Fit Up (10 page)

S
adly, with the culmination of the long, drawn-out process of clearing Jeremy’s name, the many absences from the shop and Gerard’s slanderous and libellous telephone calls and emails to everyone in the filming industry, his position had become untenable which, in turn, had taken its toll on the business. UK Professional Video was forced to close down.

Had charges been dropped against Jeremy at the return to bail hearing on 19 July 2004, we could have recovered and put this bad experience behind us, but the ongoing prosecution just killed off the business stone dead. On top of that, we had two court cases to prepare for, which would require a substantial fighting fund. One was against Lloyd Gerard for libel and slander, the other against Hertfordshire Constabulary for malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office. The past eighteen months had been tortuous for us both but amazingly quick in destroying what could have been a fruitful business leading to a comfortable retirement. We had lost our investment as well as our self-respect.

As we emptied out the last remnants of the shop premises and locked the doors for the final time, we felt disappointed that we would never know how far we could have gone with this venture. It had all been so exciting at the beginning, with plans scribbled down in a notebook
under the Tenerife sun, but now it all lay in tatters. Our only hope of redemption was in the form of litigation. Hopefully, the wrongs that we had experienced would soon be put right, and our hatred of Hopkins and Gerard was at least giving us the determination to pursue that goal.

With the criminal case behind us, we now had a lot of work to do in order to get the wheels in motion and prepare our strike back against our perpetrators.

With all the paperwork we had accumulated since October 2003, our first task was to put together a file that would give an overview of each case and which could be sent to solicitors specialising in slander, libel or police misconduct.

While I was at work, Jeremy had the time to research possible solicitors and it was at this time that we decided to take on Gerard first. This was due to there being a one-year time limit in bringing an action of slander and libel from the first comment made. Also, Gerard had been very busy and was continuing to slander Jeremy, as reported by some of our suppliers and customers who told us about the phone calls. We imagined he must have been enraged by the dropping of the charges and that he had failed in his attempt to bring down Jeremy. If people didn’t dislike Gerard already, they certainly would now knowing that his statement was all lies.

One such phone call had been made to Stephen Thompson who worked for the trade magazine
Highbury WV
. Stephen contacted Jeremy after he had received a call from Gerard asking him to stop running advertisements for UK Professional Video because Jeremy would soon be in court accused of paedophilia. Of course, he had no reason to stop advertising and it would not have been ethical for him to do so. He also said that he hated Gerard, so was pleased to be able to annoy him by not acceding to his request. Jeremy asked Stephen if he would be prepared to be a witness when the time came and he confirmed that he would make a statement.

Surprisingly, and very much out of the blue, at around the same time Jeremy also received a telephone call from Bob Crabtree who ran the DVDoctor website. He had been wrestling with what to do with two emails that he had received from Gerard on 7 and 13 April, the contents and tone of which disturbed him. Bob did not like Gerard at all but he knew he had to tolerate him due to their business interests.

Jeremy then told Bob that he was suing Gerard in the High Court and that he already had good recorded evidence. Bob told him that if that was the case he would be happy to hand over these emails to a solicitor, once one had been appointed. Although it was fantastic news that more evidence had come to light on top of what we already had, we were disappointed that Bob wouldn’t forward it to us. We were now really curious, and rather worried, because it meant that Gerard was still happily emailing and talking about Jeremy in defamatory terms. He had to be stopped. And soon!

Jeremy had already started his internet research and had made lists of possible companies for both cases before the criminal trial had even ended; he wanted to be prepared. While I was at work he methodically called each one to see if they would be interested in taking his case. He tried the local ones first as their offices would be more accessible and their rates cheaper than London solicitors. After Jeremy told them his story, however, each and every one said they were too busy to take on any more cases and by the end of the day Jeremy felt quite disillusioned. Justice seemed to elude him and, more worryingly, his quest for vengeance against Gerard only magnified. In his frustration, he called me at work to spit profanities about Gerard, telling me that he wished he was dead. I knew he couldn’t think clearly in this state of mind so of course I had to calm him down and encourage him to research other solicitors. Perhaps it was now time to look at the big guns in London, I suggested. He agreed that he might have more success there. On putting down the telephone, however, what I dared not mention to him was that in the
back of my mind there was the possibility that those companies had not entertained him simply because the word ‘paedophile’ had raised its very ugly head. Once again representation was proving difficult, and I couldn’t help but think it was because of pre-judgement. The abuse of children is a heinous crime, but what is also appalling is to be constantly judged guilty of such a crime when you are not.

However, one company, Carter-Ruck, based in London, who were very highly recommended, seemed quite interested in Jeremy’s story and asked for it all to be put in writing with back-up information and evidence. The fees would be expensive but they had intimated that if our case was strong they might consider doing a Conditional Fee Arrangement (CFA). This was an encouraging breakthrough, at last.

Also focusing on the intended police action, Jeremy had already made contact with Phil Dodd of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) a week before his acquittal, giving a verbal statement of events from beginning to end. We had been advised to do this before taking up legal proceedings against the police because otherwise we would be criticised by the courts for not taking this route initially to see if redress could be gained here. It seemed like a waste of time because we were eager to get the litigation under way, but we complied with the IPCC’s request.

