Gosport War Memorial Hospital - Long
The families of patients who died at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital have held a press briefing.
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00:00I want to say to you that whilst we've got Barney and Pamela Byrne up front here,
00:08we have behind us Tim and Karen Wellesley, and we have Charles and Adam Farley.
00:15The reason why there's a separation is because, unfortunately, there has been some Covid in the past.
00:22They're all past their situation, but they're just keeping it.
00:26I'm not saying that with Tim at the moment. That's a different matter. They've chosen to sit there.
00:30But we're just being careful, and we don't want any kind of problems with everybody.
00:38To go on from Barney now, and just briefly to explain as to why we believe there's the necessity for this press briefing.
00:50When the Gospel Independent Panel report was published in June of 2018,
00:58we were all told by Jeremy Hunt that there were some important questions to be answered.
01:04One of them was, why did the Council of Stavridge conduct its investigations the way it did?
01:13When Operation Magenta commenced, a number of us had read through the Gospel Independent Panel report,
01:25and because there were seven families out of the 700 that had very personal dealings with the House of Stavridge,
01:38the Peace Complaints Authority, and the IPCC at the time, there was a paperwork trail,
01:45which enabled us to see that the Gospel Independent Panel report was not producing an overview of the documents that had been given to the panel.
01:58So at the end of the first matrimonial meeting on the 16th of October 2018,
02:05I approached Iain Downing, who was the co-commander of Operation Magenta,
02:11and I asked him who had been responsible for the actual production of the overview of the Gospel Independent Panel report.
02:22And I was told it was a Home Office civil servant named Ken Sutton.
02:28Ken Sutton was Jack Storr's Parliamentary Private Secretary from 1997.
02:35But from that moment in time, we, because of the families who had written communications
02:45with the IPCC, Hampshire, and the PCA, started to go through the documents that the panel had published.
03:03And to our horror, we discovered that the panel report was simply not the overview that it was intended to be.
03:15We took that up with Bishop Jones, and his comment was, a valid comment,
03:22was that the Gospel Independent Panel report did not, or the role of the panel was not to ascribe criminal or civil liability,
03:35and therefore there would be no evidence in that panel report of criminality.
03:45On that basis, we then, on the 19th of November of 2019,
03:52submitted a criminal complaint against Hampshire Constabulary to Operation Magenta.
03:59We addressed it to Operation Magenta, the IOPC, and Hampshire Constabulary,
04:05because we knew that the legislation was that the actual complaints against the police
04:11had to be dealt with by the appropriate authority of Hampshire Constabulary.
04:15But we addressed it to Operation Magenta because it was conducting a criminal investigation into those deaths.
04:22On the 6th of January of 2020, Neil Jerome wrote to us and stated, no crime had been committed.
04:32I, on behalf of the families, then went back to Mr. Jerome with further information,
04:40and on the 13th of March of 2020, we then had a letter from the Crime Registrar of Kent Constabulary
04:48to confirm what Mr. Jerome had said.
04:51On the basis of that, because I believed that the appropriate authority of Hampshire Constabulary
04:57should be investigating those complaints in Operation Magenta, I wrote a complaint here to Neil Jerome.
05:04The outcome of that was that in June of 2020, Hampshire Constabulary contacted me,
05:13and in fact it was the Anti-Corruption Department of Hampshire Constabulary who contacted me,
05:19and subsequently in May of 2020, the IOPC wrote to Ordon Solitary,
05:26stating that Operation Magenta had no remit to investigate Hampshire Constabulary.
05:33When Hampshire Constabulary and the Anti-Corruption Department contacted me in June,
05:38that progressed in a series of meetings until the 14th of August of 2020,
05:44when they asked me to provide detailed allegations against me in offices.
05:51I and a lady called Linda, which unfortunately she's now passed away,
05:59we attended a police station and we produced detailed allegations against 17 named officers of Hampshire Constabulary,
06:10and alleged corruption from 1998 through to 2006.
06:20And that ended up thus being given a complaint reference number in July of 2020.
06:32On the 22nd of September of 2020, we had the situation whereby Hampshire Constabulary wrote to myself,
06:43and then Whitbridge, stating we were ineligible to make a complaint against Hampshire Constabulary.
06:50The investigation stopped.
06:53I then submitted a further complaint within days of that,
06:58and that complaint was accepted. I was suddenly eligible to make a complaint.
07:04But the previous complaint against the 17 must have been stopped in its tracks.
