A long-ish post for the Long Weekend! Includes part one of the long-awaited McNally case saga.
The £300,000 Legal Fund
The first part of what follows in this section will be known to regular readers but there is a surprising twist at the end!
In late 2017 I exposed the (then) Labour Leader of bent Sandwell Council, Steve "Squealing" Eling, in respect of a number of issues. Incredibly, neither his colleagues nor The Labour Party sought to remove him from office until the Spring of 2019. During this period, Eling unlawfully used the paid service - including the Monitoring Officer Surjit Tour, Solicitor Maria Price, and other internal solicitors - to attempt to destroy me and this blog. Members of the legal team were only too happy to assist this unlawful endeavour.
Eling tried to use West Midlands Police (WMP) to destroy me and Surjit Tour assisted him in this purely political project. Tour and his legal team assisted Eling by preparing and sending a “dossier” about me to WMP, and Tour (and another external Solicitor instructed by him) even attended a WMP “Gold” meeting with an Assistant Chief Constable to further Eling’s supposed case. The Police set up an investigation via its “Complex Crime Unit” but belatedly realised the political nature of Eling’s claims and abandoned the investigation.
From the disclosures in late 2017 onwards, Eling also attempted to use the civil law to destroy me. Surjit Tour, Maria Price and other internal SMBC lawyers were, once again, only too happy to use public funds to try and help save The Squealer's skin.
In January, 2018 local MP, James Morris, used an Adjournment Debate in the House of Commons to alert the Government to the corruption and other misconduct within Sandwell Council. This caused outrage to Eling and Labour Councillors. On the very same day, Surjit Tour wrote to me stating, inter alia, that he was employing “specialist Counsel” (i.e barristers) with a view to silencing me and this blog.
What happened for the next few months is opaque. This might be because, at that time, The Squealer had the local WMP Chief Superintendent in his pocket and was confident that the Police would prosecute me. But, as above, the Police eventually saw through Eling and his associates and dropped the “case”. Shortly afterwards, an employee of the Council started a SLAPP court case against me with the knowledge and approval of Eling.
In the meantime, the (then) Chief Executive Jan Britton, Surjit Tour, Maria Price and persons unknown continued to unlawfully pursue publicly-funded legal action against me on the orders of Eling. At some point Sandwell lawyers had a consultation with a QC (probably female which MIGHT possibly mean it was the same one the Council used in other unlawfully funded litigation against me by employee, Lisa McNally - but Tour and Price are refusing to name her!). The QC recommended that Sandwell employ “specialist” London Solicitors, Howard Kennedy, to advise on the merits of suing me.
In November, 2018 Britton, Tour and Price set up a £300,000 “reserve” to take action against me. This was done secretly and not put out to tender. The Council agreed to waive its own procurement rules (just as the now disgraced Britton had done in respect of the infamous “Wragge Report”). Eling ordered this but had a notoriously weak colleague, Cllr Steve Trow, sign the papers. Britton, Tour, and Price agreed to use £150,000 of public money for the instruction of Leading and Junior Counsel and a further £150,000 of taxpayers funds to instruct Howard Kennedy, Solicitors.
Britton, Tour and Price then unlawfully spent the following sums of public money:
Leading Counsel (whom they refuse to name) - £10,882 + Vat;
Junior Counsel (whom they also refuse to name) - £9498 + Vat;
Howard Kennedy, Solicitors - £13,756 + Vat.
Even though the £150,000 authorisation for external solicitors was specifically to instruct Messrs Howard Kennedy, Britton, Tour and Price also instructed yet another firm, Bevan Brittan, and mysteriously paid out another £15,857 + Vat of public money to them.
It must be assumed that Eling received unpalatable legal advice since no court action was commenced against me despite Britton, Tour and Price misusing £49,993 + Vat of taxpayers’ funds.
