The Hook and the Sting
- The Legal Mafia
see also:
Letter to Lord Denning List of Contents Damming evidence

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Lord Denning,
Whitchurch, Hants.,
England

Recorded Delivery

Dear Lord Denning,

The Hook and the Sting
Ivor Catt.
pub. Westfields press, 1996.

The most important insight, one of many, was to discern your role in the collapse of the English Legal System.

I enclose a copy of the Second Impression of the above book.

It is important, for the record, that you make reply, and any reply will be added to the third impression and all future copies of the book, along with a copy of this letter, which will in any case be published.

[You are very welcome to make an interim reply, to be followed by a more lengthy one. The latest version will always be used in copies then in press.]

Yours sincerely,

Ivor Catt 4

July 1996 and 1nov97

Further message added to second copy of letter, and sent on 26 July 1996.

If comment by you is unavailable, I would welcome comment of any length on the book by your authorised representative, and promise to include it in future issues of the book. Yours, Ivor Catt

LIST OF CONTENTS

iv Acknowledgements
vi Damning evidence
1 Introduction
2 Portia's Speech
3 Portia's Revised Speech
4 Definitions
5 Equity Denning
6 Equity
9 Lawyers or social group?
10 The Name of the Rose
11 The Evolved Conspiracy
13 Mata Hari in Cyprus
15 The New Witch
18 The Sisterhood and the Brotherhood
22 Language
25 Why did trial proceed?

27 Have you heard anough?
29 The Portsmouth Martyrdom
30 Love's labours lost to the lunatic fringe
34 The Mafia and The Industry
36 The Moral Maze
39 The Firm and The industry compared
The Police
41 Legal Aid Lottery
42 The Protection Racket
44 Beware this bonanza for lawyers Battle
45 Dodgy Waste
47 The Industry targets the Hotel
49 The Ruling Model
Assets held in trust
51 The Queen's Croquet Ground
53 Pelling

Damning evidence.

Addicted, like all lawyers, to a drawn-out, adversarial system, the Lord Chief Justice and the Director of Public Prosecutions have solemnly debated the right to trial by jury. For the Defence, Lord Taylor of Gosforth, argues that its abolition would be "socially divisive". For the Prosecution, Barbara Mills says this automatic right should be scrapped, and jeers at its Magna Carta sanctity: "We do not usually go back to the 13th century to decide how to run things."

This newspaper has made it clear that we believe the right to elect a jury trial should be preserved. But this is not the fundamental point here. The whole legal and courtroom system has become a disgraceful and expensive farce. Neither Mills nor Taylor spoke as much sense as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Condon who pointed out that villains actually caught in the act of violent and dangerous crimes routinely go free, because cunning defence barristers can and do exploit the rules on evidence disclosure - knowing full well that the police, rather than endanger informants or reveal undercover officers' identities, will drop the case. Those twelve ordinary people are a saving grace of a scandalous system which only serves the interests of lawyers. It needs root-and-branch reform. - Leader, Evening Standard, wed28july93, p9

Many of those who make their living by conducting litigation accepted at the seminars that they would not be able to afford their own services if they had the misfortune to be caught up in legal proceedings. In addition, many lawyers who specialise in litigation accepted that the situation cannot continue as it is at present. While their views might differ as to the nature of the change needed, they all agreed that change was necessary. - Lord Woolf, "Access to Justice, Interim Report .... on the civil justice system ...". June 1995 ,..". June 1995 , p9. http://www.law.warwick.ac.uk/Woolf/woolf.html . However, in his Final Report, see same website, Woolf betrayed his Interim Report, which we now see is merely a salve to his conscience for being a member of such a venal brotherhood. In his Final Report, he makes the Denning proposal, that the lawyers should take a percentage of the whole of the monies owned by those in litigation. I also saw him betray all that his Interim Report stood for in a disgraceful performance before Pelling in the High Court two years ago. He went behind the new legislation, saying it could not have been the intention of Parliament that their new legislation, however worded, should lead to the growth of cut-price legal advisers. This is the classic Denning technique for obstructing the will of Parliament, and evading the law.

Among the lowest value claims (up to £12,500) median costs in the sample as a whole were £8,318 .... .... in 40 per cent of the lowest value claims, the costs on one side alone were close to, or exceeded, the total value of the claim. .... - ibid., Final Report, July 1996, p354.

In a 1993 hearing in Watford County Court I said to Circuit Judge Stockdale; "There is no point in my convincing you, because during the six years that I have been involved in Watford County Court, the court officials have not once succeeded in drafting a court order which properly reflected the intentions of the judge. Recently, after complaining to the Chief Clerk about misspellings, I received a written 'appology' [sic]." Stockdale then said, "What do you want?" I replied, "I want the case properly conducted, properly recorded and the resulting court order properly drafted." He said, "Do you want it transferred to another court?" I replied, "Six months ago I asked the Lord Chancellor to transfer the case to another court." He then transferred it to another court, where the charade continued. This kind of nonsense, straight out of Alice in Wonderland, is not a functioning legal system.

I once received two court orders from the same court about the same case, dated the same and signed by different judges, making contradictory demands. On enquiry, the court officials told me to obey both! The victim is helpless, with no recourse, when confronted by such idiocy.

In 1995, the court officials in Watford County Court still cannot spell properly. Since they remain semi-literate, it is obvious why they persistently breach court procedures. Unlike trained lawyers, they know no better, and tamper with files and sabotage proceedings, for which mackay has apologised to me. However, what is the value of an apology? I have found that other courts are not so different.

Such illegal behaviour is reported to me from other courts around the country.

"'There was literally no part of the criminal justice system we felt was working properly', said one of the members of the Royal Commission, when their two-year report was published." - Anne Owers, director of JUSTICE, The Guardian, 11jan 94, p16.

A report funded by the ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL quoted in the Telegraph, 4nov93, p8.

"' .... The only way [solicitors] can make a profit,' the report says, ' is to prepare their clients for a guilty plea, not for trial, and an individual's rights rarely enter the equation.....' ...." - T Shaw and H Muir.

Continued