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W
hen the order for the permission to appeal was granted it was written by Lord Justice Sedley that both parties should endeavour to settle the claim via mediation or other Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) before the full hearing of the appeal took place. This had to be arranged, otherwise if we turned up at the hearing having not gone down this route then the presiding judge would take a dim view.

This was arranged for 29 May 2009 at Leslie’s chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

Jeremy and I sat in a windowless conference room while Leslie and Andre met with Challenger and Grundy. They came to us with a document that Grundy wanted us to sign but, on looking closely at it, there were points that we could not agree to. With my laptop, I re-typed the document with the changes that Leslie wanted to make and then he disappeared. After what seemed like an eternity, we were then invited into the large, bright, airy room where Grundy and Challenger were seated at a table. Leslie and Andre sat opposite them while Jeremy and I took ringside seats behind them.

Leslie was trying to negotiate a settlement for Jeremy rather than going
through the appeal hearing but Challenger said that, as they had won, they were not honour-bound to offer anything. As a gesture of goodwill, he said, Hertfordshire Constabulary were willing to settle for £5,000 to be paid to a children’s charity and a written apology made to Jeremy for the distress that had been caused. Grundy looked at Jeremy with revulsion that she seemed to reserve for him at each encounter. Suggesting contributing to a children’s charity was nothing less than a pointed reference to the paedophilia charge, as well as an insinuation that he didn’t even deserve £5,000 for himself.

Leslie politely declined but we were not at all surprised by the outcome. We had satisfied the court that an ADR had taken place without resolution and now we looked to our chances at the appeal hearing.

T
he months passed and soon we were in the height of summer. For us it had gone quiet on the litigation side as we waited for the appeal hearing date. Although not out of the woods, our case was, at least, still alive.

It was a hot, bright sunny day, but I felt I was living under a perpetual dark cloud. However, in trying to achieve some perspective of my situation I kept reminding myself that there were many others in the world whose predicaments were far worse than my own and which made mine pale into insignificance. If we failed to win our case it would not be a good situation at all but we would still have our lives and hopefully be able to build a new future together.

Just then, the phone rang and it was Jeremy. He was laughing and said that Andre had called to ask if we had seen the
Daily Mail
online. ‘You have to read it, Challenger has been arrested,' he babbled excitedly. I brought up the article to be confronted with a picture of Challenger handcuffed and being helped up the steps into a police van by two police officers. He had turned around to look at the waiting photographers and it was the comical expression on his face that made me laugh, not
to mention the grey unruly wisps of hair that tufted out from the sides of his otherwise balding head. He looked totally mortified and I hugely enjoyed his obvious discomfort and embarrassment.

After savouring the picture for a moment I looked at the article to see how Challenger had got into this predicament. Apparently he was representing his client in a bankruptcy hearing and the victims of his client were accusing Challenger of delaying tactics when the case was adjourned. That didn't surprise me as he had tried the same thing during our case.

One woman, a Dr Sheida Oraki, was asked to leave the courtroom by the registrar and despite calls of restraint from another solicitor, the group continued to abuse Challenger in a side room while the court set a new hearing date. According to witnesses Dr Oraki's husband confronted Challenger pointing his finger but Challenger had got to his feet, pushed Mr Oraki out of the door and locked it behind him. Challenger had then walked out of the court only to be arrested by police on suspicion of common assault. ‘You're making a huge mistake,' the article quoted him as saying and I laughed out loud imagining this protestation as he was pushed into the police van.

A spokesman from Lamb Chambers said that it would be entirely out of character for Challenger to have lashed out. ‘We don't know anything about it, we know it happened but we don't know any details. He must have been provoked. We are still waiting to hear from him,' they said. So this would be the one phone call that Challenger would be allowed to make. I chuckled, hoping that he was feeling the full discomfort, uncertainty and humiliation of his arrest.

The article finished with a Met Police spokesman confirming that a man, believed to be in his fifties, was arrested at the Royal Courts of Justice at around 1.10 p.m. on an allegation of assault. Oh, come on! Challenger in his fifties? Not even back end! That was a stretch of at least a decade or he had had a very hard life! The alleged victim had been taken to hospital as a precaution. Blimey, that was some shove, I thought.

This story was hot in the legal circles as the article was emailed to all and sundry. When I got home that evening Jeremy had set the photograph of Challenger's moment of arrest as his screensaver, which always gave us a reason to smile.

D
uring that summer while waiting for the appeal hearing there was little communication with Andre and Leslie. This gave us the opportunity to revert to a more normal life of getting on with our jobs, enjoying family gatherings, revelling in the mundane and, more importantly, not thinking or talking about legal matters.

