Judicial Tsunami.
A megawave of tsunami proportions is slowly backing up and preparing to wash over the judicial system. Today there are a scant couple of regional journalists standing on what used to be the shore line, scanning the horizon and wondering what it all means.
Sarfraz Ibrahim is the name on the apparently insignificant eruption in downtown South Wales that was the catalyst for the wave. It may mean nothing now, but it will in time.
Let me explain.
It used to be that a common sense figure of invariably statuesque proportions known as the âcustody officerâ in your local police station was in charge of ensuring that it was right and proper that you take up time in your local court and receive justice for your misdemeanours.
Then the government in its wisdom, decided that they would employ lawyers in offices far removed from the scene of the crime to decide whether it was in the âpublic interestâ for miscreants to be prosecuted. The perception has often been that âpublic interestâ meant âhave we a better than 50% chance of winning this oneâ or âis it worth wasting public funds on prosecuting that oneâ. Some of their decisions, notably when they have decided ânot to prosecuteâ, have been inexplicable to the man in the street.
No longer, thanks to Mr Ibrahim.
In the long hot summer of 2008, two undercover policemen from the serious crimes squad were tailing a man they suspected of being a senior Cocaine baron, when he pulled into a service station on the M4 in Swansea and met two men they couldnât identify.
Some indication of the level of drug trade infiltration they may have been involved in, though I have no confirmation that this is accurate, is the news released overnight of a cocaine related âsuccessâ which commenced during those hot nights in the Swansea summer. Ten men are due to be sentenced at Cardiff for their part in cocaine dealing which stretched from Australia, via Panama, through Kent to Swansea. SOCA officers trailed many of the Swansea drug barons for weeks. If this is not the same case in which Mr Ibrahim featured then Iâm a Dutchman.
Anyway, back to our Swansea service station. Our undercover officers could not identify the two men that their trailed drug baron met, so enlisted the help of local officers. The answer stunned them.
One of the two men was Sarfraz Ibrahim, who just happened to be the head of the serious trials unit in Gwent Crown Prosecution Service. The other was a close friend of his, a property developer, one Saifur Khan, âalso of this parishâ.
Our undercover officers were unable to hear the conversation, nor did they see any evidence of money changing hands, so for the purpose of this article we must assume that Mr Ibrahim was completely unaware that the man he was meeting was a major drug baron, and that the three of them had chosen the salubrious surroundings of the back of the maintenance depot at Swansea Services to discuss the weather and the latest cricket score, as he is fully entitled to in our free society.
The SOCA undercover officers were of a less charitable nature. Realising that they had been risking their lives and their health for some months in order to trail some dangerous members of an organised crime syndicate to produce evidence with which to persuade â huh! Mr Ibrahim, who gave every indication that he was at the least a good âsocial acquaintanceâ of their target, they set up a sting operation.
They inserted another undercover officer, known only as âNic Bakerâ into the less than salubrious surroundings of one of the rickety bed-sits rented out by Ibrahimâs colleague, Khan. After a few weeks, this undercover officer âcommitted a crimeâ âfor which he was duly arrested by the local police, charged and witness statements sent to the Crown Prosecution Service for perusal by Mr Ibrahim.
Meanwhile, back at the bed-sit, Mr Baker told his landlord, Mr Khan that he was desperate not to be prosecuted, he would lose his job. No problem, said Mr Khan, my friend Mr Ibrahim will sort you out. Thatâll be £20,000 to you.
Baker handed over the £20,000. Ibrahim duly scrawled âno case to answerâ over the papers on his desk and that should have been that.
It would have been, had Baker been a criminal. Since he was a SOCA officer, every step of this incident had been filmed.
On Monday, Ibrahim, 51, of Cardiff, admitted corruption, attempting to pervert the course of justice and misconduct in public office, between May and August last year. There was a reporting restriction until last night. The charges only relate to the police âstingâ operation. You can see where this is going.
Every case where Ibrahim has recommended âno case to answerâ will be under review. Police Officers who sweated for months to bring evidence to him only to be told that it wasnât âin the public interestâ to prosecute will be demoralised and despondent, not sure whether their work was faulty or whether this was not the first time Ibrahim had taken a bribe to drop charges. Defendants in past cases will be demanding a retrial claiming that they only made statements admitting some charges after making payments to Ibrahim â or other CPS head of trials units.
It was an inevitable ending for a system whereby anonymous legal bods in high rise offices far removed from the crime ridden streets effectively judged whether our courts should even be allowed to hear a case.
Ibrahim was caught by chance, how many other Ibrahimâs lurk in the CPS offices?
There are unsubstantiated rumours that Ibrahim was âone million in debtâ. How does a humble lawyer come to be one million in debt, if true? It is an inevitable result of a society where it is not just food and water that are considered essential, but a £2,000 handbag for the wife, an expensive home in the right street, membership of an exclusive golf club or spaâ¦..if you canât afford it you put it on your credit card or steal the money to pay for it â or accept bribes. The television repeatedly extols the virtue of the government scheme for you to go bankrupt and only repay âwhat you can affordâ, but only âif you owe more than £15,000â.
Do I believe that is the only case in which Ibrahim took a bribe? About as much as I believe that Ibrahim is the only crooked lawyer in the CPS. No proof, but on the balance of probabilitiesâ¦â¦
Still, no need for him to worry about bending over in the showers, I reckon he has more to fear from the cups of tea smiling policemen will be pressing on him as he waits to hear his sentence. I wouldnât drink them if I was him.