07:11As a result of the complaint I submitted on the 24th of September,
07:20Hampshire Constabulary then provided the outcome of that complaint on the 16th of November 2020,
07:27and they stated that they would take the complaint no further,
07:31as all the matters I'd raised had been investigated before, and no further action was needed.
07:40Once I got that, I communicated with the rest of the families,
07:44and each submitted their own complaint based on the same basis of what I'd done.
07:49Each got back the same response.
07:51When we got the outcome of all those complaints, we then submitted rights of review to the IOPC.
07:59On the 29th of September of 2021, the IOPC upheld our complaints and ordered Hampshire Constabulary to investigate the complaints.
08:14The major part of the order made by the IOPC was that Hampshire Constabulary should provide us
08:22with the details of when the complaints had been previously investigated,
08:28and provide us with the proof to show they'd been investigated.
08:33We're still waiting. We're still waiting.
08:38We're told that that outcome is due very shortly.
08:43But because we don't just sit there and do nothing, we carry on, and we continued going through the documents,
08:53and we ended up submitting a judicial review.
09:00The outcome of the judicial review was to produce documents we had not seen before.
09:08They had to actually provide them to us.
09:10One of which was an assessment document dated the 22nd of August of 2018,
09:18prepared by Hampshire Constabulary, shared with the IOPC, shared with Operation Agenda,
09:25and stated to be shared with the families.
09:30It never was, until we submitted the judicial review proceedings.
09:36The second document was a note of a telephone conference on the 12th of October of 2018,
09:48which confirmed a telephone conference between the IOPC and Hampshire Constabulary,
09:53relating to the assessment that took place on the 22nd of August.
09:59As a result of the assessment itself and the telephone conference,
10:06it is quite evident from those two documents that it was Hampshire Constabulary
10:13who set the parameters of the investigation that had been conducted by Operation Agenda.
10:21On the 12th of October, Hampshire Constabulary told the IOPC
10:30that it had been agreed between Operation Agenda and Hampshire Constabulary
10:35that any misconduct that had occurred in the three investigations from 1998 to 2006
10:44would not be the focus of the investigation by Hampshire Constabulary.
10:49And by Operation Agenda.
10:53The assessment document dated the 27th of August
10:58stated that Hampshire Constabulary had gone through the Gospel Independent Panel report
11:05and had found no evidence of misconduct raised by the panel in the findings,
11:11and therefore there was no evidence of any further investigation to be carried out.
11:17In other words, Hampshire Constabulary was relying on the Gospel Independent Panel
11:23having reviewed the investigations they carried out,
11:27and if there had been criminality,
11:30Hampshire Constabulary expected the Gospel Independent Panel to have that in the Gospel Independent Panel report,
11:37which was a nonsense, because the Gospel Independent Panel had no limit,
11:43had no role to actually ascribe criminal or civil liability.
11:52After we found those two documents, we approached Bishop James again
11:58and said we've got serious concerns about what the content of the Gospel Independent Panel report,
12:05and we'd like them addressed.
12:07We actually started that in 2019 with Bishop James.
12:11He came back to us in May 2013 and said he could not address our concerns,
12:18and he later wrote to me and said he couldn't continue the correspondence with me,
12:26and I could continue it direct with the Secretary of State.
12:30I did.
12:32And subsequently, we issued judicial review proceedings against the Secretary of State.
12:39On the 24th of June of this year,
12:44the Secretary of State had informed us via the Government Legal Department
12:49that the role of the panel was not to comment on, explore, or apportion civil or criminal liability.
13:00In other words, they could not look beyond what was in each individual document
13:06to see if any kind of civil or criminal liability attached.
13:11Thus, making a nonsense of the assessment carried out by Hatchet Constabulary on the 22nd of August of 2018.
13:21That's why we're here today, because when you consider that the actual complaints we've submitted,
13:30and I'm only going to dwell today on the complaints submitted relating to the original investigation into the death of Gladys Richards,
13:40because the actual complaints of the 17 named officers
13:46relates to a conspiracy to conceal the criminality that took place in that first investigation.
13:55So, what has actually happened?
13:58To bring to your attention, what actually happened in the first investigation is this.
14:03And this is just summarising, but relating by date to the documents that are pertinent.
14:09We had Gillian Mackenzie report the unlawful killing of her mother on the 27th of September 1998.
14:18On the 2nd of October 1998, we had Gillian Mackenzie and her sister attending an interview with DC Madison.
14:28At that interview, they provided DC Madison with notes that they had taken since the 11th of August to the 20th of August
14:41whilst their mother was in hospital.