We had already written a nine-page statement in readiness. Jeremy wrote a covering letter and put this in the post for Mr Dodd just one day after acquittal. It had been a satisfying moment.

When I arrived home Jeremy shouted from the office, ‘Come up, we’ve got homework to do.’ I felt a pang of despair as, after a day’s work, I just wanted to make the dinner and relax, while he was now firing on all cylinders. It was like being back at school – but the homework would be harder and much more time-consuming. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning, and there would be many more evenings and weekends filled with such homework.

In the course of our preparations, we had to meet with Duncan. Obviously he had been delighted to hear of the CPS dropping the case on the back of his evidence. He already knew that we were going to sue Hertfordshire Constabulary and, as he had been investigating Operation Ore for a long time, he wanted to meet with us.

On the first bank holiday weekend in May 2005 we set aside the Sunday for a visit to Brighton where Duncan lived and worked. We were to meet at one of the restaurants in the revamped part of Brighton, near the marina, and as we were not familiar with that part of the country, we set off early just to get there and take a look around. It was one of those uplifting, warm spring mornings and I could not help wistfully thinking that I wished this was an outing for pleasure rather than an information-gathering exercise of Operation Ore evidence. Although I was very keen to get our vengeance, I was daunted by the amount of work that would need to be done in our spare time.

After a pleasant journey, mostly talking about the police case, we arrived in Brighton and parked up in one of the marina car parks. We were an hour and a half early, which gave us time to have a wander about and see the attractions. After walking for a while along the seafront, stopping off for a coffee and looking at the novelty shops it was getting close to 12.30 p.m. so we made our way to the restaurant to wait for Duncan.

Despite our meeting arrangements, we soon realised that no one had thought to ask ‘How will we recognise each other?’ Noticing that there was no one seated in the restaurant, we knew that Duncan had definitely not arrived before us. We had a good view of the concourse along the marina and so started people watching. It was now a little after 12.30 p.m. and among the pedestrians we saw a cyclist walk to the railings opposite us and chain up his bike. He was in full bike gear: the tortoise shell-like helmet, trousers fixed with bike clips, obligatory backpack. Although we had both continued to look ahead for whoever might be Duncan, it
suddenly occurred to me that the cyclist was him and I pointed him out to Jeremy, who walked casually towards him and asked, ‘Are you Duncan?’ He gave a broad grin and he and Jeremy shook hands. We quickly exchanged pleasantries and then went to sit down and eat. Duncan was tall, slim and greying with glasses. I guessed him to be around his mid-fifties and he just had that ‘IT intelligence’ look.

Although only a party of three, we asked to be seated at a larger table and ordered some drinks. Duncan pulled some papers out from his backpack and proceeded to tell us that he had been involved in Operation Ore from almost the beginning, back in 2002, and had found many flaws in the evidence. As he was also a journalist, he had an article coming out in
PC Pro
, a magazine for IT specialists, which would be highlighting these points and the fact the police knew from the start but proceeded to invade people’s homes.

As we ate I tried to take notes as Jeremy listened. I found it difficult to write anything down, however, as the information Duncan was giving us was hard to follow and I was trying to tie in the revelations with Jeremy’s case rather than get involved in the bigger picture of exposing the Operation Ore scandal. I tried not to worry as I kept writing notes about Keyz, webmasters and so on, and hoped that I could make some sense of it later on. It turned out that what I did write down didn’t make a lot of sense upon re-reading it, but I hoped that some of the papers he would leave with us would be more revealing.

After a few hours, we said our goodbyes and thanked Duncan for all the help he had given us so far.

T
here was a lot going on in May 2005 on all fronts and the postman seemed to always be bringing us correspondence which had to be actioned. While this was fine for Jeremy as he was not working, it was more of a burden to me as my day never finished until late. He was quite happy working on certain aspects on his own but when it came to pulling it together in the form of correspondence, much of which was quite lengthy, he leaned on me for support.

My work as a facilities manager was demanding and had been more so since my predecessor had retired. Whereas I had been his assistant, I did not have one and the responsibility fell entirely to me. I would often leave the office at around 5.30 p.m. to go home and walk Sasha. Jeremy and I would often do this together, but our conversation never wavered from the same subject. It was as if our life together had been compartmentalised from October 2003 to the present. There was never any reminiscing of the good things that we had shared or even our lives before we had met. Nor was there conversation about the future because, from where we were standing, there wasn’t one. Once we had had goals, exciting plans to look forward to together, and now I felt we were scrabbling desperately among the flotsam and jetsam of what our lives had become.

After walking Sasha I would cook a quick dinner. Ordinarily I would have liked to sit down, relax and watch television, but the little office beckoned and I would have to try to get back into work mode. Usually around 10 p.m., eyes dry and sore from staring at the PC screen, feeling exhausted, we would call it a day, get a cup of tea and catch up on a little TV before falling into bed. An hour or so of a soap allowed us a moment of escapism from our reality.

