JUDGE TAN IKRAM FINDS JOURNALIST RICHARD CARVATH
GUILTY OF HARASSING HIS FELLOW JUDGE JEREMY LEA
By court reporter 22 April 2020
A judge has found in favour of another judge and against an investigative journalist, Richard Carvath, in a bizarre prosecution for petty harassment.
Nottingham’s judge Jeremy Lea complained about Mr Carvath to Nottinghamshire Police in January 2019, despite the fact they had never met.
Mr Lea claimed to have suffered from harassment since March 2017, though he made no formal complaint to police until he gave a statement on 18 January 2019.
TAN IKRAM
Mr Carvath’s trial ran for a full day at Sheffield magistrates’ court on Monday 23 March 2020.
The guilty verdict was given by London-based district judge Tan Ikram — the deputy Chief Magistrate for England and Wales.
District Judges always sit alone but, uniquely for Mr Carvath’s trial, and for reasons not explained, Mr Ikram was joined by two lay magistrates, Mrs Knowles and Mr Knight.
Neither Knowles nor Knight spoke during the trial.
RECUSAL
Mr Lea complained of harassment in the same month as he recused himself in a famous family court case — Lea having learned that Mr Carvath was due to give evidence against him.
Mr Carvath and Mr Lea were both protagonists in this alleged miscarriage-of-justice case.
SAMANTHA BALDWIN
In the highly publicised and controversial case of Samantha Baldwin, Jeremy Lea achieved online notoriety as ‘the Samantha Baldwin judge’, whilst Mr Carvath became known as ‘the Samantha Baldwin journalist’ who opposed him.
NO EVIDENCE
Mr Lea’s harassment complaint focused upon four online publications, attributed to Mr Carvath by Lea, and which Lea disliked.
Mr Carvath stated that he did publish one of the four items, but denied the other three.
The prosecution failed to provide any evidence to prove that Mr Carvath, and not somebody else, was the publisher of the three items Mr Carvath denied publishing.
BEDROOM BLINDS
In the witness box Mr Lea admitted that it was only the last of the four items, posted on 17 January 2019, with which he had some significant concern. Mr Carvath denied posting this item.
Referred to by the prosecution as “Post D”, this item was a short video, which, according to Mr Lea, showed him closing his bedroom blinds at his Mapperley Park home.
During the trial, neither Mr Lea nor the prosecutor made any assertion that Mr Carvath had recorded the video, but only that he was the publisher.
MYSTERY VIDEO
Curiously, the prosecution made no attempt to pin the recording of the video on Mr Carvath, and presented no evidence that the video had ever been in Mr Carvath’s possession.
Neither Lea nor the prosecutor claimed Mr Carvath had been to Lea’s home address, and Mr Carvath testified that the only time he had ever visited Nottinghamshire was on 12 March 2019, when he attended Nottingham family court to testify against Lea and others, but was arrested by police inside the court building, before he could give his evidence.
FRAN PENCHEON
Mr Carvath was defended by barrister Frances Pencheon (St Paul’s chambers, Leeds).
Miss Pencheon was defending Mr Carvath for the second time, having run a successful defence that Mr Carvath had acted to prevent and detect crime in a related trial held at Swindon Crown Court last year.
In December 2019, a jury acquitted Mr Carvath of stalking the man whom Jeremy Lea had sided with in the Samantha Baldwin case.
This man, an alleged child sex abuser, first complained to police of harassment by Mr Carvath in the same month (January 2019) as Lea, immediately after the man learned Mr Carvath was due to give evidence against him in family court; and, also in common with Lea, the man back-dated his complaint to March 2017.
STEPHEN LITTLEWOOD
Prosecuting on behalf of Nottinghamshire Police was barrister Stephen Littlewood (KBW chambers, Leeds).
IKRAM’S FINDINGS
Before giving his guilty verdict, Tan Ikram first set out his findings of fact.
Mr Ikram’s key finding was that the Twitter account upon which the four items were published was “used exclusively” by Mr Carvath.
But Mr Ikram could not and did not cite any evidence for this finding.
During the trial, the prosecution failed to present any evidence to prove its accusation that Mr Carvath was the only user of the Twitter account in question.
Mr Carvath testified that he was not the only user of the Twitter account, and the prosecution had no evidence to prove otherwise.
In accordance with his key finding, Mr Ikram found that the four items “A to D were posted by the defendant himself”.
Aside of the third item, referred to as “Post C”, which Mr Carvath testified to publishing himself, Mr Ikram had no evidence for his finding about posts A, B and D.
Mr Ikram found that Lea had been harassed by all four items, for the reason that Lea had said he felt harassed.
Mr Ikram also found that the four items — with a year between posts A and B, and about nine months between posts B and C — amounted to a ‘course of conduct’ in law.
This finding was made despite the fact that, according to guidance published by the Crown Prosecution Service, for a court to find acts any more than three months apart as a ‘course of conduct’ is to push the law to the limit — stretching common sense far beyond the bounds of what is fair and reasonable.
