In conjunction with our Blog Posting of former Deputy Daniel Wimberley's Press Release published HERE. We publish the documents listed in that release.
DOCUMENT A.
DOCUMENT A.
From Daniel
Wimberley
Sent by email, Thursday, 06 April 2017 at 16.56
Dear Eversheds,
I acknowledge receipt of your email conveying the response of the panel to my emailed letter to them of Friday, 31 March 2017.
Please convey my bitter disappointment and indeed amazement at the nature of their reply.
My letter to the Panel was 8 pages of detailed submission and questions about how the panel would go about preserving the work of the COI and of the witnesses for posterity. (This email was itself a re-cap of an email of 17 pages sent to you on June 21st 2016 last year about the need to review and transform the Inquiry website.)
I highlighted:
· The need to put right all of the website’s failings before you publish your report
· The need to ensure that every document is actually present and correct.
· I particularly stressed all the witness statements and their exhibits, which I know from my own experience and that of others are not complete and in good order
· I also particularly stressed the information which is “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them” and which you call Category 2 information.
Amazingly you propose at one point not to preserve this information, information that is, which is material and relevant to the Inquiry's Terms of Reference.
The public is unaware of this astonishing proposal of yours and will be shocked to learn that you cannot or will not give an assurance that this material will be kept as Advocate MacRae implied was your original plan (see second preliminary hearing on June 16th, 2014, transcript, page 43, lines 9-15).
· The need, in view of the atmosphere of distrust and division which reigns in Jersey on this question of child abuse (and other issues as well) to be absolutely transparent and open in all decisions to keep, or especially decisions not to keep, certain information.
· The need to make the site more user-friendly so that users both now and into the future can find documents easily, download and copy documents or extracts without difficulty, that the site is kept cyber-secure.
On all these points, spelt out in more detail in my email, itself a re-cap of a previous longer email sent to you in June last year, you have now given no reassurance whatsoever.
What are we down here on the street to make of this?
In my letter I concluded:
“Please set my mind at rest. Please reply to the points in this letter. Are the objectives of truth, learning, confidence, accountability and transparency your objectives – or just a bunch of words?
Please assure us all that all the problems of the website will be put right BEFORE your report is published. Do not betray the people of Jersey and above all do not betray the victims. Posterity will not forgive you if you do.”
I will now publicise my letter and your reply, and hope that something which is right for the people of Jersey emerges.
What are we down here on the street to make of this?
In my letter I concluded:
“Please set my mind at rest. Please reply to the points in this letter. Are the objectives of truth, learning, confidence, accountability and transparency your objectives – or just a bunch of words?
Please assure us all that all the problems of the website will be put right BEFORE your report is published. Do not betray the people of Jersey and above all do not betray the victims. Posterity will not forgive you if you do.”
I will now publicise my letter and your reply, and hope that something which is right for the people of Jersey emerges.
Daniel Wimberley.
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DOCUMENT B
From Daniel Wimberley
Dear Chairman and members of the panel of the Jersey Committee of Inquiry into Child Abuse (COI)
Re your plans for the future of the COI website
INTRODUCTION
I know that you are busy finalising your report. This letter reminds you that there is another issue you have to address, namely the future of the COI website. The website has never been satisfactory – it has never been user-friendly, it has never been complete, and documents appear and disappear disconcertingly, and we the public do not know why this is because no explanation is given.
Now that the end of the report-writing is nearing, I write to you to ask, again, what steps you will be taking to ensure that both your work, and the work of the countless others who have provided written statements and given evidence to you, often at great personal cost, is properly preserved for the future.
Many months ago, on June 21st 2016, I asked you to tell the public what your plans were for the future of the website. I explained to you, in detail and point by point, the failings of the present website, and asked you what you were going to do to remedy these failings. In some cases I suggested improvements. I also asked you to confirm what exactly would be included.
I pointed out to you that your task is not only to produce a report. It is also to provide learning for posterity, and a vital element of that is the storing of all relevant information for the benefit of future users in a form which is user-friendly and which encourages anyone to view the contents of the site.
After 4 ½ months, and a chasing email from me, your team replied saying that you would “not respond in detail” at that time. Their email continued:
“Despite the above, the Panel have asked me to confirm that they are aware of their obligations to preserve the work of the Inquiry. Some documents produced by the Inquiry by their very nature cannot be made public but will be preserved. As you are aware, the Inquiry protocols detail how the Inquiry’s work will be archived but this will be revisited by the Panel upon completion of their report.”
Now that the completion of your report is imminent, I would like to point out that putting right the many failings of the website should not wait until after your report is published. The website cannot be treated as an afterthought. It is an integral part of the work you have undertaken to do for the public of Jersey.
When the report appears it is obviously essential that anyone with an interest, from direct protagonists (victims, perpetrators, alleged perpetrators, those accused of wrong-doing of any kind) to the public and the politicians who represent them, to journalists, to charity workers, campaigners and policy-makers, that all of these stakeholders can check your report against the original documents.
To do this the website must be in good order, with every document actually present and correct, both documents of evidence and documentation of the workings and decisions of the Inquiry. And all the contents of the website must be accessible, easy to find, easily downloadable, and extracts easily copied.
None of these conditions apply right now.
Please do not plead in any reply to this letter that ‘it is too late.’ You knew of the numerous problems and failings and matters which you had to resolve in June of last year, when I wrote to you as referred to above.
I sent you a covering letter of 2 pages with Questions to you and Appendices of 15 pages. There were 25 questions about the failings of the website, each with an explanation of why it had to be answered and of why the implications had to be tackled if the website was to become adequate.
Had you paid attention then to a letter written with great care and in great detail by someone who has the public interest at heart, and who had written to you twice before with similarly detailed letters about the way in which you were conducting your business, you would have realised the scale of the work that had to be done to get the website up to scratch. But instead, after 4½ months you replied to me basically saying “later, later” (see quote from your letter, above)
Well, “later” has arrived. If you have not prepared the answers by now, then all stakeholders will just have to wait until you have got this right. This is too important to be ignored.
In summary what I am saying is that all the website’s failings must be put right and all the problem areas resolved – before you publish.
WHAT ARE THE WEBSITE’S FAILINGS?
I have referred a lot to the failings of the website. What follows is a reminder of the questions I put to you in June last year and the concerns which underlie them. Before I list them, a general observation is in order.
The Public Inquiry into child abuse in Jersey was launched to establish the facts, to enable learning to take place, to re-build public confidence, to enact accountability, and to demonstrate transparency in government. [1] [2] Truth, learning, confidence, accountability, transparency: all these point to the vital role which will be played by the website in the future as it serves the needs of, among others, victims and their supporters, child protection experts, trainee police and politicians, academics and journalists, and acts as the source of information to guide us as we all chart a better future together.
The way to ensure that the objectives of truth, learning, confidence, accountability and transparency are met, is that all the evidence and all the workings, decisions, correspondence and other documentation of the Inquiry are preserved, and that there is absolute openness with the task of archiving the work and the website of this Inquiry and that you ensure that everyone has access to it and can find what they are looking for.
I have referred a lot to the failings of the website. What follows is a reminder of the questions I put to you in June last year and the concerns which underlie them. Before I list them, a general observation is in order.
The Public Inquiry into child abuse in Jersey was launched to establish the facts, to enable learning to take place, to re-build public confidence, to enact accountability, and to demonstrate transparency in government. [1] [2] Truth, learning, confidence, accountability, transparency: all these point to the vital role which will be played by the website in the future as it serves the needs of, among others, victims and their supporters, child protection experts, trainee police and politicians, academics and journalists, and acts as the source of information to guide us as we all chart a better future together.
The way to ensure that the objectives of truth, learning, confidence, accountability and transparency are met, is that all the evidence and all the workings, decisions, correspondence and other documentation of the Inquiry are preserved, and that there is absolute openness with the task of archiving the work and the website of this Inquiry and that you ensure that everyone has access to it and can find what they are looking for.
COMPLETENESS OF THE INFORMATION
1. Passing on the full archive
In my letter of June 21st 2016, I asked you whether you agreed that passing on the full archive of all the documents you have considered and of the details of how you have gone about your work was a vital part of the work which you are carrying out for the people of Jersey and a vital resource for posterity, and if so, would that task now be carried out with a due sense of its importance.
2. issues around redaction and around filtering/weeding
I asked you about the issues around redaction and around filtering/weeding of documents – how you would ensure the maximum availability of documents whilst preserving any necessary protections, and removing any definitely irrelevant documents, and how you would arrange for the necessary checks and balances and for complete transparency to be in place around these decisions.
3. Transparency around any exclusions of material
a. I asked you if you agreed that the public must be able to see what material has been excluded from consideration by the Panel, what the exact process was for such exclusions, who carried out each exclusion, and the grounds on which this material was excluded.
b. Complete transparency on this issue is essential to ensure accountability to the public you are serving, especially as decisions which say – “this does not lie within our Terms of Reference” are, as well as being obviously of the utmost importance, sometimes extremely controversial. The public must see the reasons given by the Panel for such decisions. [3]
4. Material which is missing from the website
a. There is material which has in the past been put up on the website and then removed from the website. There is material which should have been put up on the website and never was. And there are large amounts of information which are simply missing. May I remind you that my personal experience is of a random, and relatively small, sample of the Inquiry’s work, so it is possible, likely even, that this problem of missing information is on a considerable scale. A glance at the comments on the blogs would support this observation.
b. And so I asked you the crucial question: How will you ensure that all this information will be put on to the website and preserved into the future?
5. Exhibits attached to witness statements
a. A special case of documents missing from the website are the exhibits which those giving evidence to you attached to their witness statements. These “exhibits” (or documents) explain and corroborate the witness statements and so are a vital part of people’s testimony, and yet I and others know of cases where they are missing or appear in the wrong order.
b. And so I asked specifically what steps the Inquiry would take to ensure the completeness of witness statements and their attached exhibits and that they would appear in the right order, and how would you verify that this had been done.
6. Category 2 information
a. Now we come to the extraordinary affair of the Category 2 information. This is, according to the Inquiry Protocol on Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Redaction “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them” (para. 6.2)
b. This information is due to be “logged and then destroyed by the Inquiry or originals returned to the provider. A copy of the document log will be provided to the States of Jersey Archive” (para. 8) (my emphasis)
c. In my letter to you of June 21st 2016, I wrote to you:
“I have to say that what paragraph 8 says will happen to Category 2 material is absolutely extraordinary. Any reasonable person, as lawyers are inclined to say, would expect as a matter of course that “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them” would be preserved. Why ever would one not preserve such material?”
d. I pointed out to you that an exchange at the second preliminary hearing on June 16th, 2014 shows that the original policy had been to preserve this material. This raises the possibilities of either a mistake or a change in policy.
e. And so, I asked you whether all Category 2 information would be preserved.
f. I also asked you, if there was a change in this policy, to tell the public whom you serve the exact story of the change: when the change in policy was made from keeping this material to destroying it, who made the change, why they made the change and where we can read the documentation of this change.
MAKING THE SITE USER-FRIENDLY
7. Finding any document easily
I asked you to ensure that any document could be found easily. I explained the minimum requirements for this to be done.
8. Preservation, access and safety of the website
I asked you how the website would be preserved, how access and assistance for users would be ensured, and how safety from cyber-attack would be guaranteed into the future.
9. Integrity of exhibits
I asked you to ensure that exhibits were in the correct order and complete.
10. Ensuring that documents can be copied
I asked how the Panel would guarantee that extracts of documents could easily be copied, given that I highlighted in my letter two different problems which made for difficulties with copying.
11. Download speeds
I asked how you would resolve the problem of very slow download speeds
Obstacles to users.
Essential that peple be encouraged to access information, not deterred.
