After nearly five years of a reporting restriction imposed by Judge David Smith, we finally know why he was so determined to keep it in place, despite several attempts by journalists to oppose it. He was protecting himself. read full story / add a comment

Tim Robinson, recently released from his 7 year sentence for being the boss of his \"fraudulent\" law firm, is sending his case to the CCRC with a view to getting an Appeal court. Today he sent this letter to various newspapers. read full story / add a comment

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. read full story / add a comment

Stella Hender Writer & Artist NUJ no: 901258 Tel: (01453) 766337 1, Bridgeside, Fax: (01453) 764018 Cainscross, Mobile: (07759) 826488 Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 3ER. As a freelance journalist, the writer watched one of the long running secret trials of the Robinson solicitors at Bristol crown court, with her partner John Hatton, they supplied the Daily Telegraph, Mirror and Mail, and local papers, with background. Here is one of the stories behind the trials, one the national media barely mentioned: the use of a paid police nark posing as a legal clerk to inform on the clients of one of the largest criminal law firms in the country for an unspecified number of years. Some of what follows is from an exclusive interview with Tim Robinson, recorded on mini-disc on a day out from Leyhill prison while serving the last few months of his seven year sentence. 6.11.04 NARK Hender Tim Robinson, the flamboyant former boss of Robinsons, the "Rolls Royce" firm of West Country lawyers, maintains to this day that his firm was targeted by Gloucestershire police because of his record of successfully defending lower class clients and exposing corrupt policemen. "The biggest achievement was the conviction of Timothy Robinson." Said Det. Insp Paul Yeatman on Friday October 29th when the final trial collapsed because of the last defendant's ill health, and the reporting restriction was finally lifted after four and a half years of secret trials. Robinson's deliberately set up their offices in the most run down housing estates of Bristol, Gloucester, Cheltenham and Swindon, to attract legal aid work. They became known as a revolving door, getting clients released from police cells as fast as the police and magistrates banged them up. "In the St. Paul's riots we defended 133 and got 133 acquittals." Tim told us proudly. "We constantly came into serious conflict with the police." He said in his press statement. "We were highly critical of their negative methods…of merely reacting to events. We adopted a technique of being proactive and challenging the basis of what they were doing. That caused them embarrassment …when case after case was lost or had to be dropped. "In Cheltenham we came across police misconduct of equal if not greater gravity than…in the Birmingham pub bomb and Guildford Four cases. "We let the cat out of the bag about institutional racism and sexism endemic in the local force. "They mounted several investigations into the firm to see if they could find something…to close us down. Our telephones were tapped and they set up a hidden CCTV surveillance camera on our offices for six months." Tim Robinsons continues to make accusations about corrupt police involved in the ten year investigation into his firm, which resulted in 22 convictions – mostly former clerks who were given suspended sentences in exchange for their guilty pleas, pleas which were used as the basis of the prosecution's case against the others. The prosecution allege that up to £5 million was swindled from the legal aid board over five years, yet their own figures in court added up to £800,000. One of the acquitted former clerks, now a qualified lawyer, estimates that the investigation and series of trials has cost the tax payer £100 million. Five clerks and solicitors were acquitted, including two equity partners. Two former clerks had their cases dropped. The acquitted people represented 75% of the defendants in trial 4, the Gloucester office, and the manager of the Cheltenham office. Yet the prosecutions case was that the firm was "corrupt from top to bottom." That phrase came from Richard Hill, who had worked for Robinsons as a clerk for seventeen years. For an unknown number of those years he was a paid police informer. Unable to resist the lure of fiddling legal aid forms by forging signatures rather than trying to keep up with the punishing work schedule that Robinson demanded, he said at his trial: "I had my snout in the trough but Tim Robinson was the pig farmer." Hill inflated his salary by tens of thousands of pounds, was caught when the legal aid board sent his claims back with queries, and sacked by Robinson. Soon after he went to the police, who were also funding him an unknown amount, and alleged that the entire firm was involved in a huge scam on the public purse. Hill became the chief prosecution witness. He was given 14 months, which he served before the trials even started, in Usk prison. Tim Robinson had "absolutely no idea" that Hill was a police informer. In an exclusive interview while on his work placement from prison at GLOSCAT college, Cheltenham, he told us: "He served his time in solitary. His hearing was at 7pm one night, he pleaded guilty. He was put on a vulnerable prisoners unit at Usk prison. (Usk has a large population of sex