John Bartlett

Motivating Force!

inspired by truth

“If they [the police] can cover up 96 collective deaths, what can they do to individuals?” 

Margret Aspinall

The motivation  behind my books has always been to expose the corrupt practice and enduring culture of cover-up, considered acceptable within our justice system.  Chequered Justice in part, highlights the officially sanctioned practice of allowing police officers to ‘fudge’ witness statements.  This accepted abuse, undermines the entire judicial process. It scars the wronged for life, resulting in the same long term psychological injuries and PTSD suffered by child abuse victims.  Allowing police officers to modify, fudge, change, tweak or spin their own version of events on behalf of a witness, to support the Crown’s version of the truth, is a deceitful practice, known about for decades yet still being allowed by our Justice System!

In my case, after breaking my back in a life changing accident and the resultant claims against my insurers, I was arrested and charged with supposed  fraud. That in itself was bizarre enough given the x-rays and clear medical facts, but what followed was unbelievable; a total betrayal of the impartiality and neutrality the public has a right to expect from our justice system.

Months after being accused of faking my injuries, we discovered that Crown witnesses (my insurers) had had their statements ‘faked’ by an officer in the Metropolitan Police.  Other Crown witnesses had then been coerced into copying the ‘master faked statement’!  What makes this injustice even more fantastic is that the Metropolitan Police had in their possession, confidential internal documents from the same witnesses, confirming the permanent nature of my injuries. Prior to the trial the Metropolitan Police also had internal memos and a medical report from the same insurance company, confirming  my claim had met their criteria and should have succeeded, the memos  being dated after they had signed the “faked” police statements. 

Was my case unique… or is corruption endemic through the British justice system?

This type of manipulation was never unique to just my case, it’s been systemic throughout our justice system forever.  Former Metropolitan Police chief John O’Connor, speaking of the raid and investigation of Sir Cliff Richard, called that “the worst example of police manipulation I have ever come across”… but that is just one high profile case. Another 258 officers were suspended for offences including sexual assault, corruption, neglect and assault, 38% of cases were proven and 11% of officers were sacked. Around 50 Metropolitan Police officers were suspended for corruption in just three years , the officers being paid approximately £3.6m during their suspensions. 

In total, forces throughout the UK have been forced to payout over £44m for misuse of authority, including wrongful arrests, assaults and malicious prosecutions, according to The Times:  For more than 27 years South Yorkshire Police, described as being ‘Rotten to the Core’ attempted to deny accountability for the deaths of 96 fans in the Hillsborough disaster and, in a massive cover-up attempt, modified the statements of hundreds of witnesses, to support their version of the truth.  I  believe our justice system has covered up many such incidents
in the past, including my case (see documents below) and society needs to urgently address what in essence is a very clear perversion of justice and perjury.

Police perjury (taken from Wikipedia):

Police perjury , the act of a police officer giving false testimony, is typically used in a criminal trial to ‘make the case’ against a defendant who the police believe to be guilty. It also can be extended further to encompass substantive misstatements of fact for the purpose of convicting those whom the police believe to be guilty, or even to include statements to frame an innocent citizen.^[1] More generically, it has been said to be: Lying under oath, especially by a police officer, to help get a conviction.’^[2]  

In November 2013 the BBC reported on the police practice of manipulating crime statistics, also known as “cuffing”, “nodding”, “skewing” and “stitching”.  This blatant fraud is still routinely used to manipulate crime figures (making them look better) to meet targets and secure extra Government funding.

Forces have also admitted for years that they will plant and fake  evidence to obtain convictions.  Paul Condon, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, admitted: “…they [the Met. Police] were prepared to massage evidence…”  Keith Hellawell, the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, said:  “All detectives in those days were big guys.  I would take my coat off, the criminal would perceive that that act was going to be followed up by a thumping or a fist or something…”  Charles Pollard, Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, added: “Everyone knew it happened like that, judges, magistrates, the whole criminal justice system had a sort of conspiracy that is the only way you can make the system work.” 

In my case their remain 3 very serious questions…

1. If the Crown thought they had a genuine case, why would they need to ‘fake statements’ and tutor witnesses with their answers?
2. Why, when each witness with a “faked statement” admitted under cross-examination that the statements were wrong, did the trial judge disregard this in his summing-up, reminding the jury  of the wording in the original “faked” statement?  
3. Why did the trial judge breach  court procedure by allowing the police officer who’d produced the “faked statements”, to  remain in court making notes of what each of the  witnesses said in the witness box, prior to giving evidence himself?

Was there a bigger story going on?

These confidential documents recently came to light.  My jury was never allowed to see any of this…

Creating lies, to support the Crowns version of the truth?

Click on images to see full size documents

To the jury, and anyone reading the news reports, it simply looked as if I’d faked an injury claim and my subsequent redundancy…. as a result, I was sentenced to a total of 6 years in prison.

My father had died just prior to my trial, leaving me some money in his will. His gift to me was therefore confiscated by the Crown under the “Proceeds of Crime Act” (usually used against money launderers and big time criminals), because I’d received the inheritance during the period of my supposed “crime”.

My inheritance was therefore handed  to my insurers… who in turn made a sizeable “donation” to the Metropolitan Police.

The big question is why would any police officer do this?  I can only speculate (see my Blog).  However, often when evidence against an accused is weak or non-existent, the prosecution revert to what is known as ‘Character Assassination’… that ‘s what happened in my trial. Have a look at this article.    If a police officer is convinced you are guilty and looks only for “evidence” to prove his theory… the truth becomes unimportant.

Chris Mullin, former Labour minister and chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, talks in The Times about the “Masonic Wall of Silence” protecting our corrupt police.