Innovation of Justice Conference Speech

Innovation of Justice Conference Speech
Saturday 22nd June 2019


I’d like to say a few introductory words about the issue of accountability. We’ve recently been hearing about police making use of unaccountable individuals – be they self-described ‘journalists’ or even private individuals – to trawl for further allegations against people already under investigation after having being accused of sexual misconduct. Why do police officers seem to believe that it’s acceptable practice to go trawling at all, let alone by proxy? And who is ultimately held accountable when liars, fantasists, fraudsters and revenge-seekers crawl out of the woodwork to peddle falsehood in the hope of getting undeserved compensation payouts? The answer, ladies and gentlemen, will not surprise you. It is NO ONE. No accountability at all. And I know that from personal experience.

During the 672 days of living hell – the 22 months I was compelled to endure police bail during 2013/14, after an historical allegation of sexual assault, made by someone I'd never met but who just happened to be a pupil in a separate part of the school where I began my teaching career, I'll refer to him as 'A' – the police made use of this inordinate amount of bail time (great for them, of course) by desperately trawling, both they themselves and by using a Berkshire businessman who had nothing to do with the case under scrutiny, for other former pupils of mine to come forward to make further complaints, in order to bolster what was palpably a weak case. Indeed, the case was so wafer-thin, it couldn't withstand even light scrutiny.

Good job for the complainant, 'A', that the police had no intention whatsoever of making even cursory checking of actual provable facts. They weren't interested in pursuing their so-called investigation without fear or favour, as I had foolishly presumed they are duty-bound to do - silly, deluded me. From the start, in line with latest police procedure following the Savile embarrassment, as instructed from the top of the CPS, by DPP Keir Starmer, (my blood does run cold when I see him sitting on the opposition bench in the House of Commons) - this complainant, ‘A’, some pathetic, lying chancer, was automatically believed by the police officers he had approached to spew forth his dim-witted, nonsensical allegation. Have you ever heard anything so ludicrous as the edict 'Automatically believe all complainants’, sorry Mr. Starmer, ‘victims',? Such an edict doesn't even reach the level of puerility, it's infantile.

But the police had a problem - they couldn't charge me on the basis of ‘A’'s allegation on its own; they had to find at least one other former pupil to make a similar complaint. So they set out on their 672-day trawling mission.

Trawling is the method used by the police to search, and in some cases advertise, for fresh complainants, under the premise that the more complainants who come forward, the more the likelihood of a conviction. Moreover, allegations made as a result of trawling are treated as though they were made spontaneously, unprompted, by unrelated individuals, and are ultimately presented to juries as such. But, of course, there is an enormous difference between spontaneous complaints and those which have been manufactured through collusion, often via social media or extracted by the state via suggestion and, in some cases, coercion. When the police fish for complaints, particularly among people who are naturally dishonest, or among opportunists, or among those who are angry about their lot in life, or are financially, as my adoptive mother used to term it, 'in queer street', of course there is a danger false accusations will be the result.

Trawling operations are the most dangerous development in the history of police investigations. They have been allowed to become more and more widespread to the point of standard practice. Indeed, in historical abuse investigations, they play as important a role as DNA and CCTV do in day-to-day contemporary criminal investigations. One thing is for sure, trawling is a sure method of destroying the presumption of innocence. What is more, because of the particular characteristics of trawling operations, potential witnesses might well be pressurised into making exaggerated or even false statements. In a moment I'll explain how this affected me first hand, back in 2014.

Thus, in the absence of any 'quality' evidence, the police set about harvesting 'quantity' evidence. If someone says something which cannot be demonstrably proven either way - and this is why historical allegations are preferred by the unscrupulous opportunists - the police attitude is, let’s get enough people to say similar things that can't be proven either way and we'll be able to convince the jury that, in the courtroom cage, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is sitting a dirty old man.

Police trawling operations are dangerous in any circumstances. They become even more dangerous when the people whom they visit in order to extract supporting allegations have themselves a record of dishonesty. In my case, the police soon managed to secure a statement from a close friend of ‘A’, I'll call this person 'B' and, ignoring the sizeable risk of confabulation between the two, subsequently presented ‘B’'s allegations to me as though his and ‘A’'s were made quite independently, quite spontaneously and unprompted. To quote the leading police investigator: “Here we have two people making a similar allegation. This seems to point to the truth being told, doesn't it? What have you got to say about that?”

I had a lot to say about it. Unsurprisingly, when I asked for access to ‘A’'s and ‘B’'s recent online activity – text messages, emails etc – I was informed it had all been ‘lost.’ Well, there's a surprise.