Why is it like this???k
CONCLUSION
The above summary is of course just that – a summary of what was in my letter to you of June 21st 2016, which is attached to this letter. I repeat it here as an aide-memoire to help you to see the key points more quickly.
This letter seems to be calm, as I put to you the crucial importance of preserving all the information for posterity and making it fully accessible. However when I think of what is at stake here I have to say to you that I am far from calm inside.
On June 21st last year I write to you with 17 pages of questions and pointers about the future of the information you have gathered and of your work. I write in measured but precise tones. I said, for example, at paragraph 4 of that letter:
“It would be a great loss and a denial of one of the aims of the Inquiry, which is to provide learning, if having brought all this material to light it was not then to be protected, preserved and made accessible to future generations.
The reasons that the preservation of all your material is so important are firstly that many people, for all sorts of reasons, will want to find material which has emerged during this Inquiry. Secondly, they will also want to establish how you conducted this Inquiry, what processes you used to arrive at decisions, what rulings you gave and why, and so on.”
I cannot put it more clearly than that. And yet you did not reply until I had chased you, until 4 ½ months had elapsed, and even then it was a letter saying “later, dear”
So, having, for example, the witness statement of Lenny Harper reproduced on your website with half the exhibits missing and those that were there in the wrong order and interpolated with an exhibit apparently from Alison Fossey’s witness statement: - all that is not important enough to you to warrant an immediate reply to me, and more importantly, not important enough for any action to be taken.
Likewise the witness statement of Philip Sinel which either disappeared from the website or was never put on it. It was restored (or put on) after a complaint by Voice for Children. You preside over a website where the contents come and go on request? Where is your competence and integrity? Why should members of the public have to demand that documents be posted to the website? Why is my June 21st 2016 letter and your reply not on the website?
In fact you have done nothing to my knowledge to set in train any wholesale review of the website and the way it must be improved.
Credibility is at the heart of any Inquiry like this, and especially so in a divided society like Jersey. I have made this clear to you in a previous letter about your conduct of the inquiry and you may have noticed it from your witnesses, but you do not seem yet to have a firm grasp of this truth.
And so to the most important matter of all – the extraordinary position over what the Inquiry calls “Category 2 information”. Unless there has been a mistake we are in the extraordinary position that vast amounts of information given to or sought out by the COI will be destroyed if it is in Category 2. So what is this worthless stuff which can be tossed into the bin, erased from the record of the COI?
It is, in your words: “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them”
How can I find a bright enough highlighter?? Or a BOLD font bold enough? You are going, on your own admission to destroy “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them”
And so I raised this with you in my letter to you of June 21st 2016, suggesting there may have been a mistake, and discovering in the record of the COI a quote which shows that this destruction was NOT the original policy of the Inquiry and also allowing to you the possibility of making a mistake in such a vast endeavour as this COI.
You sent not even the slightest word of reply, as if the disappearance of over half of the work of the COI from the record was a matter of little concern that could “wait until later” – could you not have at least reassured me on this point? Apparently not!!! Maybe you really do not care. Maybe you really do intend to vanish half of the evidence: evidence carefully gathered by you yourselves, or at great cost sent to you. Maybe the idea of setting up any verification process or quality control is anathema to you. But then how on earth will we achieve better outcomes for our children with these attitudes?? When what we need is a massive dose of transparency and a big dose of truth!
WHAT MATTERS TO YOU???
Sorry, I just do not get it. Please set my mind at rest. Please reply to the points in this letter. Are the objectives of truth, learning, confidence, accountability and transparency your objectives – or just a bunch of words?
Please assure us all that all the problems of the website will be put right BEFORE your report is published. Do not betray the people of Jersey and above all do not betray the victims. Posterity will not forgive you if you do.
I reserve the right to publish this letter and any reply from yourselves after one week, that is on Monday 10th April. I am happy to reconsider this, on persuasion.
Yours sincerely
Daniel Wimberley
[1] There is one other objective –therapeutic exposure - which it could be argued does not require archiving for posterity. But even with this objective it is likely that adequate procedures for preservation are necessary.
1. Passing on the full archive
In my letter of June 21st 2016, I asked you whether you agreed that passing on the full archive of all the documents you have considered and of the details of how you have gone about your work was a vital part of the work which you are carrying out for the people of Jersey and a vital resource for posterity, and if so, would that task now be carried out with a due sense of its importance.
2. issues around redaction and around filtering/weeding
I asked you about the issues around redaction and around filtering/weeding of documents – how you would ensure the maximum availability of documents whilst preserving any necessary protections, and removing any definitely irrelevant documents, and how you would arrange for the necessary checks and balances and for complete transparency to be in place around these decisions.
3. Transparency around any exclusions of material
a. I asked you if you agreed that the public must be able to see what material has been excluded from consideration by the Panel, what the exact process was for such exclusions, who carried out each exclusion, and the grounds on which this material was excluded.
b. Complete transparency on this issue is essential to ensure accountability to the public you are serving, especially as decisions which say – “this does not lie within our Terms of Reference” are, as well as being obviously of the utmost importance, sometimes extremely controversial. The public must see the reasons given by the Panel for such decisions. [3]
4. Material which is missing from the website
a. There is material which has in the past been put up on the website and then removed from the website. There is material which should have been put up on the website and never was. And there are large amounts of information which are simply missing. May I remind you that my personal experience is of a random, and relatively small, sample of the Inquiry’s work, so it is possible, likely even, that this problem of missing information is on a considerable scale. A glance at the comments on the blogs would support this observation.
b. And so I asked you the crucial question: How will you ensure that all this information will be put on to the website and preserved into the future?
5. Exhibits attached to witness statements
a. A special case of documents missing from the website are the exhibits which those giving evidence to you attached to their witness statements. These “exhibits” (or documents) explain and corroborate the witness statements and so are a vital part of people’s testimony, and yet I and others know of cases where they are missing or appear in the wrong order.
b. And so I asked specifically what steps the Inquiry would take to ensure the completeness of witness statements and their attached exhibits and that they would appear in the right order, and how would you verify that this had been done.
6. Category 2 information
a. Now we come to the extraordinary affair of the Category 2 information. This is, according to the Inquiry Protocol on Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Redaction “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them” (para. 6.2)
b. This information is due to be “logged and then destroyed by the Inquiry or originals returned to the provider. A copy of the document log will be provided to the States of Jersey Archive” (para. 8) (my emphasis)
c. In my letter to you of June 21st 2016, I wrote to you:
“I have to say that what paragraph 8 says will happen to Category 2 material is absolutely extraordinary. Any reasonable person, as lawyers are inclined to say, would expect as a matter of course that “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them” would be preserved. Why ever would one not preserve such material?”
d. I pointed out to you that an exchange at the second preliminary hearing on June 16th, 2014 shows that the original policy had been to preserve this material. This raises the possibilities of either a mistake or a change in policy.
e. And so, I asked you whether all Category 2 information would be preserved.
f. I also asked you, if there was a change in this policy, to tell the public whom you serve the exact story of the change: when the change in policy was made from keeping this material to destroying it, who made the change, why they made the change and where we can read the documentation of this change.
MAKING THE SITE USER-FRIENDLY
7. Finding any document easily
I asked you to ensure that any document could be found easily. I explained the minimum requirements for this to be done.
8. Preservation, access and safety of the website
I asked you how the website would be preserved, how access and assistance for users would be ensured, and how safety from cyber-attack would be guaranteed into the future.
9. Integrity of exhibits
I asked you to ensure that exhibits were in the correct order and complete.
10. Ensuring that documents can be copied
I asked how the Panel would guarantee that extracts of documents could easily be copied, given that I highlighted in my letter two different problems which made for difficulties with copying.
11. Download speeds
I asked how you would resolve the problem of very slow download speeds
Obstacles to users.
Essential that peple be encouraged to access information, not deterred.
Why is it like this???k
CONCLUSION
The above summary is of course just that – a summary of what was in my letter to you of June 21st 2016, which is attached to this letter. I repeat it here as an aide-memoire to help you to see the key points more quickly.
This letter seems to be calm, as I put to you the crucial importance of preserving all the information for posterity and making it fully accessible. However when I think of what is at stake here I have to say to you that I am far from calm inside.
On June 21st last year I write to you with 17 pages of questions and pointers about the future of the information you have gathered and of your work. I write in measured but precise tones. I said, for example, at paragraph 4 of that letter:
“It would be a great loss and a denial of one of the aims of the Inquiry, which is to provide learning, if having brought all this material to light it was not then to be protected, preserved and made accessible to future generations.
The reasons that the preservation of all your material is so important are firstly that many people, for all sorts of reasons, will want to find material which has emerged during this Inquiry. Secondly, they will also want to establish how you conducted this Inquiry, what processes you used to arrive at decisions, what rulings you gave and why, and so on.”
I cannot put it more clearly than that. And yet you did not reply until I had chased you, until 4 ½ months had elapsed, and even then it was a letter saying “later, dear”
So, having, for example, the witness statement of Lenny Harper reproduced on your website with half the exhibits missing and those that were there in the wrong order and interpolated with an exhibit apparently from Alison Fossey’s witness statement: - all that is not important enough to you to warrant an immediate reply to me, and more importantly, not important enough for any action to be taken.
Likewise the witness statement of Philip Sinel which either disappeared from the website or was never put on it. It was restored (or put on) after a complaint by Voice for Children. You preside over a website where the contents come and go on request? Where is your competence and integrity? Why should members of the public have to demand that documents be posted to the website? Why is my June 21st 2016 letter and your reply not on the website?
In fact you have done nothing to my knowledge to set in train any wholesale review of the website and the way it must be improved.
Credibility is at the heart of any Inquiry like this, and especially so in a divided society like Jersey. I have made this clear to you in a previous letter about your conduct of the inquiry and you may have noticed it from your witnesses, but you do not seem yet to have a firm grasp of this truth.
And so to the most important matter of all – the extraordinary position over what the Inquiry calls “Category 2 information”. Unless there has been a mistake we are in the extraordinary position that vast amounts of information given to or sought out by the COI will be destroyed if it is in Category 2. So what is this worthless stuff which can be tossed into the bin, erased from the record of the COI?
It is, in your words: “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them”
How can I find a bright enough highlighter?? Or a BOLD font bold enough? You are going, on your own admission to destroy “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them”
And so I raised this with you in my letter to you of June 21st 2016, suggesting there may have been a mistake, and discovering in the record of the COI a quote which shows that this destruction was NOT the original policy of the Inquiry and also allowing to you the possibility of making a mistake in such a vast endeavour as this COI.
You sent not even the slightest word of reply, as if the disappearance of over half of the work of the COI from the record was a matter of little concern that could “wait until later” – could you not have at least reassured me on this point? Apparently not!!! Maybe you really do not care. Maybe you really do intend to vanish half of the evidence: evidence carefully gathered by you yourselves, or at great cost sent to you. Maybe the idea of setting up any verification process or quality control is anathema to you. But then how on earth will we achieve better outcomes for our children with these attitudes?? When what we need is a massive dose of transparency and a big dose of truth!
WHAT MATTERS TO YOU???
Sorry, I just do not get it. Please set my mind at rest. Please reply to the points in this letter. Are the objectives of truth, learning, confidence, accountability and transparency your objectives – or just a bunch of words?
Please assure us all that all the problems of the website will be put right BEFORE your report is published. Do not betray the people of Jersey and above all do not betray the victims. Posterity will not forgive you if you do.
I reserve the right to publish this letter and any reply from yourselves after one week, that is on Monday 10th April. I am happy to reconsider this, on persuasion.
Yours sincerely
Daniel Wimberley
[1] There is one other objective –therapeutic exposure - which it could be argued does not require archiving for posterity. But even with this objective it is likely that adequate procedures for preservation are necessary.
