Personal Data

In an earlier post we disclosed a previously redacted paragraph from the Met Police (Specialist Crime Unit) case assessment report – to which we had recently gained access care of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The report in question had been, as you can see from our post of 10 of May 2009, almost entirely redacted by the Met who claimed that: "the majority of information contained within the report has been redacted as it is exempt by virtue of Section 40(1)&(2) of the Act."

Section 40(1) of the Freedom of Information Act refers to the personal data of the subject data applicant, whereas Section 40(2) refers to the personal data of other people .[*]
Thus, the Met implied, over 80% of their assessment of the Gaul RFI consisted of biographic detail … (!?) although in their response to our FOI request for information regarding any witnesses/ parties questioned by detectives during their assessment process, the police indicated there were none.

The Met also advised that, should we wish to request the redacted information in respect of Section 40(1) (i.e. personal data about ourselves), which is contained in that report, we would have to complete a Subject Access Request (SAR) application.

We did complete two SAR forms and paid the associated fees. The response we got, however, was the release of another few lines from their case assessment report (these, except for our names, did not contain any other personal data, but only the allegations we had made about the shortcomings of the Gaul RFI).

The rest still remained concealed. That is a big chunk of the report – paragraphs 8 to 18 – remained redacted, purportedly, under the provisions of Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, which relates to third parties’ personal data.

Now, if we take another look at the redacted report, we can see that paragraph 19 states that the case officer "reviewed the materials described at paragraphs 10 to 18" in order to assess the validity of our complaint about the undisclosed design faults of the Gaul. The materials should, therefore, have contained technical rather than personal information. For, anyway, what personal information could they have contained and about whom? Under the 1998 Data Protection Act (DPA), personal data is clearly defined as data about a living individual, who can be identified from those data.

It may be that the documents referred to in the police assessment report did, in effect, contain information relating to technical matters, but - based on the fact that those materials had an author who, by necessity, must have been a living person, and judging that any expressed opinions reveal the insights of a person’s mind - the Met may have gone as far as to conclude that disclosure of such insights were prone to lead to undue intimacy and breach, therefore, the author’s rights under the Data Protection Act.

Thus, the Met have conveniently missed the fact that personal data is information about a person, not information a originating from a person – otherwise, except that produced by non-human species, all information would be exempt.

Also, as we have already contended in our reply to the Met, a witness statement is not considered personal data under the provisions of the 1998 Data Protection Act, unless the witness himself is the focus of that information. Just because a document contains the name of a person does not mean that it is about that person.

All opinion has an author, but if the opinion is not about the author himself and his personal life, then that opinion should be able to be passed on. Besides, the Data Protection Act itself suggests the means by which information can be conveyed without revealing its source: i.e. the omission of names or other identity details.

Unfortunately, by choosing not to disclose the requested information, the Metropolitan Police have now left room for suspecting that the content of their case assessment report is either embarrassing or untrue.

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[*](1) Any information to which a request for information relates is exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject.

(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if-

(a) it constitutes personal data which do not fall within subsection (1), and

(b) either the first or the second condition below is satisfied. [etc]

The Met was not quite convinced by the Gaul RFI experts...

…but left it to us to investigate the fraud

In an earlier post, we gave details of the information received from the Metropolitan Police in response to our FOI request for the police report assessing our allegations that the conduct and the outcome of the Gaul inquiry (RFI) amounted to fraud.

As the published copy of the report shows, most of the information therein had been redacted so that nothing relevant could be seen.

Last month, however, following an intervention from the Information Commissioner, the Met have, reluctantly, released an extra paragraph - one authored presumably by a superior of the case assessment officer - which simply reads:

Please thank DC Boyce for his prompt and thorough assessment of this case.

DC Boyce seems to conclude that the Inquiry’s findings as to why various chutes were open are not necessarily correct [1] when considered against conflicting expert evidence. I agree that these issues are very subjective and I do not have sufficient knowledge of these matters to either agree or disagree with the Inquiry’s conclusions. However, I accept that the evidence to support a further criminal investigation is not made out.

It is quite something to get the police to admit, however reluctantly, that the conclusions of the Gaul inquiry were not necessarily correct (one does not need specialised knowledge to admit that - just a bit of common sense).

The evidence we had provided, both to the police as well as on this blog, should have been more than enough to trigger a criminal investigation. It would have been very easy for the Met detectives to contact the few witnesses we had suggested and thus extract further details about what went on behind the scenes prior and during the Gaul RFI.

Unfortunately, the Met must have decided that it was not their job to investigate and collect evidence, but ours.

As to the rest of the redactions in the case assessment report, both the Met and the Information Commissioner’s Office suggested that a Subject Access Data Request [2](SAR) might shed some light upon those black lines, which we, accordingly, submitted. But that is another story…

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[1] The bold emphasis belongs to us.

[2] We also requested the Met to release, for a small fee, any personal data about us that was contained within the report in question.

Openness

We have published below a copy of an internal DOT document, dated 16th February 1977, which suggests that, at the time it was written, government officials in the Department for Transport (DOT) were actively suppressing the results of the TRIDENT/GAUL model experiments.

As we have shown in an earlier post, the Gaul had inadequate stability for her intended service - a fact which was never disclosed during the 2004 formal investigation.

The combined effects of the Gaul’s stability shortfalls and duff and offal chute design faults

The principal finding of the 2004 Re-opened Formal Investigation (RFI) into the loss of the Gaul was that flooding of the factory space had occurred through two hull openings in the side of the vessel and that it was probable that this ingress of water led to the capsize and sinking of the Gaul.

Up until December of last year this blog focussed on a number of obvious design faults and flaws in the construction of the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul, and criticised the conduct and outcome of the 2004 RFI which, ignoring these facts had concluded that the flooding and loss of the vessel had been caused by the crew’s failure to close the inner covers of the duff and offal chute hull openings. Recently, however, we have added a summary of the results of a separate investigation, which has revealed significant stability shortfalls (on IMCO’s minimum stability standards [*]) that would have affected the Gaul in a number of her normal operating conditions.

As far the capsize and loss of the vessel is concerned, it should be noted that, while the stability shortfalls and flooding of the factory space through the duff and offal hull openings (facilitated by defective closing arrangements) are two different matters, they do not suggest differing causes for the loss of the Gaul; in fact, the impact of each is complementary to the chain of events which led to the loss of the vessel.

