Human rights lawyer Phil Shiner debarred

[Sidewinder]

Phil Shiner faces strike-off as he admits recklessness and lack of integrity
By John Hyde, 8 December 2016

Human rights lawyer Phil Shiner has accepted his career is over as he faces one of the biggest disciplinary prosecutions ever brought against a solicitor.

Shiner, former director of closed Birmingham firm Public Interest Lawyers, has admitted fully or in part 18 out of 24 charges brought against him by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The case has cost almost £500,000 to bring so far.

Shiner contacted the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal on the eve of today’s case management hearing to say he admitted some allegations but denied dishonesty.

In his letter to the tribunal, Shiner, who ran claims on behalf of Iraqi civilians against British armed forces, said he accepted that the tribunal must strike him off. He did not attend today’s hearing.

The details of allegations against him were revealed today after a long-standing anonymity order was lifted.

Shiner has admitted encouraging and authorising unsolicited direct approaches to potential clients arising out of the 2004 'battle of Danny Boy' through an individual referred to as Z. There are further admitted charges with relation to prohibited referral fees and improper fee sharing.

Shiner also admitted acting without integrity when authorising his firm to enter an agreement in June 2015 paying Z to change his evidence to the Al-Sweady inquiry. Shiner admitted a lack of integrity in further improperly presenting changed evidence from Z to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Shiner said he acted recklessly when making allegations at a 2008 press conference that the British Army had unlawfully killed, tortured and mistreated Iraqi civilians.

The solicitor does not admit to charges relating to payments made to clients in 2009 and 2010, or to the allegation that he authorised and approved payments he knew or suspected to be improper.

He does not admit failing to comply with his duty of full and frank disclosure to the Al-Sweady inquiry into allegations of mistreatment by British soldiers, and does not admit failing to comply with his duties over legal aid payments from the former Legal Services Commission to fund a judicial review.

The case management hearing laid bare the enormous scale of the prosecution. By 22 November this year, the SRA had spent £476,795 in costs, including £94,000 to pay for the investigation and £134,000 paid to external London firm Russell Cooke. The case involves 2,500 pages of documents – not including evidence – filling five lever-arch files.

Shiner’s representative, Jayne Willetts, said her client was in ill-health and likely to be unrepresented when the contested allegations come to trial on 30 January, as her retainer is about to end.

She said the SRA had ‘left no avenue unexplored in its pursuit of this case’ and said Shiner suffered from an ‘inequality of resources’ compared with the regulator.

John Dickinson, a consultant at Public Interest Lawyers, denies one charge relating to updating clients on the progress of their case. He will be included in Shiner’s substantive hearing, which is likely to last up to three weeks.

Details of the charges and Shiner's admissions have been posted on the SRA website.

[Dominus Atheos]

The article is terrible, did he do anything wrong besides go out of his way to find clients to sue the government (including finder's fees)? Something about "changing evidence"? What does that mean?

[Sidewinder]

The article is terrible, did he do anything wrong besides go out of his way to find clients to sue the government (including finder's fees)? Something about "changing evidence"? What does that mean?

I presume that meant "falsifying evidence". Note I'm citing an article from a BRITISH website, so there will be differences in vocabulary, e.g., "strike-off" instead of "debarred".

[Dominus Atheos]

@British people, I get the feeling that there is a liberal (small L) version of this story, what is it? All I can find are terribly written "neutral" articles and Daily Mail/Torygraph shit.

No offense, but after watching Netflix's Amanda Knox documentary (Foxy Knoxy) I really don't trust anything written in your press.

Edit:

In August this year Shiner’s firm ceased operation after being stripped of its legal aid funding. At the time the prime minister, Theresa May, was said in a No 10 statement to be “very much pleased” at the closure of the firm as it reflected the government’s clampdown on “these types of spurious claims”.

Her statement said: “The closure of PIL shows that we are making progress … tackling these types of firms head on to make sure we get the right outcome for our armed forces who show such bravery in the most difficult circumstances.”

Yeah, that's not deeply concerning or anything.

[Zaune]

That's alright, a lot of us don't trust anything written in our press either. And give it until mid-morning GMT, the less dodgy outlets are probably still trying to get all their facts straight.

[madd0ct0r]

@British people, I get the feeling that there is a liberal (small L) version of this story, what is it? All I can find are terribly written "neutral" articles and Daily Mail/Torygraph shit.

No offense, but after watching Netflix's Amanda Knox documentary (Foxy Knoxy) I really don't trust anything written in your press.

Edit:

In August this year Shiner’s firm ceased operation after being stripped of its legal aid funding. At the time the prime minister, Theresa May, was said in a No 10 statement to be “very much pleased” at the closure of the firm as it reflected the government’s clampdown on “these types of spurious claims”.

