David Whitehouse Submission to Scottish Justice Committee.

Craig

Craig

Well-Known Member
Some serious allegations being alluded to here:

Submission of David John Whitehouse to the COPFS inquiry

My involvement with COPFS relates to the prosecution brought in respect of the Rangers case. It is not possible for me to use or disclose any information received from the Crown through the disclosure process, as to do so would breach the provisions of Section 163 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010. That constrains what I can say in evidence. I have asked my lawyers to consider whether there is any way in which the court can be asked to authorise me to give evidence on an unconstrained basis. The criminal proceedings remain outstanding against one accused, and reporting restrictions are in place. I can make available to the enquiry detailed, near-verbatim notes of each court hearing which will evidence appalling conduct on the part of the Crown, with the court being routinely misled, but I would need to be reassured that their provision would not breach the existing reporting restrictions.

I have commenced civil proceedings against Police Scotland and COPFS in respect of their conduct in certain aspects of the Rangers case. I will not refer to matters which could compromise that litigation. This litigation will be strictly based upon matters of law which are not covered in this submission. The pleadings in the litigation will contain substantial evidence to support the claim, such evidence is not referred to within these submissions to avoid any prejudice to the civil proceedings. Equally those matters referred to in these submissions are not necessary to support the civil proceedings. The matters referred to in these submissions are matters which I would wish to bring to the attention of the enquiry, which do not have an impact on the current ongoing criminal investigation and prosecution, and do not involve a breach of legislation.

The civil proceedings commenced against COPFS and Police Scotland will expose misconduct on a scale which will be regarded as extreme on any measure.

At the heart of the issue, I believe is a culture of reckless disregard for due process which has had a catastrophic impact upon the public purse, upon the victims of wrongful prosecutions, but most importantly the integrity and effectiveness of COPFS.

I wish to raise five specific issues which should be considered by the enquiry.

Firstly I would like to raise the independence of COPFS.

When I was first arrested, my employer and I, via our legal advisors, had lengthy dealings with Police Scotland and found them to be utterly inept in investigating complex financial crime. By way of background the crime for which I was arrested was reported by me to the Police. To aid the investigation of the crime COPFS and Police Scotland sought to recover material from my employer which was held subject to legal professional privilege. Neither COPFS nor Police Scotland understood the law in relation to legal professional privilege despite it being set out in extensive detailed correspondence.

The police in particular had no expertise nor training in complex economic crime. The lead investigating officer in the Rangers case, Jim Robertson, a Detective Sergeant at the commencement of the enquiry, advised my colleagues and lawyer for my employer that he lacked knowledge of the relevant law, he has no professional training in company law, accountancy or complex financial crime. He had in effect no supervising officer, his allocated line manager Detective Inspector Brian Wright confirmed he was not able to offer meaningful oversight of the investigation as he had been fully employed on the integration of Strathclyde Police with Police Scotland.

The lack of understanding of LLP is a matter which will I will refer back to later in this submission. Despite this obvious lack of technical or professional expertise, COPFS failed to review or challenge the flawed findings of the Police investigation. They failed to provide any legal oversight or supervision of the actions of the Police.

They showed a reckless disregard for the due process which they maintained throughout. COPFS was obliged, by law and by its own Disclosure Manual, to disclose all evidence (in the form of witness statements and productions) to the defence as soon as reasonably practicable, and in any event within 28 days of my first appearance in court (17 November 2014). However, a year later we were still waiting for many witness statements, and over a thousand crown productions. This seriously impacted upon my team’s ability to prepare my defence – all the more difficult when I was facing allegations that were poorly articulated, speculative and untrue.

In June 2015 and later, COPFS blamed delays in disclosure on the need to read the evidence before disclosing it. If true, that would suggest that they sanctioned my arrest, committal and indictment without first considering all of the evidence that had been available to them for many months, and in some cases years. That showed a reckless disregard for their legal obligations and the interest of justice, to say nothing of my own rights.