The stability reserves of a trawler may be regarded as a finite but variable quantity, dependent upon the vessel’s condition of loading, disposition of fuel, water etc. If seawater is allowed to flood into the hull, the stability of that trawler is reduced and the possibility of capsizes rises.

The 2004 RFI concluded that an ingress of about 100 tonnes of seawater (entering through her duff and offal chute openings) would have been necessary before the Gaul’s stability reserves would have been depleted to a level where capsize was probable in the weather the vessel encountered.
Our investigation has shown that, because the Gaul’s actual stability reserves were initially much lower than those assumed by the RFI, capsize would have been probable after only a modest ingress of seawater.

However, regardless of the design faults in the chutes’ closing arrangements, the Gaul’s stability problems and their combined effect on the safety of the vessel, the 2004 RFI was still content to attribute her loss to a failure on the part of the crew to close and secure the duff and offal lids during the storm they encountered on 8 February 1974.
Their conclusion, however, appears now extremely far-fetched.

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[*] One of the most important safety standards for a sea-going trawler is that it should meet the IMCO minimum stability criteria, however:
- Compliance with the IMCO minimum stability standard does not guarantee that a trawler will be safe from capsize in severe weather
- A trawler having stability reserves that significantly exceed the IMCO minimum standard is unlikely to capsize in severe weather
- Non-compliance with the IMCO minimum stability standard does not automatically mean that a trawler is likely to capsize in severe weather
- A trawler having stability reserves that fall significantly below the IMCO minimum standard is likely to capsize in severe weather.

The Stability of the Trawler Gaul (part 2)

36 years have passed since the trawler Gaul sank in the Barents Sea on the 8th of February 1974 and 5 years since the Re-opened Formal Investigation into its loss laid the blame for the tragedy with her crew. Today, by way of remembrance, we are going to reveal a few more facts about the stability of the trawler Gaul.

On 5 December 1972 the Department of Trade (DOT) finally completed their examination of the stability of the Ranger Castor (renamed Gaul in 1973) and issued their official stability certificate:

This document was meant to attest that the Gaul’s reserves of stability in her foreseeable sailing conditions had been examined by the DOT and found to satisfy IMCO’s minimum stability standards.

Unfortunately, the stability documentation that had been examined by the DOT prior to their certification of the Gaul contained a number of basic errors and, what is more, it did not reflect the fact that two of Gaul’s seawater ballast tanks had been converted to carry fuel oil. The effects of this conversion were, however, significant for the vessel’s stability because they meant that she could no longer meet the IMCO’s minimum stability standards in all of her operating conditions.

The Original Formal Investigation (OFI) September - October 1974

In the original formal investigation, the Builders, the Owners and the DOT were all able to draw upon the testimony of their expert witnesses who were well versed in ship stability matters; unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the relatives of the deceased who, instead, had to rely upon the integrity of the Court.

The loss of the Gaul, obviously, raised a number of questions concerning the safety of her remaining sister vessels, and, therefore, a part of the 1974 OFI was spent in considering the safety of the Ranger C class vessels [1] as a whole.

The effect of the ballast tank conversion on the stability of the Ranger vessels was examined in some depth, leading to the agreed view [2] that, even if these vessels sailed with fuel oil (instead of water ballast) in their no 2 Double Bottom tanks, the IMCO minimum stability criteria would still be met provided operational measures (i.e. where the ships’ staff were instructed on the sequence of fuel tank usage) were implemented, and that these would be sufficient to ensure the safety of the remaining vessels.

An extract from the transcripts of evidence for Day 12 OFI:

(Mr Ward represented the Gaul’s builders - Brooke Marine and Mr Gilfillan was an independent consultant Naval Architect who had been engaged by the Gaul’s owners to examine the safety of their Ranger Class vessels.
In the above transcript they were discussing the content of a letter concerning fuel tank usage that had been sent by the owners, shortly after the Gaul was lost, to the skipper of the Kelt, a sister vessel to the Gaul.)

This operational measure (i.e. that the No.2 double bottom tank was to be used only when the ship was fully laden or on her homeward passage) was introduced prior to the completion of Mr Gilfillan’s detailed research into the safety of the Ranger vessels, in which he would draw a different conclusion: namely that - in order to improve their operational stability following the conversion of their no 2 DB tanks for fuel oil - between 20 and 50 tons of permanent ballast should be provided onboard the Gaul’s remaining sister vessels.

Extract from transcripts of evidence Day 11 OFI - 8th October 1974

The lie

In the above extract from the OFI transcripts, it can be seen that the DOT’s counsel (Mr Brice) is asking the witness patently leading questions, suggesting to him that operational procedures would be sufficient to ensure compliance with IMCO stability standards, and also that such procedures were, perhaps, preferable to the provision of 20-50 tones of permanent ballast.

With regard to stability following the conversion of no 2 DB tank for carriage of fuel oil, the shipyard’s hand calculations [3] of 1974 can be readily replicated, and these clearly show that the IMCO stability criteria would not have been met in all of the Gaul’s normal operating conditions, regardless of any diligent skipper’s desire to ensure ‘proper distribution and use of fuel’ and the ‘proper operation of the ship’, as Mr Brice puts it.

Such calculations show that not only was the OFI proposition, that operational measures would suffice, incorrect, but it was also a lie. In carrying out their detailed analyses of the Gaul’s stability reserves, the owners, the builders and the DOT would all have been well aware of the fact that it was not possible for the vessel (as modified) to meet the IMCO minimum stability criteria for the ‘arrival in port’ condition and the seagoing conditions that preceded it.

In fact Mr Gilfillan admits this in paragraph 3 above, but Mr Brice quickly brushes over this fact by suggesting that a lack of adequate stability would only arise if the vessel were “improperly operated”.

(Note: Mr Brice’s rejoinder to Mr Gilfillan’s advice: “but not in all conditions” should have been to seek clarification regarding those conditions in which the vessel did not meet IMCO minimum stability criteria.)

Additionally, the appropriate viewpoint [4] for the DOT, in terms of trawler safety, should have been that an operational solution (which would still retain the inherent risk of human error) for a stability shortfall would always be inferior to a permanent solution that restored a ship’s stability to its desired condition.
The provision of permanent ballast onboard the Gaul’s sisters would have been a permanent solution, and one that would not have affected the vessels’ ability to catch fish or the quantity of catch (470 tons) that they could carry.

