MEDIA STUDIES
Wanted: after Downey, a real inquiry
into the Hamilton affair
STEPHEN GLOVER The name of Neil Hamilton turns many people off. They believe he is guilty as charged. I myself have written as though he is, accepting the judgment of Sir Gordon Downey that there are 'compelling' reasons for believing that he accepted cash in brown envelopes from Mohamed Al Fayed. Now I am beginning to have my doubts. I don't doubt that Mr Hamilton failed to declare a stay at the Paris Ritz which he enjoyed at the expense of Mr Al Fayed. I don't doubt that he was, at the very least, economical with the truth in answering a question from Michael Heseltine, the for- mer deputy prime minister. I am by no means sure that he didn't take cash from Mr Al Fayed. But I believe he has been the victim of an unsatisfactory quasi-judicial process.
Because Mr Hamilton withdrew his libel action against the Guardian, Mr Al Fayed's allegations have never been tested in a court of law. Why Mr Hamilton pulled out is not wholly clear. As I understand it, his case and that of Ian Greer, Mr Hamilton's co-defendant, collapsed shortly before coming to court on account of an inconsis- tency in the evidence. This was felt by the defence team to place Mr Greer's interests at odds with Mr Hamilton's, and so Mr Hamilton was in effect left without repre- sentation. Whether this is the complete story I do not know, but it hardly matters here. The point is that although Mr Hamil- ton has been charged and found guilty by the Guardian, he has not yet been exam- ined in a court of law, and it seems unlikely that he will ever be.
But he has been investigated by Sir Gor- don Downey, whose lengthy report was published in July, and he has more recently been questioned by the Privileges and Stan- dards Committee on the basis of this report. No one who has read it could doubt that Sir Gordon is scrupulous and fair. But that does not mean the process was fair. Sir Gordon did not have the full powers of an Inquisitor, and witnesses were not cross- examined. Most important of all, Mr Al Fayed, who is Mr Hamilton's chief accuser and indeed the source of all the allegations against him, was not called to give evidence on oath to the committee. Mr Al Fayed was questioned by Nigel Pleming, QC, counsel to Sir Gordon's inquiry, but, like everyone else so questioned, he was not on oath. One obvious flaw of the Downey process was his tendency to treat Mr Al Fayed as an unblemished witness. I wrote last week about the verdict of the Department of Trade report into Mr Al Fayed's takeover of Harrods that he and his brother sought to undermine the reputation of a journalist called Peter Wickman who had uncovered some truths about the Al Fayeds' origins. According to the DTI report, the brothers produced false evidence and a set of false documents in their attack on Mr Wickman. The DTI report says the Al Fayeds also fal- sified birth certificates. It accuses them of lying on numerous occasions and on sub- stantial issues.
In short, Mr Al Fayed has been accused by an official report of lying and inventing evidence to suit his book. I am not saying that he did so in the case of Mr Hamilton and the brown envelopes. It is noteworthy that most of Mr Al Fayed's allegations against other MPs, as well as his lesser alle- gations against Mr Hamilton, have been vindicated. But Sir Gordon should surely have paid closer attention to Mr Al Fayed's record in considering the veracity of the most important allegation of all — namely that Mr Hamilton took cash. Instead, he treated the owner of Harrods almost as though he were just another wealthy tycoon with a story to tell.
If I had been Sir Gordon — or Mr Plem- ing — I would have asked Mr Al Fayed about this inconsistency. On 20 October 1994, acting on information from Mr Al Fayed, the Guardian published a front-page story in which it named Mr Hamilton as one of two 'recipients of payments passed to Ian Greer Associates by Mohamed Al Fayed'. In this version there were no brown envelopes. Yet on 5 December 1994 Mr Al Fayed's solicitors alleged that cash was also passed by Mr Al Fayed to Mr Hamilton on at least 12 occasions. Henceforward Mr Greer was barely mentioned as a conduit. If anyone knows the true reasons for the change in Mr Al Fayed's story, I should be very grateful if they would tell me.
Actually the story was elaborated further on 27 September 1995 when three of Mr Al Fayed's employees were named as having been involved as well as Mr Al Fayed in the handing over of cash to Mr Hamilton. Ali- son Bozek, Iris Bond and Philip Bromfield were all questioned by Mr Pleming. In weighing their evidence, Sir Gordon in my view gave insufficient consideration to their long service with Mr Al Fayed. (Ms Bozek has left his employment but works for his solicitors.) In two cases Sir Gordon accept- ed character references from Royston Webb, also a close associate of Mr Al Fayed's. There are certain inconsistencies in the three employees' evidence. In partic- ular — though there may well be a totally innocent explanation — Mr Bromfield said that brown envelopes destined for Mr Hamilton bore a 'typed name', where Ms Bozek said that Mr Al Fayed would merely `scrawl' Hamilton's name.
None of these employees, whose evi- dence is plainly crucial, was cross-exam- ined. This underlines the inadequacy of the Downey Inquiry. The Standards and Privi- leges Committee was plainly no better suit- ed to wrestle with the complexities of the case. Its members may fancy themselves as nascent Perry Masons, but they are not. What is needed now is a special inquiry under the terms of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, which was passed in reaction to the Marconi scandal. Since 1921 there have been 20 such inquiries, for example the one held in 1948 into allega- tions of bribery against junior ministers and civil servants. Such a process is inquisitori- al, and witnesses are cross-examined under oath.
Without an inquiry of this sort everyone is left out on a limb. Most seriously of all, Mr Hamilton has not received justice. Per- haps he is guilty, perhaps he is not. But the reputations of Mr Al Fayed, his employees and the Guardian newspaper also hang in the air as a consequence of the gimcrack nature of the Downey Inquiry. People con- tinue to argue about whether Mr Hamilton is guilty or not, as they would be unable to if there had been a proper investigation under the 1921 Act. They will go on argu- ing, and in some quarters Mr Hamilton will be represented as a sort of latter-day Drey- fus, unless the government acts.
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