Mr Ikram made an extraordinary finding in relation to Post C, which was published by Mr Carvath.
Post C was a video of Mr Carvath speaking to camera, in which he reported the existence of a historical child sex abuse allegation against Jeremy Lea.
Mr Ikram found that this allegation had never existed, contrary to Mr Carvath’s testimony that his source was none other than the complainant herself — whom Mr Carvath had met in person.
Once again, Tan Ikram could not base his finding against Mr Carvath on evidence or sound reason, so instead, in what amounted to a reversal of the burden of proof, Mr Ikram based the finding upon his own opinion that “the defendant was not a credible witness”.
Mr Ikram was also highly dismissive of Mr Carvath’s status as a journalist.
As with all his other findings, Mr Ikram had no evidence to justify his attitude towards Mr Carvath.
On the contrary, Mr Carvath testified that he was a professional journalist, cited major national news stories he had worked on, cited bylines (published works), and stated that he had undertaken an investigation into the man at the centre of the Samantha Baldwin case at the behest of the Daily Mail.
BAIL
Mr Carvath was bailed to re-appear for sentencing on 5 May.
Magistrates are expected to jail the journalist in May.
APPEAL
Mr Carvath, 43, is expected to appeal against the conviction.
COMMENT: A RIGGED ‘TRIAL’ TO MAKE EVEN STALIN BLUSH
INTRODUCTION
Richard Carvath would not have been convicted by any jury of twelve independent jurors.
However, this was a trial by magistrates.
More to the point, leaving the ‘lay wingers’ aside, it was in reality a trial by a single full-time, paid magistrate (i.e. a judge) — one Tan Ikram — presiding over a case where the complainant was a fellow judge.
(The lay wingers were only there to try to obscure the fact that a judge was judging a journalist on behalf of another judge.)
Even more to the point than that . . . it was not actually a trial at all.
This was not merely not a fair trial; it was much worse than that.
The whole day was quite simply a charade of going through the motions.
The verdict was a foregone conclusion.
Ikram could have told Mr Carvath that he found him guilty at the start of the day.
Instead, the ‘trial’ proceeded and Ikram made it obvious throughout the ‘trial’ that he was going to give a guilty verdict at the end.
Ikram’s only purpose was to serve as a rubber-stamp for Nottinghamshire Police, whose only purpose was to protect a rotten Nottingham judge.
All magistrates’ courts are notorious for being pro-police and pro-prosecution: that this is true is a long and well-established fact.
But Mr Carvath’s case — which pitted the defendant directly against the police and the judiciary — was, for the dozen or so people in the court that day, a feast, even an orgy, of judge-on-judge brown-nose action.
This ‘trial’ was a sight to behold; a magisterial display of Ikram’s skill as a judicial botty-licker.
Everybody in the court — Mr Carvath included — quickly realised that they were watching or participating in a sham ‘trial’, rigged from start to finish.
Not only did Ikram knowingly preside over a rigged ‘trial’ — he didn’t even attempt to hide it.
During his testimony, Mr Carvath — with years of experience as a journalist reporting on courts — gave several strong hints that he was well aware the trial was rigged.
For example, during the cross-examination of Mr Carvath (in which Ikram effectively acted as Littlewood’s co-prosecutor), after a period of Ikram interrupting Mr Carvath, as he frequently did, to tell Mr Carvath what his evidence was, before Mr Carvath had even spoken to give his evidence (!), Mr Carvath eventually exposed and humiliated the bent Ikram, which he did by making a point of stating exactly what Ikram was doing.
Ikram had no reply to Mr Carvath. Ikram had been caught red-handed, running a rigged ‘trial’.
Ikram cut a pathetic figure next to Mr Carvath. A fool judging a lion. Everybody laughed at Ikram. Ikram’s antics showed that behind his judge’s facade, he was really nothing more than the court jester.
Ikram was a bent judge drowning in his own idiocy and moral corruption.
Ikram shouted at Mr Carvath, interrupted Mr Carvath, refused to let Mr Carvath give full answers to questions, and was generally rude and aggressive. In short, Ikram was a total and utter tit.
None of this bad behaviour succeeded in intimidating Mr Carvath — a hard man with some considerable military background — but it did provoke Mr Carvath to occasional facial expressions, by which he made very plain that he thought Ikram was no more than a malevolent piece of poop — an obviously bent judge running an obviously rigged ‘trial’.
Mr Carvath was not only up against a rigged trial; he also had to contend with being charged under bad law (the Protection from Harassment Act 1997).
Let’s briefly consider the general problems with the law, before looking at how it played out in Mr Carvath’s rigged ‘trial’.
WHAT IS SECTION 2 HARASSMENT?
The ‘offence’ of Section 2 Harassment, for which Ikram wrongly convicted Mr Carvath, is an exceedingly strange kind of ‘crime’.
This ‘crime’ did not exist before 1997.
One can be found guilty of this ‘crime’ despite having done no violence, made no threats of violence, and having done nothing which could even remotely be held to be criminal, in any normal, ordinary and traditional sense of the word.