The Re-opened Formal Investigation 2004 (RFI)

During the 2004 RFI, the cover-up that had its origins in the 1974 OFI was duly consolidated, orchestrated by the DfT who were familiar with the Gaul case and the issue of her questionable stability.

Additionally, a new cover-up was put in place, one that would also conceal the obvious design faults in the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul and put the cause for her loss down to ‘crew and operator error’.

The cover-up continues to this day.

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[1] Ranger Cadmus, Ranger Calliope, Ranger Callisto and Ranger Castor (Gaul)

[2] Consensus between the DOT, the Owners and the Builders. It should be noted that all three parties had an interest in obtaining a favourable outcome from the formal investigation, as all could be open to criticism:
- The DOT, who only carried out a superficial document review prior to erroneously certifying the Gaul’s stability in 1972
- The builders, who had produced the Gaul’s stability documentation which contained errors and which over-estimated the Gaul’s stability reserves
- The Owners who had operated the vessel outwith the scope of Gaul’s official stability documentation.

[3] Manual integration of statical stability curves using Simpson’s rules. Calculations have also been carried out using modern ship stability software (with free trim capabilities and automatic free surface correction for tanks) and these show that (after correction for shipyard errors) whenever fishing was poor, the vessel would have had to leave the fishing grounds at a point when approximately 50% of their fuel had been used, to enable them to arrive back in port with more than 100 tons of fuel remaining onboard (this residual weight of fuel was necessary to enable the vessel to meet the IMCO stability criteria on the return voyage). In brief, the conversion of the number 2 Double bottom water ballast tanks for the carriage of fuel oil did not actually extend the operational range of the vessels, it merely substituted fuel oil for seawater, which still had to remain onboard the vessel as ‘ballast’ if minimum stability standards were to be met.

[4] The DOT’s unusual views regarding the provision of ballast become more explicable if we consider that, had permanent ballast been proposed for the Gaul’s sister vessels following the Formal Investigation, then this would have indicated that there had been a fundamental flaw with the Gaul’s stability. Whereas, if safety improvements were required that were of an operational nature only, then it could be argued that the effects of the fuel tank conversion had not been really significant and that the Gaul’s intact stability had been basically satisfactory and that, therefore, the DOT’s certification of the Gaul’s stability documentation in 1972 had not been incorrect.

The stability of the trawler Gaul

To bring in the New Year with a bang, we would like to announce the outcome of an independent, critical and detailed investigation into the operational stability reserves of the freezer trawler Gaul. The results of this investigation reveal that, contrary to the many official pronouncements that were made on this matter (in 1974, 1980, 1999 and 2004), the Gaul’s reserves of intact stability did not in fact meet the minimum standards and norms that were expected for a fishing vessel built in the early 1970s (ref. IMCO “Recommendation on Intact Stability of Fishing Vessels” 1968).

An extract from the final report of the Formal Investigation into the loss of the Gaul (1974) gives the first pronouncement on this matter:

When the stern-trawler Gaul and her crew left Hull at 6 AM on the morning of 22 January 1974 for the Barents Sea fishing grounds, they were not putting to sea in an “exceptionally seaworthy vessel” nor in one that “had excellent sea-keeping characteristics and a large range of intact stability” [1] as the hyperbole in the 1999 MAIB report into the loss of the Gaul would have us believe, instead they were setting out for a destination notorious for poor weather, in a ship, which did not meet the IMCO basic stability standards [2] in the sailing conditions that were normal for her service.

What made things worse, however, was the fact that due to a number of oversights and design errors, the official stability documentation that was provided onboard the Gaul for the use of the Skipper (although certified by the Department of Trade) over-estimated the vessel’s reserves of intact stability to such an extent that anyone using it would not have been able to identify when the vessel was approaching any marginal or critical stability conditions.

Added to that, and most important of all, was the fact that, shortly after her delivery, the Gaul’s owners converted two of her double bottom tanks to enable them to carry fuel oil instead of ballast water (ballast water was required on the Gaul to ensure that the vessel could maintain adequate stability in all anticipated sailing conditions), but the stability documents were not revised to take account of this significant modification.

The effects of this alteration could only be described as disastrous from the viewpoint of the Gaul’s ability to meet the IMCO stability standards (see example in Annex 1) and, in fact, on the day of her loss it is probable that, unbeknownst to her skipper, she was sailing in a marginal or deficient stability condition [3].

In 2004, the officials charged with conducting the Re-opened Formal Investigation into the loss of the Gaul managed to convince themselves, but not many others, that factory deck flooding, resulting from crew error was the reason why the Gaul had capsized and foundered.
Design faults, which could lead to such flooding, and the fact that the Gaul had inadequate stability for her proposed service were two critical issues that were kept strictly off the agenda.

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[1] MAIB - the Marine Accident Investigation Branch of the DfT

[2] The IMCO stability criteria have been recognized for more than forty years now as being the minimum base stability standard that should be met by seagoing trawlers to ensure safety at sea.

[3] From the viewpoint of stability assessment, the exact condition of the Gaul at the time of her loss cannot be accurately gauged and minor differences in assumptions made as to the amount of fish and gear onboard, fuel consumption, tank usage etc could take the vessel from a marginal ‘pass’ to a significant ‘fail’ (vis-à-vis the IMCO minimum standard).

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The table above shows that the vessel fails to meet four of the IMCO’s six minimum stability criteria (i.e. the GZ areas and the initial GM value) in the given sailing condition and that the failure is neither marginal nor borderline, but a failure by a substantial margin (see differences between minimum stability criteria and the actual values). (Downloadable PDF version at http://freepdfhosting.com/7ecaf3651a.pdf)

Legislative priorities

One of the main reasons for carrying out a Formal Investigation into a shipping disaster is to determine its causes so that safety lessons can be learned and action taken to prevent similar tragedies re-occurring. Following the Gaul and Derbyshire inquiries we have found out, however, that this is not really the case: the protection of the financial interests of a few political and corporate operators have primacy over all other considerations, including safety.

In the run up to the 2004 Gaul and 2000 Derbyshire formal investigations, and subsequently, a lot of public money was spent and a lot of work was carried out in order to determine the causes of these two maritime disasters and to propose new measures that would improve safety. The causes for the tragedies were well obscured and, as for the safety measures recommended during those two inquiries, when it came to the final stage - the implementation or concrete action stage – matters, somehow, fizzled out.