Anna Raccoon
July 15, 2010 at 18:28
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There is another danger â a significant one â that Defendants will claim
that he only prosecuted them because they did not pay a bribe and that the
cases against them were not in the public interest and/or otherwise interfered
with.
July 2, 2010 at 03:21
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Twas ever thusâ¦
Matey got caught⦠were he a member of the correct club (unlikely for ethnic
reasonsâ¦) one does have to wonder if this would ever have been pursued in this
way.
I donât believe it can be denied that there have been some breathtakingly
perverse judgements handed down (in favour of the defendant) even after cases
have reached a higher court.
I donât believe in a racial or ethnic predisposition to corruption but the
operation of PC tokenism and sacred cowedness in relation to folk of different
origins cannot help matters.
The problem is deeper, far deeper â and that is why there is no appetite
for pulling on the thread that might unravel something on a grander scale.
Look back to Operation Countryman at The Met.
The people involved in our legal system are human and inevitably amongst
the honest folk, there are the corrupt, the venal and the mindcrushingly
stupid. We are led to believe itâs a meritocracy where non-performers are
culled. The evidence points to it being something entirely different.
June 30, 2010 at 20:51
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As a practicing lawyer â albeit non criminal I could add some very
pertinent comments to this. But I canât . I think I might get in very hot
water!
Least said, soonest mended! Or a society cowed?
Gildas the
Monk
June 30, 2010 at 13:19
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There appears to be a link between the all-pervasive Common Purpose and â
how can I put it? â active malefactors. Methinks this is no exception. But for
every one which gets uncovered, how manyâ¦.
June 30, 2010 at 12:46
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This story (for which thanks to you) merits enormous publicity and a
television investigation asking how this corrupt sod got to such a position.
Why are these bloody lawyers not subject to an âauditâ. Brilliant police work.
Just looking at that fat bastard makes my blood boil.
June 30, 2010 at 12:45
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â¦and so another perfectly good system is sacrificed on NuLieBoreâs altar of
centralised, socialist control. As with so many things mauled by their dirty
paws it was âimprovedâ to the point of uselessness.
Unfortunately for all of us, despite all the talk, I dont see much
indication of DemTories âlocalismâ agenda sweeping away this remote,
impersonal, inefficient drivel and pushing power back down to where it
belongs.
June 30,
2010 at 11:28
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No proof, but on the balance of probabilities
June 30, 2010 at 11:02
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What JuliaM said. The CPS is hideously PC, to the extent that the skills
and character of an applicant seem irrelevant compared to their ability to fit
tick-box criteria. Evidence:
Can I read the Core Quality Standards in other languages?
* Arabic Core Quality Standards PDF
* Bengali Core Quality Standards
PDF
* Chinese Traditional Core Quality Standards PDF
* French Core
Quality Standards PDF
* Gujarati Core Quality Standards PDF
* Polish
Core Quality Standards PDF
* Punjabi Core Quality Standards PDF
* Somali
Core Quality Standards PDF
* Tamil Core Quality Standards PDF
* Urdu
Core Quality Standards PDF
* Welsh Core Quality Standards PDF
Aside from Welsh, for which there is an arguable cultural reason, none of
the others should even be in existence. Not one penny piece should have been
spent on them; it should all have gone on the process of prosecution.
June 30, 2010 at 12:27
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âNot one penny piece should have been spent on them; it should all have
gone on the process of prosecution.â
Excellent point WoaR
June
30, 2010 at 10:46
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Strange how the BBC tucked this story away so as not scare the horses.
June 30, 2010 at 10:01
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A very thorough piece. I cannot fathom why story is taking such a low
profile. Bent coppers get splashed across pages and telescreens yet Mr Ibrahim
is of an even higher status as far as law and order goes.
Perhaps people of Ibrahimâs character are partly why the Police seem to
concentrate their resources on easy clear-ups â to reduce the wiggle room of
the CPS.
âThere are unsubstantiated rumours that Ibrahim was
June 30,
2010 at 09:50
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I am forced to wonder, noting the same peculiarity of this case as Fred, if
this chap owed his position â indeed, his very job â to the wretched
âdiversityâ quotas forced on every public sector department..?
June 30, 2010 at 09:13
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This Ibrahim bloke looks foreign to me.
Probably comes from some place where corruption like this is normal.
June 30, 2010 at 11:40
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Iâd love to reply to your post, but I darenât because I donât want to get
done for Rascism.
June 30, 2010 at 19:17
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Westminster?
June 30, 2010 at 19:26
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Heâs most likely British born considering his age and that he married in
1978 in Newport. So heâs been in Britain a long time.
His cultural background is a different thing. Here he could have been
brought up to believe family and tribal connections mean more than the
letter of the law.
However the cultural background probably has nothing to do with his
crime. People of all races, creeds, and persuasions can and do commit such
types of crimes.
June 30, 2010 at 08:51
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This story was mentioned in passing in the BBC headlines on the day of the
verdict, and has since been buried under a mountain of football and tennis.
Bread and circuses for the masses, while the polis succumbs to decay,
debauchery and corruption.
Meanwhile the public face of the debate is over reduced police numbers on
the beat. But whatâs the point of that? Every one of us could be a police
officer and crime would still flourish if the cancer of Ibrahim and his ilk is
not excised.
June 30, 2010 at 08:25
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âDefendants in past cases will be demanding a retrial claiming that they
only made statements admitting some charges after making payments to Ibrahim
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