For those who have not watched The Other Night - our investigative documentary about judicial corruption in the Court of Appeal in London - we have posted it above.
The programme has garnered much praise on X since its release on 10 December 2023, amassing 484,000 views.
The programme tells the story of covert contact behind the scenes between a judge of the Kings Bench Division, Sara Cockerill, barrister Duncan Matthews and Appeal Court Judge Stephen Males – covert contact which should never have taken place, according to well settled legal principles.
Our programme goes on to reveal how the press office at the Ministry of Justice concocted a version of events when challenged about this covert contact that was later comprehensively debunked by dozens of senior barristers and law lords.
Despite our documentary being brought to the attention of then Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk by a sitting MP no action was taken.
Meanwhile no libel case has been brought against Hunt & Gather. We have not even received a pre-action letter. Under UK libel law the truth of a publication is an absolute defence under section 2 of the Defamation Act 2013.
We can now reveal that the substantive case that Mrs Justice Cockerill struck out without a trial had been brought against London law firm Teacher Stern by a family from Yorkshire called the Kings.
They alleged that Teacher Stern had fraudulently inflated a £2.3 million bill of legal costs by using forged entries with the intention of bankrupting them. A key piece of evidence for this was a witness statement given by accountants Smith & Williamson, a firm which had been contracted by Teacher Stern to provide expert witness testimony in the context of a legal case.
Smith & Williamson’s witness statement made clear that some of the entries in the bill of legal costs purporting to show work by them were dated prior to the actual date they commenced work on the case. The Kings said that showed those entries to be logically impossible, and therefore forged.
But Mrs Justice Cockerill appeared to disregard even the possibility that Teacher Stern might have lied, telling the Kings’ barrister: “During the course of these proceedings there are a number of people whose honesty and straightforwardness have already been impugned by you on behalf of your clients.”
Mrs Cockerill later said that the allegations were ”totally without merit” and that “the claim lacked rational basis at the very first stage”.
In his refusal of permission to appeal (decided on paper without a hearing) Lord Justice Males endorsed that view.
He said: “In some cases it may be clear that there is no real substance in the factual assertions made. This was such a case”.
But Smith & Williamson’s witness statement - put before both Cockerill and Males - is a matter of record. We understand it is extremely unusual for a professional firm to offer this kind of ‘turncoat’ evidence against its own former client. The Kings say Smith & Williamson would have no motive to do this unless they perceived a fraud they wished to distance themselves from.
And the Metropolitan Police appears to be taking the statement very seriously. The force is currently investigating allegations of fraud against Teacher Stern and in March 2022 described the Smith & Williamson statement as one of two ‘key points' that form the ‘strongest evidence’ in the case they are building.
Now the Solicitors Regulation Authority - which registers and regulates all solicitors working in the UK - has revealed that it is prosecuting Teacher Stern and two of its partners, Sacha Rifkin and Claire Rollo.
This was first reported in the Law Society Gazette on 17 October 2024.
It is alleged that the firm made 28 payments to 15 different beneficiaries from its client account which, according to a statement published on the SRA’s website on 16th October 2024, “did not relate to the sale transaction in which the firm had initially been instructed to act and in relation to which there was no underlying legal transaction.”
The decision to prosecute was made on 18th December 2023 - eight days after we released our programme. The reason for delaying the announcement of the decision to the public for nearly a year until October 2024 has not been explained.
Such transactions as the charges describe are not permitted because they can facilitate the use of solicitors firms as vehicles for money laundering.
It’s alleged the misdemeanours began on 23rd December 2013. Hunt & Gather has seen an email - revealed as part of the disclosure in the King litigation - that gives an instruction to send £3 million on a circular trip from a Teacher Stern account via three other companies and then back to Teacher Stern.
That email is dated 19th December 2013 - four days before the first alleged prosecutable offence by Teacher Stern.
Asked about the police investigation in June this year Teacher Stern referred to Mrs Justice Cockerill’s judgement, quoting extensively from it, but said they would not enter into further correspondence with Hunt & Gather.
The Metropolitan Police said: “The investigation remains ongoing. Investigations into alleged fraud are complex and time-consuming. Officers are continuing their work to identify, assemble and assess all the potential evidence.”
Anna Dixon MP, who represents the King family in Parliament, has told them she is now looking into what took place and will be writing to the Lord Chancellor about it.
The trial of Teacher Stern, Claire Rollo and Sacha Rifkin will take place before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over four days beginning on 19 November. Watch remotely here.
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