Trawler Gaul lost in 1974 with all 36 crew

It is doubtful whether the four safety recommendations that came out of the Gaul 2004 Re-opened Formal Investigation (RFI) will ever come into effect. They had not been implemented in January 2007 when we first raised this matter [link] and they have not been implemented since.

The fact that the four safety recommendations, put forward by Justice Steel (the Wreck Commissioner in the Gaul RFI), are based upon false premises, are inappropriate and will therefore not be effective in preventing future loss of life, may be one of the reasons why the Government prefers them to be shelved and quietly forgotten.

OBO MV Derbyshire lost in 1980 with all 44 persons onboard

The Formal Investigation into the loss of the MV Derbyshire concluded in 2000 and its final report was published on 8 November of that year. The principal finding and recommendation to come out from the Derbyshire RFI was that the regulations for hatch cover strength were seriously deficient and that the International Convention on Load Lines (1966) needed to be amended urgently to rectify this shortfall.

The regulations of the Load Line Convention were thus redrafted at IMO to include requirements for specially strengthened hatch covers to be fitted to the forward cargo holds of all new cargo ships (not only bulk carriers). The new amendments were finalised at IMO [*] in 2002 and came into force Internationally in 2005.

However, they did not legally come into force for UK flagged vessels at the same time because the UK’s own Merchant Shipping legislation had not been amended to give legal force to the new Load Line Convention requirements for hatch covers. Today, the legislation still has not been revised.

The relevant UK rules are contained in Statutory Instrument (SI) 1998 No. 2241: The Merchant Shipping (Load Line) Regulations 1998.

There is no reason why these rules could not have been amended in a timely manner; in fact, the UK Load Line regulations were recently modified by Statutory Instrument (SI) 2005 No. 2114, so as to implement the following changes:

“……… in the definition of "pleasure vessel" or "pleasure craft", as the case may be, for each reference to "husband or wife" substitute "spouse or civil partner".

Now, that was extremely important - and also revealing of our government’s legislative priorities as regards Maritime safety.

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[*] International Maritime Organisation

Safety and Profitability

On the 18th of February 1974, in an interview with ITN News, David Shenton, the National Fisheries Officer for the Transport and General Workers Union, said that lack of evidence [1] about what had happened to the Hull trawler Gaul on the day it disappeared could cost the families of her 36 crewmen as much as £312,000 each [2] .

His statement [3], made just 10 days after the loss of the vessel, managed to crystallise, in a few words, the crux of the matter, which, for the next 35 years, would deny the general public the facts behind the vessel’s loss, and the families of the crew the right to know what happened to their loved ones.

It is now evident that it was not a submarine, a cold war spy-ship encounter, official secrets or hijack and capture by the Russians that had prevented the truth about this tragedy from emerging (these were just convenient ‘red herrings’ made up for the excitement of the public); it was money - purely and simply - and the British Establishment’s unwillingness to pay what amounted to a considerable sum, even though this was proper, fair and legally due to the victims’ families.

The reluctance of both governments and private companies to pay legal damages to injured parties is well-known, and has a long and colourful history in the maritime business world; what is particularly sickening, however, in the Gaul and other recent cases is the shoddiness of the tactics employed to circumvent the law: the cynical setbacks, the unnecessary delays, the long and costly legal battles, the blatant lies and, despite the recent disclosures, the persistent suppression of the truth, all of which go far beyond reasonable prudence and concern for the interests of shareholders and taxpayers.

But what is, perhaps, even more disturbing is the ease, the audacity and the extent to which the ‘cartel’ of politicians, businesses, insurers, civil servants, law firms and the judiciary are nowadays prepared to collude in order to prevent the payment of lawful compensation to those who have suffered such terrible losses.

In the Gaul case, this collusion led to a dubious but costly public inquiry, which, contrary to the available evidence, laid the blame for the tragedy with the crew.

A decade ago, in the debate about the limitation of liability for the maritime industry, justice David Steel placed himself firmly on the side of the shipping and insurance industries, whose financial interests he considered more important than fair compensation to claimants for damages caused by shipping mishaps.

The same justice Steel was then appointed to chair the 2004 Re-opened Formal Investigation into the sinking of the Gaul, which, surprisingly, found no fault with the vessel and, therefore, no grounds for subsequent compensation claims by the victims’ families.

Of course, a fine balance between safety and profitability has to be struck, no one wants the shipping or the insurance industries to go bust, but “at no time should any innocent party be expected to subsidize any business by their personal loss”, [4] nor should a formal legal process to be turned into a farce.

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[1] Simply put, as long as there was no firm evidence concerning the loss of the Gaul, liability could not be established and there could be no compensation for the dependents.

[2] About £3.5million in present day worth

[3] Unfortunately the families were soon to lose their champion as Mr Shenton passed away shortly thereafter. Mr James Johnson paid the following tribute to Mr Shenton in the House of Commons on 5 April 1976: “The late David Shenton, National Fisheries Officer for the Transport and General Workers' Union—whose untimely death is a great loss to the industry—did a great deal for the fishermen in Hull.”

[4] Serge Killingbeck, SCU Law Review Volume 3 November 1999

Our brave Police force

After 5 months of delays and prevarication, the Metropolitan Police felt finally able to release a copy of the document requested by us under the provisions of the FOI Act.

And this is how the released copy looks like:

The Met’s contention that obliterating most of the text in their ‘investigation report’ was necessary in order to protect ‘personal data’ is so absurd and so blatantly insincere that makes you wonder whether their response was meant to be, in fact, some sort of joke or mockery.

Anyhow, we took them seriously and sent another request, disproving their arguments and urging them to reconsider...

... although we have serious doubts as to their willingness and ability to serve the public interest in this matter.

Can the people of this country still trust the police force to offer them any protection against the criminal ‘elite’, or have the police, nowadays, been turned into a different species - something between the rogue army of a failed state and the timorous functionaries of a conquered nation?

Contrived ignorance

Our previous post revealed that, according to the Department for Transport, the only advice received by Mr Jim Fitzpatrick, the Transport Minister, in response to our complaint about the Gaul RFI, was the draft of his letter to the Shadow Transport Minister, as jotted down by some unnamed DfT officials.