14:45And that was their evidence of the mistreatment of their mother that had led to her death.
14:53Madison reported in his minutesheet dated the 5th of October that at the meeting on the 2nd of October,
15:06Mrs Mackenzie and her sister had denied that their mother was killed as a result of the deprivation of fluids
15:22whilst being administered medication by a serene driver.
15:27So in other words, how she looks at the documents, there's a clear note on the 5th of October
15:34that Gillian Mackenzie denied that her mother was killed as a result of deprivation of fluids.
15:43On the 15th of October, Madison received from Sergeant Dance, one of his colleagues,
15:53a note to say that from what he could understand of the evidence put to him by Madison,
16:01it seemed that the death of Gladys Richard was more of a corporate matter or involving numerous people than one individual.
16:11On the 30th of October, Madison and Morgan submitted an allegation to the CPS
16:19that Gladys Richard had been killed as a result of the actions of a doctor depriving her of fluids.
16:29On the 20th of November, Gillian Mackenzie complained as to the conduct of both Madison and Morgan,
16:40inferring they were incompetent and they weren't carrying out the investigation.
16:45She wasn't aware of what had been sent to the CPS. She did it simply because she was getting no feedback from them,
16:52she was getting no indication whatsoever of any evidence being submitted to the CPS.
16:57But a complaint went in on the 20th of November.
17:01On the 24th of November, the CPS then advised County Constabulary
17:08that the allegation, as interpreted by DC Madison, required qualified medical opinion.
17:20On the 10th of December, sorry, on the 9th of December,
17:28County Constabulary Headquarters contacted Gosport CID, stating that they wanted Richard's papers returned to Headquarters
17:38because a complaint had been received from Mrs Mackenzie.
17:43And it was recorded as being received on the 24th of November.
17:49On the very same day that Gosport CID was made aware a complaint had been put against them,
17:56against two of its officers, one of those officers contacted Max Millett of Baltimore's Healthcare Trust by telephone.
18:04Max Millett was not available.
18:07And Madison, who was the gentleman who called him, left a message to say,
18:11please bring me back tomorrow after 4pm.
18:14I don't know what happened after 4pm the next day, but I do know what happened the next day.
18:19On the 11th of December of 1998, Madison telephoned Leslie Humphrey of Baldwin Healthcare and stated
18:29that Gillian Mackenzie had requested County Constabulary to bring a charge against Dr Barton
18:38of the unlawful killing of her mother by depriving her of fluids.
18:43Completely false. Completely false.
18:48He then compounded that by saying that the GMC had asked County Constabulary to write to the GMC
18:56explaining that the allegations had been brought by Gillian Mackenzie and not by the police.
19:03So we have a false allegation made by the police against Dr Barton.
19:08Not any of the families, the police.
19:12On the 14th of December, Baldwin Healthcare Trust then contacted Gillian Mackenzie and her sister
19:24and said we've been contacted by the police and they want permission, they want documents from us.
19:32We need your permission to release your mother's documents.
19:35On the 17th of December of 1998, Madison wrote to Gillian Mackenzie and stated that County Constabulary
19:45had received advice from the CPS and the CPS had advised County Constabulary to obtain an expert opinion
19:54from the General Medical Council. There is no such advice on the 24th of November given to County Constabulary.
20:03But that's what he's told Gillian Mackenzie and he said to obtain that advice from the GMC
20:11I've asked Baldwin Healthcare Trust to provide me your mother's documents.
20:17In other words, Madison supposedly represented he was going to obtain an expert opinion from the GMC
20:28to get Gillian Mackenzie to agree for the hospital to release those, her mother's documents.
20:36What I just omitted to say to you on the 11th was Madison had asked Baldwin Healthcare Trust
20:43to prepare a statement for the police relating to the information passed between the Healthcare Trust
20:50and the families as to the IV fluids. And the reason he did that is because Madison had been told by Gillian Mackenzie
20:59on the 2nd of October that Gillian Mackenzie had never contacted anybody prior to her mother's death
21:08about administering fluids to her mother. And Madison knew he was going to get back from Baldwin Healthcare Trust
21:19a statement which was going to prove that the allegation of being killed by deprivation of fluids
21:27simply wasn't justified. It was going to put an end, bring an end to the investigation into the death of Bernice Richards.
21:35You then had on the 17th, the same day that Madison wrote to Mrs Mackenzie
21:45you have Leslie Humphrey of Baldwin Healthcare Trust contacting Dr Lord of Baldwin Healthcare Trust
21:54who was a consultant at Gosport and stating to Dr Lord, we think you're the person to provide a report or statement to the police.