Notwithstanding my concerns as to the competence of Police Scotland, I was comforted at the time of my arrest by my lawyers reassuring me COPFS would act independently of the Police and would discharge their duty to critically analyse the evidence produced by the police and investigate my defence, that principle of independence having been established and evolved over hundreds of years. This has since proved to be a misconceived view in this case. Whilst it is correct that over hundreds of years this has been a key role of the public prosecutor, in recent years that independence has progressively been eroded. In the case of my investigation prosecution, COPFS and Police Scotland shared the same office in the same building and clearly acted in tandem at all times. The statutory checks and balances of independence were absent.

This lack of independence is a significant factor which has resulted in the catastrophic failure of the Rangers investigation.
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Continued...

The second issue is a lack of regard to conflicts of interest, which in this case were extreme.

The investigating police officer in the Rangers case, Jim Robertson, is an avid Rangers fan. He has openly confirmed to my colleagues, and lawyers for my employer that he is a regular participant and reader of Rangers fan blogs. In one interview, attended by a partner of DLA solicitors, he actually recited a Rangers chant in an attempt to intimidate a witness!

He stated repeatedly that the evidential basis for this action lay in the BBC documentary, “the Men Who Sold The Jerseys”. COPFS were aware of this and failed in their duty to review his conclusions. Media reports suggest the reporting officer had a deep affinity with the football club which if true should have caused deep concern to COPFS.

Public record documents indicate the Procurator Fiscal, Caroline Macleod, was previously married to one of the failed bidders for the club, Colin Macleod, formerly of Harper Macleod solicitors. Mr Macleod threatened to sue the joint administrators for not accepting his bid for the purchase of the club. His bid, submitted on behalf of “the Macleod clan”, was substantially inferior to other bids. Mrs Macleod refused all requests by my defence team for COPFS to investigate the position of the other bidders. The relevance of such enquiries to the charges is obvious.

Senior counsel for the Crown, James Keegan QC, is a known business associate and professional advisor to members and supporters of the Blue Knights who were also failed bidders for the club.The Blue Knights were a collection of individuals who were openly hostile to, and critical of the work of the administrators. Despite the fact that at no stage did they submit a bid capable of acceptance, they were the purchaser of choice for most fan groups.

Mr Keegan was also himself a previously disqualified director. His disqualification was as a result of an application by the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry who considered Mr Keegan to have acted improperly as a shadow director of an insolvent company. He was disqualified for three years, by consent. He was also engaged in a 10 year dispute with the liquidator of one of his companies, Lowlands Building Services Limited. The liquidator pursued him for fraudulent trading resulting in him ultimately settling the claim by way of a contribution from the directors. In such circumstances it is entirely inappropriate that he should have been instructed to act for COPFS in an action against insolvency practitioners and individuals accused of fraudulent trading and acting as a shadow director.

Mr Keegan applied to become Queens Counsel in 2009. It is evident to me from a review of the terms of the application process for appointment to Queens Counsel, together with a review of the detailed report of Sir William Rae in respect of the 2009 appointment process, that he misled the panel which approved his appointment to Queens Counsel. He could not in my opinion have disclosed his disqualification as a company director, this coupled with the nature of the proceedings brought against him, which on any reading of the rules for applying for silk are a disclosable matter, suggest that Mr Keegan obtained the office on a false pretence. The practical outcome of his engagement in the Rangers case amounts to a fraud.

The final serious conflict of interest relates to the appointment of experts. The COPFS after twice indicting me and my colleagues, finally in 2016 commissioned an expert report from Aver accountants. The COPFS confirmed in court that absent such a report they did not have an evidential basis for the core charges contained within the remaining indictment.

Aver had a material conflict of interest. Aver had previously been party to a commercial arrangement with a business called Kinetic for the provision of insolvency services. Kinetic was acquired by Duff and Phelps, my employer, in 2015. Following the acquisition of the business, the commercial arrangements with Aver were terminated. This will have resulted in a material loss of income to the partners of Aver. It is inconceivable in those circumstances that Aver did not have a material conflict- of- interest in relation to the assignment which they undertook. In any event their report did not support the proposition advanced by COPFS in the indictments.

None of these conflicts were disclosed to the defence teams nor the court.

The third issue relates to a lack of integrity and honesty on the part of COPFS officials.