Forgetting the candid Mr Fitzpatrick for a moment, we turn our attention again towards Mr Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Transport, for it is Mr Hoon himself who is obliged under the provisions of the 1995 Merchant Shipping Act to order a re-hearing of the Gaul RFI, if it “appears” to him that there are “grounds for suspecting that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred”.

In his recent statement (see HERE) the Secretary of State for Transport asserted that there were “no grounds for suspecting that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred” during the Gaul RFI, although - as his own Department currently maintains - the grounds put forward by us have never been properly examined.
In fact, Mr Hoon made sure that no adequate technical counsel was obtained, lest the ‘grounds for suspecting a miscarriage of justice’ would become too ‘apparent’ to him, obliging him to re-open the case. (That is assuming he didn’t know the truth already.)
His contrived ignorance of the matter may also be seen as a precautionary measure taken with a view to escaping future liability: if ever brought to account, Mr Hoon must have reckoned, he would be able to claim lack of knowledge about the technical basis of our arguments.

Thus, like the drug courier who refrains from looking in his suitcase, Mr Hoon has avoided asking for expert advice, shielding his eyes from any unwanted knowledge.
As a lawyer, however, Mr Hoon can be no ingénue in such legal matters and should be aware that this is not how things work in the normal world. Courts are known to have decreed many times in the past that the ignorance-pleading smuggler should have known, and they may likewise, one day, decide that Mr Hoon should have asked.

(Related POST)

Draft advice

The latest answer from the Department for Transport to one of our FOI requests contains an attractive twist.

Our initial query concerned the source of the technical advice given to the Transport Minister, Mr Jim Fitzpatrick, in response to our criticisms of the Gaul RFI.

In response, the DfT informs us that the exclusive source of that ‘advice’, which Mr Fitzpatrick claimed to have received in his letter to the Shadow Minister for Transport, was nothing else but the very draft of that letter – i.e. the one in which he declared himself advised…?!

Génial!! The DfT reply may not be very informative, but, one must admit, it has a notable artistic value.

The common practice, as far as I am aware, given that there are no marine specialists within the Department itself, is to seek technical counsel from one of the DfT’s agencies: i.e. the MCA [1] or the MAIB [2]. The DfT, however, informs us that “no request for additional information was made by the Minister”.
So which officials within the DfT assessed the technical evidence we had provided?

Are we to assume that, perhaps, the Shadow Minister for Transport was corresponding, in fact, with one of Mr Fitzpatrick’s typists?
Is it not more likely that, as it nowadays happens, the Minister outlined his politics-driven decision and then asked the DfT civil servants to draft his response along those lines? Common sense and experience tell us that no official would make ministerial decisions in his place – especially when the issues at stake are both complex and sensitive.

Whatever the case, the statement in Mr Fitzpatrick’s letter: “I am advised that there is no reason to re-open the investigation” now looks as though it had been intended to mislead his Opposition counter-part into assuming that, maybe, a great assembly of experts and scholars had been drawn in to review and offer advice on our criticism of the Gaul RFI.

Put together in one piece, all the correspondence received so far from the DfT looks like a Möbius strip: however attentively you follow it, you will always end up on the opposite side without crossing any boundary – a loop that takes you without interruption from back to front and front to back, without giving you any sign or orientation.

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[1] Martime and Coastguard Agency

[2] Marine Accident Investigation Branch

Delaying tactics

To our request for information, dated 22 October 2008, the Department for Transport is still struggling to provide a coherent reply. They have now postponed the conclusion of their second internal review on this FOI matter until the 27th of February 2009 (LINK). Four months for a simple question…!

No more forthcoming, the Metropolitan Police, have initially put off their response to our complaint until the 18th of February. “We hope to complete our internal review no later than 18 February 2009. Should there be any unforeseen delay we will contact you and update you as soon as possible”, only to advise us on the 19th of February that, due to unforeseen circumstances, they had been unable to meet the response time and that “We hope to complete our internal review no later than 27 February 2009. Should there be any unforeseen delay we will contact you and update you as soon as possible” (LINK). And so we are going on and on…

No matter that the Information Commissioner’s guidance to the FOI Act states clearly that “a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20 working days from the date of the request for review” and that “in no case should the total time taken exceed 40 working days”, the Met have their own rhythm.

Cunning strategy, one might suspect: these cautious delaying tactics would give them more time for fixing ‘a few little things’ and limiting the embarrassment.

Somehow, I feel sorry for our humble public servants. In the quicksands of today’s politics, power struggles and uncertainty, they may find it difficult to decide when to stay still, when to jump, and which side of the fence to fall down on.

Besides, considering all the laws that our officials routinely defy nowadays, a breach of the FOI rules is a mere bagatelle.

***

UPDATE 1: On the 27th of February 2009, the Met sent us a surprise answer: "We hope to complete your review no later than 13 March 2009. Should there be any further delay, I will contact you and update you as soon as possible."

UPDATE 2: On the 13th of March the Met replied: "We hope to complete your review no later than 27 March 2009. This review is near completion and I will be in contact with you shortly to update you on the status of this case. Should there be any further delay, I will contact you and update you as soon as possible. "

UPDATE 3: And on the 27th of March the answer was: "We hope to complete your review no later than 17 April 2009. Should there be any unforeseen delay, I will contact you and update you as soon as possible."

UPDATE 4: On the 17th of April the Met duly informed us: "We hope to complete your review no later than 1 May 2009. Should there be any unforeseen delay, I will contact you and update you as soon as possible."

Judge in his own cause

During the ill-famed Hutton inquiry, Geoff Hoon’s conduct was often described as “slippery” and “dishonest”. We couldn’t follow those events very closely, but we can relate how Mr Hoon, now Secretary of State for Transport, has conducted himself recently.

In a letter dated 17 December 2008 (see HERE), Mr Hoon made known his opposition towards a possible re-hearing of the Gaul Formal Inquiry.

In his elaborate message, the Transport Secretary sought to suggest that the evidence and analysis we had provided over the last three years was not of a quality and quantity that would undermine his confidence in the execution of the 2004 RFI. Consequently, with his confidence intact, Mr Hoon considered himself free from any obligation to have the results of the Gaul RFI re-examined.