Section 2 is the ‘crime’ of pursuing a course of conduct, in regard of which one is subsequently blamed by a complainant for some alarm or distress, which the complainant claims to have suffered, when one knew or ought to have known that one’s course of conduct would cause the complainant to suffer the alarm or distress claimed.
It is a ‘crime’ without criminal intent; there is no mens rea in the normal sense; one can be found guilty without having had any intention to harass the complainant; one can even be found guilty having actually had a morally good motive and a perfectly good reason for one’s conduct.
The law defines ‘course of conduct’ as two or more occasions.
The ‘ought to have known’ mind-reading component of this lunatic law is determined according to whether, in the particular circumstances, a ‘reasonable person’ would have known better.
‘Reasonable person’ is decided by a District Judge (formerly known as a Stipendiary Magistrate) or lay magistrates — not by twelve independent jurors.
The State does not allow those accused of this ‘crime’ a trial by jury. Trial is permitted only at the hands of the State’s agents, i.e. a magistrates’ court trial.
‘Reasonable person’ is of course extremely subjective. It could mean virtually anything.
In essence, Section 2 Harassment is ‘the crime of being unreasonable’ in the opinion of a magistrate. It’s a legal mechanism enabling the State to criminalize many people who are clearly not criminals.
Needless to say, for any journalist undertaking investigations into high-level corruption, Section 2 Harassment is an occupational hazard, because this law effectively encourages vexatious and malicious complaints to police, as a way to silence the journalist exposing the complainant’s corruption.
Section 2 Harassment is a gift to anybody with a grudge or an axe to grind. It is bad law.
One might argue that this law’s existence and use could be justifiable if it applied only in cases of domestic violence; however, as it is, this law is used to target all manner of people, in often ludicrous circumstances, such as a judge with a grudge using it to attack a journalist he’s never met.
THE CHARGE AGAINST CARVATH
Mr Carvath was charged with harassing Lea by Nottinghamshire Police on 12 March 2019, following over five-and-a-half hours of police interrogation that day.
The exact wording of the police’s original charge can be found in the public domain online.
A year later, for the ‘trial’, though the charge remained as a Section 2 harassment charge, it had been added to, in order to ‘particularize’ it, and it had also undergone substantial change.
THE DISAPPEARING ADDRESS
What was that substantial change?
The original charge accused Mr Carvath of harassing Lea “at 2 SEFTON DRIVE, NOTTINGHAM” (Lea’s home address) between March 2017 and January 2019.
But once the charge had been tampered with, Lea’s home address mysteriously disappeared, to be replaced by “at various locations”.
Quite a substantial change. Why?
Because the police/prosecution had no evidence that Mr Carvath had ever been to Nottinghamshire before 12 March 2019.
Even more tellingly, the prosecution presented no evidence during the ‘trial’ as to where were any of the “various locations” alleged.
This change to the charge amounted to an admission the police had at first thought they could put Mr Carvath at Lea’s home, and presumably prove it, but realised later they were totally wrong.
MOVING THE GOAL POSTS
The charge period was also altered.
The end date, January 2019, remained the same but, by the time of the ‘trial’, the start date, March 2017, had been changed to May 2017.
Nice how the police/CPS can chop and change charges to suit themselves, isn’t it? But fair?
If a defendant ‘changes their story’ from what was said in police interview to something else said at trial, then the prosecution will usually kick up a big fuss over any discrepancy, and demand that an adverse inference be drawn against the defendant.
But if the police want to change their story, that’s perfectly okay with magistrates. The police can take the piss with impunity in a magistrates’ court case, because the police know that magistrates can generally be relied upon to function as a rubber stamp for the police, rather than as the fair and impartial dispensers of justice they ought to be.
No adverse inference against the police. The prosecution can happily make it up as it goes along.
PARTICULARS
By the ‘trial’ day, particular details had been added to the original charge.
These particulars set out the four specific acts of online publishing which, the prosecution alleged, had all harassed Lea, and had all been done by Mr Carvath.
“Post A” was a tweet (text), dated to May 2017.
“Post B” was a tweet (text), dated to spring 2018.
“Post C” was a video, posted to Twitter in January 2019.
“Post D” was a video, posted to Twitter in January 2019.
THE PROSECUTION CASE
The prosecution case against Mr Carvath was pathetic in the extreme.
The prosecution relied upon (1) a false assumption, and (2) faulty logic.
(Moreover, the prosecution depended upon Tam Ikram reversing the Burden Of Proof and ignoring the Standard Of Proof.)
The false assumption was this:
Because Jeremy Lea claims to have been harassed by Mr Carvath [TRUE], therefore Lea must have been harassed by Mr Carvath [FALSE].
And the faulty logic was this:
Because sometimes Richard Carvath does post items on Twitter himself [TRUE], therefore he must be the only person who posts on the Twitter account in question [FALSE].
THE FAULTY LOGIC
Let’s examine the faulty logic first.
This line of ‘logic’ makes no sense at all. It is not logical. Clearly, it cannot be correct.