Until such time as the current criminal proceedings and civil proceedings are concluded it is not possible for me to fully set out the extent of this misconduct. It is, however, relevant to refer to you a decision of Lord Glennie which related to a restraint order which COPFS obtained against me based upon grossly misleading and false information and representations made to the court.

I attach a copy of the judgement in which Lord Glennie considers the Crowns conduct “amounts to a very serious breach of its duty of candour”. He further states “That it seems to me to be not only a failure to aver, but to amount to a clear and very serious breach of the duty of disclosure and candour.” “Where the applicant is the Crown, and is in a position of power, the court must be alert to ensure those powers are not abused”. In the subsequent HFW judgement for costs against the Crown arising from a bill of suspension in respect of a search warrant also unlawfully obtained, (judgement also attached) the court says “Taken in the round, which we are entitled to do, actions of the Third and Fourth (sic) defendants were an abuse of state power.”

The third and fourth defendants were Police Scotland and the Lord Advocate.

There are numerous other examples of where COPFS have misled the court and its officers and have attempted to pervert the course of justice. These matters form part of my civil proceedings and will not therefore be referred to in these submissions. I have transcripts of each court hearing which prove beyond any doubt that those at COPFS engaged in calculated misconduct in an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

My fourth point is a lack of understanding of the law around the issue of legal professional privilege.

This subject has been at the heart of the Rangers case and resulted in an oppression plea being upheld against one accused. The proceedings referred to above by HFW have resulted in very significant costs and damages being awarded against COPFS reported to be £500,000. Despite COPFS apparently have either failed to communicate the correct law to their staff who continue to maintain LPP does not apply in Scotland, or their staff have chosen to ignore the advice. This has led to the latest judgement re Clyde & Co v COPFS, copy attached, where COPFS have again acted oppressively with a disregard for the law.

I have personally been directly consulted by another leading Insolvency Practitioner not connected to my firm, who was also threatened with arrest by officers of COPFS in connection with the Rangers enquiry, as they maintained that this would overcome issues of LPP, astonishingly this was in 2016, after the HFW proceedings.

My final observation is that COPFS chose to disregard their own disclosure manuals and procedures consistently throughout the entirety of the Rangers prosecution. They deliberately and repeatedly concealed exculpatory material in an attempt to pervert the course of justice.The full detail will be established within the civil proceedings and are therefore excluded from these submissions.

I would request the opportunity to provide verbal evidence at the enquiry upon conclusion of the civil and criminal litigation.

My primary submission is that the failings of Crown office are a product of failed leadership which have resulted in a culture of incompetence and lack of candour. This can be rectified by the new Lord Advocate and I wish him well in that task.

It is a cornerstone of any modern society to have a criminal justice system in which the public have trust and confidence, I very much hope the enquiry will go some way to bring about change and to restore public confidence in what is a failed public body.
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What has gone on in all of this can’t remain hidden forever. And there’s a lot

What is the saying?

The truth will out.
 
Wow!

It would certainly seem that the incompetence displayed by the crown during the Shyte trial is only the tip of the iceberg.

This will run & run.
 
mart22 said:
Look at how the Craig Whyte prosecution went. Incompetence there and incompetence here too. It's almost like it's deliberate.
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It’s almost like????

I wonder if Whyte has been back to Margarita in Costa Rica yet? Does anyone know of his whereabouts since the sham trial?
 
nemessis said:
Just give us the jist of what its all about, Please.
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Basically he is saying that Police Scotland and the PF made a real mess of the investigation and trial, the Senior investigating officer had little or no knowledge of financial investigations and correct procedures regarding disclosure were not adhered to , so basically a %^*& up.
 
Police Scotland "utterly inept". That's actually a complement. They are completely useless and not fit for purpose.
 
mart22 said:
Look at how the Craig Whyte prosecution went. Incompetence there and incompetence here too. It's almost like it's deliberate.
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"almost" ?????


Whole thing was a sham from start to finish.

How many were originality arrested? And only 1 stood trial.

Whyte came back voluntarily form Costa Rica. He must have been promised something.
 
