Embattled Metropolitan Police chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe will be grilled
by MPs next week over bombshell claims that Scotland Yard and the Crown
Prosecution Service were involved in a ‘deliberate cover-up’ of damning
evidence of police corruption.
A court was told that the Met and the CPS repeatedly concealed documents
suggesting that officers investigating a billionaire Nigerian politician
for fraud were paid to leak details of the inquiry that could have helped
him evade justice.
One detective was said to have received at least 19 unexplained cash
deposits totalling thousands of pounds into his bank account, after
illegally disclosing sensitive information, a judge heard.
But when the corruption allegations were revealed by a whistle-blowing
lawyer, the lawyer was accused of forging the evidence, and charged with
perverting the course of justice. Police privately expressed fears that
his devastating claims could undermine the £50million fraud trial.
Last month the charges against the solicitor were dramatically dropped
after the CPS was forced to produce crucial papers, which it had always
insisted did not exist, that suggest serving Met officers took bribes.
Although the Met insists no corruption took place, the case leaves the Met
Commissioner – already under fire over his refusal to apologise for the
Yard’s disastrous historical sex abuse investigations – facing difficult
questions from the Home Affairs Select Committee next week, as he was
personally warned about the potential miscarriage of justice three years
ago.
The CPS’s handling of the case, criticised by former police as well as the
defendants, will also increase pressure on Director of Public Prosecutions
Alison Saunders, who faced calls to quit over her failure to put Lord
Janner on trial.
As the full astonishing story is told for the first time, it can also be
revealed that a Met Commander, Peter Spindler, who reported directly to
Sir Bernard, told the BBC the corruption claims were bogus without having
checked if documents were genuine.
Last night the lawyer who had been accused of forgery, Bhadresh Gohil,
told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I uncovered serious corruption, but when I tried
to expose this, I was victimised. Astonishingly, the CPS used the might of
the state and all its resources to cover up what had happened, and brought
trumped-up charges to persecute me. The truth has finally unravelled.’
MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, said: ‘Members have
indicated they will want to ask the Commissioner, when he next appears
before the committee, to deal with the latest developments which raise a
number of new questions.’
The extraordinary case centres on Scotland Yard’s prosecution of James
Ibori, who once worked as a cashier at a branch of Wickes DIY store in
West London before returning to his native Nigeria to enter politics and
become one of Africa’s richest men as governor of oil-rich Delta State.
He was jailed for 13 years in 2012 at Southwark Crown Court after
admitting fraud and money-laundering following the Met investigation into
his vast wealth, with the court hearing that he siphoned off public cash
to live a ‘lavish lifestyle’, enjoying a private jet, homes in Hampstead
and Regents Park, armoured cars and places at top British boarding schools
for his children.
Gohil, who was Ibori’s business lawyer, was also jailed for seven years
after admitting fraud, although he claims he was wrongly advised to do so
by his then legal team. He was separately found guilty of money-laundering
– a charge he continues to deny.
While he was in Wandsworth Prison he was anonymously sent information
suggesting police in the case had been in the pay of a British firm of
private investigators, RISC Management, hired by Ibori.
Documents were also sent to the Met and the police watchdog alleging that
officers had received kickbacks worth thousands of pounds and Gohil told
the home affairs select committee in May 2012 that the case was tainted by
‘apparent corruption right at the heart of Scotland Yard’.
Gohil planned to use the evidence of police corruption to overturn his
convictions.
But astonishingly on the eve of his appeal in June 2014, he found himself
facing another jail sentence as the CPS told him he would be charged with
perverting the course of justice for allegedly forging the crucial
documents. His appeal bid was duly rejected.
His defence team were desperate to obtain evidence to back up Gohil’s
claim that Ibori’s solicitors and RISC had improper contact with the
investigating officers, but the CPS repeatedly insisted there were no such
documents.
Then, in a shock development, prosecutors were forced to reveal the very
documents they had always maintained did not exist.
Just days later they dramatically dropped the entire case without
explaining why, only admitting that unspecified new information had come
to light.
In a written submission to Southwark Crown Court last month, days before
the charges were dropped, Gohil’s defence counsel Stephen Kamlish QC
claimed the prosecution ‘in bad faith failed to investigate’ who had
received cash payments.
In a second submission, he accused the prosecution of a ‘deliberate
cover-up’.
In open court last week, Kamlish said he planned to fight a renewed appeal
for Gohil on the basis that ‘prosecuting counsel misled not only this
court but the Court of Appeal in saying there was no disclosable
material’.