offenders.) He was given day parole to attend the police station to assist the police with their inquires." We asked him if he had never suspected Hill of anything. Diane Moreton, the only other solicitor to be convicted apart from Tim himself, never trusted him. She said in court that she found him "strange, bad at his job, always moaning and making disparaging comments about Mr. Robinson. I didn't think he was an asset to the firm in any way, shape or form…" "I had the utmost respect for him," Tim said. "We worked together on major and routine cases. His kids had played with my kids." But there was one unusual thing: "When the police saw me down at the police station they were always defensive; then Richard would come along and he'd be in their club having a drink with them." Hill's status as a paid informer only came out by accident. Judge David Smith imposed reporting restrictions that lasted four and a half years and prevented any mention of the trials in the media – even though members of the public could go into the foyer of Bristol crown court and see them listed every day, and the personalities involved, both defendants and lawyers, were the subject of common gossip in the pubs and clubs of Gloucestershire and Bristol. "Hill admitted that he had told a tissue of lies to the police about his own and others involvement." Said Tim in his press statement. "I came across a court document that suggested that the prosecution had secretly told the judge that Hill had been, while working for the firm, an official paid informant and he had been passing details of the client's cases to the police. "The judge ruled in secret that the defence should be told…but the police had "forgotten"! Hill totally denied being an informant on oath. Later, the judge told the jury that Hill's perjury was 'understandable!' Also understandable was that Hill's position as both chief clerk of a major criminal law firm, and a police nark informing on that same firm's clients, thus perjuring the course of justice in hundreds of cases, should be a major plank of Tim Robinson's appeal. In November 2002, although his appeal was turned down, the three judges expressed grave concern. "Lawyers must not be informants" was the headline of the Times law report, of November 13th, the only press report that was allowed through the draconian gagging order. "Use by police of their solicitors or their clerks would be a breach not only of their duty to their clients but a breach by the police of the rights of the citizen." Said the judges. Those rights "were severely curtailed if the solicitor, or solicitor's clerk from whom he sought legal advice was telling the police what passed between them. "It was to be noted that the court was expressing its concern about the practice in general rather than commentating in detail upon the particular case." The chief constable of Gloucestershire attempted to justify their use of Hill by referring the court to a booklet titled Covert Human Intelligence Sources published by the Home Office in September 2000, five years after the offices of Robinsons were raided. This included a code which police had to follow. "Legally privileged information obtained by a source is extremely unlikely ever to be admissible in criminal proceedings." This document proclaims. "Moreover, the mere fact that use has been made of a source…may lead to proceedings being stayed as an abuse of process." The chief constable's lawyer , Simon Freeland QC assured the court that all necessary checks and risk assessments had been adhered to in this case, and "in the present climate...it was most unlikely that a solicitor's clerk would be used as an informant." But he drew the judge's attention to paragraph 34 of the code which said: "legal privilege did not apply to communication made with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose." Tim Robinson is determined the truth will come out. "Of 700 employees, only 29 were brought before the courts. That's point five percent of my workforce. I made grave errors of judgement, I can understand how people who did not have the stamina I had, started fiddling in order to keep up. "I can see it now, I couldn't see it then. But I did not fiddle the legal aid and I did not know other people were. If I did, why did I sack the ones who did come to my attention, like Richard Hill? "The Law Society have confirmed they've never, ever, known of a case where the police targeted a law firm employee. Richard Hill broke confidentiality in both directions and the police paid for that information. They perverted the course of justice. "I believe this was the reason for my long sentence. They have taken me out of the game, and discredited me for anything I want to say." The Robinson's prosecutions has been a long and reverberating shot across the bows, a warning to all other criminal law firms not to treat their poor, often black, legal aid clients in the way Tim's clerks and solicitors did – that is, in the way middle class clients who are paying through the nose have always expected to be treated, with respect – and to have their cases pursued with tenacity. There are many hundreds of former clients of Robinsons, people who were both convicted and acquitted, who are today still unaware that details of their defence statements, and personal details, were being relayed to the police by the fraudulent clerk and police nark Richard Hill. Technically, many