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Guest blog: The appalling treatment of NHS whistleblowers parallels the Post Office sub-post masters scandal

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Dr David.E.Ward,

 David E Ward, a distinguished retired cardiologist, formerly at St George’s Hospital, South London, responds to the judgement by Tony Hyams-Parish on the case of Dr Usha Prasad

The treatment of NHS whistleblowers is a national scandal of the same iniquitous order of magnitude as the miscarriages of justice meted out to the sub-postmasters. This latter saga began 20 years ago after the installation of faulty software called Horizon from Fujitsu. Incredibly it was not picked up for years because the victims were not believed or they were accused of lying. The evidence was not properly collated or scrutinised. Or was it, but no-one said anything. “No other post office has had this problem” they were told. Perhaps the current Judge led inquiry will find out. Many were incarcerated. Some sold their homes to pay thousands of pounds of fictitious till deficits. Sadly, some committed suicide.

The sequence of events for NHS whistleblowers is different but the outcomes are strikingly similar. The NHS whistleblowers’ stories are largely unknown to the wider public apart from the occasional one featured in a national newspaper.

The WB raises a concern, which by the way is their duty under law, (Duty of Candour, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2014/9780111117613)

but instead of welcoming the exposure of the defect of a system (e.g. number of beds in a limited space), faulty equipment (e.g. a diagnostic machine) or a process (e.g. errors in admission procedures – wrong patient or wrong procedure) any of which may lead to patient harm or even death), the Trust fails to act but instead embarks upon a path of vicious and disproportionate reprisals against the WB.

The consequence of this chain of events is often catastrophic for the individual. The whistleblowing doctor may be subjected to repeated internal hearings, quasi-disciplinary proceedings, Maintaining High Professional Standards hearings etc. The latter may be chaired by lay persons with a legal qualification but posing as a barrister. Most doctors subject themselves (they raise an appeal) to an Employment Tribunal in the hope that justice will prevail. Sadly it does not. These proceedings are not formally recorded for later open scrutiny. The judge’s notes (such as they may exist) are private and not made available. It is also a criminal offence to make an electronic recording. The litigant can take notes but how do they manage to do that whilst giving evidence or listening intently to the evolution of their own fate? A preposterous suggestion.

Expensive lawyers who support the health trust

There is another major factor in these processes. They could not proceed without the complicity of the teams of expensive solicitors and barristers who support the Respondent. All this is paid for by the taxpayer. The claimant will of course have their own legal support if they can afford it but which is obviously limited by costs. This gross “inequality of arms” is a major factor in the final “justice” handed out. I don’t think many of us would call that fair and just. Doctors are threatened with enormous costs which in most cases could only be met by selling the family home. Why? Oh yes, it’s to force them to withdraw their claims and believe it or not it usually works!

Judge Tony Hyams-Parish

At Employment Tribunals it appears that the sum total of evidence is not scrutinised. Some evidence appears to be selectively omitted at the discretion of the ET Judge. In the Dr Prasad case (see David Hencke’s last blog) the admission by the lead of cardiology (Dr Richard Bogle) that a death which should have been reported to the coroner was not reported but “covered-up” is not even mentioned in the final judgment! One could ask for the transcript to check that this observation is correct. (Oh, no I can’t because there is no transcript but I did attend the virtual ET hearing and can vouch that I heard it stated!) That worked out quite well then didn’t it? To an outside observer who has some vicarious experience of these Tribunals it is nothing short of gobsmackingly incredible in a western democracy (I don’t have the full panoply of words to describe it!).

Former post office workers celebrate outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London, after having their convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal. Thirty-nine former subpostmasters who were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting because of the Post Office’s defective Horizon accounting system have had their names cleared by the Court of Appeal. Issue date: Friday April 23, 2021. PA Photo. Photo credit : Yui Mok/PA Wire

The Post Office workers (Horizon scandal) did not commit any crimes neither did the NHS Whistleblowers. They have not broken any laws. Yet how is it that they have failed to present a case of sufficient strength to convince an ET Judge? Their punishment for exposing potentially harmful processes, which could save lives, is to be condemned, lose their careers, their livelihoods, their homes and in some cases their families or even their own lives. Put simply they are crushed by massive inequality of arms – expensive lawyers funded by the taxpayer. Swathes of evidence is ignored.

Is there some sort of collusion between the judiciary and the respondent or their legal representatives? Some MHPS hearings are seemingly very dodgy (some doctors/victims have observed this and can demonstrate it with evidence) up to and including the invention of spurious legal terms such as “fitness for purpose” which is unknown in British Employment law (see David Hencke’s blog on the Maintaining High Professional Standards Appeal).

Then there is always the possibility of undeclared conflicts of interest in the appointment of an ET officials. Just saying…..

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Judge covers up “avoidable death” of heart patient and General Medical Council revalidation of Dr Usha Prasad to dismiss her whistleblowing case

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Employment Judge Tony Hyams-Parish Pic credit: dmhstallard.com

Publication of avoidable death scandal at Epsom and St Helier University Health Trust leads to another relative coming forward and queries about a former senior staff member in Jersey

An employment judge has thrown out Dr Usha Prasad’s whistleblowing case and all her allegations of victimisation, sex harassment, and sex and race discrimination.

She is also facing a costs claim of an astounding £150,000 plus VAT via the law firm Capsticks from the Epsom and St Helier University Health Trust.

A letter from Capsticks says: ” The Respondent has incurred very substantial costs indeed in defending the unmeritorious proceedings, of in excess of £150,000 plus VAT. The costs incurred correlate to the Claimant’s unreasonable conduct and the unmeritorious nature of her complaints.”

