The Law
The beam in the Lord Chamberlain's eye
Dorothy Becker
That those responsible for the administration of law cut corners, and set out on occasion with the intention to deceive both the Houses of Parliament and the public is clear from the briefest review of the 1960s. It is therefore useless for the Lord Chancellor to wring his hands over the rising crime rate.
When two journalists were about to be imprisoned in the matter of the spy Vassal], the Daily Telegraph published the following news item without comment:
Vassal! told Randle that when he was appointed to the Admiralty post there was no security vetting. When the Attorney General at the,Radcliffe Tribunal asked," Are you conscious of having avoided anything in the way of vetting?" he could truthfully answer, " None whatsoever!" But, said Randle, if the Attorney General had simply asked, "Did you have any security vetting?" Vassall would have had to answer "No." The fact that there appears to have been no vetting at that time would then have become clear.
As part of the result of the Prof umo scandal and the case of Dr Ward, a Mr Bell was tried and acquitted after an eleven day trial at the Old Bailey. Previously his counsel, Mr Raphael Tuck QC, MP, said the charges were a piece of political chicanery because Bell had embarrassed the government about the Prof umo affair. Mr Tuck was reported as saying he intended to pursue the matter after the trial, but no more was heard. Throughout, Mr Bell insisted that the charges against him were trumped up by the War Office to prevent credence of his possible revelations.
In the same decade, in the matter of Chief En.ahoro, the Bench of the Inner Temple heard in secret a complaint against the Attorney-General. Mr Paget, a Labour Member of Parliament, brought a charge of unbecoming conduct against the Attorney General and their fellow Benchers heard the complaint. They acquitted the Attorney General, and Mr Paget placed a transcript of the evidence in the House of Commons Library, whence it was removed on the Speaker's order. The gravamen of Mr Paget's case was that the Attorney General had known the Nigerian government had told the Home Secretary that they would not allow certain counsel to defend the Chief, and that this fact was not clear from an affidavit the Home Secretary had sworn. The transcript of evidence shows that the Attorney General, under cross-examination, said it never occurred to him that the affidavit would lead people to assume that apprehensions on the question of counsel were unjustified.
The handling of the case against Dr Ward caused disquiet at the time and, early in 1964, had an undesirable sequel. Mr Ludovic Kennedy decided to write a book on the trial of Stephen Ward and Mr Gollancz to publish it. They applied for a copy of the official transcript of the trial and were told they would have to pay E200 for it. Later they were tqld that the Lord Chief Justice, sitting in camera, had decided against letting them have it. This matter was raised in the House of Commons without result.
In August, 1966, it was reliably reported that the Automobile Association were sending unidentified observers to courts dealing with certain types of motoring offences because it had been discovered that clerks were not always reading out in full statements sent to the court and additions had been made to prosecution statements after the statements had been submitted to and acted on by thedefendan t.
Years earlier, Earl Winterton spoke in the House of Lords on the Brighton police conspiracy case. He said, "One of the men giving evidence, a former criminal, who may not ,have been speaking the truth, asserted that one of the police officers, now in prison, had said to him, "I will put it all right. I will have a word with the clerk to the magistrates before your case comes up." I was astonished after this evidence that the clerk did not immedately issue a statement to the effect that the evidence was not true and that he had never discussed with magistrates in advance what sentence should be given to a man about to be brought before them." In the 1960s the sentencing ot a Mr Clark to eighteen months imprisonment was quashed by the Court of Appeal. Mr Clark was said to have incited others to obstruction during a visit to London of the Greek Queen Frederica. Obstruction is punishable by a forty shilling fine. The Deputy Chairman of the London Sessions passed a sentence of eighteen months for incitement to the forty shilling offence, It was not known who authorised the changing of the indictment against Mr Clark, but his views were known and unpopular.
In January, 1959, a woman was charged with theft from a store. It then transpired that she was a Mrs Clore, related to the millionaire owner of the store. When 'the case' came up for the trial before the Hendon magistrates they were told that the charge had been dropped "after consultation with . the Director of Public Prosecutions." The chairman of the bench of magistrates then said," I have no option but to accept the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions. But I do wish to put on record on the basis of the information before me that I feel there is something unsatisfactory about the whole procedure." In November, 1966, there was great publicity after the escape of the foreign-parented spy known by the English name of George Blake. It was recalled that two years earlier there had been questions in the House of Commons about Blake's association in prison with another spy "Gordon Lonsdale." At that time the present Lord Brooke was Home Secretary, and, acting on the advice of the prison department, he strenuously denied in 'the House that these two men had ever had a chance to communicate with each other in Wormwood Scrubbs. After some linen washing in 1966, Lord Brooke stated he could not now give "a hundred per cent assurance that the conversations had not taken place. The text for the Lord Chancellor is," First cast the beam out of thine own eye."
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