of those cases could be referred back to the appeal court because of the abuse of process. But who would be the only lawyers willing and able to conduct such appeals? Robinson's. Exactly. Ends Stella Hender Writer & Artist NUJ no: 901258 Tel: (01453) 766337 1, Bridgeside, Fax: (01453) 764018 Cainscross, Mobile: (07759) 826488 Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 3ER. As a freelance journalist, the writer watched one of the long running secret trials of the Robinson solicitors at Bristol crown court, with her partner John Hatton, they supplied the Daily Telegraph, Mirror and Mail, and local papers, with background. Here is one of the stories behind the trials, one the national media barely mentioned: the use of a paid police nark posing as a legal clerk to inform on the clients of one of the largest criminal law firms in the country for an unspecified number of years. Some of what follows is from an exclusive interview with Tim Robinson, recorded on mini-disc on a day out from Leyhill prison while serving the last few months of his seven year sentence. 6.11.04 NARK Hender Tim Robinson, the flamboyant former boss of Robinsons, the "Rolls Royce" firm of West Country lawyers, maintains to this day that his firm was targeted by Gloucestershire police because of his record of successfully defending lower class clients and exposing corrupt policemen. "The biggest achievement was the conviction of Timothy Robinson." Said Det. Insp Paul Yeatman on Friday October 29th when the final trial collapsed because of the last defendant's ill health, and the reporting restriction was finally lifted after four and a half years of secret trials. Robinson's deliberately set up their offices in the most run down housing estates of Bristol, Gloucester, Cheltenham and Swindon, to attract legal aid work. They became known as a revolving door, getting clients released from police cells as fast as the police and magistrates banged them up. "In the St. Paul's riots we defended 133 and got 133 acquittals." Tim told us proudly. "We constantly came into serious conflict with the police." He said in his press statement. "We were highly critical of their negative methods…of merely reacting to events. We adopted a technique of being proactive and challenging the basis of what they were doing. That caused them embarrassment …when case after case was lost or had to be dropped. "In Cheltenham we came across police misconduct of equal if not greater gravity than…in the Birmingham pub bomb and Guildford Four cases. "We let the cat out of the bag about institutional racism and sexism endemic in the local force. "They mounted several investigations into the firm to see if they could find something…to close us down. Our telephones were tapped and they set up a hidden CCTV surveillance camera on our offices for six months." Tim Robinsons continues to make accusations about corrupt police involved in the ten year investigation into his firm, which resulted in 22 convictions – mostly former clerks who were given suspended sentences in exchange for their guilty pleas, pleas which were used as the basis of the prosecution's case against the others. The prosecution allege that up to £5 million was swindled from the legal aid board over five years, yet their own figures in court added up to £800,000. One of the acquitted former clerks, now a qualified lawyer, estimates that the investigation and series of trials has cost the tax payer £100 million. Five clerks and solicitors were acquitted, including two equity partners. Two former clerks had their cases dropped. The acquitted people represented 75% of the defendants in trial 4, the Gloucester office, and the manager of the Cheltenham office. Yet the prosecutions case was that the firm was "corrupt from top to bottom." That phrase came from Richard Hill, who had worked for Robinsons as a clerk for seventeen years. For an unknown number of those years he was a paid police informer. Unable to resist the lure of fiddling legal aid forms by forging signatures rather than trying to keep up with the punishing work schedule that Robinson demanded, he said at his trial: "I had my snout in the trough but Tim Robinson was the pig farmer." Hill inflated his salary by tens of thousands of pounds, was caught when the legal aid board sent his claims back with queries, and sacked by Robinson. Soon after he went to the police, who were also funding him an unknown amount, and alleged that the entire firm was involved in a huge scam on the public purse. Hill became the chief prosecution witness. He was given 14 months, which he served before the trials even started, in Usk prison. Tim Robinson had "absolutely no idea" that Hill was a police informer. In an exclusive interview while on his work placement from prison at GLOSCAT college, Cheltenham, he told us: "He served his time in solitary. His hearing was at 7pm one night, he pleaded guilty. He was put on a vulnerable prisoners unit at Usk prison. (Usk has a large population of sex offenders.) He was given day parole to attend the police station to assist the police with their inquires." We asked him if he had never suspected Hill of anything. Diane Moreton, the only other solicitor to be convicted apart from Tim himself, never trusted him. She said in court that she found him "strange, bad at his job, always moaning and making disparaging comments about Mr. Robinson. I didn't think he was