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The Wonky Scales Of Justice - With Clare Wills Harrison · UK Column Radio

0:07
Speaker 1: Hello.
0:07
Speaker 2: I'm Charles Mannett with a UK Column interview, notes for
0:11
which will be posted at ukcolumn dot org.
0:15
Speaker 1: Today.
0:16
Speaker 2: I'm very pleased to be joined by Claire Wills Harrison,
0:19
who has made a career in law that has resulted
0:22
in her highlighting and exposing the various tyrannies of state
0:27
in particular since twenty twenty. Claire, a very warm welcome
0:31
to UK Column. Thank you very much indeed.
0:33
Speaker 1: For joining me, thank you for having may not at.
0:36
Speaker 2: All good and we'll look forward to going through I
0:40
think a considerable amount of material. But just to set
0:42
the context for the audience, please describe what it was
0:46
that drew you into law in the first place, and
0:50
what you had in mind in terms of a career path,
0:53
where you thought that was going to take you, and
0:56
how life in law as it were would workout.
1:01
Speaker 3: So I'm going to be really honest here and say
1:03
that I had a passion for watching really bad eighties
1:07
law dramas with big shoulder pads and women that were
1:14
very dynamic and set in the world to rights. That
1:18
was one of my inspirations. Sadly, however, my dad actually
1:22
passed away when I was twenty five, and his estate
1:28
wasn't dealt with particularly well, and it was particularly difficult
1:33
for myself and my siblings, and I think, as with
1:38
a lot of people, I decided that I would go
1:41
into the law and I would work in sickly in succession,
1:45
which is what I've done for twenty five years, because
1:47
I never wanted anybody else to experience what my family
1:52
had experienced when my father died and I was just
1:57
part way through my exams actually when he passed away.
2:03
In the lead up to his death, things have been difficult,
2:05
and I touched on looking at perhaps becoming legally qualified
2:09
for other reasons, but once he passed away, my mind
2:12
was made up that that's what I was going to do,
2:14
and that's really why I went into law. For no
2:17
other reason I'm ashamed to say than.
2:19
Speaker 2: That, well, I don't think there's anything to be ashamed
2:22
of at all. But tell me therefore about the training
2:27
and it just cast your mind back to how when
2:31
you went through that period, how, if at all, how
2:34
law was sort of cast as fitting in to the
2:37
overall architecture of organization of the country.
2:42
Speaker 3: I've been a lawyer for twenty five years, so I
2:44
started my studying obviously before that, So for the qualifying
2:50
period tags on a few more years. I'm going to
2:53
shying my age now. But we were always taught when
2:56
I was studying that law provides a framework of rules
3:01
and regulations that help to govern human behavior and interactions
3:06
in a community. It's supposed to reflect the values, the norms,
3:10
the customs of a particular society at any particular given time.
3:15
It helps to maintain ordered by resolving disputes, promoting fairness, justice,
3:23
and that law and society obviously share an intricate and
3:26
reciprocal relationship. Legal systems are deeply embedded in the foundations
3:32
of societal structures. There's an interplay between law and society
3:36
because it reflects cultural values, historical contexts, and the evolving
3:41
tapestry of societal RUMs. So that's the foundation that I
3:49
was taught for learning about law, that it's deeply intertwined
3:56
with human behavior and society. Of course, there's a whole
3:59
body of historical rules and contexts that go along with that,
4:08
but it isn't as dry as reading a book and
4:14
this rule is this, and that rule is that there's
4:17
there's there's a body of context that goes around.
4:22
Speaker 2: That and from the from the description you've just given
4:25
us as to sort of where the legal system effectively
4:29
fits in. Did you see that that was in large
4:33
part how things played out for that certainly for the
4:36
for the earlier part of your career. Was your was
4:38
your faith in the system well placed?
4:41
Speaker 3: Well? I have to say, looking back now, I don't
4:48
think it. I don't think it was. But at the time,
4:53
I think if you believe in something, and if you're
4:56
taught enough and in a certain way that what is
5:03
right and how things should be, you end up believing it.
5:09
I have to say now, at the end of my career,
5:11
I look back and I don't really feel that the
5:15
law itself serves the function which is supposed to, which
5:22
is a protective function to resolve disputes between individuals or
5:27
individuals and the state. Unfortunately. I mean, I'm now in
5:34
the position that I look at the law as a weapon,
5:38
as a sword rather than a shield.
5:41
Speaker 1: Very well put as a very interesting phrase. Now.
5:44
Speaker 2: I mentioned in the introduction that the sort of exposing,
5:50
as I say, of the state you've been doing, particularly
5:52
since twenty twenty, has been very notable, and I'm sure
5:56
many of the audiences will be very much aware of
5:58
your work on that score prior to that, prior to
6:01
twenty twenty, was that a point of view that you
6:05
had come to the as you say, the weaponization and
6:09
were there any sort of examples that you can bring
6:11
to mind.
6:12
Speaker 3: Yes. I started to have very real concerns actually in
6:18
some of the procedure that we were having to go
6:21
through within the legal system. And this really came to
6:26
the forefront with some people might be surprised to hear this,
6:30
the anti money laundry regulations that were brought in. I'm
6:36
going back quite some time now, I think probably two
6:39
thousand and six or two thousand and seven. It started
6:42
to become necessary that we as lawyers were to run
6:47
identity checks on our clients to make sure that they
6:53
were not hardened criminals I guess or terrorists or into
6:58
money laundry. Initially that involved taking their identification documents, which
7:07
at that point you could do in pay per form,
7:11
So you could take somebody's passport, copy of somebody's passport,
7:15
copy of somebody's driving license, and as long as you
7:19
were not aware that they were into criminal activity that
7:25
involved money laundry, you had satisfied your duties with regards
7:30
to checking their identity, and I couldn't understand at that
7:35
time why, although there were certain exemptions in certain areas
7:41
of law that you didn't have to take that identity
7:44
for because they were nuanced, it became the norm to
7:50
just take people's identity for every area that you were
7:53
dealing with. And I couldn't understand at the time why
7:57
we had been tasked with essentially trying to find out
8:02
who was a criminal, because in my opinion, that was
8:04
the job of the police a lot of lawyers. So
8:07
I became concerned about how the legal system, rather than
8:12
the law and the framework, the people that make up
8:17
that system were being tasked to be perhaps something more
8:21
than just acting for their clients in settling disputes, or
8:26
guiding them through a procedure when somebody had died, or
8:31
the myriad of other things that lawyers do. So I
8:35
started to become a little bit disenfranchised with that kind
8:39
of things. That kind of thing, and of course it
8:42
developed and grew legs, and since two thousand and six
8:46
two thousand and seven, it's expanded greatly so that we're
8:49
in the position now that when we have a client
8:53
that comes to us and wants us to do any
8:56
work for them. Our first thought has to be is
9:00
this person a criminal? And I don't think that's right.
