LETTERS Damsel in distress
Sir: It's not only DTI Inspectors who can compel witnesses to answer questions prop- er or improper, make up their own rules, 'forget' to advise people of their legal rights, ignore normal rules of evidence and use methods that would be outlawed in any court (City and suburban, 23 September).
As I and others in Westminster City Council have discovered, a district auditor has all those powers and more.
The auditor has been investigator, prose- cutor, judge and jury in our case. He is allowed to call a press conference branding the defendants 'provisionally' guilty before they have even seen the alleged evidence against them or heard the charges. Mean- while the defendants are repeatedly threat- ened with criminal prosecution under Sec- tion 30 of the Local Government Finance Act 1982 if they disclose any part of his report in public.
Because no one wants to be accused of interfering in the auditor's work, he can do almost as he likes. In Westminster the audi- tor is answerable to no one. His inquiry has lasted for over five years. His bills have reached £2 million. He now wants to be paid £300 an hour.
Nobody dares criticise him in case he decides to investigate them next.
One result of this unfairness is that I and others are treated as guilty by, among others, writers in The Spectator, before our case has been heard by a court and without any of our accusers ever being cross-examined.
It seems that in our case the law has been turned on its head — we are guilty unless we prove our innocence.
Unlike DTI investigators, local govern- ment auditors have real powers. They can surcharge councillors unlimited sums — £29 million in our case — and disqualify them from holding public office.
Because his inquiry is not a Vial', none of the Westminster defendants threatened with this fate is entitled to legal aid or the recovery of legal costs, even when acquitted of any wrong-doing. To date the nine West- minster defendants — a tenth killed himself after telling the auditor that he couldn't afford the legal bills — have spent a six-fig- ure sum that can never be recouped.
Yet none of us has been accused of a criminal offence. Voters have twice shown their faith in the Council by re-electing the Conservatives with thumping majorities. Although we are accused of gerrymander- ing, 96 per cent of the council homes sold in the so-called marginal wards were bought by existing residents. The City Solic- itor specifically advised the full Council that our housing policies were lawful, seven years before the auditor ruled that they were not.
We have done nothing wrong. Yet our reputations, and in some cases careers, have been destroyed.
Dame Shirley Porter
Brecher & Co., 78 Brook Street, London W1
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