And exactly how did the police go about trawling for further allegations which they hoped would be made against me? Well, I later discovered, when they visited former pupils of mine, they left them in no doubt from the outset that all they were after were further complaints. The introductory statement went along the lines of : 'Simon Warr has been accused of multiple counts (2 is a multiple of 1, I suppose) of child abuse.' They made it abundantly clear from the off that they were uninterested in anything positive the interviewee might have to say about me, only words of condemnation. It was standard practice, I later learned, that when former pupils stated I was kind, helpful and generous with my time, this was dismissed as 'grooming' by the interviewing officer. You couldn't make this stuff up it's so perverted. One former pupil of mine, who was interviewed, subsequently emailed the officer in charge of the investigation, thus:

'”I'm not surprised you didn't want a statement from me as I didn't come up with any dirt that you could use in your case… I will find out from Simon what these 'multiple' claims are, but, in the meantime, it's pretty clear you're not interested in actually investigating whether these allegations are indeed true, you are just searching for any old scrap to assassinate his character. Very worrying, and in the light of current high profile cases falling down, you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself, if only for the disgusting waste of public money.” I had no knowledge of any of this at the time, as this former pupil hadn't spoken to me in years. But he had reacted in a quite natural way. He had no axe to grind, he just felt something sinister was afoot. At last we were witnessing something unprompted and spontaneous.

Another former pupil visited by the police wrote in a statement:

“I was approached by the police earlier this year, who visited my home and took a statement. They were not impartial. They made it clear that Mr. Warr was guilty of abusing children and that he would be convicted without question.”

The ethics of police trawling were considered at some length back in 2013 by the Home Affairs Select Committee and it was emphasised: 'Any initial approach by the police to former pupils of boarding and care establishments should - so far as possible - go no further than a general invitation to provide information to the investigative team.' Well, I can safely state the investigative officers who seemed determined to hang me out to dry had missed this particular piece of police policy.

What the police are after during these trawling operations is evidence, I use the word lightly, which is cut from the same cloth. They search for similar ALLEGATION evidence and present it later as similar FACT evidence. Of course, similar allegation evidence is not evidence at all.

It is usual practice, of course, to try different alleged offences separately, in order to protect innocent defendants against the presumption of guilt, but an historical input is allowed if it has a bearing on the present case. The law has long held it that, in certain circumstances, if an allegation is sufficiently similar to a previously proven crime, details of that crime can be introduced in a subsequent trial under the rules governing similar FACT evidence. That's to say, if a person has been convicted in his life for drowning his wife in the bath and his second wife is subsequently found drowned in the family bath, the fact he has done it before can be brought into evidence, suggesting a propensity in the defendant's behaviour.

Thus, if a suspect can be directly linked to two women having been drowned in two separate baths, then this FACT can be introduced into a trial as 'similar fact evidence'.  FACT 1 - we have two dead bodies, both drowned in the bath. FACT 2 - the suspect can be directly linked to both women at the time of their death. But trawling distorts this by introducing into a prosecution case 'similar ALLEGATION evidence', which, as stated earlier, is obviously not evidence at all. Yet these allegations – all unproven – are used by the police and the CPS to strengthen each other. Testimony of one ALLEGED crime is used as corroboration of another.

The police use the allegations they have taken such pains to harvest to sway the jury into believing that the suspect, sitting on his own in that cage, is a dirty, creepy pervert because more than one person is alleging he has the same propensity. In the case of ‘A’ and ‘B’ and their outrageous lies against me, it was clear to anyone with an I.Q. above the day’s temperature that the striking similarity between the two complainants' testimonies pointed more to the likelihood of collusion between the two than to any pattern of behaviour on my part.

These two close friends, buoyed by the vast amount of compensation money they'd already got their greedy, grasping claws on, after having accused another teacher at the same school a couple of years before they accused me, had decided to set up a charity for children abused at school. All very laudable, of course, until they were asked to hand over £5,000 in order to register the charity. No surprise they didn't feel as strongly about helping abused children as soon as they discovered it entailed handing over a tranche of the tens of thousands of pounds they'd already received in compensation. Soon after, unsurprisingly, they abandoned their charity idea.

So, here they were, two friends had been setting up a charity for children abused at school and, a little while later, were now claiming they had suffered likewise at my hands. They stood in a court of law, both alleging I had inspected them inappropriately in a school changing room, back in the early 1980s, after a P.E. lesson. When my barrister asked them both had they ever discussed me having touched them up before talking to the police, separately they claimed they had never discussed this abuse; both claimed they hadn't even mentioned my name to each other. The police may have believed this nonsense but the jury certainly didn't.

No collusion between the two! Never a conversation about me, despite spending time together setting up an abuse charity! Their complaints about me never shared, all entirely coincidental and spontaneous! Only police officers determined to have their suspect convicted would have entertained such a preposterous gallimaufry of lies.