Judge Tony Hyams-Parish’s judgement is long on the detail of all the various top management’s moves against Dr Prasad which led to an unprecedented 28 month suspension from clinical duties and remarkably short on any evidence given by her and her witnesses. He exonerates the actions of the senior management and ignores claims by any of her witnesses. And given he goes into such detail it is rather surprising he doesn’t mention that Daniel Elkeles, the former chief executive of the trust, offered to abandon the internal disciplinary proceedings against her if she dropped the tribunal case against the trust.

Indeed the most twisted part of his judgement is what he leaves out. Take the issue of the GMC revalidation of Dr Prasad. This is his purple passage:

“The Tribunal was invited to consider was the outcome of the claimant’s hearing before the GMC. The GMC began an investigation into the claimant which concluded in March 2021 with no further action to be taken. The claimant continued to state throughout this hearing that she had been exonerated by the GMC, suggesting that their conclusion must cast doubt on the actions and motivations of the respondent. However, the Tribunal found it difficult to draw any such conclusions from the GMC outcome. The Tribunal was not shown the content of the GMC referral or the case examiner’s report. Whilst the GMC and the respondent were looking at the same cases, their remits were likely to be quite different. In any event, the Tribunal was not shown sufficient evidence to decide either way.”

Really? The GMC judgement was entirely based on a list of 43 complaints submitted by the trust and obviously the trust expected it to be endorsed by the GMC. Instead it was sent to very experienced cardiologist in Middlesbrough who had worked at Papworth Hospital and he could not find anything wrong. And not only was this finding approved by the GMC, they revalidated her – taking away the power of the trust to do this. Given many doctors feel they are not well treated by the GMC, this was a remarkable outcome. The GMC was telling the trust to get stuffed.

Dr Usha Prasad with the former chief executive of the trust, Daniel Elkeles

The second area is the glossing over of the main whistleblowing claim. It centred around the avoidable death of a 76 year old man, Mr P, from heart failure, partly caused by negligence, muddle and poor communication at the trust. Dr Usha Prasad, who had no part in the care of the patient, was asked to review the case as an independent person. Evidence was given that an attempt was made to get Dr Prasad to rewrite her findings which included that the death should have been reported to the coroner and the Care Quality Commission. At the hearing Dr Richard Bogle, former head of the cardiology department, admitted that this should have been done – basically saying Usha Prasad’s judgement was right.

But this has been airbrushed from the judgement. If I hadn’t been there to report the case, no one would be the wiser that this happened.

Judge Tony Hyams-Parish disrespectful to dead man’s family

Not only to do I find this a gross omission but in my view the judge is being disrespectful to the man’s family by removing the details of the whistleblowing case. It is though he is thinking so what, a 76 year old dies, who cares?

But Judge Hyams-Parish knows he is on solid ground to ignore all this. He has already told Usha Prasad there is no recording or transcript of the proceedings, and his judges’ notes will never be released. So his judgement is the only record. And it is criminal offence if anyone has a recording.

Judgement a stain on British justice

My view is that this judgement is a stain on British justice which is supposed to be the epitome of ” fair play” and full transparency.

Instead it appears to me to more akin to Russian and Chinese justice .Here there is a semblance of justice but the result is a foregone conclusion. What appears in this case is the forces of the Establishment have been marshalled to intimidate and destroy an individual for the benefit of state power.

One good result of the publicity is that a relative of another person who died at St Helier hospital has come forward to me to investigate their case. And what happened at St Helier seems to have been picked up in Jersey, where this blog has a small circulation, and queries are being raised about a former senior manager at St Helier.

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Delays, miscalculations and unanswered calls: How the DWP is cheating first time pensioners

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Chaos inside the Department for Work and Pensions

As 1950s born women finally get their first pension at the age of 66 a new problem is emerging.

The chaos inside the DWP , which is coping both with new applications for pensions and having to pay back over 100,000 people who it cheated out of their pension in the past, has now spread to first time pensioners. As already revealed by this blog the DWP has secretly put through a ” drop and go” scheme and decided to prioritise simple cases – nearly always men – over complicated ones, such as widows entitled to past Serps payments to their husband’s pension and divorced women.

As a result the pension help line can’t cope, staff handling cases have not been properly briefed, and barely properly trained. People are starting to wait months beyond the due date when they get their pension. And when they get it the calculations can be wrong.

Pauline Hinder

To illustrate this scandal one of my blog readers, Pauline Hinder, a 1950s born woman, who has kept meticulous records of her pension entitlement, and is a supporter of BackTo60, kept a diary of her trials and tribulations with the Department for Work and Pensions in trying to get her correct pension.

The story does have a happy ending but only because a former Liberal Democrat pensions minister, Sir Steve Webb, intervened on her behalf. Until then she was at a dead end.

DWP’s pension estimate was less than half Pauline was entitled

If that hadn’t happened she would have lost tens of thousands of pounds over the lifetime of her pension. They offered her a pension of just under £69 a week. Her real pension entitlement was £141.84 a week -more than DOUBLE the money they offered her.

Unlike many people she had records which could prove what they should pay her. But getting through to the DWP proved impossible.

As her diary reveals : “

 “rang  08007310469 opt 2 then opt 4then opt 2 

Spoke to Lee 10.20 He said I had to ring  08007317898 ‘new claim’ option – even though I’ve already made my claim!

Rang 08007317898 New claim opt 2 Then Hold for advisor

“Spoke to a polite man Anthony He was working from home ..but saw they’d received my letter of 6 pages of evidence to prove my entitlement was double their official pension quote yet couldn’t say when they’d received it. He said he’d flag it up to check but it would take 4 weeks…..I asked when 4 weeks started – he said today!  

