Neil Wilby Media

At 69 years of age retirement beckons, writes Neil Wilby. Hopefully, this year; more likely next.

But, in the meantime, the capacity for learning, at the very heart of much of the vocation of investigative journalist, remains undimmed. 

The 2024 edition of Maundy Thursday featured an unplanned visit to Leeds: Attempts by email and telephone had, not unusually, failed to raise much signs of life in the city’s County Court office and, it seemed and so it proved, that an in-person visit would be the only way to resolve the extant and deadline-pressing issue. 

A request for ‘office copies’, parts of a court file that are usually accessible to a member of the public (and, of course, much more often, a journalist) had been made on 20th March, 2024. A polite reminder had been sent on the 26th.

In this particular case, the court file concerned a person of interest in a number of articles connected to a long-running miscarriage of justice case that has featured regularly on this Neil Wilby Media website. There was latent hope that the contents of the court file might solve a particular mystery connected to it and one that might see two of its victims €84,000 better off.

Normally, I would travel in to Leeds city centre by train and make the pleasant ten minute walk from the station, through the legal quarter, up to the court. But my car, which now spends six or seven months stood idle whilst its owner is overseas, needed a motorway run to ‘clear the pipes’ and charge the battery. 

En route, I learned that the roads were quiet and the excellent Park and Ride facility next to the mighty Leeds United football stadium was vastly underused. The all-electric double-decker buses used on that PR1 service still have plush leather seats, wi-fi and USB charging points; warm memories from the last time I used the service, pre-Covid.

In the city centre, it was exceptionally calm for a weekday with little traffic other than public transport and taxis. Pedestrian footfall was also surprisingly low for Easter week.

At Leeds Combined Court Centre I was reminded several times why it the least favourite workplace on my regular beat.  The security checks are now ludicrously time consuming, intrusive and disproportionate and it seemed, to me at least, that because I was identified as a member of the press I was going to be messed around more than most. Not least, because what we carry in our work bag is akin to the contents of a small office.

Having navigated the security checks, and taken the few steps to the public counters in the Court Office there was the usual lack of response to the bell push. A substantial number of court staff were gathered around a table to enjoy a finger buffet and were unruffled by my presence, alone as I was in that section of the building.

Fortunately, the Court Manager arrived on the scene, at my request, to hear feedback on the security farrago, which included a member of that team looking through a brand new spiral bound notebook, with its pristine virgin pages, leaf by leaf. The forensic examination included reading a bus timetable that was tucked inside its front cover. 

She then took down the essential details of my office copies enquiry on her notepad, from the two emails sent two and eight days ago, which formed the purpose of my visit and ventured into the partying inner sanctum. Returning a short time later to tell me that one of her colleagues had gone off to retrieve the subject court file. I was duly grateful, thanked her sincerely and she went happily on her way and pleased to have been of service.

Twenty minutes later, that same colleague returned, along with the promised file, and we conversed purposefully at the counter window. It was bad news on two fronts: The nature of the most recent proceedings, listed on CourtServe in late January, 2024 as a 30 minute application hearing, and the trigger for the present journalistic enquiry, was not going to assist the miscarriage of justice campaign and, moreover, even if they did, obscure rules under insolvency legislation meant that access to the file, either by way of inspection or obtaining copies of documents from it. 

The court officer had, very helpfully, printed off two pages from The Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 to settle the matter. They were Chapter 7, Rules 12.39 and 12.40 which can be viewed here. He pointed out that a formal Application would have to be made to the court, including a £26 fee, and a district judge would decide on its merits.

Adding that even the police and National Crime Agency have to do the same.

An indication that this was a procedure and access restriction taken very seriously. The subliminal message being that nothing higher than a journalist’s curiosity might not be persuasive in terms of gaining access. For privacy and data protection reasons well understood, of course. 

So, in the end, the trip to the big city was a worthwhile exercise: A piece of learning, albeit obscure, and the elimination from enquiries of the January, 2024 hearing in Leeds County Court.

The miscarriage of justice case being what is described as ‘the biggest failed fraud investigation in British policing history’ featuring Leeds-born Ralph Christie at its heart (read more here).

Page last updated: Thursday 28th March, 2024 at 1925 hours

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