Back in 2003, if I remember correctly, Mr Hoon didn’t used to be so demanding, and needed a lot less evidence to be able to claim, against the best experts’ advice, that two trailers found in Iraq were ‘mobile weapons laboratories’. That was a different kettle of fish, of course, but Mr Hoon’s variable stance towards evidence standards, somehow, undermines his credibility as trier of fact.

What intrigued us even more, however, was that, this time, Mr Hoon would reveal neither the source nor the substance of the technical advice that had underpinned his decision, offering us no other option than to take him at his word and rest assured that the hint of political embarrassment or scandal was not a factor in his weighty deliberations, deflecting him from his pursuit of the public good.

(We have, of course, replied to Mr Hoon’s letter, and our response can be read at this link or here.)

Sadly, what follows from the Transport Secretary’s position is that, whenever the results of a government-led public inquiry are contested, no matter how compelling the evidence adduced, it is solely up to the government to decide whether or not those results should be re-examined, and it is totally in the government’s power to cloak their decision-making from public view and independent scrutiny.

I wonder, on a large scale, what the consequences of this trend are going to be.

The Specialist Crime Unit

The New Labour Militsiya, formerly known as the Metropolitan Police, have been trying to spin their way around the institution’s publicly avowed commitment to openness and accountability.

Asked to provide information (see our FOI request HERE) about the manner in which they had dealt with our fraud and corruption allegations on the conduct and outcome of the 2004 Gaul RFI, they refused to do so, making the most of the exemption provisions in the FOI Act, and pettifogging about their grounds for absolute secrecy.

Amongst other things, they argued, disclosing the detectives’ assessment of the case and their justification for refusing to investigate our complaint could expose their “operational methodology and investigative techniques” to the general public and, potentially, to any crooks with an interest in foiling them.

Far from it being our intention to wreck the operational capability of the Met, we contend that our request was only aimed at confirming their ability to act as politically impartial public servants; we were not particularly interested in their investigative methods - which, frankly speaking, are already known to many of us, having recently read about them in the national press.

Therefore, availing ourselves, of the same FOI Act provisions and of the Information Commissioner’s interpretation thereof, we have sent the Met our reply (HERE) and insisted on a review.

The whole exchange of correspondence can be seen at:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/complaint_about_re_opened_formal

No records

When Moses received God’s commandments, he didn’t have any paper to write them down on. Still, he dutifully carved them onto clay tablets, which he carried all the way down the mountain to show his people the proof.

More than three millennia down the line, the UK Department for Transport, inexplicably, are not even able to store the instructions received from their earthly superiors, and the reasons behind some of their most important decisions are not kept in any decipherable form.

As already mentioned in a previous post, in response to our FOI request of 4 July 2008, the DfT informed us that they held “no specific technical justification [of their decision not to re-hear the Gaul RFI] recorded in any form”. Within the same reply, the DfT also mentioned that their earlier decision “fully sets out the Secretary of State’s reasoning in relation to the re-opening of the investigation”.

Unaware of what that reasoning was, we have formally asked them, via another FOI request (dated 11 September 2008), to provide us with a full account of the reasoning behind the Secretary of State’s decision not the re-open the Gaul Formal Investigation.
The DfT’s response to this latest enquiry, received on 13 October 2008, was astounding. It stated simply that “The department does not hold such an account in recorded form.”

Hmm! From the Department’s contradictory statements we are now left to surmise that either there was no analysis and justification behind their decision not to re-open the Gaul RFI, or that their reasoning has not been ‘set out’ and recorded on any physical media or legible format. It may, therefore, only exist in their heads – in the form of mental images, conceptions, impressions or phantasms. Or, perhaps, it only manifested itself via sensory representations, dispositions, moods or affections.

It is, of course, also possible that the DfT is not telling the truth. But, that would be terribly wicked and unbecoming.

Why no search for the Gaul?

Although the approximate position of the Gaul had been well known, both in official and unofficial circles, in the 23 years that preceded its discovery, successive governments were reluctant to survey the area in question, and to locate and identify the wreck.

It was only in 1997, when TV producer Norman Fenton chartered a vessel and launched a search in the Barents Sea, that the position and identity of the wreck could be confirmed. Finding the wreck took him no longer than six hours. His discovery triggered an obvious question: why had a search for the wreck not been carried out earlier, this would have put an end to much of the speculation and rumours that had surrounded the vessel’s loss and, more importantly, would have helped to ease the grief, frustration and anger felt by the families and friends of those who had perished with the Gaul.

The discovery of the wreck obliged the Government to answer this question; hence, in April 1999, the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, asked Mr Roger Clark, Head of Shipping Policy in the DETR, to conduct an ‘independent’ [1] investigation into why there had been no search for the Gaul after her disappearance in 1974.

Mr Clark applied himself to the task and, a year later, his findings were published in a 60 pages DETR report (see Annex 1).

In brief, the Government’s justification, presented within Mr Clark’s report, claimed that:
Initially we didn’t really know where the vessel was and it would have cost too much to find her and, even if we were to find the vessel, the expense of carrying out an underwater survey of the wreck could not be justified in terms of the benefits it would bring for marine safety.

John Prescott lauded Mr Clark’s conclusions and expressed his total confidence in their soundness and objectivity.

During the 2004 Re-opened Formal Investigation, in response to the victims’ families’ dissatisfaction with Mr Clarke’s explanations, justice David Steel, the Wreck Commissioner, re-examined the arguments, then endorsed, in his turn, Mr Clarke’s earlier conclusions (see the final report of the RFI [2]).

While the official reasoning may appear quite plausible, we have reasons to believe that, in fact, the Government had never been too keen to discover the location of the wreck, not on the grounds advocated by Roger Clarke, but for an entirely different reason: i.e. because a survey of the wreck and an analysis of the evidence that it revealed would have raised questions as to the adequacy of her design. The DfT’s marine experts, it now appears, had long suspected that the arrangement of the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul were a weakness in her design and that this weakness might have been a causal factor in her loss.

(Further details to follow)

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[1] As head of the DfT’s shipping policy section, Roger Clarke could hardly be considered independent of the government whose actions he was asked to investigate

[2] “We accept the Department’s submission that its actions were solely directed to balancing the interests of those immediately affected by the loss of the GAUL with the wider public interest and the resources available”

Objectivity Constrained

In their 30 year-long search for truth, the relatives of the trawlermen who lost their lives on the Gaul had to compete against a number of adversaries whose interests would not have been best served if the reasons for the tragedy had become known.