It can, of course, be argued that if a number of spontaneous, similar allegations are made by independent witnesses, then a case to answer should be the result. However, recent history has taught us that many of these allegations of historical abuse are rarely spontaneous, unprompted or independent. So, in the case of punctilious exactness upon which any good legal system is based, this has been, to all intents and purposes, abandoned.

Trawling is being used (or misused) by all police forces in the UK as a means of convicting suspected child abusers. Surely the police must be wary of the fact that there are some adult complainants who, living dreary, unproductive lives, and who suddenly have an opportunity to get their hands on more money than they could ever have imagined, that they just might be prepared to give the police what they so obviously want and make false allegations, regardless of the consequences for the innocent person they are accusing.

Are we really to go along with the creed of the former DPP, Alison Saunders, who rejected the notion that people invent abuse stories? Why would they, she asked? Well, I can think of a number of reasons why, as I'm sure all of you can, too. Quite honestly, if people who are by nature dishonest, or struggling financially, are interviewed and given the opportunity to, even put under pressure to, claim to have been abused in the past, it would be surprising if he or she did not allege some sort of historical abuse. Yet, still these trawling operations continue with the ostensible full backing of the Ministry of Justice and our judicial system.

It seems reasonable to suggest that in cases of historical abuse emanating from any type of boarding establishment, be it a school or a care home, facilitated so readily, of course, by the massive expansion of social media, it makes it highly likely that there has almost certainly been confabulation between complainants in numerous cases which have reached courts.

During the so-called investigation into the allegations made against me, another factor played a significant part: the police team used a private individual, who had nothing to do with the case, to act as their agent, playing the role of some sort of amateur sleuth. This self-appointed agent, who voluntarily lent his services to the police, advertised on his public Facebook page for fresh complainants to step forward. I'll give you an example: When my trial at Ipswich Crown Court was postponed from May the 12th to October the 13th 2014, (in order for the police to have more time to trawl), on the very day of the postponement the agent posted on his Facebook page:

“I am informed (by the police, of course) that the trial of teacher Simon Warr will now begin on the 13th of October 2014. I am further informed that the police in Suffolk are still open for statements. An email address for a named officer can be provided or you can communicate via me.”

In other words, the police are devoid of any persuasive evidence and, thanks to the postponement of the trial, they are now continuing to appeal for more witnesses to come forward, to strengthen a hitherto pathetic, gossamer-thin case.

It was no more than a desperate clarion call for more ex-pupils to come forward to give the police team some breathing space.

And this passes for balanced, fair police procedure.

I wondered how such advertising for complainants in this way could possibly be legal - a police force trawling in this crude manner via a third party.

I would submit that trawling is not a form of investigation; it is a technique for ensuring that prosecutions can be brought in relation to long-delayed allegations and for maximising their chances of success. And when the police search for further complainants to come forward and they refer to them as 'potential victims', it is clear that any pretence at a balanced investigation has already been jettisoned.

Trawling, or 'dip sampling' as it is sometimes termed, clearly has the danger of 'self-reproducing'. It is a mushrooming technique, each person interviewed treated as a means of propagating the names and addresses of more potential so-called victims. In this way, the police are able potentially to collect an almost limitless number of allegations against a suspect. Even if some of the complainants are subsequently proven to be fantasists, opportunists, liars, it's of no matter, as long as the police have secured even a small number of feasible complaints, these will suffice to have the suspect put behind bars and for the investigating officers to congratulate themselves on a job well done; a success in terms of career prospects, of course; and no need to worry anymore about the waste of vast amounts of public money or any comeback with regard to a flawed investigation - the incident room team will have had their backs well and truly covered.

And it's not just the police who advertise for complainants of historical sex abuse. The 'no win, no fee' solicitors are also more than eager to participate in lucrative alleged historical abuse cases. During my research into the whole business of compensation for those who claim sexual abuse, I came across, within a few minutes, a myriad firms advertising for customers:-

Abused as a child? We represent victims.
Child abuse - you deserve justice
Thinking about claiming? We deliver.
Child abuse survivor? Contact us......

… and on and on and on....

The possibility of gaining financial compensation from these 'Personal Injury' firms may well prove irresistible to some. And, if you have a legal system that doesn't insist that allegations require actual proof – real evidence – and you couple that with generous handouts, more money than many of the prospective complainants have ever dreamed about, then it's inevitable that the temptation to make a false claim will be too hard to resist.