Most of us have no idea what's going on, the Police are clueless on Financial and Company law, this is double dutch to most of us fans. What we do know for sure is that we were done up like a kipper and made a right royal laughing stock, much to the sheer delight of the many Rangers haters. After what we went through, i honestly have no faith in the Scottish criminal justice system. No one has been jailed for their antics against us, this is horrifyingly incredible.
With regard to current politics in Scotland, if we go back in time to say the 1960s and the same shenanigans transpired, there would be at the very least, half a dozen crooks jailed for sure.
 
This is supposedly a submission by one of the administrators to an Inquiry on the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. If it's genuine, it's basically saying the entire case against the administrators was misconstrued due to the police and the crown not understanding the law in relation to cases of this nature, and not knowing what they were doing. It also suggests evidence wasn't understood, or even read in some cases, before the charges were brought. It further suggests some of those involved were pursuing personal agendas when conducting the case.

Finally, it says that the core case against them was brought without the crown having an expert witness report supporting the charges against the administrators. When the Crown eventually did get such a report, they obtained it from a company Whitehouse says was conflicted. Even then, he says the Crown's report didn't support the charges brought anyway.

I say "if it's genuine" because from a quick google search the document seems to come from John James - so not exactly the best of sources, and some of the claims do seem pretty extreme. He may have picked it up from somewhere else though - it wouldn't be the first time he has claimed an exclusive for something some other site released first.

Even if it is genuine, it would be Whitehouse's document, and of course he's not exactly unbiased in the circumstances so has to be considered with caution.
 
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He is alleging what we all already believed - the Scottish Legal system is incompetent, broken and corrupt. The difference is that he has cited specific examples.
 
Easy to blame the police in this case, however my view would be the blame should lie with the PF.

Glad to see someone is shining a bit of light on how this case was handled.....or mishandled :mad:

There's a bit of a smell hanging over this whole affair......maybe an award winning journalist might want to look at political and judicial corruption under the current Scottish government?
 
In simple terms, he is saying that Police Scotland and the PF were completely out of their depth in investigating a complex financial fraud.

The Detectives who were running the enquiry, were normal Detectives, with absolutely no specialist training in dealing with financial fraud, which resulted in them not having a clue what they were doing, in respect of the law and the procedures that they should have followed, so they made mistake after mistake, in respect of overstepping the powers that they had in law.

He also alludes that anyone who supported Rangers should not have been involved in the enquiry, as they were biased against him.

Mostly it's just him complaining about technical legalities on procedure and points of law, which he believes were not followed correctly and have had a negative impact on him and others.

Some of it, he has a case, some of it is just bluster, but he is right about one thing, the whole investigation and court case was one huge f*ck-up!
 
Looks like this guy knows his stuff and is going after Police Scotland in a methodical and detailed way.
The whole Rangers affair has been a witch hunt played out in kangaroo courts and supported by every mentally challenged and their dug through a despicable mhedia campaign. All the while encouraged by a hateful set of Scottish politicians who sat back and allowed one of its major institutions to be ripped apart. All for political and sectarian expedience.
Shameful shower of bhastards.
 
Harper Macleod solicitors? Does liewell not have a connection with them?

What r they doing bidding for Rangers or are they bidding on behalf of someone?

This is all waffle to me but seems the law Scotland is completely amateurish to say the least.
 
After reading that I don't pretend to understand a lot of it but from the very start of the investigation through to Whyte's trial I smelt a rat. There was no way all that happened to us was down to one man and the legal authorities in Scotland seemed to approach the whole thing in a " who gives a toss, it's only them." way.
 
I think the whole legitimacy of the document is questionable to say the least, the only source for it seems to have come from one John James, I very much doubt Harper McCleod bid for Rangers "Clan McCleod" isnt true we were aware of EVERY other bid at the time. Like i said whilst this loonball is the only source i would really have my doubts about whole thing.
 
moorie12 said:
I think the whole legitimacy of the document is questionable to say the least, the only source for it seems to have come from one John James, I very much doubt Harper McCleod bid for Rangers "Clan McCleod" isnt true we were aware of EVERY other bid at the time. Like i said whilst this loonball is the only source i would really have my doubts about whole thing.
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I too have doubts about this. Where is the official source of this document?
 