[2] These objectives are listed in the report accompanying the proposition setting up the COI (P.118/2012 page 4)
[3] And in my view plainly wrong – e.g. the exclusion of Victoria College, which is plainly within the TOR.
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DOCUMENT C
From Daniel Wimberley
Dear Chairman and members of the panel of the Jersey Committee of Inquiry into Child Abuse,
Re preservation of the Inquiry’s work for the future
As the Inquiry hearings come to an end, this letter asks you to consider the second task that now awaits you, alongside the obvious one of writing your final report. That task is the preservation for the future of the Inquiry’s work.
My concerns are many. The website, as it currently stands, is not fit for purpose as it is very difficult indeed to find what you are looking for. I am concerned at how the work of the Inquiry will be preserved into the future. I seek reassurances about the completeness of the information to be preserved for posterity.
This Inquiry has been a huge undertaking. Part of its value lies in having documented a vast amount of testimony, whether from victims of abuse or from protagonists in services or in other agencies – police, media, politics, government departments, the judiciary and so on.
It would be a great loss and a denial of one of the aims of the Inquiry, which is to provide learning, if having brought all this material to light it was not then to be protected, preserved and made accessible to future generations.
The reasons that the preservation of all your material is so important are firstly that many people, for all sorts of reasons, will want to find material which has emerged during this Inquiry. Secondly, they will also want to establish how you conducted this Inquiry, what processes you used to arrive at decisions, what rulings you gave and why, and so on.
The only way to ensure learning into the future and to demonstrate transparency of government and to allay all fears and to rebuild trust [1] is absolute openness with the task of archiving the work and the website of this Inquiry and to ensure that everyone has access to it and can find what they are looking for.
Only in this way can the public in Jersey and further afield see for themselves and understand exactly how your report came to be.
To summarise the questions which I attach to this letter, I am asking you to:
. confirm that you will give the highest importance to the task of preserving the website and the work of the Inquiry. By “work of the Inquiry” I mean all the workings, decisions, correspondence and other documentation of the Inquiry, which do not figure on the website;
. confirm that you will take the necessary steps to ensure that the future users of the website will be able to find whatever they are looking for easily, in contrast to the present situation, which is that it is extremely difficult to find anything;
. confirm how you will go about the task of preserving all the material you have and making it accessible;
. confirm that all information “that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them” [2] will be preserved (that is all of what you term Category 2 material);
. confirm that the panel will ensure complete transparency with respect to all decisions to exclude material which is “irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference or not probative of them” (that is, what you term Category 3 material);
. respond to the various questions in the section headed “Other issues with the website” (see page 9 below)
I put these questions to you in the spirit of accountability, a principle that I assume you accept. You are a public body, set up by the Jersey parliament, which represents islanders, to report, as the proposition says which set you up, on a “definite matter of public interest” [3]
I respect the work you have put in thus far and will continue to put in as you frame, draft and re-draft your report. That does not alter the fact that you are accountable to the public of Jersey, every one of them, even if most of them do not write to you at all!
And so I trust that you will answer the attached set of questions fully and openly, and in a reasonable time-frame. Maybe you already have worked out policies covering all the matters I raise, in which case answering will be a matter of referring me and by extension, the public, to the document(s) where these policies are set out and making these documents accessible to all.
And maybe some of these questions will raise issues you may not have addressed in full until now, in which case I trust you will take these questions not as criticism but as a welcome challenge and opportunity to get these matters right.
Yours sincerely
Daniel Wimberley
General – the importance of preserving the website and the work of the Inquiry for posterity
The website of the Inquiry is a repository of all the evidence which has been sent to you, of all the witness statements and their supporting documents, of all the public hearings which the Inquiry has conducted, and of all the procedures of the Inquiry including the protocols and rulings which the Inquiry has made.
The term “work of the Inquiry” for me encompasses the internal workings of the Inquiry, the notes of its meetings, the processes underlying its decisions, the way the work was organised and carried out, the correspondence it has had with witnesses and other stakeholders, government, agencies such as the Data Commissioner and with key suppliers e.g. of the software used to manage the documentation and the website. It also includes the documents which you and your team have considered and which do not figure on the website.
QUESTIONS TO THE PANEL ABOUT THE PRESERVATION OF THE WORK AND OF THE WEBSITE OF THE JERSEY COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY INTO CHILD ABUSE
(known as the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry or IJCI)
From Daniel Wimberley Tuesday, 21 June 2016
General – the importance of preserving the website and the work of the Inquiry for posterity
The website of the Inquiry is a repository of all the evidence which has been sent to you, of all the witness statements and their supporting documents, of all the public hearings which the Inquiry has conducted, and of all the procedures of the Inquiry including the protocols and rulings which the Inquiry has made.
The term “work of the Inquiry” for me encompasses the internal workings of the Inquiry, the notes of its meetings, the processes underlying its decisions, the way the work was organised and carried out, the correspondence it has had with witnesses and other stakeholders, government, agencies such as the Data Commissioner and with key suppliers e.g. of the software used to manage the documentation and the website. It also includes the documents which you and your team have considered and which do not figure on the website.
The website and the work of the Inquiry taken together are in my view nearly as important (one could argue that it is as important) as the final report of the Inquiry. Many people will want to access this archive in the future, each for their own very different reasons, ranging from victims and their close supporters to child protection experts, from trainee police to politicians, from academics to journalists, and many others.
It is worth quoting the Verita report on setting up the Inquiry:
Verita report, reproduced on page 27 of P118/2012 (my emphasis)
These objectives were incorporated into the report accompanying the proposition setting up the COI and so became official cornerstones of the Inquiry.
“In general, there are 6 main objectives of a public inquiry –
(1) Establishing the facts – providing a full and fair account of what happened.
(2) Learning from events – distilling lessons and preventing their recurrence through changing practice.
(3) Therapeutic exposure – providing an opportunity for reconciliation and resolution between different parties.
(4) Reassurance – rebuilding public confidence in whatever service or issue has been the subject of the inquiry.
(5) Accountability – holding people and organisations to account, sometimes indirectly contributing to the assignment of blame and mechanisms for retribution.
(6) Transparency – demonstrating that ‘something has been done’ or transparency in government.”
The only way to ensure learning into the future and to demonstrate transparency of government and to allay all fears and to rebuild trust is absolute openness with the task of archiving the work and the website of this Inquiry and to ensure that everyone has access to its contents and can find what they are looking for.
It is worth quoting the Verita report on setting up the Inquiry:
“The purpose of the inquiry is to establish the facts, to provide learning, to enable reconciliation and resolution, to rebuild public confidence and trust, to hold to account and to demonstrate transparency of government by the inquiry examining this matter on behalf of the States of Jersey”
Verita report, reproduced on page 27 of P118/2012 (my emphasis)
These objectives were incorporated into the report accompanying the proposition setting up the COI and so became official cornerstones of the Inquiry.
“In general, there are 6 main objectives of a public inquiry –
(1) Establishing the facts – providing a full and fair account of what happened.
(2) Learning from events – distilling lessons and preventing their recurrence through changing practice.
(3) Therapeutic exposure – providing an opportunity for reconciliation and resolution between different parties.
(4) Reassurance – rebuilding public confidence in whatever service or issue has been the subject of the inquiry.
(5) Accountability – holding people and organisations to account, sometimes indirectly contributing to the assignment of blame and mechanisms for retribution.
(6) Transparency – demonstrating that ‘something has been done’ or transparency in government.”
P.118-2012 page 4
The only way to ensure learning into the future and to demonstrate transparency of government and to allay all fears and to rebuild trust is absolute openness with the task of archiving the work and the website of this Inquiry and to ensure that everyone has access to its contents and can find what they are looking for.
My question to you is: do you agree that passing on the website is a vital part of the work which you are carrying out for the people of Jersey, a vital resource for posterity? And taking this one step further, do you agree that passing on the full archive of all the documents you have considered and the details of how you have gone about your work is also vital? (Question 1)[4]
Making the site user-friendly
An essential part of passing on the website is that it should be user-friendly. All the people who will want to access the website in future will need to be able to find things, and find them easily. At present this is not so.
An essential part of passing on the website is that it should be user-friendly. All the people who will want to access the website in future will need to be able to find things, and find them easily. At present this is not so.
You may not be aware, maybe no one has told you, how inadequate and frustrating the website currently is. It is not fit for purpose as it does not allow the user to find what they want. It is noteworthy that the Inquiry itself has the means to organise all the documents and retrieve whatever it wants, as I have witnessed for myself at public hearings. All I am asking is that this same facility is afforded to the general public.
There are two aspects to this: the way the website is set up, and the sign-posting for the user.
How the website is set up
The user should, at the very least, be able to find, and find easily, the following:
a) documents written by person X
b) documents submitted by person X
c) documents in an important way about person X
d) documents that have any mention of X
e) specific documents by title or description
f) documents about a particular theme or subject
g) specific strings of text
And a search result should display enough context for the user to decide on the relevance to them of that result.
At present none of these requirements are met, except g). I have spent many hours looking for documents on your website. The main index is by Day. But “Day 47” means absolutely nothing to the average user. What matters to the average user is who appeared when and how they can access that person’s witness statement, and the documents they have presented to the Inquiry in support of their statement, and the transcript of their public hearing or hearings if any.
The user should, at the very least, be able to find, and find easily, the following:
a) documents written by person X
b) documents submitted by person X
c) documents in an important way about person X
d) documents that have any mention of X
e) specific documents by title or description
f) documents about a particular theme or subject
g) specific strings of text
And a search result should display enough context for the user to decide on the relevance to them of that result.
At present none of these requirements are met, except g). I have spent many hours looking for documents on your website. The main index is by Day. But “Day 47” means absolutely nothing to the average user. What matters to the average user is who appeared when and how they can access that person’s witness statement, and the documents they have presented to the Inquiry in support of their statement, and the transcript of their public hearing or hearings if any.
It is also vital that subjects can be explored or specific documents followed up. Again this is difficult or impossible as things are at the moment.
Proper indexing is vital, together with proper linking of references. It should be possible to search in different ways, as indicated above.
One of the main indexes to the documents should be by people. All the people relevant to the Inquiry should be listed, including those only known to the public by a numerical cipher, then any name (or number) can be selected; and from the name, their witness statement(s) if any, other documents they have authored, the transcript of their public hearing(s) if any, the documents which they attached as exhibits, the principal references to them and their evidence by others, and finally all references to them, should all be accessible directly by links.
There needs to be a similar index for documents, such as: Lenny Harper Affidavit May 20th 2011; Graham Power statement to Wiltshire Inquiry – Operation Haven; Pitchers, Christopher, Commissioner, judgement in AG v. Aubin and others; SOJP Press Releases re Operation Rectangle.
This index should use alternative titles where necessary to ensure that its function of guiding people to what they are looking for is successfully carried out: e.g. “in camera questioning of the statement by the Home Affairs minister about the suspension of the Chief of Police”, “Andrew Lewis statement to the States about the suspension of the Chief of Police”, “States debate about the suspension of the Chief of Police” and so on.
Another index is needed for roles and offices, again with necessary alternatives, such as: “Home Affairs Minister” and “Minister Home Affairs”; “Home Affairs Chief Officer” and “Chief Officer Home Affairs”; “Chief Minister”; “Chief Officer, SOJP”; “Deputy Chief Officer, SOJP”; “Lieutenant Governor”; “Law Officers Department”; and so on. Where there are several relevant post-holders, these must be carefully distinguished, e.g. “Home Affairs Minister – Wendy Kinnard” and “Home Affairs Minister – Andrew Lewis” and “Home Affairs Minister – Ian Le Marquand”
Another index is needed for topics / subjects. Some examples will show how basic a requirement this is: “JAR/6”; “media management within Operation Rectangle”; “Grouville Home for Girls”; “abuse of process arguments”; “lawyer within the police operation”; “victim accounts of physical assaults”; and so on. Again different alternatives will have to be indexed, e.g. “Grouville Home for Girls” and “Jersey Female Orphans' Home.”