I assumed that there was very little involvement by Tour’s legal team in this extraordinary affair but, following another Freedom of Information Request, Sandwell Council have now admitted that Tour and team expended an astonishing 279 hours 54 minutes on this proposed case too. This constitutes another astonishing misuse of public funds given that senior legal staff were involved. Sandwell Solicitors charge at an external rate between £146 and £201 per hour based on the experience of the Solicitor. It is known that senior solicitors were involved in this and so using a rate of, say, £180 an hour for 280 hours that is ANOTHER gross misuse of public funds by Tour to the tune of £50,400!
The Conservative Councillors have asked about this unlawful use of public money and perhaps now they can specifically have Tour also explain how on earth this additional time/money was spent when external solicitors and barristers had also been appointed?
McNally's Lynch Mob - part one
The problem with access to law in this country is that it costs stupendous amounts of money - which I, for one, do not have. Lisa McNally, the Director of Public Health at bent Labour Sandwell earns between £105,000 and £109,000 per annum according to official Council records, and so is in the happy position of being able to afford to pay for her own litigation. But, as we have seen, when this malicious woman sued me, she did so in a conspiracy with others so that the bent Labour Council unlawfully used taxpayers' money to pay for her totally misguided case.
McNally took exception to my occasional commentary about her personal Twitter account (note - this was NOT an official Sandwell social media site). What seems to have been the catalyst for the conspiracy was an official complaint I made about her to the (then) Chief Executive, David Stevens (now also disgraced, of course).
In January, 2021 myself and many others were concerned that McNally was using her personal Twitter account to make political statements even though she works in a politically-restricted post. I duly complained about this and the full text is available as "Document A" under the Legal Notice below, should you wish to plough through it.
During the same month I was also blogging about McNally's qualifications. Although the press routinely referred (and continue to refer) to her as "Dr" Lisa McNally when writing about medical matters, she is not, in fact, a medical doctor registered with the General Medical Council. She qualified as a clinical psychologist and did a PhD in "health psychology" which legally entitles her to use the title, "Dr" (as a PhD also would for, say, an historian or an economist). This was not some sort of point-scoring exercise since (a) due to the intense media coverage of her statements large numbers of Sandwell folk wrongly believed her to actually be a medical doctor, and (b) she criticised real Government doctors and experts dealing with Covid (eg, the members of the JCVI) when, as I posited, she was seemingly unqualified to do so (leaving aside here the allegedly "political" nature of her rants).
According to McNally (and I placed a considerable amount of evidence before the Court rebutting many of her absurd "contentions") she was allegedly so distressed about all this, on 27th January, 2021 she "part-wrote a letter of resignation" (whatever that means) but was "dissuaded" from resigning by Stevens and Surjit Tour, Sandwell's highly controversial Monitoring Officer. The trio (at least) then cooked-up the scheme to unlawfully use public money to sue me and brought then "leader" Maria Crompton on board to "authorise" the unlawful funding! (Sandwell are STILL fighting to keep this part of the sordid affair secret!) Incidentally I produced copies of her tweets for the day of her alleged "crisis" to the Court which were "jolly" in nature - including gifs of "laughing" sheep.
Except in exceptional circumstances, all civil legal actions these days have to begin with a 14-day "protocol letter". This is a detailed explanation of the case in a specific format. The idea is that the parties will try and come to a settlement without the need for Court action.
On 11th February, 2021 I received an astonishing Protocol letter from a senior Sandwell Council Solicitor and "Corporate Business Partner", Julia Lynch. Lynch, as it turned out, was only too willing to do the bidding of McNally, Stevens, Tour and Crompton despite the fact that she should have known, as a senior Solicitor, that the use of taxpayers' funds in this way was unlawful. Indeed the first line of the Protocol letter was, to say the least, weird. Normally, a Protocol letter will start with, "we act for xxxxx and are instructed to xxxxx". But Lynch bizarrely started the letter, "Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council intends to support potential civil proceedings against you by Dr Lisa McNally ...".