9:06
So we now have to assess whether we have to
9:11
a risk assessment, and we have to ask ourselves all
9:13
sorts of questions. Is this client local? Why are they
9:17
coming to me if they're not local? Are they involved
9:21
in any criminal activity? Where have they got their money from?
9:26
If you're dealing with something that involves talking about their money,
9:30
which is frequent in my area of law. Are they
9:34
a politically exposed person? Are they on sanctions list? Now,
9:38
when you check somebody's identity, it's really not just a
9:43
question of taking their paper documents, because we have to
9:46
check if they're on a pet list. We have to
9:48
check if they're on a sanctions list. And unfortunately, because
9:52
that involves looking at several different things to find all
9:57
of that out, make a record of bit ter of
10:00
of course developed where you have companies that will do
10:03
an identity check and all of that for you online electronically,
10:07
and it's vastly cheaper and vastly quicker, and therefore there's
10:12
a lot of data going through these companies that picks
10:16
off your requirements for the anti money laundrying legislation, we're
10:22
obviously obliged to make suspicious activity reports if we think
10:26
that our clients are into anything odd, and that might
10:30
not be that we think that their money laundring. It
10:32
might just be that we can't tick off a box
10:34
on our risk assessment that covers us because it's a
10:37
personal liability. And then of course we've now got proliferation
10:42
financing that we have to consider. Is anybody into the
10:46
sale or the procurement of nuclear or biological or chemical weapons.
10:53
We've got all sorts of sanctions lists where we can't
10:56
act for anyone who's from Russia or anywhere else against
11:00
the backdrop, of course, of what our own government is
11:03
involved in in financing conflicts and financing weapons sales in
11:12
the Middle East, when we have to ask at ourselves
11:17
are they complicit in potentially genocide. So the dis enfranchisement
11:27
setting quite a long time ago, with the odd things
11:31
that we were having to do, As I said, with
11:34
the post nine to eleven, really I think that the
11:40
anti money launching and the terrorists financing, all those kind
11:44
of regulations really took hold. It wasn't something that we
11:47
first did when I started as lawyer we didn't take
11:50
anybody's identification documents. You met with somebody, you treated them
11:55
at their word, and you used your own instinct as
11:58
to whether there was something odd going on. I have
12:02
to say latterly, in my profession, I think it sorry
12:07
in my job, I think the profession as a whole
12:10
has just become become one big mess of supporting government
12:16
policy and lawyers being afraid to speak out and take
12:21
on certain cases. And you know, we can talk about
12:25
some examples of that that have been in the news recently.
12:29
I think we're over regulated. I think that the regulatory
12:34
framework is it is not fit for purpose. To a
12:40
large degree, it's there, I think to punish lawyers, well,
12:46
the low hanging fruit certainly, rather than make lawyers do
12:50
a good job. And I think you'll recall yesterday I
12:56
sent you something about SRA fines where they're paid to
13:00
and their increased finding powers, and it all seems very
13:04
murky and interwoven with the state. I'm fraid it does.
13:10
Speaker 2: And I think, I mean that's going to provide an
13:12
amazing context for the audience to think that this, you know,
13:15
what you're describing started nearly twenty years ago. When we
13:18
consider now when which exactly like you describe identity surveillance,
13:23
the holding of data by holding and management data by
13:27
sort of third party entities has become for ill I
13:31
would say, half and parcel of life now it was
13:36
when that did start and as you say, it sort
13:38
of seems to have just snowballed over the years. Was
13:41
there a particular directive issued that grew organically or were
13:50
people were law firms instructed that they had to do
13:53
this then they had to do that? Were they effectively
13:56
I mean we saw this during the COVID years, people
13:58
just gold plating something that had started did as this
14:01
and they'd made it, made more of it.
14:02
Speaker 1: Do you remember how did it actually start?
14:06
Speaker 3: So with the anti money laundrying regulations that they that
14:10
was an EU directive if I remember rightly, I think
14:15
you'd have to go. I think as far back as
14:18
nineteen ninety four. I was having a look a couple
14:21
of days ago. At this particular point, there was some
14:25
kind of regulatory framework in the UK for anti money laundering.
14:32
As I said, it really started to buy and around
14:35
about two thousand and six, and I'm sure that was
14:39
from an EU directive. If you look at the latest
14:44
iteration of the anti money laundering regulations. It's the anti
14:51
money laundering and terrorist financing I think regulations. I think
14:56
it might be I could be wrong, It might be
15:00
twenty seventeen. I could be wrong there and I should know, actually,
15:04
but they seem to have sprung out of EU policy making,
15:10
and of course then we had Brexit, but we're still
15:12
very closely aligned to those sorts of things. Any time
15:16
there's a directive that comes out of the EU, there's
15:20
match in legislation or regulations in this country. It's also
15:26
closely aligned to US policy on that kind of thing.
15:31
And it's a Western it's a Western thing. I would
15:37
I would think.
