UK: Taylorgate: Police send 4.6 million to defend civil action (feature)
01 September 1998
More details of the Taylor-Stalker affair emerged last month - some twelve years after Stalker was removed from the shoot-to-kill enquiry in Northern Ireland (see Statewatch, vol 5, no 3). The Greater Manchester Police (GMP) finally made public that the cost of the civil actions brought by Taylor and three others had been at least £10.6 million. Taylor, a Manchester businessman and a friend of the former Deputy Chief Constable John Stalker, and three other defendants - Derek Britton, Terence Bowley and Vincent McCann - had been charged with defrauding the Co-operative Bank. The case against them all collapsed in 1990 after police officers were found to be in contempt of court and it was revealed that numerous documents were missing. The four then mounted claims for malicious prosecution. Settlements were subsequently agreed but all were made subject to a confidentiality agreement.
The details of the costs only came to light as a direct result of an investigation by the Home Affairs Committee. While examining police disciplinary and complaints procedures, it had been told that the number of civil actions brought against the police had been increasing but, because of confidentiality agreements, the cost of such actions often remained secret. The Committee wished to examine this issue further and decided to look closer at the Taylor case, where the amount reported by the media at the time of his settlement, was nearly £1 million, with a higher figure for costs.
In June, Mr Wilmot, the Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police, and Councillor Murphy, Chair of the Police Authority gave evidence to the Committee. In a confusing examination, they argued that they were unable to reveal the details of the case, because of the confidentiality agreement between the parties. It was pointed out by the Chief Constable that an insurance policy covered the GMP's liability in such actions. But as the civil action proceeded, there was a difference of opinion as to the extent of the cover. It was not open-ended and after a certain level was reached, the Police Authority were informed that it would have to cover the rest of the costs from its own budget.
After more questioning, Mr Murphy told the Committee that the maximum sum which the insurers were prepared to cover was £6 million. One member of the Committee asked whether this was the total cost of the whole case. Mr Murphy replied that it was all the plaintiffs. In other words, this figure covered only the costs and damages to Taylor, Britton, Bowley and McCann. Surprisingly, at this point, no-one on the Committee asked how much the defendants costs had totalled. The Chief Constable earlier in the hearing had already told the Committee in very vague terms that the GMP had employed a firm of solicitors and "some QCs working for 2 or 3 years to defend the action" and that the trial was costing £30,000 per day.
A few days after the hearings had finished Mr Wilmot wrote to the Committee. He said: "In adding together the global sum for damages and for costs of all the parties, i.e. Taylor, Britton, Bowley and McCann and Greater Manchester Police, my legal advisers calculate the figure to be £10.593,573.90." He also enclosed a table listing the costs of "Public Liability Claims" for the financial years 1993-94 to 1997-98. The cost for the year in which the civil actions were settled, 1995-96, came to £5.7 million nearly three times the amount in any of the other years.
As £6 million of the total covered the plaintiffs' costs and damages, the defence costs must therefore have come to at least £4.6 million. This is an incredible sum of money and raises a number of important issues of public concern. To begin with, were all the members of the Police Authority aware of these costs? It emerged during the examination of the witnesses that the negotiations between the insurers and the GMPA were handled by a sub-group. The sub-group was made up of the leaders