“I said no!  Unacceptable – I’d phoned and written early in January and it was a 6 week response time then..

“I insisted a manager call me back  I explained that the DWP had already underpaid a raft of earlier womens’ pensions and made amends/still making, without interest or compensation.  Have they learned nothing – or are they committing corporate fraud as they are now repeating the same mistakes with a new generation of applicants. 

” He was polite but batting me off with hogwash”

“He requested a callback within 24 hours for me. He was polite but batting me off with hogwash about no one to speak to, no supervisor blah blah. ..but he did put me on hold for a couple of minutes so I guess he was contacting someone from his home.  “

As she says: “The DWP telephone line was useless….working from home, no managers, no access to screens telling them where matters were at.  I sent all copies of my historical records supporting my correct position and their error in January and to date I have had no acknowledgement of that correspondence receipt but I know they’ve had it because I asked in one of the several pension helpline calls I made!  The last helpline call I made I insisted a manager called. 

” They called about an hour later but I think I was dog walking and missed the call. You can phone the number but it has a pre-recorded message saying they wanted to speak to me but they’ll call if they need to.  They didn’t call again….”

Former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb intervention meant it was sorted in 24 hours

In desperation she turned to Sir Steve Webb, the former pensions minister in the coalition government.

He intervened by calling the DWP on her behalf.

Sir Steve went to a Pensions Customer Care Manager called David at the DWP.  He was very helpful and genuinely empathetic. 

 Sir Steve was involved and job done in under 24 hours.  Written apology in 48 hours and revised pension award in 72 hours.  

An apology from the DWP showing the right pension

Sir Steve told me: “I’ve generally tried to help a small number of existing and new state pension recipients where they have got stuck on a complex issue or where there appears to be an unresolved underpayment.

“In Mrs Hinder’s case she had clearly understood the rules and spotted when a more recent state pension forecast (and award) was far below the correct amount.   I passed her details on to DWP who quickly accepted that an error had been made.

“I do remain concerned that despite all the focus on historic state pension errors, errors are still being made on new claims.   Whilst Mrs Hinder’s case relates to quite a narrow and specific issue (a special concession for women who paid the ‘reduced stamp’) a more common error I still come across is newly retired widows who are not getting the inherited SERPS they are due from a late husband on top of their own new state pension   It’s a trickle rather than a flood, but, as we know, only a small percentage of a very big number is a lot of individual cases.”

My take on this is that Pauline Hinder showed amazing initiative and finally got her pension. But Sir Steve Webb cannot be expected to intervene in every case as he wouldn’t have time to do his day job. What we need is proper system with enough trained staff to do the job. It is quite clear we haven’t got one and ministers are to blame, They should sort it.

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A right wing aristocrat to fight ground breaking £180,000 tribunal ruling against him for “arrogant and misogynistic” treatment of two pregnant staff

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Sir Benjamin Slade

The Court of Appeal is expected to hear an extraordinary case soon involving a wealthy aristocrat who says he is descended from Charles II and his treatment of two of his employees who were sacked from his upmarket wedding business at his stately homes after they became pregnant.

Since the case the wedding business has been closed down after Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service issued two prohibition notices on one of the venues, Maunsel House, because of “inadequate means of escape from first and second floors due to lack of escape signage, lack of emergency lighting and lack of fire separation.” He has been ordered to install fire escapes.

Surcharge of 25 per cent imposed on compensation package

Sir Benjamin Slade is now appealing a ruling from an Employment Appeal Tribunal which not only ordered him to pay compensation for unfair and constructive dismissal , injury to feelings of the two women and aggravated damages, but imposed a 25 per cent surcharge on the awards for breaching the employers’ code of practice by ACAS. The total compensation for both women came to just short of £180,000. The surcharge ruling is particularly significant as it lays down rules for similar surcharges in other cases.

Maunsel House Pic credit: BBC

The two women, Melissa Biggs and Roxanne Stewart worked on his wedding business where people could hire Maunsel House and Woodlands Castle near Bridgewater and Taunton in Somerset. Roxanne Stewart, was a deputy manager and Melissa Briggs, an admin assistant. Both became pregnant at about the same time.

What followed was that both of them found themselves dismissed without full statutory maternity and holiday pay and wages after first being transferred to a new company – without their knowledge- which only employed both of them and had no money to pay them. Their pregnancies were said to be ” highly inconvenient” for Sir Benjamin .

The tribunal used unusually strong language against Sir Benjamin including accusing him of refusing to hear Melissa Biggs grievances and subjecting Roxanne Stewart to a ” spurious and vindictive disciplinary process” on ” trumped up ” charges. Sir Benjamin was said to have made ” entirely fanciful” allegations against her. They were also critical of his agent, Andrew Hamilton.

” one of the most egregious acts of discrimination possible”- tribunal

The first employment tribunal hearing described the process involving Roxanne Stewart as “one of the most egregious acts of discrimination possible”. The timing of the suspension, in the advanced states of her pregnancy, was “designed… with her then vulnerability in mind, to have maximum effect on her” The suspension and dismissal were then pursued with the “motivation… of driving her out of employment”.

She gave birth prematurely and within the weeks following that birth ,her baby was in intensive care”.

When giving evidence to the ET, Sir Benjamin “made wide-ranging and lurid allegations about the claimants and their relatives, without any substantiation whatsoever, in respect of their character, financial position and other matters”. The ET found that these allegations were “entirely fanciful and prompted by a desire on his part… to ‘throw some dirt’ at the Claimants.

The appeal tribunal held in London and president over by a High court judge, Mr Justice Martin Griffiths, threw out a case from Sir Benjamin to say he should not pay the surcharge. He said he would appeal.