15:38
Speaker 2: Yes, Well, I mean again to hear that it's the
15:42
EU that crops up in this area will I think
15:45
not be a great surprise to the audience, but again
15:47
just confirmation that all the suspicions that we have about
15:50
these supernational organizations are absolutely well founded. Now, you were
15:55
talking about law effectively moving into a situation where it
15:59
was supporting government policy, and I mean, I think I
16:04
might be right in saying that. Now more clearly was
16:08
that scene than in twenty twenty. But from your perspective,
16:13
how did that manifest How did it change, I mean,
16:17
how did it sort of come about and what was
16:19
your reaction to it?
16:22
Speaker 3: So are you talking about from twenty twenty? How? I mean,
16:27
because it really was. It really was like being hit
16:32
with a sledge hammer. From there there might have been
16:35
a creep, you know, over the years up to that
16:38
point that perhaps you you wouldn't notice it was probably
16:42
rather insidious. But from twenty twenty onwards, I think we
16:50
only have to go back if we go back right
16:52
to the beginning. I don't really like going back to
16:55
the beginning of twenty twenty. But if we do go
16:58
back to the beginning, let's go back to January, say,
17:03
when we were first hearing various things around the world
17:10
connected to so called COVID, and we were watching other
17:17
countries put in a system of rules lockdown, something I'd
17:23
never heard in my life, aside from in prisons. That's
17:27
what it's what you do two people that are in prisons,
17:30
you lock them down. You don't do that to people
17:34
that are that are not criminals. I remember actually, perhaps
17:42
I won't mention any names, but I had a client
17:44
that worked for DEFRA actually that came in to see
17:47
me in I think it was February twenty twenty, and
17:52
he said to me it was after Italy had gone
17:57
into a lockdown.
17:58
Speaker 1: I know that.
18:00
Speaker 3: Can't remember exactly when that was, but he came in
18:01
to see me about something completely unrelated and he said
18:05
to me, of course you know we're going to go
18:07
into lockdown. I said, what do you mean, how do
18:10
you do? How can you know that? So he worked
18:15
for death for us. So I took from that, perhaps wrongly,
18:19
that it must have been circulating within government departments and
18:23
agencies that there was a plan to put us into lockdown.
18:29
It was already known now. Of course, that didn't happen
18:32
until March twenty twenty, actually the day after my birthday.
18:37
So it's one that I can never I can never forget.
18:42
And it was it was odd because after he had
18:47
mentioned that to me, we start I started to notice.
18:53
And perhaps it's like the old saying, you know what
18:57
you focus on, your notice everywhere if you're looking for
19:00
If you say I haven't seen a red car for
19:01
at for ages, you see ten. But I started to
19:05
notice in legal publications and other bits that you're looking
19:11
at in the industry that there was this kind of
19:15
soft inference that things were going to change, that we
19:21
you know that, and that there would have to be
19:26
legislation brought in to support that, you know. And I
19:31
think this is odd. Why is there no articles that
19:35
are questioning the sense of it or saying shouldn't we
19:40
wait to see how, you know, lockdown worked out in
19:43
Italy before we go and lockdown in England? It was
19:47
all very much. I mean, I've come to realize sadly
19:51
the legal press is just as bad as the mainstream media.
19:53
They're only going to publish what is supportive of the narrative,
19:59
you know, of the day generally. And I thought this
20:05
doesn't look good because there's nobody in the industry that
20:09
I can see that is posting anything or writing any
20:14
article saying what an absolute disaster it would be if
20:16
we lock people up in care homes, particularly because that's
20:21
one area that I focus on in my job, and
20:24
indeed if we just lock people in their homes, and
20:27
also what's it going to do to the economy? It
20:31
was all geared from. This is an absolute disaster. It's
20:37
the worst scary thing that's ever happened to us, and
20:40
we're all going to have to stay in laws no
20:42
matter what the consequences of it are. And I thought,
20:47
this is not good because if the legal profession or
20:54
the legal system cannot speak out about why that would
20:59
not be a good thing, and why we need some
21:01
balance and why you know, why we need some nuance here,
21:06
we don't stand a chance. And of course we then
21:10
had Lord Assumption that did come out and say a
21:13
number of things, but of course he wasn't at the
21:17
time involved in actually hearing cases or anything like that.
21:23
And we had very few lawyers speaking out as well.
21:27
And I thought, as I say, I thought to myself,
21:30
this is not good. The whole of the legal profession,
21:34
I have to say, and the system itself became paralyzed,
21:39
absolutely paralyzed by fear. Absolutely. I know of no other
21:44
solicitors firm in my local area that stayed open, aside
21:50
from myself, not one.
21:53
Speaker 2: That is absolutely staggering. And it brings us on to
21:57
something that you were, as I said at the beginning,
22:00
out spoken about. But you've talked about care homes just
22:04
sort of fill in the banks really in terms of
22:08
what did happen. I mean, in a sense, we know,
22:10
but I'm thinking about it. You know, through your legal lens,
22:14
care homes, but also the DNR notices situation and the
22:20
use of Medaza lam I think that those would be
22:22
the sort of the three areas that it would be
22:24
fascinating to hear your insight into.
22:28
Speaker 3: So let's talk about specifically care homes first. I'm just
22:32
going to jop down what you ask me because I
22:34
have a terrible habit of forgetting. So you want dnrs
22:37
and obviously Madaza Lamb. Let's talk about care homes first
22:42
of all, and let's just remind all your viewers that
22:46
the people in care homes are, of course some of
22:49
the most vulnerable people in society. They're in a care
22:52
home because they cannot look after themselves generally anymore. Very
22:57
few go into a care home just because they can't
23:00
be bothered and they don't want to live at home anymore.
23:03
Some do, but very few, So some of them are
23:06
most vulnerable citizens in the society. So right at the beginning,
23:12
before we went into lockdown in March, I actually was
23:16
dealing with one of my clients and she was in
23:18
the hospital and she was due to be discharged into
23:21
a care home because she couldn't look after herself anymore.