22:07We've asked our solicitors to look over the statement when you prepared it to make sure that what you say
22:15we're not going to get in trouble. She didn't say that but obviously that's the reason they want their solicitors to look at the statement.
22:21So Dr Lord prepares a statement dated the 22nd of December.
22:30On the 29th of December, the solicitors contact Baldwin Healthcare Trust and state to them
22:40this statement can only be sent to the police if Dr Baldwin agrees with the content.
22:48It's essential that Dr Baldwin and Dr Lord agree with the content before it's sent to the police.
22:56On the 14th of January, Dr Baldwin confirmed to Baldwin Healthcare Trust she's happy for them to provide that statement to the police.
23:09In other words, it all got together and said, well, it's going to go in the statement.
23:13So the statement has gone to the police. It arrives on the 19th of January.
23:22On the 24th of January of 1999, Leslie Humphrey writes to Dr Baldwin and informs her that Madison has instated to her
23:34he's only carrying out a low key inquiry simply to confirm that his own view is correct.
23:43On the 2nd of December, 1st of February of 1999, Madison and Morgan then submit Dr Lord's report to the CPS.
23:56In that report, they state that Dr Lord, and they refer to him as a male because they've never met Dr Lord in their life.
24:05They don't know who he is. She's a she. They've got not the faintest idea of her background, but they state to the CPS,
24:16Dr Lord is eminently qualified to provide this expert opinion in this case.
24:23She's had no dealings, not treated Mrs Richards whatsoever.
24:31In addition, you'll note in Mrs Mackenzie's sister's notes, or sorry, you'll note that Mrs Mackenzie has in fact missed letters
24:43when she says she's had no dealings with anybody regarding the deprivation or provision of fluids to her mother.
24:54It's a completely false statement to make.
24:58The submission goes to the CPS. On the 8th of February, Morgan writes to Mrs Mackenzie and he warns her that they've obtained the expert opinion and evidence
25:11from a geriatric consultant unconnected with the case, and that's gone to the CPS.
25:19On the 17th of March, Mrs Mackenzie is informed that there is no insufficient evidence to continue an investigation into her mother's death.
25:30So what you have in the first investigation is no investigation into the cause of death that was put to the police by Jerry Mackenzie.
25:41You have an investigation into a false allegation made against Dr Barton by the police.
25:48That is what's happened in the first investigation.
25:53What went on from that scenario is that on the 16th of August of 1999, I've forgotten his rank, but Mr Longman was tasked with reviewing that investigation.
26:09He found that there were serious errors, operational errors, but that both officers had acted with honesty of purpose.
26:21As a consequence, Ray Burt was then tasked by the Hampshire Constabulary, not with reinvestigating the death of Dr Richards,
26:33but he was tasked with carrying out further work to be able to respond to the complaint made by Mrs Mackenzie.
26:43To do that, he started off with what they call a small book, a small record book.
26:50I'm not going to go into detail beyond there because I'm just going to be going to matters of irrelevance with respect to what we're doing here,
26:58but just to summarise it very briefly, what's happened after that is that Mr Burt, once they found out that in fact a surgeon was stating that Dr Richards had been unlawfully killed,
27:14their whole basis of dealing with Gillian Mackenzie and their whole basis of honesty and truthfulness went out the window,
27:28because what they did was they then constructed, falsely, policy logs that reinvented history.
27:39They actually stated, and it's in records, it goes all the way through to the end of the investigation.
27:44They started off by saying that Mrs Mackenzie only complained after the outcome of the CPS decision was known.
27:53They stated that Morgan was the senior investigating officer when it was a detective constable called Madison.
28:03I'm not the only one who says they've falsely constructed the documents.
28:08I'm supported in that. Sorry when I say I, we.
28:12We're supported in that by Detective Chief Superintendent Johnston of Avon at Somerset Constabulary and his team,
28:22who confirm in a document dated the 2nd of February of 2004 called the Judgment Report, that the policy logs were in fact made at a date later than what's stated in the documents.
28:40But to go all the way back now, because that's just going into the conspiracy, that's actually concealing the criminality that took place in that first investigation.
28:52And the actual criminality, it's staggering when you think that there are now 700 deaths being investigated and you consider that there was the opportunity on the 27th of September of 1998,
29:17perhaps it was staggering to have complied with best practice set out by ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers,
29:24to liaise with the Health and Safety Inspector, to conduct a joint investigation into the death of David Richards,
29:33which would happen immediately because it's so apparent from the evidence that there are breaches of health and safety.