Mr Carvath confirmed posting Post C, but specifically denied posting Posts A, B and D.
Mr Carvath testified that, in addition to himself, four others were also able to post on the Twitter and WordPress, and that, of those four, a person or persons did indeed post there — as was evident from the fact that, as Mr Carvath testified, he did not post everything that was published there himself.
Furthermore, Mr Carvath testified that a long-established “Cell system” meant that, firstly, it was impossible for him to disclose the identities of persons whose identities he did not know, and secondly, that there was no possibility of “joint enterprise” between Mr Carvath and any of the other four cells.
Ikram’s false finding was that the Twitter in question was “used exclusively” by Mr Carvath. Ikram had absolutely no evidence for this false finding.
The detective in the case testified that Nottinghamshire Police had failed to gather any digital evidence to link Mr Carvath to any particular post.
Moreover, Nottinghamshire Police had failed to gather any digital evidence to link Mr Carvath to the Twitter account in general.
The only evidence for Mr Carvath having posted any particular post was where Mr Carvath testified that he himself had done so.
But where Mr Carvath denied posting something, the prosecution had no evidence to prove otherwise.
The detective testified that the police never seized any computer, phone or other device belonging to Mr Carvath, and had found no technical data in regard to internet connections, by which to link Mr Carvath to anything posted online.
However, the lack of any evidence against Mr Carvath was no problem for Tan Ikram.
Tan Ikram was not interested in evidence, and had no need of any evidence to convict.
Ikram simply ignored the lack of evidence and reversed the burden of proof.
Ikram required Mr Carvath to prove his innocence, as was evident from his speech giving the verdict.
Ikram made the false finding that “A to D were posted by the defendant himself”.
Ikram had no evidence for this false finding, and accordingly he was unable to mention any evidence he relied upon to justify his false finding.
Repeat: there was quite simply NO EVIDENCE against Mr Carvath.
Instead, Ikram’s one and only piece of ‘evidence’ for his false finding was his own opinion that “the defendant was not a credible witness”.
There, trapped by his own words, Ikram exposed himself as being guilty of reversing the burden of proof. There was no evidence against Mr Carvath, but he was guilty because he was a liar, because Tan Ikram said so!
Tan Ikram falsely found that Mr Carvath did three specific acts which he specifically denied doing. Ikram had no evidence whatsoever for his false finding.
Ikram’s only ‘evidence’ was his personal opinion that Carvath’s denials were a lie.
Ikram had required the defence to prove Mr Carvath’s innocence, rather than requiring the prosecution to prove its case. Ikram had reversed the burden of proof.
That a court upholds and abides by the Burden Of Proof is an absolutely fundamental, indispensable and sacrosanct essential of English criminal justice.
But Ikram disregarded the burden of proof, and actually turned it on its head.
Tan Ikram is not fit to be a judge.
THE FALSE ASSUMPTION
As for the false assumption that just because Jeremy Lea said he was harassed by Mr Carvath, therefore he must have been, straightforward common sense exposes the truth.
FACT: As Lea testified himself, Lea did not complain to police in 2017 or 2018.
Furthermore, Lea testified that of the four posts (A to D), the only one which bothered him enough to formally complain to the police was post D (denied by Mr Carvath).
FACT: Lea accused Mr Carvath of harassment in the same month (January 2019) as Lea recused himself from the family court case (Samantha Baldwin) — over which Lea had presided until his recusal, because, as Mr Carvath testified, in that month Mr Carvath became a witness due to give evidence, including evidence against Lea, in those family court proceedings.
Something to hide by accusing Mr Carvath of harassment, Mr Lea?
Jeremy Lea is a judge with a grudge.
JEREMY LEA’s TESTIMONY
Jeremy Lea testified that:
⦁ he is a circuit judge from Nottingham, and that he presides over criminal cases in the Crown Court, as well as providing his judging services in the Family Court and at Mental Health Tribunals.
⦁ in 2017 he was the Family Court judge in the Samantha Baldwin case.
⦁ he had found that Samantha Baldwin “coached” her children to make false allegations of child sex abuse to the police, and that Samantha Baldwin “drugged” her children.
⦁ he authorised and instructed Nottinghamshire Police to publicise the names and photos of Samantha Baldwin and her children, in local and national media.
⦁ he invited the national British media to report his findings (and only his findings) against Samantha Baldwin in 2017.
⦁ he had never met Richard Carvath.
⦁ he blamed Mr Carvath for online opposition which refuted his findings against Samantha Baldwin.
⦁ he issued a gagging order against Mr Carvath in 2017, in regard to the Samantha Baldwin case.
⦁ he first reported Mr Carvath to Nottinghamshire Police for harassment only after he became aware, in mid-January 2019, of an online video (on Twitter) which was, according to Lea, a video of Lea, in his home, in his bedroom, closing his bedroom blinds.
⦁ he attributed the bedroom blinds video (Post D) to Mr Carvath, as he also attributed Posts A, B and C to Mr Carvath.
⦁ his personalised car registration plate is “J99 LEA”.