He told me: ” The sum I am being asked to pay is totally disproportionate given the staff were paid about £20,000 a year. I am not against people getting pregnant, indeed I have been helpful to other staff who became pregnant. I think the judge was left wing.”

The Sun ran a flattering article on him after he ” auditioned” for a ” breeder” to get him a son and heir

Sir Benjamin has a controversial back story. He is 75, a hereditary baronet, but has no heir. He recently advertised for a young wife as a” breeder” as he wanted two sons – an heir and spare – to succeed him.

He listed his requirements for the perfect ‘breeder’. She should be taller than 5ft 6in – ‘preferably 6ft 1ins or 6ft’ – aged between 30 and 40, and possess a gun licence. ‘Scorpios, drug users, lesbians, communists and Scots need not apply,’ he told the Daily Mail.

His quest for a wife led to a big sympathetic feature in The Sun by reporter Georgette Culley who ” auditioned” to be his wife and stayed overnight in Maunsel House. The feature is here.

He let out his other property Woodlands Castle only to find it then became the centre of a massive police investigation when a huge cannabis farm was found in the roof. Questioned by the police he denied any knowledge about it.

A Vietnamese man, Trung Nam Pham, 39, of no fixed address, was arrested after the drug bust. He appeared before Taunton Magistrates’ Court last June and was remanded in custody pending a crown court hearing.

Sir Benjamin with Daniel Hannan, then an MEP. at Woodlands Castle. From his old website

Sir Benjamin is on the right of the Conservative Party. During the Brexit campaign he hosted a lunch for Daniel Hannan, then a Tory MEP for 84 people in Woodlands Castle to promote Vote Leave.

Now he is waiting his appeal – has not paid the two women any of the compensation – though he says he has made up their wages and the statutory maternity pay. His wedding business – at £3000 a time -has collapsed – first hit by Covid 19 and then by the prohibition order from Devon and Somerset fire services.

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A “shocking and horrifying” report into child sex abuse at residential schools

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Now Earl Spencer admits he was sexually abused as an 11 year old at a boarding school – two years after this report came out

Schools should be safe places for children. They also unfortunately make good targets for paedophiles.

The latest report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, published this week, focuses on residential schools- from specialist schools for aspiring musicians to boarding schools and residential schools for vulnerable children

As the report chillingly said: “According to Operation Hydrant,[a police investigation]approximately 40 percent of reports of non-recent child sexual abuse involving an institution, organisation or person of public prominence had connections with schools.”

Sexual abuse antithesis of what should happen at school

It went on: “The instances of the sexual abuse of children presented in this report will shock and horrify.
They represent the antithesis of everything that a school should be. For many victims and survivors, the impacts have been profound and lifelong. Some perpetrators have been brought to justice, but many have not. Some of those in positions of authority and responsibility have been held to account for their failures of leadership and governance in varying degrees, but many have not.”

Some of the examples where child sexual abuse has been proved are indeed horrifying.

Another example:

“Hillside First School was a maintained school for children aged four to eight in Weston-super-Mare. For 15 years from 1995 to 2010, teacher Nigel Leat had his “favourites”, young girls many of whom were vulnerable in some way. From September 2006, there was evidence that in each school year Leat selected a different girl to sexually abuse, doing so in various locations in the school. Police discovered 454 original videos in which Leat had filmed himself abusing his pupils. He was charged with 36 separate offences, including a count of attempted rape, eight counts of sexual assault by penetration and 23 other counts
of sexual assault, all against girls under 13, the youngest of whom was 6. He pleaded guilty.”

And a third.

Jonathan Thomson-Glover Jailed for sex offences

Clifton College is an independent boarding school in Bristol, offering a range of educational provision, from nursery to sixth form. In 2008, a former teacher, Stephen Johnston, was convicted of buggery and indecent assault of a pupil over a three-year period in the early 1990s. He had invited the boy to his flat to drink and watch pornographic videos. When other staff had complained of teenage boys going into the flat, the headteacher responded that “what happens in a private house which is not part of the School is nothing to do with me as Headmaster”. Between 1998 and 2014, what the respected housemaster Jonathan Thomson-Glover did in both his private house and in a boy’s day house at the school was to hide cameras – including in the showers, toilets and bathrooms – to film 2,500 hours of videos of boys undressing, showering, using the toilet and engaging in sexual acts. “

What emerges here – there are other examples – is that perpetrators are not involved in an isolated act – it is the industrial scale of abuse by individuals or groups of people.

ignorance and reluctance to report sexual abuse

The report said there is still either ignorance or reluctance to believe that children are sexually abused in residential schools and cases are not always reported to safeguarding officers either – even though there are dedicated officers to handle complaints. Inspections of schools are haphazard and standards in schools vary enormously.

Recommendations

Their chief recommendation to government said:

The Department for Education and the Welsh Government should:
• require all residential special schools to be inspected against the quality standards used to regulate children’s homes in England and care homes in Wales;
• reintroduce a duty on boarding schools and residential special schools to inform the relevant inspectorate of allegations of child sexual abuse and other serious incidents, with professional or regulatory consequences for breach of this duty; if the recommendation above is implemented, residential special schools will automatically be subject to this duty; and
• introduce a system of licensing and registration of educational guardians for international students which requires Disclosure and Barring Service and barred list checks to be undertaken.

Chair to the Inquiry, Professor Alexis Jay said:

“Day and residential schools play a key role in keeping children safe from harm, but despite 20 years of enhanced focus on safeguarding they are not as safe for children as they should be. This must change. The seven recommendations in this report must be implemented to vitally improve the current systems of child protection in schools.”

This is the last investigation report from the inquiry. A final report on all its findings will be published later this year.

