have now even secured an audio disc of the exchange. We feel that we must
ask that you look into this as a matter of urgency as – very co-incidentally –
the Jersey Evening Post and Broadlands, having no doubt been failed by their
own lawyers, just happen to now suddenly be seeking that the court reject the
fully justified Remise and push us down the desastre route suggested by William
Bailhache. We repeat: what a strange coincidence. Not only do two of the
biggest critics of the Establishment’s failings on matters such as abuses of
justice and child protection cover-ups get forced out of public office; we also
face manipulation by the court down an even more damaging bankruptcy path than
is necessary.
We would
thus hope that you might understand that all of the above cannot do anything,
other than fill us with concern as to a likely pre-decided outcome of the
Remise hearing set for Thursday 19th December – just two days hence.
After all, should you also not be aware of it this was actually set to be
concluded this past Friday. However, any hopes we might have had of some degree
of fair play - given that both our lawyer and the two Jurats who compiled the
necessary report confirmed we met all criteria to satisfy a successful Remise
were quickly stripped away when the lawyer for the Jersey Evening Post,
Advocate Nuno Santos-Costa, informed our lawyer just moments before the hearing
that he had a close personal friendship with one of the Jurats sitting; this
being Jurat Collette Crill.
Having been
made aware that both the Jersey Evening Post and Broadlands were attempting to
buy time as they knew they really had very little grounds for argument, the
fact that this Advocate – who had at no time appeared for the JEP during the
defamation case – suddenly appeared to be followed by this announcement was
highly suspicious in itself. Has Jersey really got such an unprofessional and
shambolic court-process that a lawyer- any lawyer – would not know beforehand
which Jurats were sitting?
With this
conflict raised the court retired for a brief time then returned. Here, quite
incredibly, Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith announced that whilst the court
would reconvene with two other Jurats at a later date Jurat Crill, nevertheless,
apparently felt that her close friendship with the lawyer for the Jersey Evening
Post – and a lawyer whose firm obviously stood to make many thousands of pounds
from a decision in his client’s favour did ‘not’ conflict her from ‘administering
justice’!
We must put
it to you as representatives of the Queen and UK government respectively that
the picture this all paints of the attitude to justice for all within the
island, is totally unacceptable. Indeed, once aware of who Jurat Crill was once
we returned home a little on line research following further contact from the
public revealed matters to be even more disturbing.
Not only was
it quite apparent that we had a Judge in William Bailhache who has no love for
us or our politics, attempting to mislead our lawyer to take us down a route
far more damaging to us than the requested and merited Remise de biens; it now
became apparent we had had a Jurat who was intending to sit on our case in the
full knowledge that she had previously written an insulting – many would say
malicious – personal attack on Shona within a letter published by no less than
the Jersey Evening Post. All, we would point out for the record, because Shona
had dared to bring a vote of no confidence in Sir Philip Bailhache whilst he
was Bailiff. This being on account of his several well documented serious
failings on child abuse.
That such
behaviour could not be seen as a serious conflict of interest is impossible to
credit even within a jurisdiction with Jersey’s laissez-faire approach to
judicial corruption. That Jurat Crill could not be aware of her resulting conflict;
or that her remaining silent on the matter was completely at odds with the
principles of justice – certainly as applied by any respectable jurisdiction -
are even more inarguable. Indeed, not only does the Jurat’s letter reveal just
how little she was aware of the true facts relating to Jersey’s appalling child
protection failings arising from those in high office; her choice of insults
demonstrate beyond any question her entirely prejudiced attitude to a person
upon whom the Jurat wished to now ‘administer justice’. For the record we
reproduce the letter from Jurat Crill below.
As you will
both be aware we have little reason to have any faith in the justice system
that is allowed to operate under this present Bailiff, Sir Michael Birt, and
for very good reason when one considers the evidence of our case alone. A case
that is, of course, just one of many destroying the lives of ordinary Jersey
people simply because the UK does not fulfil its obligation to step in on
ensuring good governance and law and order. As with a growing number of other
islanders we will continue to highlight these abuses and fight for them to be
rectified no matter what.
Yet with our
hearing set for just two days hence we first urgently ask you: what confidence
can we have that a process for which we meet all of the criteria (even with our
home having been mysteriously undervalued compared with independent valuations
of just a year ago to the tune of some £60 + thousand) will not somehow instead
be manipulated to accommodate the wishes of the Jersey Evening Post and
Broadlands estate agents? We have, it must be said, been put through hell by
the catalogue of appalling failings allowed to go un-rectified during our case.
Yet it seems that even having reached the stage when we expected to achieve –
at least - some degree of conclusion for ourselves and our families the system
was once again manipulated to thwart this with the unfolding of the deeply
disturbing events surrounding this past week or so.
We believe
this is what is known locally as ‘The Jersey Way’.
Yours
sincerely
Shona &
Trevor Pitman
JEP – 2 July
2008. Collette Crill, Le Solaize, Les
Ruisseaux, St Brelade.
“On the day of her election, Deputy Shona Pitman
engaged in offensive behaviour in public.
Many would deem that such behaviour rendered her unfit for elected
office. Since then I am unaware that the
Deputy has distinguished herself as a States Member. It seems particularly ironic, therefore, that
it is she who sees fit to call for a vote of no confidence in order to vilify
and bully the Bailiff. Mont of the
Bailiff’s career has been devoted to serving this Island in Crown Office, instead
of pursing a more lucrative path in private practice. One can’t help wondering whether Deputy
Pitman even understands, let alone appreciates, that all our Crown Officers are
highly skilled and in many cases brilliant legal practitioners who choose for
altruistic reasons, to offer themselves for Crown service instead of using
their admirable academic and intellectual skills in far more self-serving ways.
Given the behaviour and performance of many of our
present elected representatives on can’t help feeling that precisely the
opposite motivation applies to them. The
list of our current Bailiff’s achievements for this island good is as long as
it is impressive, not only as a lawyer and judge, but also in so many other
aspects of island life. In common with the reset of humanity, he is not
infallible and as humility is one of his many qualities, I believe he would be
the first to acknowledge this. Indeed,
he has publicly expressed regret for a possible error of judgement made years
ago, long before he became Bailiff, in relation to the Holland case.
Deputy Pitman, though, would have us believe that
along with one sentence in his Liberation Day speech when he spoke about
Jersey’s recently maligned reputation, using a turn of phrase not quite up to
Deputy Pitman’s exacting standards, this is enough to wipe out years of
exemplary service and dedication to the island.
Deputy Pitman’s use of this form of politics is
absurd and risible, yet sadly dangerous and adding to the immense harm that
some of our politicians seek to cause by being so obsessive destructive and
negative. She and her cabal would be far
better employed in using their position and salary, our money, in trying to
rectify the many genuinely important matters of injustice and inequality in
this island. Of course, it’s so much
easier to be negative and destructive.
Or could it be that they don’t actually have any positive or
constructive ideas to offer?”