23:25
Now she was fit for discharge. She'd been in the
23:28
hospital for something that she'd recovered from, and this was
23:32
probably only three or four days before lockdown. There were
23:34
no masks in hospitals. There was none. There were people
23:37
milling about, there were people visiting still. You know, obviously
23:42
the scary virus only hit on the twenty third, at
23:45
nine o'clock in the morning. It worked, but you know,
23:47
it wasn't floating back before then. But let's just so,
23:51
she was duced to be discharged into a care home,
23:53
and I was able to get into a hospital and
23:54
we were able to sort that out. So I think
23:57
it was normal and hospitals and care homes were functioning
24:02
normally now when I was in the hospital visiting my client.
24:07
As anyone will know if they go into a hospital
24:12
to visit or to see clients, most of the people
24:16
in the hospital are ill. They're very ill. They're in
24:21
there for a reason. A lot of them are old,
24:25
or if they're not old, that they're obviously significantly unwell.
24:29
That's why they're in the hospital. But if we go
24:32
back right to the in and of lockdown, what people
24:36
need to remember is that all of the old people
24:39
in hospital that were in there for a reason there
24:43
hadn't been discharged, like my client that was fit for discharge.
24:46
They were in there because they were unwell. They were
24:50
all turfed out of hospitals into care homes. So they
24:55
went from an environment that was treating them for an illness,
25:02
that had appropriate people that could give them care, appropriate drugs,
25:07
appropriate equipment, emergency equipment if necessary. They went from that
25:12
environment into a care home, which is not into a
25:18
residential home lots of times, which is not the appropriate
25:22
place for somebody that is very unwell to go to. Now,
25:26
once they got there, they were not allowed back into
25:29
hospitals if they became ill after lockdown. There are many
25:36
many reports and you only have to go and watch
25:39
the Scottish COVID inquiry for proof of this. And I
25:42
spoke about this in April twenty twenty because I was
25:45
deeply concerned for my own clients. If these people became unwell,
25:53
which would be no surprise to me given they were
25:56
in hospital because they were real, and then put into
25:59
it back into a residential home that doesn't have the
26:02
right equipment and staff to deal with those kind of illnesses.
26:07
If these people deteriorated and ambulances were called. Those ambulances
26:13
were told the people that call them were told that
26:17
the ambulances would not take these elderly people to hospital.
26:23
We called it I do not admit to hospital. They
26:27
have do not admit to hospital orders. And this was
26:29
all part of we later found out the frailty scores
26:33
that were issued. I have to say, you know, we
26:38
don't even know to this day from where they originated from,
26:42
but they filtered down through you know, the various NHS
26:46
bodies and care homes and hospitals may come to the
26:50
they may have came to the home, but they would
26:52
not take in many instances, they would not take these
26:56
people to hospital. So we have to remember that that
26:59
had And okay, then we have to remember that these
27:06
residents were locked away from their families. And in many cases,
27:11
anyone that has a relative in a care home will
27:13
know that the family provide crucial oversight for lots of things,
27:18
especially feeding, you know, because there are residents that are
27:24
suffering from perhaps Alzheimer's or dementias, forget to eat. That
27:29
it happened, you know, it frequently happens, and care staff
27:33
are thin on the ground and they don't have the
27:35
time to feed residents, and so family members go in
27:40
and they take nice food and they feed their their
27:43
loved one, and it's part of their visiting ritual and
27:48
caring ritual that they have that was all taken away.
27:50
We had one lady that starved, Rosemary Riemon, the Rosemary
27:54
Riemon case. She staffed to death in a care home.
28:01
It's abhorrent. Her husband even tried to get a job
28:06
working in the care home so that he could feed her.
28:10
So in addition to that, we had the complete withdrawal
28:15
of all support services. So we had no physiotherapists, we
28:19
had no chiropodice, we had no airdressers, all that make
28:24
all of those make up not only the culture of
28:27
the care home but the necessary support that is needed
28:31
to be given to residents that are in a care home.
28:34
We also didn't have, in many many cases, in house
28:39
GP visits anymore. We had them more done by zoo. Okay,
28:43
so everything has been taken away from the most vulnerable
28:47
in society. No support services, no family oversight, no GP visits.
28:56
So that's where that's what happened in care homes. And
29:00
of course the end result of that it doesn't take
29:06
a genius to work out what it's going to be.
29:08
People are going to get very ill, people are going
29:11
to become frail. This was at a time when you
29:14
had care home staff. If they had a sniffle were
29:18
told to isolate for fourteen days, okay, and they did.
29:23
Speaker 1: So.
29:24
Speaker 3: You had staff in crises. You had homes like I said,
29:28
that were made to take people out of hospital and
29:31
were told that they wouldn't get their local authority funding
29:33
for the beds in the care home if they didn't
29:36
take people. They didn't want to actually take people because
29:40
it was going to place more of a burden on
29:43
them given staff in levels. And they also had concerns
29:48
themselves about who they were taking from hospital, what these
29:51
people might have wrong with them, could they service them
29:54
and look after them properly? All I think pretty standard
29:58
normal things that you would think about out and that
30:00
you was. You know, we can't fault them for thinking
30:06
those things. So it was a horrible, horrible, horrible situation.
30:13
And I wrote some figures down which I'll just turn
30:16
my head to read to you. From the second of
30:20
March twenty twenty to the twelfth of June twenty twenty,
30:24
there were twenty eight thousand, one hundred and eighty six
30:27
excess tests in care homes. That's a forty six percent
30:30
increase on previous years. Now eighteen thousand of them of
30:36
those excess tests were classed as with COVID, and I
30:41
could talk a lot about that because I think we
30:45
all know by now what that means. Okay, that doesn't
30:49
even mean a positive test, because it means that you could, right,
30:53
you could say it if you suspected it. But if
30:56
we accept I don't. But if we did accept the
31:03
eighteen thousand world with COVID, would anybody like to tell
31:07
me what the other ten thousand excess deaths were from them?
31:11
And here I think we come into the realms of
31:14
the DNRS and the end of life inappropriate end of
31:19
life medication. And the fact of the matter is this
31:23
is a real issue. This has been covered in the
31:29
Scottish COVID inquiry and I would recommend anybody to go
31:33
and have a look at that inquiry. I know that
31:35
your presenter, I think is it. Diane has started having
31:40
a look at this, and there is Dave Biology his
31:44
substack has done an awful lot of work on it.