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Review: Social Media & The Seven Deadly Sins: A stunning critique of what went wrong

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Book cover of Social Media & The Seven Deadly Sins

I am not a competent authority on using social media. I am no gamer. Indeed I haven’t played a computer game in my life. Yet I do worry as a journalist about the effect of social media on our lives. How it created a super rich elite, how people’s personal data can be manipulated for huge financial gain, how ” fake news” can spread in an instant and how democracy can be destroyed by dark forces on line.

This is a remarkable, well written first book. Its author, Rory Wilmer, is an insider who has made money from digital marketing and advertising for big companies. As he says himself: “I have got to a moral crossroads within myself… I too, have been part of – making a living and a career on the back of surveillance capitalism, data mining and the exploitation of people’s addiction to social media”.

He points out how we, the avid consumers of social media, who never read the terms and conditions of the websites we sign up to – submit to exploitation by allowing companies to make huge profits by “leeching your data and selling it to the highest bidder”. They do this by using clauses allowing them to change the terms and conditions without” even informing you of why and how.”

How an atheist takes a Biblical script

The book is cleverly constructed taking, as an atheist, a Biblical script of the Seven Deadly Sins and dividing the faults of social media between them.

His chapter on lust – reveals the scale of a male dominated internet – and how pornography and sexual titualation. is rife. Put one search for girls on Instagram – and you will find 8 million images of girls. Put one for boys – and you get 2 million images. Everyday 95 million images are loaded onto Instagram – that is 4 million an hour.

He cites Twitter as a site that allows pornography and sexual exploitation of children and is scathing of some of activities of dating sites in protecting data.

His gluttony chapter covers everything from celebrity chefs, promoting diets to wanting the perfect body. His chapter on greed looks at our appetite for viral blogs and clicks while sloth looks at our laziness in discerning the truth -leaving us to believe fake news and be prey to ideas that the earth is still flat and covidiocy. It also deals with sinister Q-Anon movement and interference in elections, topically including Russia.

Making money out of wrath

This book challenges us to look behind what we click and also not to fall for provocations. The chapter on wrath looks at trolls and the nasty Incels movement – the misogynist white supremacists who use the internet to rage that they have not been laid by women and act out fantasies on the internet of raping and dominating women.

This is a thought provoking book. There is of course another side of the internet – its virtues in bringing people together, making people aware, revealing the truth about disastrous situations like the current invasion of the Ukraine and allowing ordinary people the freedom to develop their own ideas and publish them without having to get approval from officialdom. The author is promising a sequel- the seven virtues of social media. I await this with interest.

Social Media & The Seven Deadly Sins by Rory Wilmer. Available from Amazon £14.99 hardback, £8.99 paperback and free with Kindle Unlimited

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Exclusive: Parliamentary Ombudsman stalls maladministration investigation for 3.8 million 50s women denied pensions

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Robert Behrens, Parliamentary Ombudsman

Robert Behrens, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, has halted his maladministration investigation until at least the end of next month leaving 3.8 million women who have delayed pensions having to wait even longer to find out whether he will recommend any compensation.

The women are all born in the 1950s who lost up to £50,000 each when their pension age was raised from 60 to 66 and were not properly informed by the Department for Work and Pensions. The Ombudsman found that for 28 months from 2005 they were victims of maladministration. This is contested by many of the women who believe that from 1997 when Peter Lilley was social security secretary and advised by his civil servants to launch a campaign to alert women what was to happen in 2010 so they could prepare for it. He ignored that and numerous women have told me they were not aware of the change then. The Ombudsman has refused to re-open the first stage of his investigation to look at this again.

Disclosure buried half way through updated website statement

The disclosure of the latest delay is buried half way through an update on the situation on the Ombudsman’s website published on February 18. The link to it is here.

The key words are:

“It is not possible to say how long it will take to reach a conclusion. How long an investigation takes varies depending on its complexity and the amount of evidence to review.

We have asked DWP to send us further evidence by the end of March 2022. We cannot progress stage two of the investigation without that evidence.” ( my emphasis)”

This statement was news to the six original complainants and many other women who assumed that the second stage of the inquiry – whether any of the women are entitled to compensation for this injustice – who assumed that the inquiry which has taken years was proceeding however slowly not that it had been halted.

In fact the whole situation surrounding this part of the Ombudsman’s inquiry is rather suspect. There is not supposed to be the need for more evidence so what have the DWP to provide.

The inquiry has also taken fresh evidence from Mps on the 50s Women State Pension Inequality APPG arguing that the Ombudsman should get a minimum of £10,000 each. Their submission goes over ground already covered by complaints from the original six women who raised the issue.

On top of that it appears that Waspi Ltd and the Pension Reform Alliance are trying to dictate the agenda and exclude any argument for full restitution for 50s women. Some of their members have argued that even if full restitution is mentioned they won’t get any compensation at all.

Some 60 MPs have now backed a Parliamentary motion by Labour MP Ian Byrne calling for full restitution which is the position of BackTo60 and ” We Paid In You Pay Out ” women’s justice group. Some of the MPs who backed this are said to have had calls from Waspi groups asking them to withdraw their names as they told them they didn’t want full restitution.

While all this is going on there is another issue of whether and when the DWP will reply to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is relying on outdated legislation to handle this case and he cannot compel the DWP to reply by the end of next month.

DWP ignored deadlines in previous cases

The DWP has ignored deadlines set by the Parliamentary Ombudsman in previous pension issues. The most notable was a case over compensation for people who had not been properly informed that they would lose their index related guaranteed minimum pension if they worked in the private sector.

