Behind the Robinson Trials

south west | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday November 16, 2004 18:20 by Stella Hender hatton.hack at bristolsatire dot fsnet dot co dot uk

The use of a police nark to inform on the clients of the West counctry's largest criminal law firm, and the dubious use of suspended sentences for plea bargaining - two of the issues behind the Robinson trials you will not have read in the mainstream press.

Behind the Robinson trials.
Stella Hender ,freelance journalist

AT the end of the four year long series of fraud trials against 29 Gloucestershire solicitors and clerks, the trial judge, David Smith, QC, went into retirement to devote more time to his bees.

A reporting restriction under Section 4(2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 went that there was no coverage of the trials until last week, and the distillation of four years of court sittings into a single day's coverage meant that many disturbing facts about his conduct of the trials did not come to light.

What did gain coverage was the quote from the police officer in charge of the case, Det Insp Paul Yeatman: "The biggest achievement as far as we are concerned was the conviction of Timothy Robinson." Robinson was the senior partner in the firm which had branches in Gloucester, Cheltenham, Swindon and Bristol, and was alleged to have presided over a Legal Aid swindle of up to £8 million."

Robinson was sentenced to seven years imprisonment ( so long ago that he is out now) but to achieve the conviction, the prosecution relied heavily on his former managing clerk, Richard Hill. Hill's full role never emerged with total clarity at Robinson's trial.
Judge Smith held a court session with the prosecution team alone to decide how much of Hill's admissions of his role as a grass should be made available to the defence. The Court of Appeal later justified this by saying: "It is accepted there is a public interest in not disclosing the activities of police informants."

Instead, Judge Smith only allowed a bald written statement to be put to the jury, which said:

1. Richard Hill acted from time to time as a police informant.
2. Richard Hill received payment on occasions for information he passed to the police.
3.On occasions the information passed to the police by Richard Hill when he was acting
as a police informant necessarily involved some of the clients of Robinsons solicitors.
4.When clients of Robinsons solicitors were involved Richard Hill necessarily breached
the duty he owed both to Robinsons solicitors and to clients of the firm.
5. On occasions, Richard Hill has informed on clients of Robinsons solicitors to the
police without their knowledge and/or consent and not with intention of assisting those
clients, and not with the knowledge or approval of Timothy Robinson.

When Hill was cross examined on the statement, he became evasive, but the Court of Appeal excused this by saying: "he was a police informant and had an obvious motive not to speak about his activities……it does not make Hill's conduct any better, but that refusal would have been maintained whatever disclosure of detail there had been."

Hill had in fact been sacked by Robinson for fiddling the Legal Aid green form scheme. Hill himself had pleaded guilty to doing just that, and had gone to police with stories of widespread similar fraud at Robinsons, and asked for immunity from prosecution.

Whilst he didn't get it, and was later sentenced to 14 months imprisonment, which he served at a vulnerable prisoners' unit at Usk, in South Wales, he spent much of his sentence outside prison helping prepare the police case against his co-defendants.

There was evidence of similar bargains being struck throughout the four years. Sixteen clerks who pleaded guilty to the fraud received suspended sentences. The Court of Appeal has ruled that suspended sentences can only be imposed in "exceptional circumstances." The idea that 16 defendants all had "exceptional circumstances" is in itself exceptional.

That this was a plea bargain of the sort still frowned on in English law is helped on its way by the fact that it is referred to in Gloucestershire police's press handout at the end of the trials.

One of the most successful defence barristers in the trials was Sir Tim Cassel QC, who appeared for clerk Dawn Pryce Jones, who was later acquitted. He had regular clashes with the judge over his ruling that whilst the convictions of previous defendants could be used in evidence during the current trial, the fact that a close colleague was acquitted could not.

The answer seems to have been that he was invited out to dinner by the Judge and the Prosecution. He declined the offer.

Whether Robinson himself was Guilty of the charge of conspiracy to defraud the legal aid board became the question of the trial and subsequent appeal. It was accepted that he himself had forged no forms.

However, he believes that the police had strong reasons for removing the firm, the largest dealing with criminal matters in the West of England. The two offices in Bristol dealt with a large number of West Indian defendants. "In the St Pauls riots, we defended 133 and had 133 acquittals," he said. "In Cheltenham we came across police misconduct of equal, if not greater gravity than …. in the Birmingham pub bomb, and Guildford Four cases."

Clients speak of the superior service they had from Robinsons compared with other solicitors in criminal practice, of prompt attendance at police stations, of matters speedily resolved and of charges dropped.

The procession of former clients as prosecution witnesses through Bristol crown court was a sorry one. One client who had originally been charged with attempted murder, first obtained bail against police objections and then had the charge dropped. The prosecution case at Bristol was that he had been induced to sign a green form for matrimonial advice, which considering his alleged victim was his wife's boyfriend was scarcely surprising, and rang true.

Of 3000 former clients investigated, only 120 were willing to come to court.

That there was a fraud at Robinsons, there is no doubt. That it was as big as alleged is questionable. And what there is no doubt of at all is that the result of the case with seven jailed, and Robinson struck off and ordered to pay £1 million in costs and compensation is that solicitors in criminal practice will think twice about providing legal aid clients with a Rolls Royce service and thus antagonizing the police.

Ends