⦁ judges are public figures and are not above public criticism by journalists or others.
⦁ he had been compared online to the biblical king Herod (who ordered ‘The Slaughter of the Innocents’).
⦁ he was not especially bothered by Posts A, B or C, but that his son, Charles Lea, told him “You have to go to the police” over Post D, as it was “encouraging people to have a go”.
⦁ on seeing Post D, “it was at that point that I became sufficiently concerned as to my safety”.
SAMANTHA BALDWIN
A significant proportion of Littlewood’s examination-in-chief of Lea was given over to Lea being allowed to testify at length about his conduct and findings in the Samantha Baldwin case.
Lea gave his version of the events in the Samantha Baldwin story.
Lea was treated with courtesy and respect by all throughout the ‘trial’ day; Lea was cross-examined politely by Pencheon, and, in contrast to the savage treatment of Mr Carvath by Ikram and Littlewood, there was no hostility shown towards Lea.
Unlike Mr Carvath, Lea was never interrupted, provoked, or accused of lying, and never ‘shouted down’ from speaking the full answers he wished to give to questions put to him.
LEA’s LIE
Lea testified that Samantha Baldwin did not appeal any of his findings against her. That’s a lie!
(Samantha Baldwin is easy to find online, and her publicly-stated position is clear and unequivocal: all of Lea’s findings against her are false.)
That Samantha Baldwin sought leave to appeal is public knowledge which can be found online.
Furthermore, Samantha Baldwin did proceed to [unsuccessfully] appeal one part of Lea’s findings (re the drugging), the court transcript (the judgement) of which is freely available online, on the Bailii website.
However, Tan Ikram, a fool, swallowed this lie, despite the fact that it is without a doubt a lie, as evidenced when Ikram repeated Lea’s lie as if it were true in Ikram’s speech at the end of the ‘trial’.
DETECTIVE’s TESTIMONY
Besides Lea, the only other prosecution witness was the detective constable in the case, Nottinghamshire Police’s DC 3221.
(For journalistic reasons, DC 3221 is not named in this report.)
DC 3221 was not examined at all by the prosecutor, Mr Littlewood, but passed straight to defence counsel for a quick, five-minute quiz.
Miss Pencheon asked DC 3221 about the police investigation of the Twitter account in question, and of Mr Carvath’s use of the internet.
Was there anything to pin on Mr Carvath those posts (A, B and D) which he denied posting?
DC 3221 testified that:
⦁ there was no computer evidence to link Mr Carvath to the posts he denied;
⦁ the police had never seized any computer, phone or other device used by Mr Carvath;
⦁ the police had gathered no technical evidence about who connected to the Twitter account, how connections were made, or the origins of connections.
Put simply, the case against Mr Carvath was non-existent. There was no evidence to prove the prosecution case.
The prosecution could provide no evidence as to who posted what, how, or from where.
Repeat: the prosecution did not possess a shred of evidence to prove its accusations about online posting.
The prosecution could not prove that Mr Carvath posted the posts (A, B and D) which he denied. The prosecution was an absolute failure.
It was impossible to prove the case alleged against Mr Carvath. Therefore, Mr Carvath ought to have been acquitted.
But acquittals for the innocent only happen in fair trials. Remember, this was a rigged ‘trial’.
RICHARD CARVATH’s TESTIMONY
Richard Carvath testified that:
⦁ he had only visited Nottinghamshire once in his whole life, on Tuesday 12 March 2019.
⦁ he did this to attend family court in central Nottingham, in order to testify against a known child sex abuser and others in the Samantha Baldwin case, and also to give testimony about Jeremy Lea.
⦁ he was prevented from giving evidence against Lea and others, because he was arrested by Nottinghamshire Police before he could testify.
⦁ he was interrogated by Nottinghamshire Police for over five-and-a-half hours, about Jeremy Lea’s harassment complaint, when he should have been testifying against Lea and others in the family court case.
⦁ in regard to his video (Post C) — which reported the existence of a historical child sex abuse allegation against Jeremy Lea — that he had met the complainant in person, in London in 2017.
⦁ in regard to his Post C video, that “I stand by every word”, that it was “in the public interest” and that when he was interrogated by police on 12 March 2019, he told the police then that the video “was lawful, factual and accurate”, but that the police did not ask a single question about the details of the allegation, despite interrogating him “for over five-and-a-half hours” — an omission which had always struck him as “very odd indeed”.
⦁ he did not post Posts A, B or D.
⦁ he had never had any intention of harassing Lea, but only of protecting child sex abuse victims betrayed by Lea.
⦁ the Twitter account was used not only by him but also by others, who were independent of and unknown to him, by means of a long-established “cell system” of five cells (Mr Carvath being one of the five), operating under one “control” handler.
⦁ the first time he learned of the existence of the Post D video (bedroom blinds) was when he was shown a screenshot of the video by police on 12 March 2019.
⦁ the first time he actually saw the Post D video (bedroom blinds) was in the summer of 2019, after it had been disclosed to the defence, and he was thus able to watch the video in company with his solicitor.