Deciding which topics deserve inclusion may present difficulties but this does not mean it should not be done. You should err on the side of comprehensiveness, for obvious reasons.
These indexes perform the essential function of allowing people to find whatever it is they are interested in. Without them looking for information is not far different from looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack. To give you a flavour of what it is like at the moment I give a few examples at Appendix 1 of how the website performs currently when a user searches for information.
One of the main indexes to the documents should be by people. All the people relevant to the Inquiry should be listed, including those only known to the public by a numerical cipher, then any name (or number) can be selected; and from the name, their witness statement(s) if any, other documents they have authored, the transcript of their public hearing(s) if any, the documents which they attached as exhibits, the principal references to them and their evidence by others, and finally all references to them, should all be accessible directly by links.
There needs to be a similar index for documents, such as: Lenny Harper Affidavit May 20th 2011; Graham Power statement to Wiltshire Inquiry – Operation Haven; Pitchers, Christopher, Commissioner, judgement in AG v. Aubin and others; SOJP Press Releases re Operation Rectangle.
This index should use alternative titles where necessary to ensure that its function of guiding people to what they are looking for is successfully carried out: e.g. “in camera questioning of the statement by the Home Affairs minister about the suspension of the Chief of Police”, “Andrew Lewis statement to the States about the suspension of the Chief of Police”, “States debate about the suspension of the Chief of Police” and so on.
Another index is needed for roles and offices, again with necessary alternatives, such as: “Home Affairs Minister” and “Minister Home Affairs”; “Home Affairs Chief Officer” and “Chief Officer Home Affairs”; “Chief Minister”; “Chief Officer, SOJP”; “Deputy Chief Officer, SOJP”; “Lieutenant Governor”; “Law Officers Department”; and so on. Where there are several relevant post-holders, these must be carefully distinguished, e.g. “Home Affairs Minister – Wendy Kinnard” and “Home Affairs Minister – Andrew Lewis” and “Home Affairs Minister – Ian Le Marquand”
Another index is needed for topics / subjects. Some examples will show how basic a requirement this is: “JAR/6”; “media management within Operation Rectangle”; “Grouville Home for Girls”; “abuse of process arguments”; “lawyer within the police operation”; “victim accounts of physical assaults”; and so on. Again different alternatives will have to be indexed, e.g. “Grouville Home for Girls” and “Jersey Female Orphans' Home.”
Deciding which topics deserve inclusion may present difficulties but this does not mean it should not be done. You should err on the side of comprehensiveness, for obvious reasons.
These indexes perform the essential function of allowing people to find whatever it is they are interested in. Without them looking for information is not far different from looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack. To give you a flavour of what it is like at the moment I give a few examples at Appendix 1 of how the website performs currently when a user searches for information.
the sign-posting on the website
At present the site is like a dictionary with all the entries scrambled. There is NO sign-posting whatsoever. There is no information on how to use the site. I had to find out for myself, for example, that the item “Inquiry Calendar” under the “Hearings” tab does actually show who appeared on which day, so it is currently possible to find a given person’s evidence and hearing.
It is possible, but it is not easy. It is made difficult in several ways. There is no option to sort by name, I had to scroll down through the days, opening each month in turn, until I found the person I was looking for. There is a column headed “Link to Documents” but absurdly and frustratingly there are no links. You therefore have to “hit lucky” and guess, that if you put the word “Day” and the number of the day, into the search box, then the top 2 results will indeed be the transcript and the documents for that person.
Note that I am not saying that this calendar, amended by having sortable columns, together with proper links, is the right solution. I am using the calendar, the fact that it is not signposted, the fact that it does not have the very features which would help the user, as an example of how not enough thought has been given to the user’s needs in the building of the present website.
At present the site is like a dictionary with all the entries scrambled. There is NO sign-posting whatsoever. There is no information on how to use the site. I had to find out for myself, for example, that the item “Inquiry Calendar” under the “Hearings” tab does actually show who appeared on which day, so it is currently possible to find a given person’s evidence and hearing.
It is possible, but it is not easy. It is made difficult in several ways. There is no option to sort by name, I had to scroll down through the days, opening each month in turn, until I found the person I was looking for. There is a column headed “Link to Documents” but absurdly and frustratingly there are no links. You therefore have to “hit lucky” and guess, that if you put the word “Day” and the number of the day, into the search box, then the top 2 results will indeed be the transcript and the documents for that person.
Note that I am not saying that this calendar, amended by having sortable columns, together with proper links, is the right solution. I am using the calendar, the fact that it is not signposted, the fact that it does not have the very features which would help the user, as an example of how not enough thought has been given to the user’s needs in the building of the present website.
I am sure you will agree that finding what you want to read, in a website of this gravity and significance, should not be a matter of luck. No novice user can hope to find anything. Even a practised user like myself found it an obstacle course involving luck and judgement.
The questions I put to you about making the site user-friendly are as follows.
First question: do you agree that what I have experienced – the lack of indexing and the lack of sign-posting - is totally unsatisfactory? (Question 2)
Second question: will you now remedy this? Will you see to it that the website is made user-friendly, both in respect of the organising of the information and in respect of helping the user to find what they are interested in? Note that if you do not do this then you are effectively obstructing anyone trying to find documents or testimony in the future. (Question 3)
Third question: how will you test the website to ensure that it does work? (Question 4)
Preserving the website and the work of the Inquiry into the future
There is no dedicated section in the website addressing this issue. [5] So I tried the FAQ’s to see if there might be a mention of what will happen to Inquiry information when the Inquiry report is complete. There were only 2 FAQ’s which appeared relevant and I opened these. Here is what they state:
Once the Inquiry’s work has finished, all of the material that has been published on the Inquiry’s website will be transferred to the States of Jersey Archive in its redacted form.
and
All other information that is important to the Inquiry’s work, for example decisions made by the Inquiry, press notices and other information, will also be made public by publishing it on this website.
The questions I put to you about preserving the website and the work of the Inquiry are as follows.
The questions I put to you about making the site user-friendly are as follows.
First question: do you agree that what I have experienced – the lack of indexing and the lack of sign-posting - is totally unsatisfactory? (Question 2)
Second question: will you now remedy this? Will you see to it that the website is made user-friendly, both in respect of the organising of the information and in respect of helping the user to find what they are interested in? Note that if you do not do this then you are effectively obstructing anyone trying to find documents or testimony in the future. (Question 3)
Third question: how will you test the website to ensure that it does work? (Question 4)
Preserving the website and the work of the Inquiry into the future
There is no dedicated section in the website addressing this issue. [5] So I tried the FAQ’s to see if there might be a mention of what will happen to Inquiry information when the Inquiry report is complete. There were only 2 FAQ’s which appeared relevant and I opened these. Here is what they state:
Once the Inquiry’s work has finished, all of the material that has been published on the Inquiry’s website will be transferred to the States of Jersey Archive in its redacted form.
and
All other information that is important to the Inquiry’s work, for example decisions made by the Inquiry, press notices and other information, will also be made public by publishing it on this website.
The questions I put to you about preserving the website and the work of the Inquiry are as follows.
First question: how will all this be preserved? Who will be in charge of the information, ensuring into the future its integrity, its security from any form of cyber-attack, its availability to the public? Who will assist inquirers who may need advice to find what they are looking for? (Question5)
Second question: how will the issues around confidentiality and privacy be handled? Clearly this must not be used as a pretext for excluding information, so is the redaction carried out thus far adequate? Or will there be any further redaction? If so who will be responsible for doing this? And how will this work be checked (in the light of the problems publicised by the Information Commissioner’s Report and your response)? How will the future reader be made aware of redactions without making it difficult to copy documents? [6] (Question 6)
Third question: is it true that a new wave of redacting is now under way as a result of the Information Commissioner’s report? If so, what are the criteria for this new redaction? Who is responsible for doing this? And so on - see previous question. (Question 7)
Fourthly: how will the Inquiry deal with the difficulties which result for the reader in interpreting what she or he reads, when a giver of evidence to the Inquiry has more than one identity – for example, a true name and a cipher number or numbers? (Question 8)
Second question: how will the issues around confidentiality and privacy be handled? Clearly this must not be used as a pretext for excluding information, so is the redaction carried out thus far adequate? Or will there be any further redaction? If so who will be responsible for doing this? And how will this work be checked (in the light of the problems publicised by the Information Commissioner’s Report and your response)? How will the future reader be made aware of redactions without making it difficult to copy documents? [6] (Question 6)
Third question: is it true that a new wave of redacting is now under way as a result of the Information Commissioner’s report? If so, what are the criteria for this new redaction? Who is responsible for doing this? And so on - see previous question. (Question 7)
Fourthly: how will the Inquiry deal with the difficulties which result for the reader in interpreting what she or he reads, when a giver of evidence to the Inquiry has more than one identity – for example, a true name and a cipher number or numbers? (Question 8)
The completeness of the work of the Inquiry, and of the website
This is a very important and very concerning issue. The public in the future is best served, clearly, by complete preservation of the evidence presented to you, of the rulings and other decisions you have taken, of the details of the way you have carried out your task and of the documents you and your team have considered. If there are gaps in the record, then true accountability goes out of the window.
Before going into specific issues around this question, I must first put to you a general catch-all question.
General question on the completeness of the data to be preserved: will you filter out any documents not covered by the questions below in this section? If so, what would the reasons for this be? How will the filtering process, including the reasons given, be documented and made available? What checks and balances will there be on this filtering process? (Question 9)
In the FAQ’s on the website of the Inquiry, there are these two statements which are relevant to the subject of completeness:
and
2 “All other information that is important to the Inquiry’s work, for example decisions made by the Inquiry, press notices and other information, will also be made public by publishing it on this website.”
This is a very important and very concerning issue. The public in the future is best served, clearly, by complete preservation of the evidence presented to you, of the rulings and other decisions you have taken, of the details of the way you have carried out your task and of the documents you and your team have considered. If there are gaps in the record, then true accountability goes out of the window.
Before going into specific issues around this question, I must first put to you a general catch-all question.
General question on the completeness of the data to be preserved: will you filter out any documents not covered by the questions below in this section? If so, what would the reasons for this be? How will the filtering process, including the reasons given, be documented and made available? What checks and balances will there be on this filtering process? (Question 9)
In the FAQ’s on the website of the Inquiry, there are these two statements which are relevant to the subject of completeness:
1 “Once the Inquiry’s work has finished, all of the material that has been published on the Inquiry’s website will be transferred to the States of Jersey Archive in its redacted form.”
and
2 “All other information that is important to the Inquiry’s work, for example decisions made by the Inquiry, press notices and other information, will also be made public by publishing it on this website.”
And in the Inquiry Protocol: Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Redaction, I also discovered these paragraphs, at section 6:
“6. The Inquiry will categorise the information that it receives into the following categories:
6.1 Category 1 – evidence given and referred to during oral hearings. This will include witness statements of those witnesses giving oral evidence and those that are taken as read in to the Inquiry’s record. This information will be uploaded onto the Inquiry’s website;
6.2 Category 2 – information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them; and
6.3 Category 3 – information that is irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference or not probative of them. This information will not be disclosed to Interested Parties or published as part of the Inquiry’s work.