Robert Behrens gave the DWP three months to arrange notices for people to apply for compensation after he ruled that two complainants were entitled to it.. The DWP ignored the Ombudsman and TOOK NEARLY TWO YEARS before doing anything about it. The ministry also ignored his proposals for a remedy.

I have asked the DWP whether they will reply by the end of next month but have had no response to my question.

Instead they issued this statement:

“The Government decided over 25 years ago that it was going to make the state pension age the same for men and women as a long-overdue move towards gender equality.

“Both the High Court and Court of Appeal have supported the actions of the DWP, under successive governments dating back to 1995, and the Supreme Court refused the claimants permission to appeal.”

Back to 60 came back last night criticising the statement saying that their arguments for a judicial review were granted at the time and the Supreme Court used the argument that their case was ” out of time” for the court to hear it -not that the original arguments were wrong or else the judicial review would never have been granted in the first place.

The DWP is understood to feel it is inappropriate to comment further while the Ombudsman is investigating.

All this is yet another blow for these badly treated women who may still have to wait years before they see any money. Indeed by then the Ombudsman will have left. Under the outdated legislation the Ombudsman should retire from his post at the end of next month. But the government appear to have extended his term in office for another two years against what is laid down in the 1967 legislation.

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Revealed: The secret child sex abuse scandals at Dolphin Square

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An amazing new book by ex MP Simon Danczuk and author Daniel Smith

New book published today reveals child sex scandals dating back to the 1980s and a thwarted Met Police investigation that wasn’t the discredited Operation Midland

An amazing new book today reveals the notorious history of one of London’s iconic block of flats – the 1930s built Dolphin Square overlooking the Thames- home over the last nine decades to the rich and famous, spies, Fascists, entertainers and glitzy film stars and even the unofficial home of the Free French army during World War II.

The authors chronicle the lives of about 300 people who lived there from Oswald and Diana Mosley who were interned in World War Two, the Vassall Russian spy and Profumo sex scandals of the 1960s to murders down to an amazingly discreet character, Major Monty Chidson, who smuggled diamonds out of Amsterdam in a daring do operation during the German invasion of Holland. It kept them out of Nazi hands in the Second World War.

This book has been well covered by the Daily Telegraph magazine and other national media with one extraordinary exception. Not a single word has been written about the groups of men who used Dolphin Square for child sex abuse despite two chapters in the book devoted to their alleged crimes.

I am going to concentrate on these stories because you won’t read them anywhere else – I suspect because both the police and the media have been bruised by the activities of Carl Beech, a paedophile who posed as a survivor and fed elaborate and detailed stories of the rich and powerful abusing children and is now in jail for perverting the course of justice.

The terrible heart rending tale of David Ingle

The first story dates from 1982 is of David Ingle, described as an articulate and handsome youth from Lincolnshire, who was taken to Dolphin Square by a Lincolnshire farmer, Gordon Dawson,, after being repeatedly raped by him.

The authors write “According to David, he suffered abuse in three locales: in Lincolnshire, at Dolphin Square and in guesthouses close to the spectacular Blickling Estate in Norfolk. All the while, David’s life away from Dawson was unravelling. He became withdrawn and his previously high performance at school dipped steeply. His only real peace came in the company of the horses he loved to ride”

Dawson took him to London while on church business where he sub leased a flat in Dolphin Square. He took him to dinner with “important people” from the Church of England and MPs. Later he was taken back to the flat. The authors write: “He does have memories of waking up in the flat the next morning, sometimes hearing the voices of men milling about the apartment. He frequently experienced pain in his body that he knew did not correspond to the physical effects of the rapes that Dawson had perpetrated. In other words, he was assaulted by some person or persons other than (or in addition to) Dawson on these weekends. Unable to recall the specifics of the attacks, he would feel ashamed, stripping the bed of soiled sheets, removing the very evidence of his abuse in his anxiousness that no one should know what had been done to him.”

It took him to 2007 to go to Lincolnshire Police to complain about Dawson. The police told him that he was not the first to complain about him. They went to arrest Dawson but once he knew about David’s complaint he went into the woods and was found dead with a bullet to the head.. An inquest gave an open verdict.

The case was raised again in 2015 under the Met Police’s Operation Fairbank but because he couldn’t name anyone it was dropped. Lincolnshire Police also re-opened their inquiry but could not progress the case further.

“It felt to David as if he would only be listened to if he could come up with the name of a ‘big-hitter’ to investigate, or else he would need to produce a signed confession from one of his abusers, or perhaps a videotape.”

William van Straubenzee

The second story comes from the late David Weeks, Tory leader of Westminster about the role William van Straubenzee, a Tory minister who was solicitor to the Dolphin Square Trust and also a paedophile. Weeks said van Straubenzee was a gatekeeper to getting a flat in Dolphin Square. Straubenzee himself lived in a grace and favour flat in Lambeth Palace. The authors write, using evidence given to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse:

William van Straubenzee in 1970. Picture credit :BBC

‘In 1982, MI5 received information that suggested that William van Straubenzee engaged in sexual activities with young boys whilst in Northern Ireland [he had been Northern Ireland minister
between 1972 and 1974]. This information was shared with the Cabinet Office, who shared it with the Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher).’ MI5 confirmed that if this intelligence had been received today, under current policy it would be passed to the police.”

Incendiary evidence

The third story is the most dramatic. The authors write:

“Among the most incendiary evidence of wrongdoing at Dolphin Square came in a statement taken from a former police officer identified only as GB. It was entered into evidence only at the end of the last day of hearings in IICSA’s Westminster investigation and the witness did not appear in person to give evidence, nor were they seemingly provided with questions by the inquiry to which GB would have been
legally obligated to give answers. The statement adduced in evidence dated from 20 December 2016 and was given as part of Operation Winter Key, the Metropolitan Police’s investigation into allegations of
non-recent abuse.”