31:47
It's absolutely shocking and it covers everything that I spoke
31:52
about in a twenty twenty There is of course a
31:57
complete media blackout on it media. It's not covered as all.
32:04
It's I think it's probably one of the biggest tragedies
32:09
of our time what happened in care homes, and unfortunately,
32:16
having lived through the post office scandal and moaned about
32:19
for years and years and years how wrong what had
32:23
gone on, and then to see a series made on
32:26
ITV and then everybody be up not in arms about it.
32:30
I know from the bottom of my heart that this
32:32
issue will never ever get into public consciousness unless somebody
32:37
makes a mainstream television program about it, and that is
32:42
never going to happen. The fact of the matter is
32:45
that the UK government ordered two years worth of medazelam.
32:49
We could say that would be sensible if they thought
32:52
that there was a pandemic coming and they didn't want
32:54
people to die in agony. We know, however, from prescribing
32:59
information and that most of that went into the community
33:03
and not into hospital, So it wasn't used for people
33:06
on ventilators to sedate them. It was using as in
33:10
a setting really where it was inappropriate for inappropriate reasons.
33:17
Now we haven't got time to go into individual cases
33:20
and to talk about the minut shat of why it
33:24
might have been inappropriate and how we can.
33:28
Speaker 1: Show that.
33:30
Speaker 3: But what people need to know is that there are
33:32
actually many, many, many thousands of families that have been
33:36
affected by this, that have had relatives affected by this SORR.
33:41
Speaker 1: I should have actually said DNR meaning do not resuscitate.
33:44
Speaker 3: Sorry, yes, side of it.
33:46
Speaker 2: Just give the background that and sort of how that
33:49
relates to what I think what I'm saying referred to
33:51
a capacity and the sort of wishes expressed by the
33:55
individual and how that was just completely the boss.
34:01
Speaker 3: So, yes, a DNR does mean do not resuscitate, and
34:04
it's also called a DNA CPR. You know that they
34:07
both mean the same things. And actually what it really
34:12
means is if my heart stops, don't restart it. Okay,
34:16
that's what it means. Now, generally you would choose or
34:22
consent to a DNR because it's it's part of your
34:27
right to life, you know, human right to life. So
34:31
and lots of people do have them. Lots of people
34:34
for their own reasons, choose that if their heart stops,
34:37
they do not want to be resuscitated. Now I think
34:40
it's probably widely known that it's all too common that
34:43
dnrs are confused by the medical profession, if you like,
34:50
and carers that once they see a DNR, that they
34:53
think it means that you don't give somebody treatment adequate
34:57
treatment anymore, when, like I've said, it just simply means
35:00
if my hearts thoughts do not restart it. But it's
35:05
often used as a synonym for, you know, oh, this
35:09
person's end of life, if they've got a DNR. That's
35:13
not what it's supposed to be about. Now we know,
35:20
and it's been widely publicized that people had dnrs cropping
35:24
up on their records at care homes, on their records,
35:28
at medical records at doctors. They had been put there
35:32
without their consent, so they had never been asked, would
35:37
you like a DNR? This is what it is, and
35:39
this is what it means, that one would just appeared
35:43
on their notes and their records. We also know that
35:48
there was a process where supposedly some people did agree,
35:52
but those people didn't have the mental capacity to be
35:55
able to consent to a DNR. So therefore it should
36:00
have gone through what we call the best interest procedure,
36:03
and there should have been a consultation with that person's
36:06
nearest living, next of kin and family and whoever else
36:11
was involved with that person, because that's what the best
36:13
interest procedure demands. None of that happened, and DNR's ended
36:19
up on the records of people that didn't have the
36:22
capacity to consent to them, as well as people that
36:24
did have the capacity to consent to them but just
36:27
had never consented.
36:29
Speaker 1: And we.
36:31
Speaker 3: You know, it was a blanket issue. We spoke a
36:35
lot about blanket dnrs and it was recognized, of course
36:39
by mister Matthew Hancott, who at first denied it, but
36:43
of course later on had to come out and say,
36:46
when we found out that it was happening, we issued
36:50
a directive that it shouldn't happen. Well, I want to
36:53
know why it was happening in the first place. Did
36:56
somebody wake up one day and just decide all of
36:59
these care homes and doctors then that they were going
37:01
to do this. I don't think so. I don't think so.
37:05
There must have been a directive. There must have been
37:08
a directive. And of course they're incredibly difficult to get
37:12
off once they're on your records, incredibly difficult, and like
37:16
I said, the sad thing is it should mean if
37:19
my heart stops, don't restart it. But more often than not,
37:24
they're used as a justification for withdrawing treatment and for
37:31
not continuing treatment, and for them putting people onto what
37:36
we call end of life treatment. You know, And how
37:40
do you know someone's at the end of their life.
37:42
I would say it's probably extremely difficult even for you know,
37:46
the most advanced doctor to be able to tell when
37:49
somebody is in the last kind of couple of days
37:53
of their life. And yet we saw this medication a
37:59
lot of times. Actually, unfortunately, I'm aware that Madazlan was
38:05
given as a sedation to keep residents from wandering and
38:09
keep them in their rooms because they just wasn't staff.
38:13
Speaker 2: It's a very grim picture that you've sort of painted
38:16
for us all over again. Very necessary to bring it out,
38:20
but unfortunate nonetheless that we have to sort of go
38:23
into it again.
38:24
Speaker 1: Now.
38:24
Speaker 2: You talked about the legal profession being paralyzed with fear,
38:27
and I think it's very hard to describe in any
38:31
other way what happened with the legal profession, and indeed
38:34
the medical profession, as being anything other than a conspiracy.
38:38
Certainly with regard to what you've just described and the
38:40
treatment of people with the issues surrounding capacity and consent
38:45
and all of that. Now that brings us on to
38:50
the way things should work. And I just got to
38:53
read from the Supreme Court about the separation of powers,
38:57
because of course macro side of things, doctrine of the
39:02
separation of powers requires that the principal institutions of state, executive, legislature,
39:07
and judiciary should be clearly divided in order to safeguard
39:10
citizens liberties and guard against tyranny.