7. All Category 1 and Category 2 information will be considered and the documents referred to within the hearing room will be redacted in accordance with the Inquiry’s policy on redacting personal information (which is set out in detail below), prior to release to Interested Parties and/or publication on the Inquiry’s website.
8. Following the conclusion of the Inquiry’s work, all Category 1 material will be transferred to the States of Jersey Archive in redacted form. All other information will be logged and then destroyed by the Inquiry or originals returned to the provider. A copy of the document log will be provided to the States of Jersey Archive, again redacted in accordance with the Inquiry’s redaction policy.”
I will take these statements in order.
“6. The Inquiry will categorise the information that it receives into the following categories:
6.1 Category 1 – evidence given and referred to during oral hearings. This will include witness statements of those witnesses giving oral evidence and those that are taken as read in to the Inquiry’s record. This information will be uploaded onto the Inquiry’s website;
6.2 Category 2 – information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them; and
6.3 Category 3 – information that is irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference or not probative of them. This information will not be disclosed to Interested Parties or published as part of the Inquiry’s work.
7. All Category 1 and Category 2 information will be considered and the documents referred to within the hearing room will be redacted in accordance with the Inquiry’s policy on redacting personal information (which is set out in detail below), prior to release to Interested Parties and/or publication on the Inquiry’s website.
8. Following the conclusion of the Inquiry’s work, all Category 1 material will be transferred to the States of Jersey Archive in redacted form. All other information will be logged and then destroyed by the Inquiry or originals returned to the provider. A copy of the document log will be provided to the States of Jersey Archive, again redacted in accordance with the Inquiry’s redaction policy.”
I will take these statements in order.
A The FAQ’s – information on the website
I quote:
I quote:
1 “Once the Inquiry’s work has finished, all of the material that has been published on the Inquiry’s website will be transferred to the States of Jersey Archive in its redacted form.”
and
2 “All other information that is important to the Inquiry’s work, for example decisions made by the Inquiry, press notices and other information, will also be made public by publishing it on this website.”
There are three categories [7] of “information on the website” which are problematic. Firstly there is material which has in the past been put up on the website and then removed from the website. Secondly, there is material which should have been put up on the website and never was. And thirdly, there are large amounts of information which is simply missing. I give examples of each category in Appendix 2.
These examples are simply cases known to one individual – me – who has a) written to the Inquiry with extensive questions and comments about the process of the COI ; b) been part of a group which was seeking assurances and clarifications in the early days of the COI, before even the first preliminary hearing; and c) followed the progress of the Inquiry intermittently and read some transcripts and documents and witness statements which were of interest to him.
If these are instances which one concerned individual has learnt about, then how many others are there likely to be? I suggest that as my experience is of a random sample of the Inquiry’s work, this problem of missing information may be on a considerable scale in any or all of the three categories which I have mentioned. The fact is that I do not know and I suspect you don’t know either.
The questions I put to you about the completeness of the material on the website to be preserved are as follows.
My first question to you is this – how will you ensure the completeness of the material which is preserved? (Question 10)
As a part (and only a part) of this question, how will you ensure that a) material which has been put up on the website and then removed from the website will be restored to the website and preserved into the future; b) material which should have been put up on the website and never was, will be put onto the website and preserved into the future; c) new material which in the past might not have been put up on the website but which should be, like this letter and the reply to it, and other recent correspondence from stakeholders, will be put onto the website and preserved into the future; and d) missing information such as exhibits attached to witness statements, and potentially also other classes of information, will be preserved into the future?
My second question is – how will you verify that this has been successfully implemented? (Question 11)
There are three categories [7] of “information on the website” which are problematic. Firstly there is material which has in the past been put up on the website and then removed from the website. Secondly, there is material which should have been put up on the website and never was. And thirdly, there are large amounts of information which is simply missing. I give examples of each category in Appendix 2.
These examples are simply cases known to one individual – me – who has a) written to the Inquiry with extensive questions and comments about the process of the COI ; b) been part of a group which was seeking assurances and clarifications in the early days of the COI, before even the first preliminary hearing; and c) followed the progress of the Inquiry intermittently and read some transcripts and documents and witness statements which were of interest to him.
If these are instances which one concerned individual has learnt about, then how many others are there likely to be? I suggest that as my experience is of a random sample of the Inquiry’s work, this problem of missing information may be on a considerable scale in any or all of the three categories which I have mentioned. The fact is that I do not know and I suspect you don’t know either.
The questions I put to you about the completeness of the material on the website to be preserved are as follows.
My first question to you is this – how will you ensure the completeness of the material which is preserved? (Question 10)
As a part (and only a part) of this question, how will you ensure that a) material which has been put up on the website and then removed from the website will be restored to the website and preserved into the future; b) material which should have been put up on the website and never was, will be put onto the website and preserved into the future; c) new material which in the past might not have been put up on the website but which should be, like this letter and the reply to it, and other recent correspondence from stakeholders, will be put onto the website and preserved into the future; and d) missing information such as exhibits attached to witness statements, and potentially also other classes of information, will be preserved into the future?
My second question is – how will you verify that this has been successfully implemented? (Question 11)
B The Inquiry Protocol: Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Redaction - witness statements and exhibits
I quote:
6.1 Category 1 – evidence given and referred to during oral hearings. This will include witness statements of those witnesses giving oral evidence and those that are taken as read in to the Inquiry’s record. This information will be uploaded onto the Inquiry’s website;
This paragraph sounds simple and straightforward. However it is apparent that all exhibits attached to witness statements have not been uploaded as paragraph 6.1 says – or rather implies. Large numbers of Lenny Harper’s exhibits are missing, and there is no explanation. This does not inspire confidence that the witness statements of others are complete. I draw attention to this class of information separately because of its importance.
My question to you is as stated above: – what steps will the Inquiry specifically take to ensure the completeness of witness statements and their attached exhibits? (Question 12)
I quote:
6.1 Category 1 – evidence given and referred to during oral hearings. This will include witness statements of those witnesses giving oral evidence and those that are taken as read in to the Inquiry’s record. This information will be uploaded onto the Inquiry’s website;
This paragraph sounds simple and straightforward. However it is apparent that all exhibits attached to witness statements have not been uploaded as paragraph 6.1 says – or rather implies. Large numbers of Lenny Harper’s exhibits are missing, and there is no explanation. This does not inspire confidence that the witness statements of others are complete. I draw attention to this class of information separately because of its importance.
My question to you is as stated above: – what steps will the Inquiry specifically take to ensure the completeness of witness statements and their attached exhibits? (Question 12)
C The Inquiry Protocol: Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Redaction - Category 2 information
I quote:
“6.2 Category 2 – information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them;
and
“8. Following the conclusion of the Inquiry’s work, all Category 1 material will be transferred to the States of Jersey Archive in redacted form. All other information will be logged and then destroyed by the Inquiry or originals returned to the provider. A copy of the document log will be provided to the States of Jersey Archive, again redacted in accordance with the Inquiry’s redaction policy.”
I have to say that what paragraph 8 says will happen to Category 2 material is absolutely extraordinary. Any reasonable person, as lawyers are inclined to say, would expect as a matter of course that “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them” would be preserved. Why ever would one not preserve such material?
The charitable explanation is that there has been a mistake. And I for one would not hold it against the panel if this were the case, mistakes are inevitable in an enterprise on the scale of this inquiry and this mistake has no serious consequences, provided that it is rectified.
The reason I think there may have indeed been a mistake is that at the second preliminary hearing on June 16th, 2014, Advocate MacRae, acting for the SOJP, says:
9 A similar point we have made and again there has
10 been no response, I regret to say, in relation to
11 paragraph 8 of the previous protocol, which is at
12 divider 7, which provides:
13 "Following the conclusion of the Inquiry's work all
14 category 1 and category 2 material will be transferred
15 to the States of Jersey archive in redacted form."
(page 43, my emphasis)
This clearly shows that the Inquiry’s original policy was that all category 2 material would be kept, as indeed it should be. So it appears that the Inquiry has moved from their original policy of keeping all this material, so that in future any member of the public could see it, to a different policy of destroying it and thereby removing it from the public gaze. How did this happen?
So my first question to you is this – can you confirm that all Category 2 information will be preserved, and in a way that is fully user-friendly, as set out in the section above on making the site user-friendly? (Question 13)
My second question applies if you refuse to confirm that Category 2 information will be preserved. Can you please tell the public whom you serve when the change in policy was made from keeping this material to destroying it, who made the change, why did they make the change and where is this process documented? (Question 14)
I quote:
“6.2 Category 2 – information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them;
and
“8. Following the conclusion of the Inquiry’s work, all Category 1 material will be transferred to the States of Jersey Archive in redacted form. All other information will be logged and then destroyed by the Inquiry or originals returned to the provider. A copy of the document log will be provided to the States of Jersey Archive, again redacted in accordance with the Inquiry’s redaction policy.”
I have to say that what paragraph 8 says will happen to Category 2 material is absolutely extraordinary. Any reasonable person, as lawyers are inclined to say, would expect as a matter of course that “information that is relevant and material to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference and is probative of them” would be preserved. Why ever would one not preserve such material?
The charitable explanation is that there has been a mistake. And I for one would not hold it against the panel if this were the case, mistakes are inevitable in an enterprise on the scale of this inquiry and this mistake has no serious consequences, provided that it is rectified.
The reason I think there may have indeed been a mistake is that at the second preliminary hearing on June 16th, 2014, Advocate MacRae, acting for the SOJP, says:
9 A similar point we have made and again there has
10 been no response, I regret to say, in relation to
11 paragraph 8 of the previous protocol, which is at
12 divider 7, which provides:
13 "Following the conclusion of the Inquiry's work all
14 category 1 and category 2 material will be transferred
15 to the States of Jersey archive in redacted form."
(page 43, my emphasis)
This clearly shows that the Inquiry’s original policy was that all category 2 material would be kept, as indeed it should be. So it appears that the Inquiry has moved from their original policy of keeping all this material, so that in future any member of the public could see it, to a different policy of destroying it and thereby removing it from the public gaze. How did this happen?
So my first question to you is this – can you confirm that all Category 2 information will be preserved, and in a way that is fully user-friendly, as set out in the section above on making the site user-friendly? (Question 13)
My second question applies if you refuse to confirm that Category 2 information will be preserved. Can you please tell the public whom you serve when the change in policy was made from keeping this material to destroying it, who made the change, why did they make the change and where is this process documented? (Question 14)
D The Inquiry Protocol: Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Redaction - Category 3 information
I quote:
“6.3 Category 3 – information that is irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference or not probative of them. This information will not be disclosed to Interested Parties or published as part of the Inquiry’s work.
and
“8. Following the conclusion of the Inquiry’s work, all Category 1 material will be transferred to the States of Jersey Archive in redacted form. All other information will be logged and then destroyed by the Inquiry or originals returned to the provider. A copy of the document log will be provided to the States of Jersey Archive, again redacted in accordance with the Inquiry’s redaction policy.”
This extract raises the issue of how the panel has interpreted and applied its TOR. A decision that a piece of evidence or material sent to the Inquiry is “irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference” is an extremely important decision, obviously, and can be controversial.
Complete transparency in this area is therefore essential if there is to be true accountability. It is essential that anyone, looking at this material in days to come, can see what the panel has excluded in this way, and the reasons they had for their decision. I give one example of how controversial these decisions can be in this footnote, [8] no doubt there are others.
The questions I put to you about Category 3 information (information that is irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference) are as follows.