However, those days were in the dim and distant past as we again entered the High Court on Friday 13 November and jokingly wondered if we were appearing in our own horror story with a bad ending. As we nervously waited in the corridor, I looked out of the large sash windows at the cold, dismal, grey sky that was a perpetual blanket of drizzle. The grimy net curtains clinging to the condensation running down the glass made me shiver, as did the arrival of Grundy, Challenger and their QC. However, I felt brighter as we joined Andre and Leslie, and for the first time I met with Paddy. With a big smile, he appeared jovial and very positive as he shook my hand. Jeremy asked me what I thought of him and I said that if he was Leslie’s choice then he must be a worthy advocate to fight our corner. With him by our side and three judges presiding instead of one, I much preferred the odds this time.

Settling down in the courtroom with Paddy in row one, Leslie directly behind him, then Andre behind Leslie, with Jeremy sitting by his side
and mirrored by the Hertfordshire Constabulary representation, I found myself alone in the public gallery. Not being able to hear any of the whisperings from my side, I felt rather isolated. However, when Challenger arrived Leslie could not contain himself. This was the moment he had been waiting for as he brought up the arrest incident back in July. I could not hear Challenger’s blustering response but I could see that he felt discomfort that the subject had been brought up.

Then the time came for proceedings to commence and the three judges appeared to take their seats at a higher level to the rest of us. I suddenly realised that they held the power to dictate our future in the next few hours.

Paddy stood up to present our case. There were interjections of questions from Lord Justice Dyson sitting in the centre, which prompted Leslie to write on a notepad which he held up for Andre and Jeremy to read: ‘They don’t get it.’ Jeremy turned round to me and shook his head, gently indicating that, from his point of view, we were on a hiding to nothing. Then the QC for the police stood up to present his arguments. His presentation was such that if he was acting for Jeremy I would have despaired. He appeared to lack conviction and belief in what he was saying and wandered around his bundle of papers with an air of uncertainty and hesitation which was in complete contrast to Paddy’s fierce determination and complete knowledge of Jeremy’s case. Yet again, although forensics were not the focus of the case, he was commenting on parts of the Fellows report which were not admissible in the main trial. Really, they had little argument, so why not do the next best thing, I thought, and use some salacious extracts from an inaccurate report to smear my husband further? I was beginning to feel despondent as he looked to have the judges in his awe. Challenger and Grundy, sitting behind him, appeared quite pleased with their QC’s handiwork.

Then Lord Justice Dyson, staring hard at the police QC, momentarily
turned to request confirmation from Paddy about the forensics, in that it had little relevance in this case bearing in mind that at previous hearings it was to be a case of what the investigating officer knew and when. Paddy confirmed that this was indeed the case, which made Leslie turn to smile at us as he was now happy that the judges were finally getting it. Two of them were talking to each other and flicking through their files, which I found very encouraging, then returning to Paddy to ask further questions. The QC for the police, realising that he was losing ground, tried to interject with his arguments but Lord Justice Dyson went quiet, pausing in thought.

Out of the corner of my eye, Lord Justice Hooper, who had been sitting quietly throughout and had made absolutely no comment during the proceedings, was waving a sheet of paper to gain the attention of his colleagues. For the first time he spoke out and said, ‘It says here that there was no evidence to charge Mr Clifford but he had. How
spiteful
.’ Paddy leapt in to punch the point home to all of them that this was exactly what the case was about.

Lord Justice Dyson, appearing satisfied that they had understood enough to consider a decision, nodded to both his colleagues. He addressed Paddy and said that it was late in the day and they were retiring to consider judgment. If it was in our favour they could only offer a retrial to which point the police’s QC, who was immediately on his feet parting the papers in his file and pointing to one of the pages, called out in a desperate, last-ditch attempt, ‘But we are now in a position where we know much more about what was on the Tiny computer.’ Oh, give over on that bloody report, I thought angrily. It’s not holding water for your argument because Hopkins would not have known this at the time of charge. Anyway, there were no illegal images discovered on the Tiny but I hoped it would not influence their decision, whatever that might be.

The judges stood up to leave the court. Jeremy and I were disappointed
that judgment had not been made there and then, considering how long we had to wait for Cranston to return his verdict. This could go the same way if they were left to think about it too long. Paddy came striding over, shook Jeremy’s hand and said, ‘Well done, you’ve got your retrial.’ We both looked at him, completely perplexed, and before we could ask him how he had come to that conclusion he was rushing off to some other appointment. As Andre was gathering his belongings we asked him how Paddy had deduced we had won the appeal and he said it was because they could only offer a retrial, not an overturn of the original judgment. Also, Lord Justice Carnwath had suggested that before considering the retrial route both parties should consider mediation and reach a solution out of court.