39:15
Speaker 1: Well, what do you think about that?
39:17
Speaker 3: I think it's an absolute nonsense, and I think that
39:20
the separation of powers hasn't existed for a long time,
39:24
if it ever did at all. I mean, it's funny
39:30
that you have read that out actually because disclosure to
39:38
your audience. I asked what you might want to talk about,
39:41
and one of the things that you mentioned was this
39:43
was this kind of thing before we arrange this. And
39:46
I thought I would go and do a little exercise
39:48
by going onto the internet and having a book at
39:51
some very basic questions. And I would really recommend your
39:56
viewers do this because I think they'll be staggered at
39:59
what comes up. So I went on and I typed
40:04
in what is government? Very simple? What is a government? Okay?
40:09
What is the UK government? What is the government to
40:13
the people? Those kind of things, and you will be
40:17
hit with it on the first page if you type
40:21
in what is the government? What is the UK government?
40:23
With and I kid you not, the UK government is
40:27
the prime minister in his cabinet. Now, just to touch
40:33
on what you've just said about the separation of powers, okay,
40:37
and government itself, because let's just talk about what government
40:41
should be so that we know what government isn't. So
40:46
government is just the word for a system, okay, to
40:51
govern a nation or a state. I actually looked up
40:54
a definition from the Columbia Encyclopedia which defines government as
41:00
a system of social control under which the right to
41:03
make laws and the right to enforce them is vested
41:05
in a particular group in society. I added a couple
41:10
of lines onto this myself that said, these rights, however,
41:15
arise by virtue of the people of the people of
41:20
a national state, and they arise by those people relinquishing
41:25
some of their own power to a governing body. So
41:29
it follows, I think from that that governments have obligations
41:33
to their citizens, and as the power vested in governments
41:38
is by the people for the people, that governments have
41:41
limited power over their citizens for a limited time. Okay,
41:45
So I think that's a better definition of what a
41:49
government should be. They arose and came along a course
41:53
because individuals of a nation saw the benefits, if you like,
41:58
of having a body to look after things. Okay, And
42:05
we agree to relinquish some of our rights to that
42:09
external authority for that reason. It's it forms part of
42:13
what we call the social contract essentially, Okay. So we
42:18
agree to relinquish certain rights and in return, we're going
42:22
to get protection from physical harm supposedly, we're going to
42:26
get security for our possessions. We're going to get security
42:29
for our persons. For our person we're going to have
42:34
safe borders and we're not going to be invaded by
42:38
an aggressor. And we're going to go in to be
42:40
able to interact and cooperate with other humans in a stable, fair,
42:46
useful environment. Okay. That's essentially what we what forms part
42:52
of the social contract. And of course government in the
42:55
UK is made up of the three branches of government.
42:58
It is not the Prime during his cabinet. It is
43:02
what we call the legislature, the executive and the judiciary,
43:06
and they are supposed to be distinct and separate under
43:09
the separation of powers, and they're supposed to each hold
43:12
each other to account so that one of them doesn't
43:15
become tyrannical and run away. I think, you know, when
43:20
the some of the top judges play golf with the
43:25
cabinet member's husband or wife, or the top police officer
43:31
perhaps hobnobs with the top judge down at the same
43:35
country club, and then we have solicitors that go on
43:39
to become MPs or judges that get involved in in,
43:43
you know, the executive branch. I think we can see
43:48
that there really isn't any separation of powers. Let's be honest. Okay,
43:54
let's be honest here, and you know this isn't a
43:59
few bad apples that you know we can come at that.
44:04
I kind of thought about the questions you asked me,
44:06
and I thought we can come at this from the
44:07
premise that it's just a few bad apples, and therefore
44:11
we can fix this by having a more robust interpretation
44:16
of the separation of powers and making sure you know
44:20
that it's very defined and it's adhere to. But this
44:23
is not a few bad apples. What we have is
44:26
a political system now that is bought and paid for,
44:32
and that's the crux of it. And it is bought
44:34
and paid for by people that are already very powerful
44:38
and have a lot of money and have a vested
44:40
interest in policy and laws being made that supports their
44:44
money and their power and doesn't really support the vast
44:48
majority of people. In fact, it makes their lives rather
44:51
miserable and difficult. And that is I think, how quolity
44:57
gets made, how laws get made in this country now.
45:00
I think, unfortunately for us, the judiciary follows policy and
45:05
interpretation of those of those laws. I mean, the legislature,
45:10
if it gets to make law through the primary legislation,
45:17
is quite you know, it's quite rare now because we're
45:20
governed by statutory instruments. In twenty twenty there were sixteen
45:25
hundred and nineteen pieces of secondary legislation. That is legislation
45:31
made by the executive, which is why because it's written
45:34
by minister, which is why it could be judicially reviewed.
45:38
Primary legislation supposedly goes through the parliamentary process. It's a
45:42
bill introduced, it goes through the House of Commons, it
45:46
goes through the House of Laws, it gets amended loads
45:48
of times. It takes a long time, and it's actually
45:53
not liked by people that want to bring in draconian
45:57
laws because it takes too long and too many people
46:00
didn't say that doesn't seem right, we need to take
46:02
that out. So I think we're going to see the
46:06
flexing of statutory instruments over with amendments to the Online
46:12
Safety Bill. If I'm honest with you, I don't think
46:15
there'll be new primary legislation for that. I think it
46:17
will be brought in by secondary legislation, legislation written up
46:22
and signed off by a minister. And you know, if
46:25
that is not being governed by the executive, I don't
46:31
know what it is. As I said, it does. It's
46:34
not a few bad apples, so it doesn't really matter.