My first question is: does the panel agree that complete transparency on this issue is essential to ensure accountability to the public they have been serving – that the public must be able to see what material has been excluded from consideration by the panel, what the exact process was for such exclusions, who carried out each exclusion, and the grounds on which this material was excluded? (Question 15)
My second question is: what steps exactly will the panel take to ensure that this transparency is realised? (If the Panel thinks that this is covered by the phrase which appears above in the protocol paragraph 8 “All other information (i.e. other than what will be kept) will be logged and then destroyed” then please Panel, explain exactly how this will work. (Question 16)
My third question is: will the Inquiry inform all evidence providers, if you deem a part or all of their evidence “irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference” that this is how the Inquiry views that evidence and explain to them why their information has been viewed in this way. And if not, why not? (Question 17)
Other issues with the website
1 General remarks
I am aware that the changes which should be made to the website in order to make it complete and user-friendly may change the applicability of some of the issues which I outline in this section. That does not alter the importance of these issues, because what they suggest is that insufficient attention has been paid to the website in the past and there is now a need to put that right in order to leave it in good order for posterity.
2 exhibits – not in good order and not complete.
The exhibits of Lenny Harper (Day 121) seem to be a mess. Many are missing, of those which are there, the ones which are numbered are largely not in numerical order, and most are not numbered as they have no cover sheet, AF27 (Alison Fossey) is interpolated, (unless that is a LH exhibit, in which case it should say so), and the report at page 838 by Peter Wall, Intelligence Analyst dated 15th July 2009, entitled Operation Rectangle - Analytical Summary of Historical Child Abuse stops dead at page 30 thus omitting pages 31 to 45. RHL/3, an exhibit attached to a statement by Harper (maybe to Operation Haven?) a statement which is important as it sheds light on the altering of documents on the Rectangle website by the Warcup and Gradwell regime, is missing.
You have to agree - this is a grisly catalogue of errors. I have not looked at many statements and their exhibits – so this catalogue of errors, occurring in one witness statement in a small sample, is very disturbing. Maybe dozens of other statements are full of errors like this. Or is this really the odd one out?
Again, what steps will the COI take to rectify this and ensure the completeness of all the collections of information? (Question 18)
Secondly – how will you verify that this has been successfully implemented? (Question 19)
3 slowness of posting information to the website
Slowness in putting up information is an obstacle to public engagement, and thus the opposite of the goal of promoting learning from the Inquiry process.
I posted the following comment on June 9th on the Voice for Children website: “The transcripts of Days 145 and 146 are still not up on the website, I have just checked. 21 days have now gone by.” Just hours after this post was published the missing Days appear on the website.
Trevor Pitman’s witness statement and or the transcript – I think it was the former – was put up briefly, then disappeared for weeks. No explanation was given, just as no explanation was given for days 145 and 146 taking so long. It’s as if the delay was considered unremarkable by all concerned, a matter of little or no consequence.
As a symbol of your good intentions from now on, can you confirm that the closing statements on June 20, 21 and 22 2016 will be posted to the website immediately? If not, can you state how long we will have to wait? (Question 20)
4 website being unavailable to the public
On the afternoon or evening of 24th March the website of the COI went down. This was the Thursday before Easter. For the entire holiday weekend the website could not be accessed, thus depriving everyone who might be interested to catch up the chance to do so.
The website being unavailable for long periods, and in this case on a long holiday weekend, is again an obstacle to public engagement, thus hindering the learning which is intended to be one result of the Inquiry.
Can the Inquiry assure me that the website disappearing for days on end will be a thing of the past when the work of improving and then finalising the website and archive is complete? (Question 21)
5 ultra-slow downloads
The process of scanning in documents, and of rendering them, to a great extent, searchable, has made for very large files – e.g. certain witness statements and their attached exhibits. One solution is simply to split the files into more manageable chunks. 60MB is simply too large to give many users, myself included with a £1000 PC, reasonable download times.
Question: will you resolve the problem of slow download speeds? (Question 22)
I quote:
“6.3 Category 3 – information that is irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference or not probative of them. This information will not be disclosed to Interested Parties or published as part of the Inquiry’s work.
and
“8. Following the conclusion of the Inquiry’s work, all Category 1 material will be transferred to the States of Jersey Archive in redacted form. All other information will be logged and then destroyed by the Inquiry or originals returned to the provider. A copy of the document log will be provided to the States of Jersey Archive, again redacted in accordance with the Inquiry’s redaction policy.”
This extract raises the issue of how the panel has interpreted and applied its TOR. A decision that a piece of evidence or material sent to the Inquiry is “irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference” is an extremely important decision, obviously, and can be controversial.
Complete transparency in this area is therefore essential if there is to be true accountability. It is essential that anyone, looking at this material in days to come, can see what the panel has excluded in this way, and the reasons they had for their decision. I give one example of how controversial these decisions can be in this footnote, [8] no doubt there are others.
The questions I put to you about Category 3 information (information that is irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference) are as follows.
My first question is: does the panel agree that complete transparency on this issue is essential to ensure accountability to the public they have been serving – that the public must be able to see what material has been excluded from consideration by the panel, what the exact process was for such exclusions, who carried out each exclusion, and the grounds on which this material was excluded? (Question 15)
My second question is: what steps exactly will the panel take to ensure that this transparency is realised? (If the Panel thinks that this is covered by the phrase which appears above in the protocol paragraph 8 “All other information (i.e. other than what will be kept) will be logged and then destroyed” then please Panel, explain exactly how this will work. (Question 16)
My third question is: will the Inquiry inform all evidence providers, if you deem a part or all of their evidence “irrelevant or immaterial to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference” that this is how the Inquiry views that evidence and explain to them why their information has been viewed in this way. And if not, why not? (Question 17)
Other issues with the website
1 General remarks
I am aware that the changes which should be made to the website in order to make it complete and user-friendly may change the applicability of some of the issues which I outline in this section. That does not alter the importance of these issues, because what they suggest is that insufficient attention has been paid to the website in the past and there is now a need to put that right in order to leave it in good order for posterity.
2 exhibits – not in good order and not complete.
The exhibits of Lenny Harper (Day 121) seem to be a mess. Many are missing, of those which are there, the ones which are numbered are largely not in numerical order, and most are not numbered as they have no cover sheet, AF27 (Alison Fossey) is interpolated, (unless that is a LH exhibit, in which case it should say so), and the report at page 838 by Peter Wall, Intelligence Analyst dated 15th July 2009, entitled Operation Rectangle - Analytical Summary of Historical Child Abuse stops dead at page 30 thus omitting pages 31 to 45. RHL/3, an exhibit attached to a statement by Harper (maybe to Operation Haven?) a statement which is important as it sheds light on the altering of documents on the Rectangle website by the Warcup and Gradwell regime, is missing.
You have to agree - this is a grisly catalogue of errors. I have not looked at many statements and their exhibits – so this catalogue of errors, occurring in one witness statement in a small sample, is very disturbing. Maybe dozens of other statements are full of errors like this. Or is this really the odd one out?
Again, what steps will the COI take to rectify this and ensure the completeness of all the collections of information? (Question 18)
Secondly – how will you verify that this has been successfully implemented? (Question 19)
3 slowness of posting information to the website
Slowness in putting up information is an obstacle to public engagement, and thus the opposite of the goal of promoting learning from the Inquiry process.
I posted the following comment on June 9th on the Voice for Children website: “The transcripts of Days 145 and 146 are still not up on the website, I have just checked. 21 days have now gone by.” Just hours after this post was published the missing Days appear on the website.
Trevor Pitman’s witness statement and or the transcript – I think it was the former – was put up briefly, then disappeared for weeks. No explanation was given, just as no explanation was given for days 145 and 146 taking so long. It’s as if the delay was considered unremarkable by all concerned, a matter of little or no consequence.
As a symbol of your good intentions from now on, can you confirm that the closing statements on June 20, 21 and 22 2016 will be posted to the website immediately? If not, can you state how long we will have to wait? (Question 20)
4 website being unavailable to the public
On the afternoon or evening of 24th March the website of the COI went down. This was the Thursday before Easter. For the entire holiday weekend the website could not be accessed, thus depriving everyone who might be interested to catch up the chance to do so.
The website being unavailable for long periods, and in this case on a long holiday weekend, is again an obstacle to public engagement, thus hindering the learning which is intended to be one result of the Inquiry.
Can the Inquiry assure me that the website disappearing for days on end will be a thing of the past when the work of improving and then finalising the website and archive is complete? (Question 21)
5 ultra-slow downloads
The process of scanning in documents, and of rendering them, to a great extent, searchable, has made for very large files – e.g. certain witness statements and their attached exhibits. One solution is simply to split the files into more manageable chunks. 60MB is simply too large to give many users, myself included with a £1000 PC, reasonable download times.
Question: will you resolve the problem of slow download speeds? (Question 22)
6 further issues with the copiability of documents
This is not the issue referred to above, at footnote 6 page 5, which was about the difficulties which the redaction black boxes cause. This is a further copiability problem which must be resolved.
I will explain with an example. I was looking at Day 122, Lenny Harper’s transcript. I decided to copy p53. I highlight all the text on that page and copy it. Then I move on to page 54 and decide to copy that too. I highlight all the text on that page and copy it. I copied pages 55 and 56 as well. Only then did I realise that I had 4 copies of page 53. Maybe there is a fault with my PC, keyboard or similar, but I think not as using the IJCI website is the only time this has happened to me. It happened with other transcripts or witness statements on your website too.
Question: will you resolve the problem of copiability and ensure that the scenario described above cannot happen? (Question 23)
7 a case of a missing redaction
This is simply pointing out a serious error which you must rectify immediately. See Appendix 3. I will of course redact this Appendix myself if / when this document is made public.
Question: will you confirm immediately to me that this redaction has taken place? (Question 24)
8 in conclusion
This range of problems affecting the website of a body billed as a Public Inquiry should be a cause for concern for the Panel. This is especially the case as the phase is reached of preparing the website to be a permanent accessible resource for the public for years to come. There must be a firm commitment to giving the issue of preserving the work and material of the Inquiry for posterity adequate priority.
Concluding question: will the website and the archiving of all the other material of the COI now be addressed with a proper sense of its importance? (Question 25)
APPENDIX 1
RESULTS OF SEARCHES ON THE IJCI WEBSITE
You have rightly criticised the Data Commissioner for making critical statements without supporting detail. So here goes – I list below some of the searches which I have carried out in recent weeks on your website and their results. NB the quotation marks mean these are the words I used. They do not mean that I used quotation marks in my searched unless this is specifically stated here.
“Wiltshire Police report Operation Haven”
16 results. Nothing pointing to the report.
“States debate in camera”
30 results.
Result 16 was day 117 Higgins 10th December 2015
This still does not contain the text of the debate.
This is not the issue referred to above, at footnote 6 page 5, which was about the difficulties which the redaction black boxes cause. This is a further copiability problem which must be resolved.
I will explain with an example. I was looking at Day 122, Lenny Harper’s transcript. I decided to copy p53. I highlight all the text on that page and copy it. Then I move on to page 54 and decide to copy that too. I highlight all the text on that page and copy it. I copied pages 55 and 56 as well. Only then did I realise that I had 4 copies of page 53. Maybe there is a fault with my PC, keyboard or similar, but I think not as using the IJCI website is the only time this has happened to me. It happened with other transcripts or witness statements on your website too.
Question: will you resolve the problem of copiability and ensure that the scenario described above cannot happen? (Question 23)
7 a case of a missing redaction
This is simply pointing out a serious error which you must rectify immediately. See Appendix 3. I will of course redact this Appendix myself if / when this document is made public.
Question: will you confirm immediately to me that this redaction has taken place? (Question 24)
8 in conclusion
This range of problems affecting the website of a body billed as a Public Inquiry should be a cause for concern for the Panel. This is especially the case as the phase is reached of preparing the website to be a permanent accessible resource for the public for years to come. There must be a firm commitment to giving the issue of preserving the work and material of the Inquiry for posterity adequate priority.