Lynch must have known (or should have known) that the matters complained of related to McNally's personal Twitter account. She should have advised her to seek her own legal representation at her own expense but did not do so. Whatever her motivation (pressure from Stevens and Tour?) she failed to give McNally this advice and left bent Sandwell on the hook for, as it turns out, losses in excess of £100,000. Professionally, the Council was Lynch's Client but she either failed to professionally advise it of the unlawful nature of the funding or, for personal reasons, ploughed on regardless.
In passing, it is highly unlikely that McNally would have got a decent private solicitor to take on her malicious case given how weak it was - hence the conspiracy with Stevens, Tour and Crompton (and possibly others).
This trivial matter could have been issued in the local County Court but the malevolent McNally, Stevens, Tour and Crompton were determined to finish me once and for all so that they threatened to issue the proceedings in the millionaires' playground, The Media & Communications Court - part of the High Court in London - the recent venue for the Wagatha Christie trial.
Of course, I have been the subject of Sandwell Labour dirty tricks for many years and also the victim of SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) litigation in an effort to close the Skidder blog, destroy my reputation, and break me financially. The immediate problem was that I had no funds to fight this unlawfully-funded claim where I was maliciously threatened with an injunction backed by a penal notice. In other words, McNally sought to shut me up with taxpayers' money and to have me imprisoned if I broke the terms of any injunction. My own liberty was now at risk.
Given the bizarre nature of Lynch's Protocol Letter I immediately responded on 11th January, 2021 (the same day) with a series of questions asking for clarification of what parts of it were supposed to mean. I also asked whether Lynch was purporting to act for Surjit Tour and Alison Knight who were referred to in the Protocol Letter seemingly as potential claimants too (more on that in part 3).
I received a belligerent response from Lynch. I know many readers of this blog are not Twitter-users but McNally and Lynch made the totally crazy claim that because I commented about McNally in this blog and on Twitter, I was somehow then responsible for others commenting on her too (although they classed any comments about her as "attacks"). Just by way of one example, when I queried the absurdity of this part of the claim Lynch - a senior Solicitor - claimed that the responses of others over whom I had no control whatsoever were "the predictable consequences of your postings" and so I was liable!
Lynch deliberately included much in the Protocol letter which was irrelevant to McNally's supposed claim and when I queried this she stated, "the other matters referred to are by way of background and/or context". As we shall see, this was a crude attempt by Lynch to smear me and to put prejudicial "evidence" before the Court, which is precisely which she went on to try to do.
We shall see in later parts of this history how McNally and her co-conspirators tried to "doctor" (no pun intended) the evidence and to create evidence from people unable or unwilling to provide witness statements, but in my initial response of 11th January I had pointed out that, as a responsible journalist, I had written to McNally on 4th January, 2021 specifically asking for details of her CV and qualifications. We shall see later that "The 4th January Email" became contentious but Lynch was now aware of it and stated in her aggressive response on 12th January, that she noted "that you said that you have given Dr McNally the opportunity to respond to you as a journalist". It would appear from this that Lynch did not investigate this aspect of the matter at this stage.
Within 22 hours of receipt of the Protocol letter I advised that I was proposing to defend the Claim in full and that I was seeking legal advice. I had no money and so I contacted an organisation that works, inter alia, to protect the freedom of the press and they agreed to look into the matter.
On 13th February I wrote to Lynch explaining that I was still trying to obtain legal advice but that, in the meantime I was enclosing a number of documents in my "defence". It is also important for readers who are non-lawyers to note that, in civil matters, solicitors have a duty to the Court to (a) present cases fairly, and (b) to agree all matters that can reasonably agreed as soon as possible so that only the contentious issues take up Court time. Thus I asked Lynch to agree various issues including that McNally had made no complaint to me about the matters she now complained of - which she had not - but Lynch was not even prepared to do that. I also objected to parts of my blogs being used in the Protocol claim out of context:
"11. Your protocol letter - particularly the annex is bordering on professional misconduct. You have a duty, as a Solicitor, to present the case fairly - especially if you are going to rush to the court to try and fetter the freedom of the press for publishing things that are true. If you go down that route you must present to the Court the full blogs and not your carefully selected extracts."