He revealed another investigation called Operation Mileshogue.

“GB’s statement was wide ranging. It included allusions to surveillance of a London MP who was suspected of hosting young people overnight in his constituency office. But it also included significant detail of police operations concerning Dolphin Square in the 1990s.”

“MH was … an intelligence gathering operation revolved around a guy called [NAME REDACTED] … He had been a rent boy himself, living in Greenwich at that time. He had a series of young boys. One was [WM-A118] another was (WM-A119] and another 5 or 6. Those boys I interviewed on tape several times. suggested that these children were thirteen or fourteen when they were speaking to them but that their abuses had started when they were as young as 8.]
“They claimed one another had been abused by other people, were taken to parties and things by [NAME REDACTED] himself he was like a modern day Fagan [sic]. He also had them doing robberies and burglaries but he was also an informant for the police, inform on them and then turn up as their appropriate adult. These were kids all from local Children’s Home”.

GB then referred to the ‘Fagin-figure’, saying: ‘He also mentioned Dolphin Square he had been there as a child himself, been abused.’
GB discussed how they had made requests for additional investigative resources to senior officers but their requests were repeatedly refused or bounced back as it was ‘too difficult to do at this time’ and ‘we weren’t regarded as a priority of the Paedophile Unit at that time, GB said: ‘They didn’t want to know about a mass operation with loads of kids to interview. They didn’t know how to deal with it.’
I asked the child sex abuse inquiry their reaction to this. A spokesman denied the inquiry had not weighed up GB’s evidence and pointed instead to an inquiry by the Independent Office for Police Conduct into GB’s allegations. and evidence from Met Police Commander Catherine Roper about the operation. She gave evidence on a number of child sex abuse investigations in London to the inquiry.

Whatever the disclosures both the inquiry and the book conclude there was never a specific VIP paedophile ring.

But they do say: “it is fair to conclude from a wealth of evidence, powerful individuals who did abuse children in Dolphin Square and who got away with it because of who they were and who they knew: in other words, they abused because they knew they could.”

Scandal at Dolphin Square: A notorious history . History Press £20

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Therese Coffey’s mean “pay out and grab back” scheme for the poorest elderly cheated of their rightful pensions

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Therese Coffey

A new scandal was revealed in the House of Lords this afternoon which could affect tens of thousands of the poorest pensioners already cheated for decades of the right money for their pension.

The underpayments running to tens of millions – exposed by Sir Steve Webb, the former Liberal Democrat pensions minister – is slowly being sorted out by officials at the DWP though as this blog exposed earlier with the most complicated cases being delayed under a secret ” drop and go ” scheme to get the numbers up.

Baroness Stedman- Scott

The minister Baroness Deborah Stedman-Scott revealed that so far £60.7 million had been paid out to 9491 people cheated of their full pension – suggesting that some of the payments must be pretty large.

Extraordinarily she could not give a gender breakdown – which led to a rebuke from Labour peer Lord Jeff Rooker who accused her of hiding the fact that vast majority must be all women.

But then came the killer blow. In answer to a question to another former pension minister, Baroness Ros Altmann, Baroness Stedman-Scott confirmed that the poorest pensioners who got the money -mostly in their 80s and 90s – would cease to get their fees paid by local councils if they got more than £23,250 in England

Hidden bonanza for care home owners

Instead they would have to pay privately until their pension savings money fell below £23,250. Given that many care homes charge differential rates for people residing there – local authority rates are often lower than private rates – this could even be a new bonanza for care home owners – as they could get more money for providing the same services.

Baroness Ros Altmann raised the issue

This “pay out and grab back” scheme was universally condemned by peers of all parties. Not one supported Baroness Stedman-Scott who was looking increasingly uneasy at having to admit this.

She hinted that in rare cases the DWP could make a special payment to a pensioner or that local authorities could perhaps waive individual fees.

“Special payments under the DWP discretionary scheme are not routinely made to those who have been underpaid state pension. However, under exceptional circumstances, such as where severe distress has been caused by the way an individual case has been handled, a case may be referred for consideration of a special payment.”

This got no purchase with the peers. The most critical comment came from Lord Forsythe of Drumlean, another former Tory minister, who accused the government of ” hiding behind the skirts of local government” rather than take national responsibility for the change.

Lord Rooker raised the issue of 50s women and the government’s ” holiday” from funding the national insurance fund

Lord Rooker linked this action to the failure to pay out the 50s women when the pension age was raised to 66.

“The noble Baroness talks about “people” and “persons”, but we are talking about women. When was the last time tens of thousands of men were short-changed with their pension? I do not recall that happening. When the Government took their long-term holiday from paying into the National Insurance Fund, they deprived hundreds of thousands of women of the pension that they were entitled to. Why cannot that be redressed?”

Government ignores answering who is to blame at the DWP

Conservative peer Baroness Patience Wheatcroft, a former journalist, wanted to know who in the DWP was responsible for this failure to pay so many people the right pension.

“My Lords, when more than £60 million that should have been paid has not been paid, surely somebody should be held responsible in the end for that error. In the private sector, the sum of £60 million would be taken very seriously. Can the Minister tell us, therefore, who was ultimately responsible for this failure to pay such a large sum of money?”

The minister couldn’t – she just blamed it on a computer failure.

She did promise under pressure to approach both the Treasury and Therese Coffey to see if the government could introduce regulations for councils to ignore the pension back payment. But admitted she might get short shrift from the Treasury.

All this points to another blow for the 50s born women when and if they get compensation in the future. By that time many may well need social care -only to find out that they will have to give back their payments to cover their care home costs.