The victims’ relatives were not aware of the nature of the fight they were in, nor did they know the identities or the motives of their adversaries. All they knew was that they were not being given straightforward answers to their questions, and that the facts were somehow eluding them.

Although, in theory, meant to provide an explanation as to the most likely causes for the tragedy, the 2004 Gaul Formal Investigation, like a number of other public inquiries, became, in fact, nothing more than a case of ‘shadow commercial litigation,’ organised and controlled by the very parties whose interests would have been adversely affected by an impartial verdict. The Gaul RFI was therefore an unequal fight - dressed up as an expert and unbiased analysis - a fight the outcome of which was both pre-determined and inevitable.

Concerns have already been raised that, due to their legalistic and adversarial nature, many formal inquiries, instead of pursuing the truth, provide in fact a platform from which opposing parties, flanked by their legal representatives, can pursue their specific interests, and that, when the ‘adversaries’ are not evenly matched, it is usually the interests of the mightiest that prevail.

It is evident to us that improvements in respect of the rules by which formal inquiries are conducted are necessary and important.

However, above and beyond any rules and safeguards that may be applied, what is most important is the professionalism and personal integrity of the individuals involved - the principal guarantee that the results of an inquiry will be meaningful and sincere.

(More details to come)

The Secretary of State's justification

On the 4th of July, we lodged an FOI request with the Department for Transport, asking them to provide us with the reasons and technical arguments underpinning the Secretary of State’s earlier decision not to re-open the Gaul investigation on the basis of our disclosures.

(You can see the full exchange of correspondence at this link: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/evidence_
undermining_the_results)

The DfT eventually sent us their reply in which they stated that the Secretary of State’s decision “fully sets out the Secretary of State’s reasoning in relation to the re-opening of the investigation” and that the DfT held “no specific technical justification [of that decision] recorded in any form”

The Department’s statement, short though it is, is pregnant with implied meaning.

Thence we found out that our disclosures and technical arguments made over the past two years have washed over the DfT like water off a duck’s back. This is an admission by the British government that concrete evidence, invalidating the results of a public inquiry, was not considered as required by law. (See also our post of 12 July 2007)

This, of course, is understandable since the Department know very well that the outcome of the Gaul RFI represents a miscarriage of justice, without having to review our evidence. The officials’ obstinate non-engagement with the subject is their way of maintaining the deceit without getting themselves ensnared by their tongues.

Their claim that the Secretary of State’s decision “fully sets out the Secretary of State’s reasoning in relation to the re-opening of the investigation” is already hazarded, and so untrue as to make it laughable.
Given that the response previously received from the Secretary of State only mentions that “the Department is satisfied that there is no reason to doubt the outcome of the expert analysis that led to the Re-opened Formal Investigations conclusions and consequently there is no reason to re-open the investigation”, the DfT’s latest statement can only be taken as a crude parody or as a blunt admission that this is, actually, as far as the Secretary of State’s reasoning powers normally go.

Yet, through its very brevity, the DfT’s reply provides us with further confirmation that the decision not to re-open the Gaul RFI was unlawfully taken and politically motivated.

Answers in a fishtail

In our previous posts (27 April, 05 May and 12 June), we have discussed the matter of the inner covers to the offal chute on the Gaul and provided photographic evidence from the wreck which showed that these covers had in fact been secured in the closed position prior to the loss of the vessel and that they could have been opened by the forces of the sea before sinking took place.

The 2004 RFI panel thought, however, that the offal chute inner covers – found open on the wreck – had been negligently left so by the crew. (The same explanation was employed in respect of the duff chute inner covers, which had also been found open.) (See also this POST)

It must be mentioned here that the regime on the Gaul was such that the operation of offal chute would have fallen under the jurisdiction of the factory manager and his team, while the operation of the duff chute was under the control of the deck crew.

This arrangement gave the RFI experts the opportunity to claim that the factory deck staff, as non-fishermen, had been ignorant about the importance of keeping the offal chute inner covers closed when not in use and, tragically, had failed to secure them at the end of a busy working day.

Unfortunately, the RFI also failed to draw any conclusions from the relevant information that was available to the inquiry. This information relates to the following facts:

1. The offal chute overboard discharge acted as a relief valve during the fish processing operations and, as such, it would only be used when the fish meal plant (rate = 25 tonnes/day) was operating at full capacity or when the fish meal hold was full (capacity = 120 tonnes)

It is also known that the Gaul skipper’s reports recorded that at the time of the loss, the vessel had only managed to accumulate about 20 tonnes of fish fillets onboard together with about 7 tonnes of fish-meal (i.e. a poor catch for the period she was fishing).
The logical conclusion that follows from these data is that there would have been no need for the factory crew to use the offal chute overboard discharge during the vessel’s last voyage.

2. Furthermore two witnesses (Messrs George Petty and Raymond Smith) testified at the hearings that the offal chute would not have been used during the last two voyages in the Gaul’s short life, simply because the fish meal hold was never filled.

More explanations, quotes and details on the subject have been published at this LINK and HERE (diagram).

Like the rest of the conclusions in the 2004 RFI report, the assumption of negligence by all parts of the crew, no matter how implausible, were forced into relevance and given the status of fact.

Photographic evidence

In our posts of 27 April and 05 May we provided photgraphic evidence from the 2002 underwater survey of the wreck of the Gaul showing damage to the closing arragement of the vessel's offal chute's inner covers. This evidence clearly contradicts the final conclusions of the 2004 Gaul RFI.

As previously advised, we are now presenting a video clip which contains further details on this subject, including a model of the offal chute's inner covers and their probable behaviour when subjected to seawater pressure.

Gaul - offal chute inner covers
Video sent by gadflymotion531

Legal advice

On the 20th of May I had a most interesting conversation with Mr Max Gold, the solicitor who represented the families of the Gaul crew in the 2004 RFI.

Mr Gold admitted that it did come out during the formal inquiry that the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul had a design defect, which meant that, in certain sea conditions, the vessel could take water on into the factory deck, loose stability and sink.

So, the families’ solicitor admitted that he knew all along that the loss of the Gaul had not been due to crew error, but due to a design defect.

