It is hoped that by the time you reach this page you will have trawled through most of the website. You may very well have asked yourself just how such things could happen. You may even have encountered similar events in your life or been at the receiving end of such capricious activity by HM Revenue & Customs (formerly The Inland Revenue) or some other Government Department.
Should you wish to share your story we would be very pleased to hear from you.
Never was an organisation so hated and feared by so many people. We have found an atmosphere of arrogance and dominance to prevail within many departments yet incompetence is the order of the day, it goes right to the top. When Government Departments are ultimately led by liars what can you expect! They are always right, at least according to them and when things go wrong they are quick to pass the buck or threaten penalties followed by legal action. When threatened by legal action they close ranks and try to go one better, after all, it is our public money that they are spending on lawyers, not their own!
The combination of the Inland Revenue and the Crown Office is a formidable opponent evidenced by the number of solicitors who have refused to participate in this case including others who have faded away like shrinking violets. It seems that their own careers take precedence to any notion of seeking justice against an all-powerful State. Indeed, the standard of legal services available leaves much to be desired. I have personally engaged 6 different legal firms with one lasting just a week! Needless to say I won't mention their names here but e-mail me and I will let you have all the sordid details. The legal Counsel that have represented me have faired little better, in fact, I don't even remember some of their names they were so insignificant. Many lawyers and Counsel promise one thing then go on and do the opposite. This is far from being a personal experience as I have seen many others experiencing the same frustrations. I know for a fact that complaints to the Scottish Legal Aid Board are numerous but little ever changes. Given this legal system, the Crown have every advantage even before any case comes to Court. The Crown Office & Procurator Service have extensive resources available to them which surpass those available to defendants many times over. It is now virtually impossible to get a lawyer to carry out a proper interview with witnesses as their time is more profitably spent in Court or on prison visits.
The case against me grew out of gross incompetence within the former Inland Revenue. They originally lost my tax files then they lost me! They then went on to misplace my late aunt's tax files following her death and thereafter had the audacity to try to claim interest for the period which had elapsed due to their incompetence, arrogant or what? A former member of my legal team once counselled that the Inland Revenue wasn't on trial. In hindsight I honestly believe they should have been had we known then what we now do. They failed to carry out the most basic checks in relation to my late aunt's Income Tax returns which would have seen any queries answered at an early stage. They also failed to raise any queries in relation to the Inheritance Tax return which would have circumvented any requirement for the debacle which ultimately unfolded. In fact, they only sat up and took notice following anonymous and malicious telephone calls made by a former solicitor who once worked for them thereafter commencing a belated crusade against me and my family. And all this after threatening the solicitor himself with attempting to pervert the course of justice, now there's gratitude for you!
I mention that they lost me, well it seems that I wasn't lost to anyone else, just the Inland Revenue; rather convenient for their case really. In fact, for the record they were told where I was and how to contact me but chose to ignore such advice. The bit I really like however is the S.C.O. lead investigator who didn't know how to calculate Inheritance Tax and had to be re-educated by an official from the Capital Taxes Office. It seems that he was desperate to avoid having to pay back part of the £405,000 already paid to them by the Bank of Scotland from my late uncle's estate. This all occurred in 1998/1999, it wasn't for another three years that they decided that I was a tax evader and a fugitive abroad simply because I had sold my home in Fife in 2000 (was on the market for a year!) and chose to live in Northern Ireland and Spain. They did interview me in Londonderry in May 2000 but never disclosed at that time what they were up to, I never heard from them again. I was arrested in Spain on 5th August 2003, a few days after returning from my home in Northern Ireland where I had been for several months. Seems they were hell-bent on arresting me abroad, it looked good from their point of view after all the lies they had conjured up, basically once they were committed to the lie they couldn't go back. HM Revenue & Customs refuse to suspend those officials directly involved in this farce against me pending an independent investigation stating that my claims are unsubstantiated when this is not the case. They also claim to have carried out their own investigation into events yet no-one outside of HM Revenue &Customs has ever been interviewed. Maybe they will change their name again because that seems to be their method of wiping the slate clean.
The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service have much to answer for in this case. It seems that those involved have either passed away, retired or been promoted as is usual in such cases. I was once advised by Counsel that a Senior Official, who shall be nameless at this time, had been taking an unhealthy interest in my prosecution, no surprise there then! She has since been moved on to other pastures green, I think they call it internal reorganisation! Even the Sheriff who oversaw the trial now complains of memory loss! You just couldn't make it up! In addition to the falsehoods promoted by the Inland Revenue, Crown Officials manufactured the charges against me relating to my aunt and my brother. There was absolutely no reason for this course of action. The decision to prosecute me was not made following independent investigation, rather by political opportunism driven by the Labour puppet masters in England and in which the former Labour Government in Scotland and their cronies were only too keen to participate. The flagrant abuse of the legal system in order to attempt to set an example for others is reprehensible. My brother has always refuted the accusations manufactured in his name and continues to do so. No-one within my family has ever made any allegation of any impropriety against me. The further charges were created simply in order to give substance to the weak allegations made by Revenue officials. The Prosecutor's own words to the effect that she was only doing the case as a favour for the Inland Revenue substantiates what actually occurred. The collusion between the Prosecutor and Revenue officials was complete, so much for independent investigation as required by Law. 
After all, apparently they could do whatever they liked to quote from another comment by this same Prosecutor during legal arguments in Court. The connivance was also completed when this Prosecutor took the opportunity to take over my wife and son as Crown Witnesses when a former solicitor failed to bring them over from Northern Ireland as Defence Witnesses. The comments by officials within the Justice Department also unmasks the real perpetrators in this fiasco with HM Revenue & Customs being ever so quick to pass the blame back to the Crown Office when threatened with substantive legal action and yet another damaging scandal.
The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service in conjunction with their scapegoats, Lothian & Borders Police, failed to follow the protocols in relation to Provisional Arrest abroad. Such a provision is reserved for urgent cases but this information seemed to have been lost on the incompetents responsible. On the other hand it was a wilful act intended to do the utmost damage. Either way, they are guilty of a gross abuse of power and of bringing International Agreements into disrepute. They also failed to provide the requisite information mandatory under the Extradition Act, gave false information in respect of the consequences of agreeing to extradition and thereafter failed to comply with the Extradition Order granted in Madrid on 4th November 2003. In addition, not only were the original documents incomplete but the later one's which formed the formal extradition request were both incompetent and illegally altered prior to being presented to the Spanish Authorities. No greater fiasco could one imagine. It is a true saying, prosecute in haste, regret at leisure!
The lasting repercussions of what took place can only but be imagined. The cost to the public purse is enormous and growing daily as the main appeal continues before the Supreme Court in Scotland. In considering those who promoted this monumental farce against me, only one word seems appropriate, SCUM!
John
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