⦁ he and his solicitor analysed the video carefully, and concluded that “whoever made the video, and whenever it was made, it could not have been made in January 2019”, because the video showed a window left open after the blinds were drawn, and because the video showed “deciduous leaf shapes” which were “in full leaf”.
⦁ the findings made by Lea in the Samantha Baldwin case were “wholly false”.
⦁ “Both boys” in the Samantha Baldwin case gave “video interviews” to the police, and both boys “accused their father of sexually abusing them”.
⦁ though Lea made the finding that Samantha Baldwin drugged her own children, once, “in the middle of December 2014”, this nonsensical finding was totally at odds with the fact that “forensic lab tests” of “hair strands” taken from the boys proved that the boys had been drugged “over a period of six months” with “zolpidem, temazepam and nordiazepam” (common ‘date rape’ drugs).
⦁ “in early January 2019” he gathered “conclusive evidence” that “David Madge is a child sex abuser”, thus proving Samantha Baldwin and her children told the truth all along. This “conclusive evidence” was the evidence he would have given in the Family Court on 12 March 2019, had he not been interfered with and obstructed by the actions of Nottinghamshire Police.
CARVATH CONSISTENT
In the defence’s closing speech, Fran Pencheon was able to say, hand on heart, that Mr Carvath’s evidence had been consistent from start to finish.
From his first police interrogation to giving his testimony in court a year later, Mr Carvath’s account of events was flawless.
THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE DETECTIVE WHO DOESN’T DETECT
Under cross-examination, Mr Carvath made a very important point about Nottinghamshire Police.
Mr Carvath testified that when he was interrogated by the police on 12 March 2019, he was asked about the Post C video (January 2019) in which he reported the existence of a historical child sex abuse allegation against Jeremy Lea.
Mr Carvath testified that when the detective raised the subject, he told the police that the video “was lawful, factual and accurate”.
Mr Carvath testified that after he had said that, the police did not ask any question at all about what were the details of the allegation, or who was his source.
Neither did the police refute the existence of the allegation.
Mr Carvath testified, “I find that telling”.
Mr Carvath testified, “So, you’re a detective constable, and somebody tells you there’s a child sex abuse allegation against a judge. But you don’t want to know a thing about it! There are only two reasons for that. Either you already know about the allegation … or if you really hadn’t heard about it before, then it shows you don’t want to know about it.”
This proves that Nottinghamshire Police did not conduct a fair and impartial investigation into Lea’s complaint against Mr Carvath. Lea had the local police ‘in his pocket’ from day one.
Nottinghamshire Police was clearly biased in favour of local judge Lea, and only ever had one agenda in this matter: to attack and destroy Mr Carvath, in order to protect Lea.
By his testimony, Mr Carvath exposed Nottinghamshire Police as corrupt.
CARVATH’S MOTIVE: CHILD PROTECTION
Mr Carvath testified that the motive for his interest in Lea was the protection of child sex abuse victims who had been betrayed by Lea.
THE WEIRDEST CROSS-EXAMINATION
Prosecuting barrister Stephen Littlewood was as odd as Tan Ikram was bent. Littlewood’s cross-examination of Mr Carvath was a truly weird and desperate affair.
Littlewood could not base his case on evidence; all he could do was to try to fabricate a circumstantial case of insults, smears and distortions.
Littlewood’s cross-examination was no more than a lengthy baiting session, in which he made repeated and unfounded ad hominem attacks on Mr Carvath.
Such prolonged provocation and personal attack would never have been allowed in a Crown Court (and would rapidly alienate jurors against the prosecutor if it were), but in Tan Ikram’s kangaroo court, it was par for the course.
Indeed, Ikram revelled in Littlewood’s disgusting conduct, and joined in with it. Littlewood and Ikram fed off each other, trying to out-do the other in provoking and mocking their prey.
Littlewood’s horrifying cross-examination would have traumatised many defendants. Richard Carvath, however, is not your average defendant.
Mr Carvath stood in the witness box, like a hard rock, who could not be harmed. Nothing Littlewood said caused Mr Carvath any trouble.
Littlewood started off sweating and nervous, frequently touching his face, and got himself more and more worked up, as he quickly realised there was nothing he could do to crack Mr Carvath.
By the mid-way stage, Littlewood had turned into a ranting little Hitler.
It was embarrassing. It was also just a little entertaining, watching this insecure barrister being eaten alive by Mr Carvath. The hunter became the hunted.
As a general rule, it is much easier to prosecute than to defend a criminal case. Prosecuting is relatively straightforward, and rarely requires much tactical skill or subtlety.
And in a magistrates’ court — even in an ordinary trial (i.e. not a rigged ‘trial’) — the whole set-up and culture of the magistrates’ system is biased in favour of the prosecutor and police.
In general, to prosecute in a magistrates’ trial is to have an open goal to shoot at. It’s very hard to miss, with the odds so heavily stacked in your favour.
And in a rigged ‘trial’ like this one was, it’s impossible not to score. Yet despite all this, prosecuting barrister Stephen Littlewood humiliated himself, cracking up instead of cracking Mr Carvath.