an asset to the firm in any way, shape or form…" "I had the utmost respect for him," Tim said. "We worked together on major and routine cases. His kids had played with my kids." But there was one unusual thing: "When the police saw me down at the police station they were always defensive; then Richard would come along and he'd be in their club having a drink with them." Hill's status as a paid informer only came out by accident. Judge David Smith imposed reporting restrictions that lasted four and a half years and prevented any mention of the trials in the media – even though members of the public could go into the foyer of Bristol crown court and see them listed every day, and the personalities involved, both defendants and lawyers, were the subject of common gossip in the pubs and clubs of Gloucestershire and Bristol. "Hill admitted that he had told a tissue of lies to the police about his own and others involvement." Said Tim in his press statement. "I came across a court document that suggested that the prosecution had secretly told the judge that Hill had been, while working for the firm, an official paid informant and he had been passing details of the client's cases to the police. "The judge ruled in secret that the defence should be told…but the police had "forgotten"! Hill totally denied being an informant on oath. Later, the judge told the jury that Hill's perjury was 'understandable!' Also understandable was that Hill's position as both chief clerk of a major criminal law firm, and a police nark informing on that same firm's clients, thus perjuring the course of justice in hundreds of cases, should be a major plank of Tim Robinson's appeal. In November 2002, although his appeal was turned down, the three judges expressed grave concern. "Lawyers must not be informants" was the headline of the Times law report, of November 13th, the only press report that was allowed through the draconian gagging order. "Use by police of their solicitors or their clerks would be a breach not only of their duty to their clients but a breach by the police of the rights of the citizen." Said the judges. Those rights "were severely curtailed if the solicitor, or solicitor's clerk from whom he sought legal advice was telling the police what passed between them. "It was to be noted that the court was expressing its concern about the practice in general rather than commentating in detail upon the particular case." The chief constable of Gloucestershire attempted to justify their use of Hill by referring the court to a booklet titled Covert Human Intelligence Sources published by the Home Office in September 2000, five years after the offices of Robinsons were raided. This included a code which police had to follow. "Legally privileged information obtained by a source is extremely unlikely ever to be admissible in criminal proceedings." This document proclaims. "Moreover, the mere fact that use has been made of a source…may lead to proceedings being stayed as an abuse of process." The chief constable's lawyer , Simon Freeland QC assured the court that all necessary checks and risk assessments had been adhered to in this case, and "in the present climate...it was most unlikely that a solicitor's clerk would be used as an informant." But he drew the judge's attention to paragraph 34 of the code which said: "legal privilege did not apply to communication made with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose." Tim Robinson is determined the truth will come out. "Of 700 employees, only 29 were brought before the courts. That's point five percent of my workforce. I made grave errors of judgement, I can understand how people who did not have the stamina I had, started fiddling in order to keep up. "I can see it now, I couldn't see it then. But I did not fiddle the legal aid and I did not know other people were. If I did, why did I sack the ones who did come to my attention, like Richard Hill? "The Law Society have confirmed they've never, ever, known of a case where the police targeted a law firm employee. Richard Hill broke confidentiality in both directions and the police paid for that information. They perverted the course of justice. "I believe this was the reason for my long sentence. They have taken me out of the game, and discredited me for anything I want to say." The Robinson's prosecutions has been a long and reverberating shot across the bows, a warning to all other criminal law firms not to treat their poor, often black, legal aid clients in the way Tim's clerks and solicitors did – that is, in the way middle class clients who are paying through the nose have always expected to be treated, with respect – and to have their cases pursued with tenacity. There are many hundreds of former clients of Robinsons, people who were both convicted and acquitted, who are today still unaware that details of their defence statements, and personal details, were being relayed to the police by the fraudulent clerk and police nark Richard Hill. Technically, many of those cases could be referred back to the appeal court because of the abuse of process. But who would be the only lawyers willing and able to conduct such appeals? Robinson's. Exactly. Ends Behind the secret Robinson trials - the police nark read full story / add a comment

John Astley, former councillor, pleaded Guilty to forging proxy vote application forms yesterday. read full story / add a comment