Concluding question: will the website and the archiving of all the other material of the COI now be addressed with a proper sense of its importance? (Question 25)
APPENDIX 1
RESULTS OF SEARCHES ON THE IJCI WEBSITE
You have rightly criticised the Data Commissioner for making critical statements without supporting detail. So here goes – I list below some of the searches which I have carried out in recent weeks on your website and their results. NB the quotation marks mean these are the words I used. They do not mean that I used quotation marks in my searched unless this is specifically stated here.
“Wiltshire Police report Operation Haven”
16 results. Nothing pointing to the report.
“States debate in camera”
30 results.
Result 16 was day 117 Higgins 10th December 2015
This still does not contain the text of the debate.
“Metropolitan Police Review”
Number of results not recorded.
The first 2 entries I checked up on (I later became wise enough not to do such vain things!). The first was from Lenny Harper’s statement or transcript, the words “Metropolitan” and “Police” were in a reference to his cv (Day n121). The second was in a reference to Bob Hill’s cv (Day 104).
The other entries either contain the word “Police” or “review”.
“Ogley transcript”
4 pages of results
The transcript itself was on the 4th page
So the next search I try the other way round: “Transcript Mario Lundy”
6 pages of results
The transcript itself was on the 5th page
“witness statement Brian Carter”
42 results
My comment in my notes is “ridiculous!” With such a specific request the system should produce the answer.
“Pitchers” (Note – I was looking for his judgement)
17 results.
None of these is the judgement which he authored.
To show how bizarrely the system returns results:
“witness statement Mike Higgins”
7 results.
The first one is indeed his statement. However, one result was Mario Lundy’s statement. I searched for Mike Higgins in this statement – no result. So the system returned the Lundy witness statement because of the words “witness statement” in the search terms. It might as well have returned all witness statements.
“WD009168”
This reference to a document appears in Mick Gradwell’s closing statement page 11 on Day 145. I wanted to check what he had said about it with the original document and so I searched on it. The system returned just one result – “Day 145 Documents”. This is not very helpful!
This Appendix details examples of three categories of information [9] which may cause problems when the Inquiry’s work and website are archived and made available for posterity.
a) material which has been put up on the website and then removed from the website
i) On the 7th April 2014 I wrote a 6 page letter to the Panel entitled – “REQUEST TO THE PANEL OF THE INDEPENDENT JERSEY CARE INQUIRY (IJCI) FOR CHANGES TO THE TOR (AND OTHER RELATED MATTERS)”
On 14th May the Panel made a formal ruling and the 2 documents were posted on the website in the “Key Documents” section of the website. I do not know when exactly this was done.
On an unknown date after that both documents were removed. They are still absent.
This is a matter of grave importance. The default position for the Inquiry is to be transparent, open and accountable. The COI’s stated intention [10] is that rulings are posted to the website. Of course they should be, the public and press need to know how the Inquiry is progressing, the issues which are arising and how the Inquiry is dealing with these issues.
ii) Trevor Pitman’s witness statement and attached documents were posted on the website after his public hearing on Day 109 and disappeared very soon after. For the 8 weeks following his public hearing his statement was available online for “barely more than a couple of hours” according to Trevor Pitman himself. This was apparently to allow redaction to take place but 8 weeks is a very long time . . .
b) material which should have been put up on the website and never was
i) On Friday 18 July 2014 I sent you by email a detailed letter containing 14 questions with explanations of these questions. The letter was acknowledged and a reply promised which arrived on August 20th. It was signed by Angharad Shurmer and was sent to my Gmail account.
That letter begins:
“Dear Mr Wimberley,
We refer to your detailed letter of Friday 18 July 2014 - the updated version as attached to your email of 18 July 2014 received at 15.14.
The Panel has given due consideration to all of the points that you have raised. It is their view that they have previously considered your application to amend the Terms of Reference and a number of the queries raised in your recent correspondence refer to the Terms of Reference.”
The letter goes on to not answer my questions, to say that the Inquiry does not wish to alter its TOR (when I had not asked you to do this), and to make various offers.
That is all by the by. The point is – my letter, and your reply, have not appeared on your website even though it is a substantial request for you to clarify to me, and by extension to the public, your ways of working and your intentions. I personally needed a substantive reply which would reassure me enough to enable me to take a decision to offer to appear, and I did not get it. [11]
ii) I believe, although I am not 100% certain, that Stuart Syvret corresponded with you on whether he should have Interested Party (IP) status and his demand that he be granted funded legal representation (as the JCLA was). He was clearly a potential key witness, having been Minister of Health and Social Services up to 2007, having “lifted the lid” on the inadequacy of child care and child protection at the time, having been sacked for doing so, and having listened to many victims of abuse. There is no trace that I can find of this correspondence on the website. [12]
However I do remember seeing your ruling on this, even though his original request was not put up, but as I said above, I cannot be 100% sure on this.
c) information which is simply missing
I have by now read a few of the many witness statements. Lenny Harper’s witness statement and exhibits total around 60MB and there are 48 exhibits. Most of them are missing and there is nothing in their place to say why. As I said à propos of another matter if one randomly selected collection of documents is half missing, what about all the others?
Number of results not recorded.
The first 2 entries I checked up on (I later became wise enough not to do such vain things!). The first was from Lenny Harper’s statement or transcript, the words “Metropolitan” and “Police” were in a reference to his cv (Day n121). The second was in a reference to Bob Hill’s cv (Day 104).
The other entries either contain the word “Police” or “review”.
“Ogley transcript”
4 pages of results
The transcript itself was on the 4th page
So the next search I try the other way round: “Transcript Mario Lundy”
6 pages of results
The transcript itself was on the 5th page
“witness statement Brian Carter”
42 results
My comment in my notes is “ridiculous!” With such a specific request the system should produce the answer.
“Pitchers” (Note – I was looking for his judgement)
17 results.
None of these is the judgement which he authored.
To show how bizarrely the system returns results:
“witness statement Mike Higgins”
7 results.
The first one is indeed his statement. However, one result was Mario Lundy’s statement. I searched for Mike Higgins in this statement – no result. So the system returned the Lundy witness statement because of the words “witness statement” in the search terms. It might as well have returned all witness statements.
“WD009168”
This reference to a document appears in Mick Gradwell’s closing statement page 11 on Day 145. I wanted to check what he had said about it with the original document and so I searched on it. The system returned just one result – “Day 145 Documents”. This is not very helpful!
APPENDIX 2
This Appendix details examples of three categories of information [9] which may cause problems when the Inquiry’s work and website are archived and made available for posterity.
a) material which has been put up on the website and then removed from the website
i) On the 7th April 2014 I wrote a 6 page letter to the Panel entitled – “REQUEST TO THE PANEL OF THE INDEPENDENT JERSEY CARE INQUIRY (IJCI) FOR CHANGES TO THE TOR (AND OTHER RELATED MATTERS)”
On 14th May the Panel made a formal ruling and the 2 documents were posted on the website in the “Key Documents” section of the website. I do not know when exactly this was done.
On an unknown date after that both documents were removed. They are still absent.
This is a matter of grave importance. The default position for the Inquiry is to be transparent, open and accountable. The COI’s stated intention [10] is that rulings are posted to the website. Of course they should be, the public and press need to know how the Inquiry is progressing, the issues which are arising and how the Inquiry is dealing with these issues.
ii) Trevor Pitman’s witness statement and attached documents were posted on the website after his public hearing on Day 109 and disappeared very soon after. For the 8 weeks following his public hearing his statement was available online for “barely more than a couple of hours” according to Trevor Pitman himself. This was apparently to allow redaction to take place but 8 weeks is a very long time . . .
b) material which should have been put up on the website and never was
i) On Friday 18 July 2014 I sent you by email a detailed letter containing 14 questions with explanations of these questions. The letter was acknowledged and a reply promised which arrived on August 20th. It was signed by Angharad Shurmer and was sent to my Gmail account.
That letter begins:
“Dear Mr Wimberley,
We refer to your detailed letter of Friday 18 July 2014 - the updated version as attached to your email of 18 July 2014 received at 15.14.
The Panel has given due consideration to all of the points that you have raised. It is their view that they have previously considered your application to amend the Terms of Reference and a number of the queries raised in your recent correspondence refer to the Terms of Reference.”
The letter goes on to not answer my questions, to say that the Inquiry does not wish to alter its TOR (when I had not asked you to do this), and to make various offers.
That is all by the by. The point is – my letter, and your reply, have not appeared on your website even though it is a substantial request for you to clarify to me, and by extension to the public, your ways of working and your intentions. I personally needed a substantive reply which would reassure me enough to enable me to take a decision to offer to appear, and I did not get it. [11]
ii) I believe, although I am not 100% certain, that Stuart Syvret corresponded with you on whether he should have Interested Party (IP) status and his demand that he be granted funded legal representation (as the JCLA was). He was clearly a potential key witness, having been Minister of Health and Social Services up to 2007, having “lifted the lid” on the inadequacy of child care and child protection at the time, having been sacked for doing so, and having listened to many victims of abuse. There is no trace that I can find of this correspondence on the website. [12]
However I do remember seeing your ruling on this, even though his original request was not put up, but as I said above, I cannot be 100% sure on this.
c) information which is simply missing
I have by now read a few of the many witness statements. Lenny Harper’s witness statement and exhibits total around 60MB and there are 48 exhibits. Most of them are missing and there is nothing in their place to say why. As I said à propos of another matter if one randomly selected collection of documents is half missing, what about all the others?
APPENDIX 3
It took me about 2 minutes to find Lenny Harper’s full home address from data left unredacted on page 1198 of Day 109 documents, Andre Bonjour’s AB14. The page is headed, somewhat ironically, “DO NOT DISCLOSE”
A screenshot of the page with his address, as tracked down by me in seconds, is below:
(screenshot removed by Daniel Wimberley, in this version of this letter, which is attached to a press release dated 00.01 Monday April 24th 2017)
As I say in the main text, please remove this error and let me know that you have done so.
[1] All of these requirements are taken from Verita’s original statement of the purpose of the Inquiry as reproduced on page 27 of the report accompanying P118/2012, which set up the COI
“The purpose of the inquiry is to establish the facts, to provide learning, to enable
reconciliation and resolution, to rebuild public confidence and trust, to hold to
account and to demonstrate transparency of government by the inquiry examining this
matter on behalf of the States of Jersey”
[2] Words from your Protocol on Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Redaction, paragraph 6.2
[3] P118/2012 page 4
[4] I have added a question number in italics to each question, so that they form a single sequence if required.
[5] I established this by running along all the tabs on the home page and looking at the drop down menus.
[6] I ask this because when I have copied extracts from redacted documents on the website as set up currently, the black rectangles do not copy. The surviving text simply runs on with nothing to indicate where there are words missing which makes reading what one has copied extremely difficult.
[7] Not to be confused with the Inquiry’s “Category 1.” Category 2,” and Category 3,” of information
[8] For example the COI has held throughout that the abuse committed at Victoria College was outside its Terms of Reference (TOR) and has avoided questioning witnesses about it. I and many others know that a late amendment to the TOR had the effect of including the College (and the Sea Cadets as well). The rights and wrongs of this are no longer the issue, the point is that these decisions about what lies within and without the TOR are critical and sometimes controversial.
As I say in the main text, please remove this error and let me know that you have done so.
[1] All of these requirements are taken from Verita’s original statement of the purpose of the Inquiry as reproduced on page 27 of the report accompanying P118/2012, which set up the COI
“The purpose of the inquiry is to establish the facts, to provide learning, to enable
reconciliation and resolution, to rebuild public confidence and trust, to hold to
account and to demonstrate transparency of government by the inquiry examining this
matter on behalf of the States of Jersey”
[2] Words from your Protocol on Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Redaction, paragraph 6.2
[3] P118/2012 page 4
[4] I have added a question number in italics to each question, so that they form a single sequence if required.