The reference to John James seems true. It started off with a hint of legitimacy and veered off into strange territory.

I would like to see this document verified.

I can well believe Police Scotland and COFPS screwed up and were out of their depth on company law but the claim seems to be they did so because they were Rangers fans. And that Whitehouse himself made the criminal complaint to the police.
 
bigben said:
He is alleging what we all already believed - the Scottish Legal system is incompetent, broken and corrupt. The difference is that he has cited specific examples.
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Totally agree,let's face it right from the start it was only really about Murray Whyte and LBS and what one was the biggest lier
and that was impossible to decide.
 
daven37 said:
Harper Macleod solicitors? Does liewell not have a connection with them?

What r they doing bidding for Rangers or are they bidding on behalf of someone?

This is all waffle to me but seems the law Scotland is completely amateurish to say the least.
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Yes they are Celtics legal outfit and his daughter works there.
 
As soon as he said the Blue Knights didn't put in a credible bid (and by implication then that Charles Green's bid was the only one they could accept) then that just confirms my opinion that this guy was involved in the carve up of our club right up to his brass neck.
 
I wondered why several cases involving Whitehouse still had reporting restrictions imposed.

The lack of financial crimes expertise in both PS and COPFS has been noted before.
 
I’m sorry my own thoughts from a jury side was that this case should have been in a court well away from the West Of Scotland and the outcome didn’t surprise me. Both the police and PF office should have also been handled by a different force miles away from the WCofS.
 
Captain Black said:
Yes they are Celtics legal outfit and his daughter works there.
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Public record documents indicate the Procurator Fiscal, Caroline Macleod, was previously married to one of the failed bidders for the club, Colin Macleod, formerly of Harper Macleod solicitors. Mr Macleod threatened to sue the joint administrators for not accepting his bid for the purchase of the club. His bid, submitted on behalf of “the Macleod clan”, was substantially inferior to other bids. Mrs Macleod refused all requests by my defence team for COPFS to investigate the position of the other bidders. The relevance of such enquiries to the charges is obvious.

This for me is where he veers off into fantasy land "The Macleod Clan" exists only in this poor mans head absolutely no way this bid, as happened with every other at time would have went unreported pure fantasy.
 
Taki said:
The reference to John James seems true. It started off with a hint of legitimacy and veered off into strange territory.

I would like to see this document verified.

I can well believe Police Scotland and COFPS screwed up and were out of their depth on company law but the claim seems to be they did so because they were Rangers fans. And that Whitehouse himself made the criminal complaint to the police.
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Yes, the inference is that the charges brought and subsequent investigation were the actions of Rangers fans and others with conflicts against Duff and Phelps. This doesn't really add up in my mind. The other inference is that the investigation was a total cock up. This does add up.
 
Regarding LPP, I suspect someone at COPFS has got their wires crossed, because for many years this was referred to as confidentiality in communications in Scotland (LPP being a predominantly English term)
 
loyallancashire said:
Basically he is saying that Police Scotland and the PF made a real mess of the investigation and trial, the Senior investigating officer had little or no knowledge of financial investigations and correct procedures regarding disclosure were not adhered to , so basically a %^*& up.
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Of course the spivvy tosspot is going to say that, he's looking for his next big payday.
 
As alluded to in that letter - genuine or not - it was clear from evidence released around the trial that the Police raid(s) on Duff & Phelps (and, I think, on Collyer Bristow) seized evidence that had no bearing on the case and, thereby, made the seizure 'illegal', due to legal privilege. The side-effect of this was that ALL the evidence they seized, including stuff pertinent to the Rangers case, became inadmissible. They basically screwed their own case against Whitehouse and many others. My understanding is that the Crown Office/Procurator Fiscal should have given 'instruction' to the Police before the raid and, perhaps, should even have been in attendance - neither appears to have happened and the Police just blundered on regardless.

That's my understanding at least. Poster @Marty101 has a far better legal handle on these things though.
 
A Detective Sergeant in charge of a case dealing in millions of pounds and company law, give me piece this is one pile of shite and now we know who is behind it let's bin this thread.
 
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