46:36
So if we did what it does matter. But if
46:38
we did away with the statutory instruments, we still wouldn't
46:42
We still wouldn't have a system that is fairly representing
46:47
the wishes and the rights of the people that it
46:51
has been elected by because we do employ them and
46:55
pay them as well. It still wouldn't be right because
46:59
it's object to external influences. And I'm talking about, of course,
47:06
all sorts of supernational national groups, clubs if you want to,
47:14
I call them, you know, old rich men's clubs, but
47:18
they're extremely dangerous. You know, we're looking at all sorts
47:21
of things. We're looking at the World Economic Forum, We're
47:23
looking at the Trilateral Commissions, We're looking at you know,
47:26
we're looking at the u N. We'll look at Our
47:31
political system is subject to the whims and the policy
47:38
decisions of those institutions. I'm afraid to a large degree.
47:42
And of course we then also have lobbying from external
47:47
influences foreign countries. It's a complete mess.
47:52
Speaker 2: That's a fitting description, and you're quite right to bring
47:55
out all those examples. The social contract is broken. People
47:59
have I think, by and large, felt sense of powerlessness
48:03
and hopelessness, but they shouldn't necessarily, or not without qualification.
48:08
And this is the next bit I want to ask
48:11
you about, because you have taken effectively taken a stand,
48:15
you have adopted a policy with which this can be
48:20
dealt with. And we're talking about the financial sort of
48:23
aspect of it, or at least part of that relationship,
48:26
particularly conturning tax So just give a background into the well,
48:32
the idea of tax resistance and what exactly that means
48:35
and how you've come to be sort of where you
48:39
are with it.
48:40
Speaker 1: Well.
48:40
Speaker 3: Of course, tax resistance, and particularly war tax resistance is
48:44
as old as taxes. It's been around forever. If you
48:49
do a quick search on the numerous tax resistance efforts
48:56
that there have been, you will be confronted with many. Now,
49:01
of course, it is tied up with a social contract,
49:04
and it is tied up with as we as we
49:07
spoke about before. You know what government is and why
49:10
it was if you like, why people agree to have
49:15
a governing body and relinquish some of their rights for
49:17
all of those benefits that they foresaw and in doing so,
49:22
they realized that that would cost money, of course, and
49:24
that's supposedly what we pay part of our taxes for.
49:30
So tax resistance has been around for a long time.
49:34
Some of it has been violent, and I don't advocate
49:37
for violence in any way, shape or form over anything.
49:40
I'm anti violence completely, and I believe that in the
49:49
long run, peace, peaceful non compliance will win, will win
49:54
the day. And tax resistance is of course one of
49:59
those methods, but it's not without its dangers for people,
50:03
because not paying your taxes in this country is of
50:08
course an offense that you will be punished for. So
50:14
when I speak about this with people, I'm reticent to
50:20
ever say to somebody you should just stop paying all
50:23
of your tax because people really need to understand that
50:28
they could get themselves into quite a lot of difficulty
50:34
from doing that that they may be unprepared for. And
50:37
I don't want people to be in a situation where
50:40
they're then grasping to or they're facing some kind of
50:45
court action that they can't afford to get advice on
50:48
and it's made their life completely miserable. Okay, So I
50:52
just want to caveat what I'm playing with that each
50:57
each person has to make a decision themselves about how
51:02
far they are willing to go with anything. Now I'm
51:08
not I'm unsure if UK column interviewed the chat and
51:12
I can't remember his name, I'm ever so sorry that
51:14
runs the Probity website. Off the top of my head,
51:18
can't remember his name. He's the guy that has has
51:22
of course said that he's not refusing to pay his taxes.
51:27
He just doesn't want to pay taxes that fund any
51:33
part of war or the military the military complex. And
51:40
he will therefore agreed to pay his taxes if he
51:44
gets confirmation from H. L. Marcy as to what part
51:51
or what they're going to use his money for, and
51:53
until then he's going to hold it somewhere for them.
51:55
So it's a conditional offer to pay. I have to
51:58
say I don't remember, and anybody tries to go down
52:02
that route, you won't get a sensible answer from H
52:04
and MARC. They won't tell you where your tax money
52:07
is going, and they will tell you that you have
52:10
to pay it. Once you've started interacting with them as well,
52:13
you're in for a lot of letters and a lot
52:16
of follow up calls. So rather than speak to your
52:22
audience on things like you know, doing or doing things
52:28
like that, I actually have started having conversations with people
52:35
from the basis that would you like to pay as
52:39
little tax as possible legally, because these are all things
52:43
that we can do that reduce the amount of money
52:48
that is paid to central government and it also reduces
52:53
the tax burden on ourselves and it makes our life
52:56
a little bit easier. But we can do it. You
52:59
don't have to go as far as I have, I've
53:01
literally shut down. One of the reasons that i won't
53:05
be practicing anymore is because I've decided that I'm only
53:09
ever going to earn up to the personal allowance in
53:12
this country. I can afford to do that because you
53:16
know of the position I'm in. I'm not suggesting everybody can,
53:20
but if you can, then that's one way to do it,
53:23
because I won't be paying income tax if I don't
53:26
earn more than twelve five hundred and seventy pounds. But
53:32
I have conversations with people now on the basis that
53:35
would you like to arrange your affairs so that you
53:38
pay as little tax as possible? And there are all
53:40
sorts of very simple things that you can do, Okay.
53:45
My job as a lawyer, part of my job was
53:47
advising people on asset and wealth protection and taxation issues.
53:52
And there's all sorts of things. So first of all,
53:56
and you can take these or leave them, okay. It
53:58
depends where you are on what you think about the
53:59
system them. So I'm not suggesting that. I'm not a
54:02
financial advisor neither, so you know, please take your own
54:05
advice on this. The obvious ones are of course, that
54:09
you shouldn't be paying interest on money that you have
54:13
in the bank, so you should make use devices where
54:16
you can, like I said, take it or leave it.