All that Littlewood could think to do was to repeatedly accuse Mr Carvath of lying about everything under the sun, and to ask bizarre and irrelevant questions which did nothing to prove the case, such as Littlewood’s question “Are you a Catholic?” (Mr Carvath: “No, I am not a Catholic.”), or when Littlewood asked him about his views on Brexit (Mr Carvath is pro Brexit).
Littlewood was like the first-timer, riddled with fear, whose masculinity fails to rise to the occasion, leaving the young lady sorely disappointed. The proverbial ‘couldn’t score in a brothel’ type of fellow, to put in bluntly.
Little wood indeed. And even less moral backbone.
There could not have been a greater contrast with Fran Pencheon — a queen amongst men.
(Interestingly, the barristers’ grapevine reports that several barristers turned down the prosecution brief which Littlewood foolishly chose to accept. These sensible ones could see that prosecuting Mr Carvath, for Jeremy Lea’s sake, was a poison pill to leave well alone. But Littlewood did not see the danger. The sensible foresaw that the war — the ‘Samantha Baldwin War’ — was already lost, in the long run, and that there would be little point in ‘winning’ a fleeting rear-guard action. And the sensible also knew that the gypsies do get very upset about miscarriages of justice, and that to cross the gypsies is to wish oneself a long and happy life.)
NO PROSECUTION CLOSING SPEECH!
As if Mr Littlewood, aided and abetted by Tan Ikram, didn’t make it obvious enough that the ‘trial’ was rigged by the manner of his cross-examination of Mr Carvath, he then compounded his suspicious behaviour by failing to give a closing speech.
A lawyer who doesn’t have anything to say! Have you ever heard of such a thing?
There were two reasons why Littlewood refused to give a closing speech:
(1) he had no case, as there was clearly no evidence against Mr Carvath, and;
(2) he did not need to have a case, as it was obvious to all that Tan Ikram was bent.
For her part, Fran Pencheon gave an excellent closing speech, emphasising such things as Mr Carvath’s consistency, reasonableness and integrity, the fact that there was no evidence to prove the acts (A, B and D) alleged, and the legal reality that there had not been any ‘course of conduct’ in law.
It was a beautiful speech, with all the relevant facts and law, leading to the inevitable conclusion that Mr Carvath was not guilty, at the same time as everybody in the court knew it would be to no avail.
The ‘trial’ was rigged. Ikram was bent. There was only ever one, predetermined verdict.
There was nothing Miss Pencheon or Mr Carvath could say to overcome a rigged ‘trial’ presided over by a bent judge, hellbent on backing up another bent judge.
IKRAM’S EXCRUCIATING SPEECH ON VERDICT
Before he could bring himself to say the word ‘Guilty’, Ikram forced all those in the courtroom to endure a lengthy and ridiculous monologue, in which Ikram discussed his misapplication of law and his false findings of fact.
Mrs Knowles looked embarrassed to be there, as Ikram rambled on.
Mr Knight, who had kept up a poker face through the trial, rolled his eyes in disbelief at the sheer idiocy of the speech with which he was notionally associated, and obliged to affirm.
Mr Carvath did not bat an eyelid during this lunatic speech, including when Ikram finally plucked up the courage to say the G word.
What Mr Carvath did do, cool as a cucumber, was to produce a reporter’s notepad and make notes (rather as one would expect of a journalist), as Ikram proceeded to self-destruct before Carvath’s eyes.
Ikram showed himself to be a man very fond of the sound of his own voice, and very sure of his own opinion, but totally oblivious to the most fundamental tenets of English criminal justice.
Why did Ikram sit with two lay magistrates? District Judges always sit alone. They are never accompanied by lay magistrates.
And Tan Ikram is not just ‘any old’ District Judge; Ikram is the deputy Chief Magistrate for England and Wales. Why would Ikram need a couple of lay wingers sat either side of him?
There were two related reasons:
(1) the lay magistrates were there to deflect from the fact that Ikram, a judge, was presiding over a trial in which the complainant, Lea, was also a judge, and;
(2) in order to give the perception of greater legitimacy to the verdict ( so the verdict could be presented as being that of three people, rather than one).
That Ikram sat with two lay wingers — which is simply not done — is a clear sign that the ‘trial’ was rigged beforehand.
‘VICTIM IMPACT’ STATEMENTS
At the end of Ikram’s monstrous verdict, prosecutor Stephen Littlewood rapidly produced, as if by magic, two ‘victim impact’ statements that the police had obtained before the trial.
Both statements were hurriedly read out to the court by Mr Littlewood.
Curiously, though Jeremy Lea was the one and only complainant in this prosecution, he was neither of the two ‘victims’ of the ‘crime’ Mr Carvath had supposedly committed against him.
These ‘victims’, who did not testify against Mr Carvath, and who were not present at the trial, were none other than Lea’s wife, Mrs Jane Lea, and Lea’s [adult] daughter, Miss Imogen Lea.