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Health Education England wins case against Dr Chris Day with the help of a “deceitful” former postgraduate student dean

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Dr Andrew Frankel

The long legal saga of junior doctor Dr Chris Day’s whistleblowing battle over patient safety at the intensive care unit at Woolwich Hospital took another twist and turn this week.

Health Education England successfully overturned a decision ordering it to appear at a tribunal in June alongside Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. The body convinced a judge that an exercise to influence a former Liberal Democrat health minister to change his mind supporting Chris Day by Dr Andrew Frankel, a former postgraduate dean, had nothing to do with them.

Sir Norman Lamb

My last blog on this is here. It tells the bizarre story of Dr Andrew Frankel, who is also a distinguished consultant nephrologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and expert on the management of diabetes and kidney disease. He basically debased himself by going round the back of his old employer, Health Education England, to try to influence Sir Norman Lamb, then an MP, to see another side to Chris Day’s account. The attempt would have been extremely helpful to Health Education England which has repeatedly tried to distance itself from the scandal of inadequate staffing at this intensive care unit.

Dr Frankel tried to get hold of Dr Day’s training record

Dr Frankel’s methods included trying to get details of Dr Day’s training record after leaving Health Education England which he was not entitled to see at the time. He then arranged a private meeting with Sir Norman to present a paper outlining HEE’s case and emphasising it was only there to help junior doctors and not criticise them. Sir Norman has been a strong supporter of Dr Day and publicly highly critical of the way the HEE and the trust have treated him.

The judge was presented with two alternative interpretations of the facts. One presented by the health body was that it knew nothing about Dr Frankel’s activities. Professor Wendy Reid, medical director of HEE, told the tribunal she had been ” flabbergasted and staggered” when she learnt he had visited Sir Norman without her knowledge. He had previously presented the paper to her as a private document and an aide memoire if she or anyone else wanted to talk to Sir Norman But later on when the body found out about his personal visit they remained silent -not wanting to disown the actions of a former employee.

Dr Chris Day – whistleblower

Dr Day’s lawyers argued that in effect Dr Frankel was acting as a de facto agent of HEE trying to present an alternative scenario to Dr Day’s case. They drew their evidence from some of the sloppy wording in e-mails -particularly Dr Frankel’s juxtaposition of the use of the word ” I” and then ” we” implying it was HEE’s view. He had insisted when he met Sir Norman that he emphasised he was doing it on his initiative. There are no notes of the meeting. The body also discussed ” behind the scenes” action to refute Dr Day’s case.

The Judge Katherine Andrews chose to believe HEE’s version rather than Dr Day’s.

Frankel ” fully acknowledged the foolhardiness if some actions “

She said: “My view is that the claimant genuinely believes that implication and accordingly his evidence is truthful in that it reflects his beliefs. I also find however that the evidence of Dr Frankel and Prof Reid was similarly truthful. They are both distinguished in their respective careers and appeared to give their evidence carefully and candidly. Indeed Dr Frankel readily acknowledged the foolhardiness of some of his actions, undoubtedly well-meaning though they were.”

…”I do recognise that Dr Frankel’s use of words in his emails and the briefing document is mixed. On some occasions he used the first person singular which was entirely in accordance with him acting privately.
On others he used the first person plural – sometimes clearly by reference to times when he had been seconded to the respondent but other times inappropriately using ‘we/our’ etc. I find that this was a combination of, on occasion, poor drafting by Dr Frankel and also a strong personal identification with the issues.”

…”The way he went about it however was wholly inappropriate and in doing so he slipped into using language that confused his previous and current roles.”

I am curious about this. Dr Frankel is the author of some pretty important research papers in his other role as a consultant. I would have thought he would be very careful about the use of his language – at least I would hope so for the sake of his research.

She also absolved the health body from any involvement in backing Dr Frankel.

“Ratification can only apply where the person whose act is in question (Dr Frankel) professed or purported at the time of acting to do so as agent and to have authority to bind the principal (the respondent), it is plain that the claimant cannot successfully argue ratification as in fact the opposite was professed by Dr Frankel. He expressly and repeatedly said that he was acting entirely privately and not on behalf of the respondent.”
The decision is significant and absolves HEE from having to explain their actions in this murky case.

As Chris Day says on his supporters site:

“In late 2019 we won an important victory that guaranteed that HEE would have to account for everything at a final hearing on both their denial of cost threats and the false document sent to Sir Norman Lamb.

An order dated 3 October 2019 by Judge Sage rejected all arguments from HEE on why they should not attend a final hearing on the facts and ordered them to respond at a final hearing on their denial of cost threats and the allegedly false and detrimental document sent to Sir Norman Lamb

“Following my barrister’s illness with Covid-19 in March 2021, the London South Regional Judge Freer (who was the trial judge that signed off my obviously unfair settlement) allowed Judge Sage’s decision to be changed outside of any appeal process by a Judge Kelly in a new order that essentially replaced Judge Sage’s order. This gave HEE a second bite at the cherry at exiting the case on technical arguments. HEE have now succeeded at this and have been rescued from accounting for their actions on the cost threats and the misleading document sent to Sir Norman Lamb.

“The Regional Judge has also failed to progress my wasted cost application or dismiss it despite it being lodged in 2019. This application focuses on how the nation’s junior doctors were argued out of whistleblowing protection for 4 years. This video summarises the issues that the Regional Judge appears to be hoping will just go away.

“I have made a request for the Judge’s (Regional Judge Freer)  record of my 2018 hearing that settled.  This has not been responded to by the Tribunal. This is my only hope of an honest record of that hearing so this is difficult to understand. “

Dr Day is to talk to the BMA who paid for his legal representation to see if he can appeal this judgement.

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