54:18
People might not want their money in the bank. I
54:20
understand that because they might have certain views about that,
54:23
and that's absolutely fine. But if you have got money
54:27
in the bank, then consider putting it into a nice
54:29
subs that you don't pay tax on the interest. You
54:31
can have twenty thousand a year in it. There are
54:34
also other investment products, investment bonds, for instance, where it's
54:39
a return of capital and not interest. You can take
54:41
a five percent withdrawal you do not pay income tax
54:44
on it. You could also consider sharing your allowances if
54:47
you're married with your spouse and arranging things like that
54:50
so you're both making use of your personal allowances paying
54:54
the least amount of tax possible. You should have a
54:57
look at the inheritance tax connected to your estate and
55:01
rearrange your affairs in I think wax lyrical about this.
55:05
I'm looking at the time and can see that probably
55:07
we haven't got much longer much longer left, But I
55:12
you know, I can always come back and talk about
55:15
in more practical terms, the very easy things that people
55:19
can do to minimize the amount of tax they are paying,
55:22
and they can do that from a conscience base of
55:26
saying I'm doing this because I don't want to fund
55:30
certain things. Okay, I think it will come to a point, however,
55:35
where people will say I'm going to actually stop paying
55:39
my counsel tax en mass, which again could cause all
55:44
sorts of problems. But if enough people do it, the
55:46
system simply cannot cope. And I've got a lot to
55:49
say about council tax anyway, but that's for another time.
55:53
Speaker 1: Well, just give us a give us a brief insight
55:56
on the council tax. Yeah, just.
56:03
Speaker 3: Well, in my personal opinion, this is part of the
56:06
weaponization of law. You see council tax nonpayment or if
56:11
you're unable to pay your council tax, you're a criminal
56:13
and you get sent to prison. Now, given that, I
56:19
have a lot to say about the prosecutions for non
56:22
payment of counsel tax, which is I believe they are
56:26
private criminal prosecutions and they do not follow the criminal
56:31
procedure rules in any way, shape or form. I think
56:34
they're probably out of jurisdiction. I would love to have
56:37
the money to be able to take a place and
56:40
get a declaratory judgment. I don't think it would ever
56:42
be allowed to be made public or fly because of
56:45
the political storm that it would open, But yes, I do.
56:50
My opener on council tax prosecutions and sales would be
56:53
that I think that they're private criminal prosecutions. I don't
56:57
think that these summons that are issued are are I
57:02
think they're treated as an administrative process rather than a
57:05
judicial one. And I think there's a case that we
57:07
could have a look at at some point in the
57:09
future where we could explore that in more detail.
57:12
Speaker 1: Excellent, Well, I think there will be something to look
57:14
forward to.
57:14
Speaker 2: And again we think we're just you know, it was
57:17
very helpful to hear exactly what you had to say,
57:20
and I think people should bear in mind, you know,
57:21
your caveat, but to consider that there are things that
57:26
people can do that are completely I mean, I don't
57:29
know if legitimate is quite the right word, because I
57:31
think here what we're really looking for is morality, and
57:34
that's that's the angle that you're coming from, or indeed
57:39
sort of what is correct now that is obviously for
57:44
you something that's ongoing have you in the pipeline sort
57:50
of a project of sorts that you're working towards, or
57:54
anything you know in your future that would be something
57:58
you'd be willing to talk talk about a bit.
58:01
Speaker 3: Actually, several months ago, I started working with another girl
58:07
on looking at the taxation system and going into a
58:12
lot more detail other than what I briefly said to
58:15
you about how you can arrange things more tax efficiently,
58:19
and then looking historically at more at forms of tax resistance. Unfortunately,
58:26
that kind of got put on hold because I woke
58:30
up in my usual fashion one day and just said,
58:33
I can't do this job anymore. I'm going to close
58:35
down my law firm and have then spent the last
58:38
three months doing that. But come sort of end of
58:42
September beginning of October, I've got a lot more time
58:45
on my hands and I will be starting the sub stack,
58:48
and one of the things that I will be covering
58:49
in that is this particular area of taxation, the relevant legislation,
58:55
what it says, the history of tax resistance, the simple
58:59
things that people people can do to minimize the tax
59:02
that they're paying, and all sorts of other things as well.
59:08
There's a lot of work's gone into it already, but
59:11
it's been put on the backburner simply because of where
59:14
I've been in my professional and personal life unfortunately over
59:18
the last few months.
59:20
Speaker 2: Perfectly understandable, Claire, and I think that would be a
59:23
very fitting place to end, something to dangle in front
59:26
of people to look forward to. I think there'll be
59:29
a huge chunk of the audience to be going for
59:31
that sort of information when you start to put it out.
59:33
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, where can people find what you
59:38
are doing and what your thoughts are? Where can we
59:41
sort of connect with you as it were?
59:43
Speaker 3: Unfortunately I do not do much social media. After what
59:49
happens to me in twenty twenty, I've got absolutely trolled
59:52
by the seventy seventh pergay so did my business took
59:55
a hit. So mainly we would post what we think
1:00:00
is interesting, often a lot of ranching on our telegram channel.
1:00:05
It is made up of lawyers, some of whom are
1:00:09
actually ex policemen as well, and it is called Lawyers
1:00:12
of Light. However, having left or been due to leave
1:00:16
legal profession, I am open to any suggestions for new names,
1:00:21
because I won't be classing myself as a lawyer anymore.
1:00:25
Speaker 1: Excellent, fair enough, thank you very much.
1:00:27
Speaker 2: Now we're going to sort of wind it up there,
1:00:32
but what I should remind people is that there'll be
1:00:35
notes and links from this interview posted at UK.
1:00:38
Speaker 1: Column dot org.
1:00:40
Speaker 2: If you are in a financial position to support us,
1:00:43
and you're not already doing so, then I would encourage
1:00:46
you to join at for five pounds a month, because
1:00:49
it helps us to be able to bring interviews of
1:00:52
this quality to you. So finally, it just remains for
1:00:56
me to thank Claire very very much indeed for an
1:00:59
amazing voyage of insight, and we will really look forward
1:01:04
to seeing you again in the future, so please keep
1:01:06
in touch and thank you very much.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: Claire.
1:01:08
Speaker 3: You are welcome. It's been my absolute pleasure. Thank you.
1:01:11
Speaker 1: Charles