It had turned out that Friday the thirteenth had not been unlucky for us and, although when we left the High Court the sky was still dull, our future was starting to look a whole lot brighter.

J
ust before Christmas, Andre called to say that Fouhey had contacted him out of the blue. Astonishingly, he had requested to meet to talk over his part in the case and a meeting was arranged for 3 January 2010.

Fouhey had insisted that Andre meet him in a public place, which sounded quite conspiratorial, giving the reason that he did not like to take work home. The eventual venue was the Bedford Hospital restaurant which was quiet at the time of their afternoon meeting.

Andre was keen for the meeting as he wanted to see if there was anything Fouhey was likely to add to his evidence. He opened by explaining the harm that Jeremy had suffered and continued to suffer and why he was so determined to hold Hertfordshire Constabulary and Hopkins to account. Fouhey understood and firstly gave a synopsis of his background and career. He said he was not an expert and did not like being referred to in those terms but was confident and competent regarding his work.

As he understood it, incitement prosecutions were not being followed up by a lot of police forces because even if there were credit card transactions, there was no evidence that the owner had been aware of them and the card could have been used by another fraudulently or without permission to purchase illegal images. There would need to be some other
corroborative evidence, such as communications on a PC and credit card details linking the images to Landslide. There would also be images from Landslide that would have been paid for and they would have been saved to a specific folder, thus showing that the user had taken a deliberate step. There was definitely none of this activity on Jeremy’s PC.

He showed Andre a document which so far had not been disclosed by Grundy. It was written in the first person and so was clear that it was from Hopkins to Fouhey. Hopkins was aware that he had charged Jeremy incorrectly for possession of the Tiny computer on 30 October 2003 and he needed to address this, because this computer wasn’t in Jeremy’s possession on that date as it was with Gerard at Video Action.

Fouhey confirmed to Andre that he remembered meeting with Hopkins and telling him the location and significance of the images but knew it was a matter for the officer in charge as to what charges would be brought as they would need to be justified. Hopkins would also have known how to open the disk as Fouhey would have had to give him a password to open it. The meeting was not documented as it was not practice at the time but Fouhey thought this would be the end of the matter. I thought it strange that Fouhey was so clear on events all these years down the line but Hopkins could not recollect this event at all.

Andre asked him what instructions he would have received from Hopkins, to which Fouhey responded that he would have been given enough information to know what he should be looking for on the computers and media data. Keyword searches would include ‘Landslide’, ‘Credit Card number’ and ‘child porn’ plus searches for illegal images of children. Nothing he had said to Hopkins would make him believe that the computer had been cleaned. He was not asked to check and if he had he would have reported this. Hopkins had believed Gerard though and let him put it in a witness statement. If the computer had been cleaned, the spam illegal images would have been erased. Fouhey certainly did not
agree with Hopkins’s observations that he had changed his stance and left Hopkins with no evidence. Fouhey had been upfront with Hopkins from the outset. There was no way he would hand over a disk with images and say nothing about them as there would have to have been some verbal communication. Further, Fouhey was shocked when he got Jeremy’s letter of claim against him. He had immediately called his solicitor and then realised he required insurance. He referred to Hertfordshire Police and Grundy confirmed that they would act for him. However, he admitted he felt that he was on the outside and naturally they were going to have first loyalty to themselves and he was concerned as to where this would leave him.

Fouhey had met with Grundy on a couple of occasions, again in public places, and told her that he had informed Hopkins that there was no evidence to charge regarding the images and understood that there would only be one charge for incitement. Fouhey’s statement had not been prepared to support a charge of possessing and making. He remembered the investigation by DS Bob Willcox in which he had told Hopkins of the location of the images and their significance and that there was no evidence to charge. Fouhey informed Grundy of this document and that Willcox would back him up. The SID document would support this account. He didn’t want to be left high and dry and enquired to Grundy as to what Hopkins had been saying. He wanted to know if Hopkins was going to put him in the frame – Grundy had told Fouhey that Hopkins had admitted to her that Fouhey had told Hopkins that there was no evidence to charge and that there had never been any suggestion, at least to Fouhey, that he was lying or mistaken about the conversation.

Andre called Jeremy after his meeting with Fouhey and said he could not have wished for a better result. He was rushing back to his office to have the details typed up. ‘This is good, Jeremy, very good,’ he said.