29:41That's not the same as a conviction for murder or a conviction for manslaughter, but it stops further killings.
29:49It brings it to an end. And they could have done that on the 27th, between the 27th of September and the 17th of March of 1999.
30:01If only they had not been dishonest, if only they'd not deceived, there would have been no further deaths.
30:08It's our contention that the result of that dishonesty has led to those deaths after that first investigation being contributed to by that dishonesty and that deception,
30:24and that that dishonesty and deception has delayed right up until 2018 when Magento started, delayed the investigation into the prior deaths.
30:39So that's the purpose of why we're here today, to say how can it be that three years after Hanshi comes to Gatwick,
30:49has been ordered to do a simple thing to provide us with the proof that what we've complained about has already been investigated and no criminality was found.
31:02How can it be that still has not come to fruition, we've not got those results, but more than that, bearing in mind what we believe the consequences of those illegal actions to be,
31:22it's going to impact on Operation Magento, because Operation Magento is investigating the deaths of all those people and they need to be investigating all of those parties or individuals who contributed to the cause of the death.
31:43So what I've done here, in the sense of trying to be helpful, I've compiled a list of what technology they support and what I'd like you to take away from today.
32:06And it simply starts off with Hanshi Constabulary dishonestly mislaid Portmouth Healthcare Trust when the Trust was informed that the allegation against Dr Martin of causing the death of Mrs Richards by depriving her of IV fluids was stated to have been made by Mrs Mackenzie.
32:26The CPS had obvied Hanshi Constabulary that the allegation was DC Madison's interpretation of the complaint and Hanshi Constabulary knew that Mrs Mackenzie had not made the allegation.
32:39Hanshi Constabulary evaded Mrs Mackenzie and induced a report from the Trust pertinent to the false allegation which led to the CPS deciding insufficient evidence to prosecute.
32:56Secondly, the CPS decision in the original investigation into the death of Gladys Richards was unlawfully influenced by the dishonesty of Hanshi Constabulary which perverted the course of justice.
33:10Third, the dishonesty of Hanshi Constabulary was concealed by Hanshi Constabulary producing policy vials of Bert and James which misrepresented the truth as to the original investigation.
33:25More, the policy vials which misrepresented the truth were handed to Edmund Somerset Constabulary and the intended review of the original investigation by Edmund Somerset Constabulary was not carried out with the families being misled to believe it had been.
33:42Five, the concealment of the dishonesty had continued to this day because the Gosport Independent Panel's role was not to comment on, explore or apportion criminal or civil liability on the content of the documents reviewed by the panel.
34:00Six, the current Hanshi Constabulary PSD produced an assessment document dated 22nd August 2018 and telephone conference note dated 12th October 2018 which aids and abets the continued concealment of the dishonesty and their content evidences that the dishonesty has never been investigated.
34:26Seven, it is the duty of the police to protect life. Hanshi Constabulary knew that it should liaise with the Health and Safety Executive to investigate David Richard's death.
34:37There is a primary case for the successful prosecution of a breach of section 3 guidance 1 of the Health and Safety 1974 Act or closure of the ward which would have prevented further loss of life at Gosport Bournemouth Hospital whilst a thorough and appropriate investigation was conducted.
34:55Eight, the two investigations subsequent to the original investigation were limited in depth and range of offences pursued to facilitate the continued concealment of the dishonesty and conspiracy to conceal the dishonesty as any attempt of prosecution of a breach of the Health and Safety 1974 Act would have had to result in disclosure by the Crown Prosecution Service or the Health and Safety Executive to defendants of the breach of the Health and Safety 1974 Act.
35:25Nine, the consequences of the dishonesty include that set out in paragraph number 2 on pages 7 and 8 of the brief binder which you will be given at the end of this briefing.
35:45Now that summarises what we'd like you to take away. What you are going to take away is vital to us in the sense of we have for five years been trying to obtain a simple answer as to what to us is apparent to anybody reading those documents that are all in the public domain.
36:09In other words, not only we have read them but the likes of Dr Barton have read them, the likes of the nurses have read them, they're going to see what we've seen, they're going to use that evidence I've got no doubt, if ever they're charged.
36:24And what we can't understand is why Hanshi Constabulary simply in three years have been unable to produce the evidence of where that of violated criminality has been investigated and found not to be criminality. And with that we end today.