[5] I established this by running along all the tabs on the home page and looking at the drop down menus.
[6] I ask this because when I have copied extracts from redacted documents on the website as set up currently, the black rectangles do not copy. The surviving text simply runs on with nothing to indicate where there are words missing which makes reading what one has copied extremely difficult.
[7] Not to be confused with the Inquiry’s “Category 1.” Category 2,” and Category 3,” of information
[8] For example the COI has held throughout that the abuse committed at Victoria College was outside its Terms of Reference (TOR) and has avoided questioning witnesses about it. I and many others know that a late amendment to the TOR had the effect of including the College (and the Sea Cadets as well). The rights and wrongs of this are no longer the issue, the point is that these decisions about what lies within and without the TOR are critical and sometimes controversial.
[9] Not to be confused with the Inquiry’s “Category 1.” Category 2,” and Category 3,” of information
[10] To illustrate this I quote here just one example. On April 10th 2014, Peter Jones of Eversheds, solicitors to the Inquiry, wrote a lengthy and detailed reply to an email letter sent to him on April 8th by the stakeholder group of which I was a member and signed by 6 key campaigners on abuse in the island, who between them were largely responsible for the Inquiry happening at all. All of us were potential key witnesses. In it he said the following:
“Now that the Inquiry has opened, and has set its procedures through its protocols, it is obviously vital that its business be transacted transparently and openly. I therefore think that the right course of action is to treat your letter and the reasoning set out as a formal written application to be put to the Panel, in conjunction with other applications which we anticipate receiving within the designated period (14 days). A formal decision will then need to be made by the Inquiry Panel, for publication.”
and
“If, however, ……………….. you and/or your colleagues believe that you are not content with the protocols, then the right way to proceed would, in my view, be for you to formulate an application to amend them. ……………………….. Again, any formal application would then have to be considered by the Panel, and a ruling given which would be made public.”
and
To the extent that the discussion with you generated a formal application for protocol amendment, and then a formal decision, again these would be made public.” (My emphasis)
[11] My letter sought reassurance. It asked you to do certain things, like “how will you correct the false impression given in the past that this COI is only concerned with abuse which happened to people ‘in care’?” or tell me certain things, like “Will the Inquiry include in its remit abuse carried out in organisations, institutions, settings not run directly by the States?” or justify certain things which you have done, like “Why did the legal team insist that the TOR could not be changed, when in fact they can”?
[12] I have just seen a comment of his saying he wrote to you in October 2014.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DOCUMENT D
reply of Panel April 5 2017 to DW letter re website of March 2017
from: Jersey Care Inquiry
to: Daniel Wimberley,
Jersey Care Inquiry
date: 5 April 2017 at 16:31
subject: RE: URGENT re WEBSITE
Dear Mr Wimberley
Thank you for your email and attached letter addressed to the Panel.
The Panel have reviewed your letter and have asked us to let you know that they are mindful of the points that you have made.
Yours sincerely
Eversheds LLP
Solicitors to the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry
T: 0800 735 0100
Int: +44(0) 1534 828 798
E: info@jerseycareinquiry.org
W: www.jerseycareinquiry.org
[10] To illustrate this I quote here just one example. On April 10th 2014, Peter Jones of Eversheds, solicitors to the Inquiry, wrote a lengthy and detailed reply to an email letter sent to him on April 8th by the stakeholder group of which I was a member and signed by 6 key campaigners on abuse in the island, who between them were largely responsible for the Inquiry happening at all. All of us were potential key witnesses. In it he said the following:
“Now that the Inquiry has opened, and has set its procedures through its protocols, it is obviously vital that its business be transacted transparently and openly. I therefore think that the right course of action is to treat your letter and the reasoning set out as a formal written application to be put to the Panel, in conjunction with other applications which we anticipate receiving within the designated period (14 days). A formal decision will then need to be made by the Inquiry Panel, for publication.”
and
“If, however, ……………….. you and/or your colleagues believe that you are not content with the protocols, then the right way to proceed would, in my view, be for you to formulate an application to amend them. ……………………….. Again, any formal application would then have to be considered by the Panel, and a ruling given which would be made public.”
and
To the extent that the discussion with you generated a formal application for protocol amendment, and then a formal decision, again these would be made public.” (My emphasis)
[11] My letter sought reassurance. It asked you to do certain things, like “how will you correct the false impression given in the past that this COI is only concerned with abuse which happened to people ‘in care’?” or tell me certain things, like “Will the Inquiry include in its remit abuse carried out in organisations, institutions, settings not run directly by the States?” or justify certain things which you have done, like “Why did the legal team insist that the TOR could not be changed, when in fact they can”?
[12] I have just seen a comment of his saying he wrote to you in October 2014.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DOCUMENT D
reply of Panel Nov 4 2016 to DW letter re
website of June 2016
from: Jersey
Care Inquiry
to: Daniel
Wimberley
date: 4 November 2016 at 12:16
subject: RE:
letter re preserving work of COI
Dear Mr
Wimberley,
I refer to
your letter addressed to the Inquiry Panel dated 21 June 2016.
The Panel
have considered your letter and thank you for the detailed nature of the
recommendations and observations. Given that the work of the Panel is ongoing
as they prepare their final report they are unable/unwilling to respond in
detail at this stage of the Inquiry’s business.
Despite the
above, the Panel have asked me to confirm that they are aware of their
obligations to preserve the work of the Inquiry. Some documents produced by the
Inquiry by their very nature cannot be made public but will be preserved. As
you are aware, the Inquiry protocols detail how the Inquiry’s work will be
archived but this will be revisited by the Panel upon completion of their
report.
I was
unaware that some documents had fallen off the website, therefore I will look
into this with a view to rectifying the issue as soon as possible.
Yours
sincerely,
Angharad
Shurmer
Eversheds
LLP
Solicitors
to the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry
T: 0800 735 0100
Int: +44(0) 1534 828 798
E: info@jerseycareinquiry.org
W: www.jerseycareinquiry.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DOCUMENT E
reply of Panel April 5 2017 to DW letter re website of March 2017
from: Jersey Care Inquiry
to: Daniel Wimberley
Jersey Care Inquiry
date: 5 April 2017 at 16:31
subject: RE: URGENT re WEBSITE
Dear Mr Wimberley
Thank you for your email and attached letter addressed to the Panel.
The Panel have reviewed your letter and have asked us to let you know that they are mindful of the points that you have made.
Yours sincerely
Eversheds LLP
Solicitors to the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry
T: 0800 735 0100
Int: +44(0) 1534 828 798
E: info@jerseycareinquiry.org
W: www.jerseycareinquiry.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DOCUMENT F
Terms of
Reference, as approved by the States of Jersey on 6th March 2013
The Committee of Inquiry (“the Committee”) is asked to do the
following –
1. Establish the type and
nature of children’s homes and fostering services in Jersey in the period under
review, that is the post-war period, with a particular focus on the period
after 1960. Consider (in general terms) why children were placed and maintained
in these services.
2. Determine the
organisation (including recruitment and supervision of staff), management,
governance and culture of children’s homes and any other establishments caring
for children, run by the States and in other non-States run establishments
providing for children, where abuse has been alleged, in the period under
review and consider whether these aspects of these establishments were
adequate.
3. Examine the political
and other oversight of children’s homes and fostering services and other
establishments run by the States with a particular focus on oversight by the
various Education Committees between 1960 and 1995, by the various Health and
Social Services Committees between 1996 and 2005, and by ministerial government
from 2006 to the current day.
4. Examine the political
and societal environment during the period under review and its effect on the
oversight of children’s homes, fostering services and other establishments run
by the States, on the reporting or non-reporting of abuse within or outside
such organisations, on the response to those reports of abuse by all agencies
and by the public, on the eventual police and any other investigations, and on
the eventual outcomes.
5. Establish a chronology
of significant changes in childcare practice and policy during the period under
review, with reference to Jersey and the UK in order to identify the social and
professional norms under which the services in Jersey operated throughout the
period under review.
6. Take into account the
independent investigations and reports conducted in response to the concerns
raised in 2007, and any relevant information that has come to light during the
development and progression of the Redress Scheme.
7. Consider the
experiences of those witnesses who suffered abuse or believe that they suffered
abuse, and hear from staff who worked in these services, together with any
other relevant witnesses. It will be for the Committee to determine, by
balancing the interests of justice and the public interest against the
presumption of openness, whether, and to what extent, all or any of the
evidence given to it should be given in private. The Committee, in accordance
with Standing Order 147(2), will have the power to conduct hearings in
private if the Chairman and members consider this to be appropriate.
8. Identify how and by
what means concerns about abuse were raised and how, and to whom, they were
reported. Establish whether systems existed to allow children and others to
raise concerns and safeguard their wellbeing, whether these systems were
adequate, and any failings they had.
9. Review the actions of
the agencies of the government, the justice system and politicians during the
period under review, in particular when concerns came to light about child abuse
and establish what, if any, lessons are to be learned.
10. Consider how the
Education and Health and Social Services Departments dealt with concerns about
alleged abuse, what action they took, whether these actions were in line with
the policies and procedures of the day, and whether those policies and
procedures were adequate.
11. Establish whether, where
abuse was suspected, it was reported to the appropriate bodies, including the
States of Jersey Police; what action was taken by persons or entities including
the police, and whether this was in line with policies and procedures of the
day and whether those policies and procedures were adequate.
12. Determine whether the
concerns in 2007 were sufficient to justify the States of Jersey Police setting
in train ‘Operation Rectangle’.
13. Establish the process by
which files were submitted by the States of Jersey Police to the prosecuting
authorities for consideration, and establish –
· Whether those responsible for deciding on which cases
to prosecute took a professional approach;
· Whether the process was free from political or other
interference at any level.
If, for these purposes, or as a result of evidence
given under paragraph 7, in the opinion of the Chairman of the Committee,
it would be of assistance that one or more of the prosecution files
underpinning any prosecution decision may be examined in a manner to be
determined by the Committee.
14. Set out what lessons can
be learned for the current system of residential and foster care services in Jersey
and for third party providers of services for children and young people in the
Island.
15. Report on any other
issues arising during the Inquiry considered to be relevant to the past safety
of children in residential or foster care and other establishments run by the
States, and whether these issues affect the safety of children in the future.
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Bonjour,
ReplyDeleteNous regardons ici en France un documentaire actuellement sur notre chaîne TV ARTE.
Nous vous adressons tout notre respect et notre admiration.
Vous êtes des héros. Tous ceux qui ont contribué à aider les victimes sont profondément justes,sensés et extraorianaires.
Honte aux politiques, aux jouralisets incompétent se malhonnêtes tqui se sont souciés de la réputation de Jersey qu'ils ont eux-mêmes ainsi pourri.
Ce reportage est bouleversant.
STUART SYLVESTRE EST UN HEROS.
Nous pensons beaucoup aux victimes.
Avec os respectueuses salutations.
I am a French citizen and have just watched a documentary on French TV about the most perverse and cruel children abuse in an Orphelin house in Jersey. I have been outrageously shocked by the deny and lies of Jersey’s authorities and the statement of Jersey’s minister who dared said that he « suffered » from the bad reputation this scandal gave to Jersey’s attractivity. HE SUFFERED ??? obscene and totally indecent. His nauseous arguments provoked the opposite:. I was planning to come one day but I will never give a penny to the taxes that they will get from my visit. Sorry for the good Jersey people and sorry for all those abused children who will never get recognition for the unbearable prejudice they suffered.
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