Senior judges perverting the course of justice

Readers of this blog may wonder why I focus so often on the potential for members of the judiciary to participate in the cover-up of child abuse.

There are, I guess, a number of reasons including the following:

1. The evidence that a Lord Chief Justice and a future Lord Chief Justice perverted the course of justice in 1963 and got away scot free
2. The potential that judicial discretion gives to enable cover-up of paedophilia and other wrongdoing, by for example the simple expedient of assigning false names in Court ( discussed here: The child abuse cover-up: the use of false names in court )
3. The possibility that a senior member of the judiciary against whom paedophile allegations exist may have used his position to pervert the course of justice in at least one case of public importance, given his vulnerability to blackmail (assuming that the paedophile allegations regarding the living senior judge are true)

In 1963 I believe that the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Parker, and another two Court of Appeal judges (including a future Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery) perverted the course of justice in the case of Stephen Ward.

It is now 51 years later and the corrupt behaviour of Lord Parker and Lord Widgery has not been publicly exposed for what it was.

Recently, the case of Stephen Ward was the subject of a book by Geoffrey Robertson QC entitled "Stephen Ward was innocent, OK".

Let me explain briefly the evidence that leads me to believe that Lord Chief Justice Parker and Lord Widgery perverted the course of justice.

I'll attempt it from memory so it won't include as much detail as it might otherwise. And it's open to the possibility of my imprecisely or incorrectly recalling some aspects of the narrative.

1. The sordid story begins with a secret meeting between the then Home Secretary (Henry Brooke), the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the head of MI5.
2. The Home Secretary asked the Commissioner and the head of MI5, in effect, to find a way to "get Ward".
3. The head of MI5 declines (but MI5 reappears later in this narrative)
4. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police starts an investigation into Stephen Ward. The Metropolitan Police pursue the matter with great energy.
5. Ward was charged with sexual offences. 
6. Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies were to be key witnesses n the trial.
7. Ward had been working for MI5. Ward's MI5 handler "disappeared" for the duration of the trial. 
8. MI5 allowed Ward to be wrongly convicted to conceal knowledge of its own activities.
9. Separately another case in which Keeler was a key witness was at the Court of Appeal.
10. The Court of Appeal (two of the three judges were Lord Chief Justice Parker and Lord Widgery, a future Lord Chief Justice) overturned the conviction about which Keeler had given evidence.
11. The Court of Appeal had evidence that Keeler had perjured herself but concealed it from the public and concealed that evidence from Ward's legal team.
12. The Court of Appeal judgement was passed to the judge in the Stephen Ward trial. The evidence of Keeler's perjury was concealed.
13. Had Keeler's perjury been known Ward's convication on at least one of the two counts on which he was to be convicted would have been thrown out.

My conclusion from having studied such evidence as is in the public domain is that Lord Parker and Lord Widgery perverted the course of justice.

Nobody, so far as I'm aware, in the legal profession has ever raised the question of criminal behaviour by Lord Chief Justice Parker and Lord Widgery.

The instinct to protect one's own? Or some other factor?

If senior judges can, unchallenged and undetected, pervert the course of justice in the Stephen Ward trial, how many other times have judges perverted the course of justice without being discovered?

How many times have judges perverted the course of justice in child abuse cases?

It seems to me that these are immensely serious questions which need to be looked at with seriousness and diligence.

In the aftermath of Stephen Ward's suicide, an inquiry headed by Lord Denning, then Master of the Rolls, was set up.

Conveniently, Lord Denning didn't notice that Lord Chief Justice Parker and Lord Widgery had perverted the course of justice.

Equally conveniently, Lord Denning's Report remains secret.

It is rumoured, but cannot be confirmed, that the reason that the Denning Report remains secret relates to sexual indiscretions relating to Buckingham Polace.

Surely a senior member of the judiciary, such as Lord Denning, wouldn't act to cover-up questionable  sexual activities by prominent, indeed possibly regal, figures?

Or perhaps he would. And perhaps he did.