(At a later point Lynch made the extraordinary claim that the Protocol letter WAS "the complaint" of McNally i.e that McNally was somehow above mere mortals who would speak out at the time (and she was prolific in commenting about people and issues on Twitter) and that she could simply ignore the legal notice placed at the bottom of each blog post - as with this one.)
Further, Lynch was not even prepared to admit that McNally is not a medical doctor and I wrote:
"12 You are, incredibly, not prepared to admit that Ms McNally is not a registered medical practitioner. Indeed in your Protocol Annex you specifically complain that in my blog, 'The "Dr" McNally Mystery' I was "undermining [her] status as a Doctor" when I have pointed out quite clearly that she IS an academic doctor and not a medical doctor and she agrees with this stating on Twitter, "I never said I was [a medical doctor]" (6th February, 2021). Unfortunately, she never said she wasn't - despite being asked by me via a press enquiry (see further below)."
[The craven local press knew by now she was not a medical doctor but decided to continue to call her "Dr" even though they were now aware that many of their readers mistakenly believed her to be a qualified medic.]
I also pointed out - and this was important in respect of the proposed injunction - that I had never actually met McNally.
The organisation trying to assist me advised me at this stage not to communicate with Lynch until I had the benefit of legal advice. But a problem arose in that they did not have the resources to fund my Defence. They had some lawyers assist on a pro bono (free) basis and the response was positive in my favour, but I still needed definitive advice. I duly asked Lynch for a 14 day extension to obtain legal advice and respond to the Protocol letter (which is very frequently given where there is no urgency). Lynch responded that if I permanently removed all the blogs, tweets etc complained of, she would agree a 14 day extension but not otherwise.
I was in a real bind now. I had approached other solicitors and the preliminary costs were astronomical. Time was running out. I wrote to Lynch on the 24th. I explained that whatever happened I was going to defend the claim and that I would be legally-represented. I was not going to try and go it alone. (As it happens I eventually had to sell equity in my home to pay legal fees.) On the 24th I wrote another email to Lynch specifically setting out my further defences subject to the right to add to them when I finally secured legal assistance. Lynch merely acknowledged this detailed Defence without comment but signing-off the letter with "kind regards"! I was not amused, as you might imagine, by this facetious subscription.
The following day Lynch served me with a 529-page "Court bundle" of documents. Whole sections of this were simply intended to smear me and it was obvious that this bundle was intended to stop me getting legal representation as lawyers would charge huge sums even to just read it. Here are some extracts from my response of 29th January:
"I am still without legal representation. I have put an already robust defence to you in accordance with the Protocol. You refused a Protocol Extension unless I capitulated - without legal advice - to the terms of your letter. Within a day you served me with a 529-page bundle. It is quite evident from this that the Protocol process was a charade and that SMBC was intent on the issue of proceedings all along. This was malicious, oppressive and unconscionable.
An organisation trying to assist me made several attempts to contact you on Friday afternoon without success. I had already sent you my authority to discuss this matter with them.
You are very well aware that I have very limited funds and your service of a 529-page bundle is intended to "front-load" costs and prevent me being able to afford legal representation. We shall see.
Smear
You have tried to smear me in the Protocol Letter and the Bundle as you have done many times before since 2014. I will answer that in detail soon - hopefully via lawyers - but this is evidence of your bad faith.
Protocol
Your Protocol Letter - which you expected me to agree to without legal representation - was far wider ranging than the proceedings you say you are issuing. You refused me a time extension to get legal advice because I would not agree with those allegations in full. You are now seeking a lesser remedy. I will draw this to the attention of any Court as it is further evidence of your malicious and oppressive conduct.
