The Woolas Verdict: The Hearing

The verdict in the Phil Woolas case is due to be handed down this Friday. Saddleworth’s Labour MP stands accused of breaking the law by making certain statements about his Liberal Democrat rival, Elwyn Watkins, during the general election campaign earlier this year.

The legal challenge brought by Mr Watkins was heard in Uppermill in September, and two High Court judges will return to the Civic Hall to reveal their decision. Mr Woolas has strongly denied any wrongdoing, and if the judges agree with him he will remain our MP. But if they side with Mr Watkins, the election result would be declared void and a by-election would have to be held, while Mr Woolas would face being barred from public office.

In advance of the verdict, Saddleworth News is publishing a series of special articles. Today, a look back at what happened during the hearing itself.

Uppermill Civic Hall

WE’VE got used to political excitement and controversy in this area over the years, but nothing on the scale of what took place in September at the Civic Hall in Uppermill. A venue more used to the more genteel pursuits of parish council business, dance classes and amateur dramatics hosted four days of remarkable real-life drama.

The legal challenge itself was brought under the rarely-used Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. It states that publishing “any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct” is illegal, unless “reasonable grounds” for believing the statement to be true can be shown. This sort of challenge has been so rare over the years that no Westminster election has been declared void because of criminal wrongdoing by a candidate for almost a century.

There were three sets of statements made in Labour leaflets which were the basis of the case. Mr Watkins was unhappy about allegations made regarding where he lived, how he financed his campaign, and his purported failure to condemn so-called “Muslim extremists.”

The cast list stretched well beyond the candidates themselves. Mr Justice Griffith Williams and Mr Justice Nigel Teare were the judges who swapped the High Court for the Civic Hall for the week. Mr Woolas retained as his counsel Gavin Millar QC, the brother of Alastair Campbell’s partner Fiona. The Lib Dems, who had spent weeks preparing their case from Mr Watkins’ Delph home, had Helen Mountfield QC.

Elwyn Watkins

And it was Miss Mountfield who made headlines on the opening day. She told the hearing Mr Woolas set out to “make the white folk angry” and “galvanise the white Sun vote.” She added that Mr Woolas was privately convinced he was going to lose the election, and that the controversial statements in the leaflets were made “in a desperate attempt to change the election result.”

Mr Watkins then went on to take the stand. Under questioning from Mr Millar, he insisted that each of the three sets of allegations in question were attacks on his personal character, rather than his policies. Mr Millar also brought up the alleged group of “Muslim extremists” referred to in Labour leaflets, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, which had endorsed Mr Watkins on its website. Mr Watkins told the hearing that he hadn’t rejected the endorsement simply because he didn’t know about it.

The day finished with the first evidence from Mr Woolas himself, evidence which continued right through the second day. That made a total of seven hours during which Mr Woolas was cross-examined by James Laddie, junior counsel for Mr Watkins.

Mr Laddie brought up e-mails sent between members of the Woolas  team, including Mr Woolas himself. When questioned about an e-mail sent by his agent Joe Fitzpatrick to someone else involved in the campaign which mentioned making “the white folk angry,” Mr Woolas conceded he was aware of that aspect of his campaign’s strategy, but denied knowing about the “angry” reference.

Phil Woolas MP

Later, Mr Woolas was asked about a Labour leaflet which referred to a Newsnight report on claims from a former Watkins campaign worker about cash payments allegedly made to her by the Lib Dems (Editor’s note: Revenue and Customs later decided Mr Watkins had no case to answer over the allegations). Mr Woolas admitted his leaflet “sailed very close to the wind.”

Mr Woolas continued to give evidence on the third day, this time under cross-examination from his own counsel, Mr Millar. He insisted that statements made in Labour leaflets about how much money Mr Watkins had spent on his campaign were not made to accuse Mr Watkins of breaking the law, but were included simply to claim that his Lib Dem rival had more resources than him.

Also giving evidence on that Wednesday was Mr Fitzpatrick. He freely admitted that fewer copies were printed of one of the controversial Labour leaflets, and that the leaflets were to be delivered mainly in the “white areas” of the constituency. However, he told the hearing this was because he feared turnout would be lower in those areas, and wanted to get as many people out to vote as possible.

One of the leaflets in question.

Mr Fitzpatrick was also questioned about allegations made in Labour leaflets about how Mr Watkins funded his campaign. When it was put to him that the official records submitted by Lib Dems showed the party had stayed within spending limits, Mr Fitzpatrick said he believed those records were “false.”

That concluded the evidence, and the fourth day of the hearing was given over to legal argument.

It had initially been expected that the judges might deliver their verdict at the end of the week. But they indicated they would need time to consider what they’d heard. As it turns out they’ve had almost two months, and still it’s only the two judges who know for certain what they’ve decided.

The daily summaries of the evidence from Saddleworth News can be read here, here, here and here. But by far the most in-depth reports on the evidence are available on the website of Lib Dem blogger Nick Thornsby here.

(In Monday’s article, Saddleworth News looked back at some of the hard-fought election contests in our area in recent years, and you can read that here. Yesterday it was an in-depth review of the 2010 campaign here in Oldham East and Saddleworth, and that article is here. Tomorrow, in the last of the series, we look at what the different parties have been doing during the build-up to the verdict)

For full coverage of the Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency from Saddleworth News, including all of the articles published here during and after the campaign, go here.

Author: Jude Gidney - Editor

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