The PPI Industry Scandal and my Fight for Justice
*CCRC – Criminal Cases Review Commision
How did it all begin?
*References below in Driven to Crime:
[77]
Verdict:
Following Judge MacRae’s summing-up (see Points 1 & 2 opposite), I was found guilty. I collapsed in the Dock and spent 6 weeks in Graylingwell Hospital after which Judge MacRae insisted that altho still a hospital inpatient, I be returned to Court for sentencing. I was sentenced to four years in prison and transferred directly to high security HMP Wandsworth[58].
As a result of my hospitalisation, I was told I had lost my right to appeal, on grounds I had missed the critical 28 day Appeal Lodge deadline[60].
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In January 1993, BBC Watchdog broadcast an exposé on the Payment Protection Insurance industry (PPI)[45], featuring my insurers[46] who had initially rejected my PPI claim. When they became aware I was one of the whistleblowers behind the Watchdog exposé[*Sidebar], they placed me under surveillance, one investigator wrongly reporting that I had been observed riding horses from my home when supposedly injured[*Sidebar]. Subsequently, my insurers admitted their investigator had been watching the wrong people![*Sidebar]
Despite their mistake, my insurers reported me to the Metropolitan Police who subsequently raided our home, charging me with fraud[*Sidebar], alleging that my claims were still fraudulent because I was also claiming on an accident policy after a horse riding injury in 1988. Later in Court, my insurers admitted under cross-examination that I had always been eligible to claim simultaneously on both my accident and redundancy policies[*Sidebar].
Shortly before the Trial was due to commence I was raided again, additional charges being added after the Police learnt I had been involved in a Prize Indemnity race at Brands Hatch at the time I was both unemployed and injured.
At the start of a now extremely complex Trial for any jury to comprehend, my Barrister suddenly injured his back and was unable to represent me in the first weeks of my Trial but His Honour, Judge MacRae, still continued the Trial.
During the summing-up, the Jury were instructed to consider two primary points:
[53][54] And “Point TWO”...
Point ONE). Addressing the Jury, His Honour Judge MacRae, having restricting medical evidence from a senior Spinal Surgeon[61][62], reiterated the Prosecutions inflammatory story that my injuries were caused by a “gardening accident”, referring to this as simple “back strain”, ignoring the spinal damage from my 1988 riding accident[52]. The Daily Mail (4th Feb 1995) published a vilifying report: “World’s Fastest Fiddler” …erroneously reiterating the Prosecutions “gardening back strain” fiction!
Further rhetoric shaped public assumptions that I was an out and out fraudster: ‘Fit Enough to Drive a 240mph Racing Car’… but claimed more than £40,000 from insurance companies ‘…for being ‘Permanently Disabled’!
Point TWO). Judge MacRae, reiterated the second inflammatory fiction, that I had supposedly ‘contrived to deliberately bring down my own Company, Grand Prix Racing Promotions [55] to establish a new Team, Star Union, using Prize indemnity insurances’[*Sidebar]…. leading to even more sensational newspaper headlines!
[57]
Judge MacRae augmented the Prosecution argument by telling the Jury I had claimed from my insurers by using those two primary points (Point 1 & Point 2), embarking on a “web of deception and falsehoods”
Later, the CCRC categorically refused to consider Judge MacRae’s “Point TWO“
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John Bartlett 