I have asked you repeatedly to confirm that Ms McNally's twitter account @Lisa_McNally1 is either officially sanctioned and is an official SMBC account or if it is the personal account of Ms McNally. There are important legal implications to this and you refuse to respond. Why?"
In a panic, I removed all the parts of blog posts and tweets complained of, but specified in writing this was strictly without admission of liability:
"Removal of Blogs/Tweets
I have complied in full on a temporary and voluntary basis without any admission of liability (indeed I specifically defend each and every allegation you make insofar as they are even relevant) with your "removal request" at Schedule 2 - Page 34 of the final bundle.
The blog posts have been fully redacted in accordance with your unwarranted request.
The Facebook Group page and two other Facebook pages have been removed without any admission of liability.
You will appreciate that Tweets cannot be amended. It is unconscionable for you to try and censor my Twitter account. In the premises I have - without any admission - deleted all the tweets complained of. I have, however, posted replacement tweets reflecting your unlawful censorship. A schedule of the revised wording is also attached herewith.
Finally,
It will be a matter for my lawyers to deal with but I deeply resent the allegation that I am some sort of [physical] danger to staff. I have been coming to Oldbury Council House since 2014 i.e. for several YEARS and you have no evidence whatsoever to back up your malicious allegation. I am sure we shall return to this point soon."
Lynch and McNally were cock-a-hoop. They now thought they had me. Lynch served DRAFT Court proceedings but also a proposed "consent order" in respect of her injunction application. Greedy McNally was not only unlawfully screwing the taxpayer for her legal costs but now decided she would profit from the conspiracy personally. This piece of work now amended her claim to also seek £10,000 damages for herself!
If I can just explain the legal situation as things stood. McNally sought an injunction to stop me writing about her. Lynch was seeking an interim injunction. McNally would go to the High Court and say that she was in danger etc (despite never having met me) and if the Judge agreed she would get her interim injunction. Meanwhile a "normal" Court case would proceed with me serving a Defence and the matter proceeding via specified stages to an eventual trial. If McNally won, the injunction would have been extended.
The other problem I had was that she was a "Director of Public Health" who had been "fighting" the pandemic, and the British Establishment looks after its own. There was every chance, despite the weakness of the case, that some Judge would fall for her sob story and grant an interim injunction. McNally tried to get this result with a statement about her alleged mental health issues and added this lie, "I dread meeting Mr Saunders again" when she had never met me at all! (I will comment further on the evidence in later parts of this history.) My lawyers did say that if the injunction was granted they would appeal the decision but this was not great news since I was already forking out thousands of pounds!!!!
It was also very important for me to stop the injunction - not least because of the threat to my liberty - since the local media would have had a field day if it was granted, and there would have been enormous damage to my reputation and credibility. I would have been "guilty" in the eyes of many people even though I was staunchly defending the malicious claim.
I had hoped that by removing the contentious material pending the outcome of the case, the injunction application would fall away, but Lynch was having none of it. The draft consent order she prepared and served on me, a non-legally represented private individual, included a clause whereby, had I signed it, I would have admitted "guilt" - in particular that I had pursued a "course of conduct" to harass McNally (which I had not). This was obviously wholly unacceptable. Nevertheless, I attempted to negotiate an appropriate form of wording with Lynch, on the basis that there should also be a confidentiality clause to protect MY reputation pending the outcome of the "main" case.
It is important to note that I now wrote to Lynch on a "without prejudice" basis - i.e "off the record". At the eventual hearing in London, Lynch included some of these documents in the Court bundle. The only logical explanations for this are either (a) gross incompetence or (b) an attempt to deliberately smear me.
At this stage I was under the impression that proceedings had actually been issued (it seems there was some delay at the Court and so Lynch could seemingly have stopped the issue had she wanted to do so.) As it happens, when the case was issued Lynch forgot to serve all the papers on me - and this was actually very important as the papers included a penal notice potentially committing me to prison if I breached any forthcoming injunction.