Mrs Lea (aka Dr Jane Turrill) blamed Mr Carvath for her own decision to end her career as a General Practitioner, and for triggering a stress disorder to which she had been prone since being raped some forty years ago.
(Thankfully, Mr Carvath was not blamed for the rape.)
Miss Lea blamed Mr Carvath for her own decision to delete her own Twitter account, blamed him for adversely affecting her studies, and blamed him for having somehow ruined her prospects as an aspiring thespian.
But as to the actual complainant himself, there was no ‘victim impact’ statement from Jeremy Lea.
Mr CARVATH A THREAT TO THE PUBLIC?
Ikram stated that he expected to hand Mr Carvath a custodial sentence, as this was necessary not only to punish Mr Carvath but also for the protection of the public!
Public protection indeed. Really?
Ikram had just convicted Mr Carvath of harassing a man he had never met, and never attempted to meet.
Ikram had just wrongfully convicted Mr Carvath of a Section 2 harassment offence, which is the pettiest (not to mention silliest) form of harassment ‘crime’, involving no violence, no threats of violence, and no criminal intent.
The court heard that Mr Carvath had no criminal record for any crime of violence or threatening violence.
Mr Carvath, this ‘danger to the public’, had been sat in an unlocked, unguarded dock for the duration of the trial. He had been free on bail for a year before the trial, and Ikram freed him on bail again, after giving the verdict.
Mr Carvath is clearly neither a criminal nor a danger to the public. The only ‘danger’ he presents is that of a journalist capable of exposing judicial corruption, judicial failings and the betrayal of child sex abuse victims.
However, there was some significance to Ikram’s reference to public protection. It exposed Ikram’s warped and delusional thinking. It exposed the fact that Ikram presided over a rigged ‘trial’.
JAIL FOR A ‘CRIME’ OF JOURNALISM?
As for punishing Mr Carvath, we all expect crime to be punished, and we also expect the punishment to fit the crime.
Leaving aside the fact that Mr Carvath is innocent, even if he really had committed this ‘crime’, would it justify imprisonment, as a punishment to fit the crime?
Well, we can answer that by looking to the example of Mr Carvath’s supposed ‘victim’.
There will be a great irony if, as expected, Richard Carvath is sent to jail for the ‘crime’ of upsetting judge Jeremy Lea. This irony is seen when one considers the conduct of Lea as a judge giving sentence.
Lea doesn’t send convicted paedophiles and child pornographers to jail. For example:
LEA DID NOT JAIL CHILD SEX ABUSER ADAM VAMPLEW
In September 2019, at Nottingham Crown Court, Jeremy Lea failed to jail Adam Vamplew, who had been convicted of possessing, downloading and distributing extreme child pornography.
Lea gave a 12 months suspended sentence to Vamplew, 35, who had been caught with over 3,300 child abuse images, over 700 of which were Category A images (explicit, hardcore images showing the rape of children).
And this wasn’t a one-off aberration. Lea had form for appallingly lenient sentencing of child sex abusers.
LEA DID NOT JAIL CHILD SEX ABUSER MARTIN HASLAM
In January 2011, at Nottingham Crown Court, Jeremy Lea failed to jail Martin Haslam, who had been convicted on 16 counts of making and possessing extreme child pornography.
Lea gave a community sentence, supervised by probation officers, to Haslam, 46.
Haslam could have been sentenced to up to ten years’ imprisonment, but Jeremy Lea did not view his crime as serious enough to require a custodial sentence.
But it’s perhaps not so sursprising when one considers that Lea is known to have had at least one paedophile in his personal circle of friends and acquaintances.
LEA WAS A FRIEND OF CHILD SEX ABUSER ANDRIS LOGINS
In 2016 a social worker, Andris Logins, 57, was convicted on 17 counts by a jury at Nottingham Crown Court.
Logins committed his crimes against children in his ‘care’ at the Beechwood Care Home in Mapperley in the 1980s.
The 17 counts of which Logins was convicted included four for raping children.
(Thankfully, Jeremy Lea didn’t do the sentencing, and Logins is now in prison.)
Lea and Logins were friends through their mutual involvement in a Roman Catholic child adoption agency, which trades under the name ‘Faith in Families’ today.
Logins sponsored Lea to run the Robin Hood Half Marathon in 2011, on behalf of Faith in Families.
Lea once headed the board of Faith in Families, and Logins worked on the staff.
If men convicted of real, serious crimes against children don’t merit imprisonment, then a journalist whose only ‘crime’ is to expose the betrayal of child sex abuse victims certainly doesn’t merit time in jail.
Jeremy Lea doesn’t take child sex abuse seriously as a judge, and lets child sex abusers off jail time . . . but woe betide any child-protecting journalist who dares to cross Jeremy Lea. Jail that journalist!
OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD
Mr Carvath will no doubt go to jail his usual happy self, quite unperturbed by a wrong and petty conviction, dispensed by a fool. Like any journalist exposing corruption in high places, he knows very well that jail is a journalist’s occupational hazard.
VICTORY
Richard Carvath 