As regards the compensation for the families of the deceased, Mr Gold made some extraordinary assertions:

1. That, during the inquiry, the bereaved families had in fact been informed that the most probable cause of the tragedy was a design defect. (?!) (Obs. However, it appears to me that not all of them were informed.)
2. That only a few of the families were "interested" in suing for compensation. (?!)
3. That those who were interested in suing for compensation were advised by their barrister (Mr Tim Saloman, QC) that they stood no chance of getting any because of the limitation rules that exist on such claims. (?!) According to Mr Gold’s recollection, Mr Saloman’s expert opinion was that no action for compensation could be brought after the expiration of 15 years from the date of the victims’ death, no matter if the cause of the tragedy was only ‘discovered’ in 2004.
   (Obs. This opinion, as far as I have learned from independent advice, does not appear to be correct, the law being pretty straightforward in this respect.
   And, in any case, this could not have given any justification to the RFI panel to manipulate the results of a public inquiry.)
4. That Mr Saloman’s written advice is confidential and I am therefore not entitled to receive a copy of his counsel. (?!)

I had more questions for Mr Gold, but he was in a hurry and promised to call me back towards the end of the week (i.e. last week.). Unfortunately, he never managed to.

(To be continued…)

Continuation from previous post

The damage to the forked lug (securing clip) of the offal chute lid, which is visible in the image below, indicates that the crew of the Gaul (prior to the loss of the vessel) had secured the inner covers in the closed position. The covers were subsequently damaged when the sea burst them open.

In the above detail, the normal outline of the forked securing clip was drawn in orange

This evidence clearly negates three of the principal conclusions of the RFI:

1. That proper use of the inner covers would have prevented water ingress
This is incorrect - the above photo indicates that the covers had been used ‘properly’ but, unfortunately, this could not prevent the water ingress.

2. That, at the time of the loss, the inner covers were not closed and secured
This is incorrect – the evidence indicates that not only had the covers been closed and secured at the time of the loss, but also that the forces of the sea subsequently opened them.

3. That, at the time of the loss, there was no physical reason to prevent the crew from closing and securing these covers
The photo shows clearly that the securing arrangements were physically damaged and as such could not be used to secure the covers. It is most likely that this damage occurred ‘at the time of the loss’

Besides, the inner covers were in no way strong enough to be watertight. If they had been, they would not have been damaged.

More to come...

Another bent thing and more damning evidence

If the evidence we have published so far may have presented “an ostensibly compelling case”, to use Mr Jim Fitzpatrick’s expression from a recent letter, the evidence we will be publishing from now on should provide the Minister for Transport with extra certainty. As, in the same letter, he claimed that the information we presented did not constitute the whole picture – a claim with which, for probably different reasons, we agree - we have decided to show you more of that ‘picture’.

In previous posts we have already argued that the RFI assessment, that the inner lids of the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul had been left open by the crew prior to the loss of the vessel, was unsound. The condition of the closing devices of the duff chute indicates that its inner cover was, in fact, closed when the tragedy struck.

We can now reveal that the split covers of the offal chute were also closed. The images below, captured from the 2002 underwater survey film footage, illustrate that the bar attached to one of the offal split covers, as their means of closure, was found in its place and deformed in a way consistent with it having undergone strong pressure from the underside.

This finding, which the RFI panel was aware of, supports the proposition that the inner lids of the duff and offal chutes on the Gaul had initially been closed by the crew, but were burst open by the force of the incoming waves, at the time of the loss.

We have also constructed a model of the offal chute and tested it against the effects of water pressure acting on the underside of its inner lids. We used this model to replicate the damage to the securing bar, as observed in the images from the wreck of the Gaul. The photo below shows the result.

More to come...

The Minister for Transport

In a recent letter sent by the Department for Transport, Mr Jim Fitzpatrick, the Minister for Shipping, rather than answering our specific questions, took his turn in restating the government’s belief in the results of 2004 Gaul Formal Investigation.

This time round, however, he also claimed that that there was some additional evidence in support of the RFI conclusions - evidence that has never been publicised, which, for some reason, he assumes that we have not yet seen, and which, if it is to be attached any credence, will need to defy the observable facts.
This material was not revealed during the two Gaul formal inquiries, nor did it come to the knowledge of the naval architect who, as an employee of the MCA, has carried out research into the loss of the Gaul since 2002. The DfT claim that they are in possession of this ‘elusive’ evidence, but, alas, … they are not showing it.

Having wondered for almost four years, how the RFI panel had derived their conclusions – whether they had come from esoteric knowledge or from some nebulous fluffs – we are now being told that, basically, it was on this undisclosed evidence that the RFI findings were based. Hmm! Why bother then going through such expensive formal proceedings if that was really the case?

Our curiosity stirred, we would have liked to challenge Mr Fitzpatrick to show us the proof. After all, formal investigations are meant to be public affairs (with disclosure of all relevant facts), held in the public interest.

The Minister, however, seemed unwilling, and, anxious to put a stop to any further questions, he gravely informed us about the wishes of the deceased: “the crew of the Gaul should now be left to rest in peace, undisturbed by the speculation created by their dramatic disappearance”. We must not awake the ghosts and revive the sorrows of the past.

Elastic conclusions and the re-writing of history

In an earlier POST we already mentioned one embellishment contained in a paper produced by the experts in the 2004 Gaul RFI.

In that same paper, drawn up as a summary of the results of the formal investigation, the experts also went a step beyond the official findings and stated with conviction:

“There was no logical reason why the duff and offal chute lids were secured in the open position, whilst dodging, other than crew error. It is also difficult to understand why the flap valves were jammed in the open position other than bad maintenance onboard or ashore.”

The authors were, of course, well aware of the fact that the offal chute lids had not been found secured in the open position. They were also aware that it was only around the duff chute lid that some kind of ‘ligature’ had been seen hanging and, therefore, one could not truthfully say that both the duff and the offal chute lids had been secured open by the crew of the Gaul.

The RFI final report, having been drawn up by better-versed legal minds, went only as far as advising that:

“In the case of the duff chute, the single lid was apparently secured in the open position by some form of ligature and in the case of the offal chute the split lid was found with the forward half open and the aft half closed, but not secured.”

The RFI experts must have also realised that any future interested parties would be more likely to read their free paper rather than the costly and voluminous RFI report, and that their words may therefore be taken as fact.

In the light our previous post and the above observations we would ask our readers the following question: What can one make of these exaggerations, which, it so happened, had the effect of adding undeserved weight to the Court’s ‘crew error’ verdict?