The result was, he said, that Gohil’s original appeal against his
convictions for money-laundering and fraud had been decided on ‘false
facts’.
If granted, this appeal would make legal history: normally the Appeal
Court cannot hear a case it has already turned down.
Kamlish also told the judge: ‘The investigation by the Department of
Professional Standards into Mr Gohil’s allegations of corruption was a
whitewash and was deliberately designed to find that no corruption of the
type Mr Gohil had complained about existed… it was designed to fail.’
Briefing the BBC in 2012, the Yard admitted that if they had found
evidence of corruption it would have wrecked the case against Ibori.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal for the first time today some of the
dynamite evidence grudgingly handed over by the Crown, and cited in court,
that may have led it to drop the charge against Gohil of perverting the
course of justice.
One of the more serious corruption claims concerns an alleged meeting
between DC John McDonald, who was investigating Ibori, and RISC director
Clifford Knuckey, on September 10, 2007.
According to an RISC document, Knuckey claimed £46.75 in expenses for a
meal he enjoyed in a pub with a source that day.
Two days later, it was recorded that he held a ‘meeting with confidential
source to hand over source payment for information provided… £5,000.’
Telephone records, also newly revealed, include 120 calls from RISC to Met
officers during the Ibori investigation – including one to DC McDonald on
the day of the pub meeting.
Another document reveals DC McDonald made 19 unexplained cash deposits
into his bank account, most of around £500, while he was working on the
case in 2007.
After the pub meeting, private investigator Knuckey provided a report to
Ibori’s lawyers detailing secret information he had been given about the
case.
Their records stated: ‘CK [Knuckey] explained that he had met with a
senior officer on 10 September 2007’ and that ‘DC McDonald (DCM) has had a
serious fall out’ with other officers on the case.
A RISC list of payments reveals that between 2006 and 2007 the firm paid
some £360,000 to a network of confidential sources in Ibori’s and other
cases, delivered in cash by couriers to the firm’s London offices. It is
not known if any were serving police officers.
In his court submission, Kamlish claimed the Crown knew ‘that there is
clear and compelling, direct and circumstantial evidence of a corrupt
relationship between RISC and MPS [Met] officers’.
DC McDonald was arrested and interviewed by Yard investigators in 2012. He
admitted speaking to and meeting Knuckey.
But he insisted he never revealed sensitive information, and that he was
never paid. He produced written records he had made of phone calls with
Knuckey and other RISC staff, which purported to show they did not discuss
his work.
DC McDonald was not charged with misconduct or taking bribes and now works
for the elite National Crime Agency (NCA).
Knuckey admitted he had obtained £5,000 cash from RISC to pay his
confidential informant on the day of the pub meeting.
But he claimed that instead of paying an informant, he took the money for
himself, as compensation for a Spanish holiday ruined when RISC made him
fly to Paris at very short notice.
Other documents cast doubt on this claim. He had not been on holiday when
he went to Paris, while he booked his flight a week in advance. He was
charged with false accounting, but this case too has been dropped.
Gary Walters, a former detective on the original Ibori investigation,
insists there was no corrupt behaviour on his team – but supports the
calls for answers as to why the case against Gohil was dropped.
‘I am extremely disappointed that this case continues to rumble on with no
meaningful conclusion,’ he told The Mail on Sunday.
‘I was amazed when it suddenly ended with no explanation and I support the
calls for a full and independent inquiry. I have yet to see any evidence
of corruption on the part of any of the investigators or prosecutors but
the decision of the DPP makes clear that there is a need for further
investigation and potential prosecutions.’
A CPS spokesman said: ‘As a result of information that came to the
attention of the CPS on January 13, 2016, the case was reconsidered.
Following that reconsideration, the Crown offered no evidence in court.’
Scotland Yard said: ‘The Metropolitan Police Service investigated an
allegation, received anonymously, that illegal payments were made to
police officers for information by a private investigation agency.
‘The Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) referred the matter to
the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in October 2011 which
agreed to supervise a DPS investigation.
‘Five people including one then-serving officer were arrested and released
with no further action. Additionally no misconduct was identified in the
case of the officer.’
The NCA said: ‘Generally an historic allegation against a police officer
which has been investigated by the relevant police force’s professional
standards department supervised by the IPCC, in which no misconduct was
found, would not represent a barrier to the officer joining the NCA.’
Knuckey’s solicitors Lewis Nedas said: ‘The strain on him has been
considerable. Mr Knuckey, who had over 30 years unblemished service in the
Metropolitan Police, has always maintained his innocence and that there
was no corruption in this case.’
Daily Mail