By the middle of May we had received a letter from Andre Clovis of Christian Kahn Solicitors, who specialised in actions against the police. Jeremy was invited to meet with him on 24 May and we felt encouraged that something was happening as a result of all of our efforts.

The IPCC also responded by acknowledging our letter of complaint and Jeremy was advised to call Roger Howe of the Hertfordshire Constabulary Professional Standards Department. An Inspector Hunt had been assigned to investigate and an appointment was made to meet on Monday 13 June at our home.

Jeremy also fired off a letter to the National Identification Service to enquire about the information held on him and to make sure that the result of the acquittal was recorded. This was most important, should credit or professional references ever be taken up against him.

Although we had already sent Andre the necessary documents to introduce and outline Jeremy’s case, we had already built up quite a substantial file of papers providing evidence and these were indexed in a way that would make easy reading of Jeremy’s story. This included transcriptions of the Hopkins conversation, now called the ‘ways and means’ CD, which referred to the phrase that Hopkins had used to Jeremy when making an appointment to come and view the tapes at the shop, plus the two phone calls made by Gerard.

Spilling out of the train at Euston we made our way to the main road to get a taxi to Museum Street in Bloomsbury. We were early but wanted
to gather ourselves in a nearby café before turning up promptly at 10 a.m. for our meeting at Andre’s offices.

While we passed away some time over a cup of coffee, I felt a change in both of us. There was an air of optimism and relief surrounding us, brought on, I was sure, by the fact that someone was at last willing to look more closely at our case. To us it was as plain as day that there had been wrongdoing by Hopkins, but now we had a solicitor who was interested in representing our claim against Hertfordshire Constabulary.

At just before 10 a.m. we presented ourselves in the reception of Christian Khan and were asked to take a seat where we waited in anticipation to be called through. I started to wonder what Andre would be like. With his name I was assuming he was going to be French and so when he finally arrived to meet us I was taken by surprise.

Andre was black, smartly dressed and charming. He had an infectious, megawatt smile, warm brown eyes and a deep voice I found reassuringly comforting.

He asked us to follow him to his office and apologised that it was a bit of a climb. Breathing in the masculine aroma of his aftershave, we followed Andre in what looked like a rabbit warren built of legal files and books on each landing.

We were ushered into a cramped office, also surrounded by files and books, and offered a seat. Andre sat at his desk as Jeremy was invited to talk through his case from the start, while I interjected with pertinent comments. When we reached the part of the story that concerned Gerard we offered Andre the relevant audio CDs, which he inserted into his PC and proceeded to listen. He made himself comfortable, leaning back in his chair as the conversation between Gerard and Julie got under way. As soon as I heard Gerard’s puny voice on the recording it reignited the flame of rage that I had since buried under my own self-pity. It was an emotion that scared me as it sometimes led me to
daydream about my favourite way of bumping off Gerard and getting away with it.

As the CD played, Andre looked thoughtfully up towards the ceiling, as if thinking, ‘Where is this going?’ and I glanced over to Jeremy who was also fixated upon him. Then came the part where Gerard manoeuvres the conversation with Julie to talk about the criminal case.

‘Do you mind if I bring up another topic, it might freak you out but I’m going to mention it,’ Gerard says, then, ‘Is this true that this is actually a one-man operation and he is not there because he is in court as a paedophile?’ This was the part that always cut through my heart and I looked up at Andre to see what his reaction to it was. Instead of a look of revulsion, his eyes registered shock at what he had heard. He suddenly sat bolt upright and alert. This had made a big impact on him, we later found out, because this was evidence of a police witness blabbing to a member of the public. I looked over at Jeremy who was leaning on one arm of the chair, a look of hatred on his face. At the end of the CD Andre looked at us both sympathetically and I am sure he could see how damaged we were by it.

We had presented ourselves well so it was disappointing when Andre said that he was interested but had an overwhelming caseload at that time and could not, at that stage, give an estimate of when he would be able to offer his services. As we started to gather our belongings Andre obviously sensed that the news had come as a bit of a blow.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘you look like you are intelligent people. You could actually start proceedings yourselves.’ He advised us to get two books, the first an up-to-date copy of
The Civil Court Practice
, known commonly as the Green Book. This would be a single point of reference for litigation as it provides everything necessary for bringing, defending and appealing civil proceedings. It had all the relevant rules, practice, direction and guides for easy reference, plus providing templates to create
documents for court. The second book was
Police Misconduct
, which would also be helpful.

The Green Book would help us construct a Letter of Claim, Andre told us, which we should send to Hertfordshire Constabulary and see how they respond. Andre added that, because we were litigants in person, they might let their guard down. To encourage us further, and without naming names, he told us of a case where someone was a litigant in person against a police force, that he represented himself in court and won his compensation. ‘I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but there is no harm in giving it a go yourselves. And let me know how you get on.’

We left the Christian Khan offices feeling encouraged and confident in the belief that there might be a way for us to do this ourselves.