You may think I was doing nothing in between the dates mentioned above but, of course, I was desperately trying to obtain legal representation, not helped by the service of Lynch's 529-page bundle. The organisation I had been working through sent the bundle etc to a top London lawyer and his first comment was that vast amounts of it were irrelevant and simply intended to smear me. Large sections would have to be removed before any eventual trial. Once again there is only one obvious conclusion as to why Lynch served the bundle with all this material in it.
Meanwhile, Lynch rebuffed my attempts to agree a consent order and refused to agree a confidentiality clause (as McNally and her co-conspirators wanted to shout about all this from the roof-tops). On 3rd March, 2021 Lynch confirmed the proceedings HAD been issued.
On 4th March I finally obtained legal representation in a slightly bizarre fashion. I had been in touch with a well-known Solicitor, Mark Lewis of Patron Law in London. He agreed to act. Ten minutes later the organisation I had been dealing with said that the top lawyer who had commented on Lynch's bundle had confirmed that, in his view, I would win the case and he too would be happy to act! As it was, I had just signed the relevant papers with Mark Lewis.
Mark's first job as my lawyer was to give me an almighty bollocking for trying to head off the injunction threat by consent order! He was very firmly of the view that McNally had no case whatsoever. Whilst he could understand that I was without representation, and sh*tting myself about costs, I should not have entered into any negotiations at all. Mark is a great bloke and a force of nature. He then set about Lynch with a vengeance. She was soon whining that he was being "aggressive" but he responded that it was her and McNally who were being "aggressive" by trying to put me in prison!
As above, Lynch forgot to serve all the Court papers on me but did serve the Court Notice for the injunction hearing - 16th March, 2021 in London. (There was a wholly inadequate time estimate of just one hour which Lynch apparently thought was suitable). Mark Lewis tried to explain to Lynch that the application was hopeless but she wouldn't have it. I then had to go to the costs of employing a barrister to deal with the hearing which was on a Tuesday.
Mark instructed the brilliant Richard Munden from 5RB chambers in London. Richard - another great guy - agreed with Mark and the other top solicitor who had advised me that McNally had no case.
Suddenly on the Friday before the hearing McNally surrendered on the injunction. Even the way this was done was extraordinary since it is the job of the Solicitor, Lynch, to inform the Court and all parties of the position but the emails were sent from McNally's QC's Clerk. Highly unusual.
Even though McNally withdrew her vengeful injunction application no provision was made for MY wasted costs. In English Law costs usually "follow the event". As McNally "lost" she was then obliged to pay the costs (although the Court was apparently unaware that she was rooking taxpayers' for this sum).
The "main" case was still alive but the malevolent McNally refused to drop it. She was quite prepared for more public money to be wasted on her trivial nonsense - as were Lynch and the others. Thus Mark Lewis immediately applied to the Court to strike the whole Claim out. I will deal with that in later parts of this history including the "evidence" Lynch presented on McNally's behalf. Incidentally, another Sandwell Solicitor, Vanessa Maher-Smith now also became involved in the case so that McNally now had TWO publicly paid solicitors purporting to act for her (plus Tour and Price in the background).
But there is a coda to this part of the story. Having withdrawn the injunction application Lynch wrote to Mark Lewis on 21st April, 2021 with a truly astonishing bombshell. After acknowledging service of Mark's service of the application to strike out the case Lynch wrote this inane request:
"In the meantime, I invite you to reconsider the consent order that was drafted in March and sent to your Client initially and then to you once instructed."
Mark wrote to me:
"I can only say that in 33 years of practise this is the most ridiculous letter I have ever seen".
He replied to Lynch:
"You appear to have forgotten that you withdrew your application.
Not only are you not entitled to the relief sought but you conceded that you are not so entitled, and conceded that your client is not in need of it (we have set out our position that she was never entitled to it in the first place). This is an outrageous waste of the Local Authority's money."
I have written about the costs issues elsewhere, but stay tuned folks for part two of this story coming soon!
Sandwell - where on earth does all this money come from? Er, you:
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