Her statement said: “The closure of PIL shows that we are making progress … tackling these types of firms head on to make sure we get the right outcome for our armed forces who show such bravery in the most difficult circumstances.”

Yeah, that's not deeply concerning or anything.

We had a thread a while back about the UK Gov's attempt to block their armed forces from being sued, claiming they were all malicious cases. Fact remains they've settled and lost far, far more than they've won, and a lot of the cases are being brought by the people the army employ to keep themselves honest, not by externals like the guy inn the OP.

[Patroklos]

I couldn't find any evidence for the "settled far more than they have one. I found a Mail article that quoted the total number of claims under the IHAT, but no mention of the disposition of any of those claims. What is your source.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ourts.html

The same article reveals France, Spain and Czech Republic have done basically the same thing years ago.

[madd0ct0r]

I couldn't find any evidence for the "settled far more than they have one. I found a Mail article that quoted the total number of claims under the IHAT, but no mention of the disposition of any of those claims. What is your source.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ourts.html

The same article reveals France, Spain and Czech Republic have done basically the same thing years ago.

Well, you're a fucking moron then.

top result for "human rights cases iraq uk colonel"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 03281.html

and then, incase you are incapable of finding it:

To date, the MoD has paid out £19.6m in out-of-court settlements in 323 cases relating to the actions of British forces in Iraq.

with a second article, directly written by Nicholas Mercer:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... mpensation


I do not understand how you were unable to find this.

[Flagg]

I couldn't find any evidence for the "settled far more than they have one. I found a Mail article that quoted the total number of claims under the IHAT, but no mention of the disposition of any of those claims. What is your source.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ourts.html

The same article reveals France, Spain and Czech Republic have done basically the same thing years ago.

Well, you're a fucking moron then.

top result for "human rights cases iraq uk colonel"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 03281.html

and then, incase you are incapable of finding it:

To date, the MoD has paid out £19.6m in out-of-court settlements in 323 cases relating to the actions of British forces in Iraq.

with a second article, directly written by Nicholas Mercer:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... mpensation


I do not understand how you were unable to find this.

He probably didn't bother to actually look. I expect he'll say that the Guardian isn't a reliable source, next.

[madd0ct0r]

I wouldn't put words in his mouth. He's not a brit, and gets a lot of his news from right wing / pro-military sources, and the search engine returns what they think he'll want to read. It should have come up in anything more than a cursory top five results check though.

[Patroklos]

We had a thread a while back about the UK Gov's attempt to block their armed forces from being sued, claiming they were all malicious cases. Fact remains they've settled and lost far, far more than they've won, and a lot of the cases are being brought by the people the army employ to keep themselves honest, not by externals like the guy inn the OP.

To date, the MoD has paid out £19.6m in out-of-court settlements in 323 cases relating to the actions of British forces in Iraq.

Your post still doesn't support your first claim.

So we have over three thousand complaints (that's just after the IHAT was formed), and your source tells us that at least 323 of those became cases of some sort, some complaints may be repeats (but honestly we should count all of them in the total, as complaints that are obviously fake don't become cases and count as government "wins"), and that those ones were settled or lost. However we still have no data about how many total cases there are, and how many the government won.

Shall I explain to you further why your original comment is remains unsupported?

[madd0ct0r]

We had a thread a while back about the UK Gov's attempt to block their armed forces from being sued, claiming they were all malicious cases. Fact remains they've settled and lost far, far more than they've won, and a lot of the cases are being brought by the people the army employ to keep themselves honest, not by externals like the guy inn the OP.

To date, the MoD has paid out £19.6m in out-of-court settlements in 323 cases relating to the actions of British forces in Iraq.

Your post still doesn't support your first claim.

So we have over three thousand complaints (that's just after the IHAT was formed), and your source tells us that at least 323 of those became cases of some sort, some complaints may be repeats (but honestly we should count all of them in the total, as complaints that are obviously fake don't become cases and count as government "wins"), and that those ones were settled or lost. However we still have no data about how many total cases there are, and how many the government won.

Shall I explain to you further why your original comment is remains unsupported?

No that's a fair point. And it's bloody weird. I've dug down into it, and I cannnot find anywhere that states the goverment has won a single case. I get that there's a selection bias, because these are cases being brought against the MoD so the strongest* ones would be brought first. The results of all cases are available publically, but I'm not sure I want to devote my weekend to compiling the records from primary, especially since I'm not a subject expert so chances of cockups and misunderstandings are high. There was an interview with Mercer on BBC sunday morning brekafast news where i dimly recall he gave figures, but that's now outside the 28 days of iplayer records, and I don't trust my memory when it's helping me in an argument.

I suggest that had the government won more cases then they lost, that fact would be being trumpeted by Murdoch news, but I concede I am unable at this time to provide evidence for my claim.


*Mr Shiner's dodgy cases excepted