In the case of the motor industry, we call these P.I. firms 'ambulance chasers' and, as a result of a cornucopia of scandals surrounding the largely bogus 'whiplash' claims, the authorities have finally curbed the entire industry. PI lawyers suddenly realised they are on much safer ground dealing with alleged child abuse (preferably historical because no actual proof is required) and, because of the sensitivity surrounding this topic, no government officials are likely to interfere.

The result is the PI lawyers work under the pretence that they are 'riding white chargers', in defence of abused individuals, all of whom have a right to substantial compensation for their appalling suffering (omitting to mention, of course, that their own firm will receive as much, if not more, in the way of financial return from any allegations, proven or not). The lawyers certainly don't advertise the fact that their fees are often in excess of the damages being awarded to the claimant. The self-appointed agent who assisted the police in my case even posted on his public page the name and contact details of a firm of solicitors touting for business. Doesn't the whole tawdry picture make you squirm?

Further to this paying out of vast quantities of money to victims of even comparatively minor abuse, not to mention to those lying, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) guarantee lifelong anonymity to those receiving compensation and this includes payments even to those who make allegations of abuse which are not tested in, or rejected, in a court of law. Some are even paid money BEFORE a trial. All a complainant needs is a police crime reference number and the path is open.

The whole process has become so brazen that, a few weeks ago, when I was attending the trial of a FACT member at Portsmouth Crown Court, a trial of alleged historical abuse, also present in the courtroom was a representative of a well known PI firm. When the judge learned this, the man was sent from the court and the complainant was called back to the stand to explain. It was revealed that the complainant had attended this well-known solicitors' firm's offices just two days after making his allegation of historical abuse to the police. He explained to the judge that the solicitor was present at the trial to make notes, in order to save time afterwards.

It's almost jaw-dropping in its disrespect of the just, fair process of law.

The English legal system is based supposedly on the assumption that a person accused is innocent until proven guilty. But in cases of alleged sexual abuse, particularly historical allegations, where actual evidence either way is unlikely to be forthcoming, this burden has been palpably reversed. I had to prove my innocence that what ‘A’ and ‘B’ alleged couldn't possibly have happened and the jury recognised that what spewed from their slavering lips was no more than disgusting lies. They have, nevertheless, both walked away with anonymity and impunity.

I suppose I was fortunate: both men (I use the word lightly) were too dim to concoct even a vaguely plausible account. But I recognise that 90 percent of men, in particular, who are accused of historical sex abuse against children, ARE convicted. Jurors are naturally programmed to protect children and, if there is even a scintilla of a suggestion that the accused may be guilty, this will often suffice. If the police have done their trawling job efficiently (generous funds are certainly available for them) then the person in the glass cage has little, if any, chance of acquittal. The number of innocent people in our jails convicted without a shred of factual evidence doesn't bear thinking about.

So, what about the future...?

1. The police cannot, must not, side with either a complainant or an accused person when undertaking an investigation. It is not the police's duty to believe or disbelieve either party, it is their job to investigate without fear or favour, with perfect balance, just like those scales of justice which perch on the roof of the Old Bailey.

The dangers of biased investigations, which have been so apparent over recent years, mean that when the investigative officers realise they have been well and truly duped by some lying chancer whom they've supported from the off, then they're not in a position to react and to arrest that person for perverting the course of justice or for perjury in a court of law. It's plain common sense.

My accusers lied and lied again; they both perjured themselves at Ipswich Crown Court. When it was all over and I asked the lead investigative officer whether I was going to, at the very least, receive an apology from the accusers, her immediate answer was: “That's not going to happen.” Of course it wasn't, because she and her team had offered the liars succour throughout the entire appalling process. They had believed the unbelievable and had imagined the unimaginable. And neither the police, nor the fraudsters, have faced any consequences whatsoever. No accountability.

2. Police trawling has to cease forthwith and there should be an immediate ban on either the police, or any of their agents, advertising for fresh complainants. These trawls can lead to criminal trials that are no more than cruel charades, the outcomes of which are determined not by factual evidence but as a result of devious, opaque confabulation behind the scenes, a certain amount of guesswork and, in so many cases, overwhelming prejudice.

Evidence suggests that there are scores of innocent people in prison, or with life-inhibiting criminal records, on account of police and/or complainant subterfuge. Do we really want to continue to convict innocent people on the basis of contaminated so-called evidence? How can we expect twelve members of the public to come to a correct conclusion when they are faced by so much intrigue, so much fraudulence, all served up as impeccable authenticity?

3. And, finally, when are we going to get it through our thick skulls that as long as we continue handing out vast quantities of cash to complainants, we're going to have to deal with an endless conveyor belt of fraudulent opportunists prepared to send innocent citizens to jail, just so they can get their greedy hands on public money to which they have absolutely no right.

Thank you for listening.