The Human Rights Act was hailed as a new beginning for those seeking Justice and the basic rights to life but is that also a mirage?
If we examine the workings of the law in all its aspects we begin to see that it is in fact the criminal and those who work against the people who are protected most by the law. The Human Rights Act concerns itself more with the rights to fair trial and freedom of expression than Justice for the victims of criminal acts.
The laws of the land are intended to protect the individual from wrong-doers and society from its enemies but in practice the exact opposite is true. This is perfectly illustrated in the case of the victims of pesticide poisoning and vaccine damage. To see how this is true let us examine the case of an occupationally exposed worker poisoned by pesticides.
Consider the regulations in this area of law.
Regulations demand that pesticides are proven "safe" before release into the
environment but this is obviously not the case in reality for many are to be
withdrawn on safety grounds within two years. Some of these have been used
throughout the world and assumed to be "safe" when in reality they are not.
Regulations demand that users are trained and that they follow set procedures
which control purchase, mixing, methods of use, protective clothing
requirements, methods of disposal, time of harvest after use, washing of
machinery, record keeping, reporting of accidents and freedom of information.
The problem is that we know that trained people make serious errors and may
even deliberately use the chemicals illegally but there are ways to control
this and these too are controlled by the regulatory bodies.
Should an individual be poisoned by a pesticide either accidentally or by a
deliberate act there are rights afforded under the various acts which should
ensure prompt diagnosis and treatment but unfortunately those rights too are
simply a vision of a utopia which does not exist.
Having been diagnosed and treated the patient has the "right" to access all
his medical records but once again this is not always the case. Not only do
the medical personnel have the right to alter notes but if they can face
criminal charges as the result of releasing those notes then they have the
right to withhold them from the patient, even, it seems, if that patient
will be harmed by so doing. (see GMC rules.)
So we come back to those who regulate the use of pesticides and it would be
thought that being subjected to the same poisons in food and the environment
as the rest of us they would be determined to enforce the regulations.
Sadly this too is far from the reality on the ground as it is left to the
discretion of those involved as to whether they take action or not and it
is usually not, either because of the paperwork or the expense or simply
because they can't be bothered and do not want to make waves and risk their
pensions or promotion prospects.
The problem with this is that there is then no post-marketing monitoring and
the early warning signs that something is wrong will be lost. Worse still
the manufacturers are duped into thinking that every change they make has
no ill-effects when the products are marketed and each product could
potentially be causing ever greater effects. With no proper feedback it
is impossible for them to know otherwise.
So with all the safety nets removed the victim could become permanently
disabled and with governments around the world cutting back on welfare so
as to ensure that the wealthy amongst us remain wealthy there is a genuine
need for compensation not only for the need to live but also so that the
true dangers of the chemicals can be exposed so that there will be no more
victims. This has been seen with lead, asbestos and many other toxins.
The problem is that both the science and the law are owned by the companies
and their allies in Government and the victim has no chance there either.
It should be noted that members of Parliament have stood in both Houses and
proclaimed that there is no evidence that repeated low-dose exposures to
organophosphorus pesticides, for example, can cause long-term adverse
health effects in man and yet the Act recognising just those effects has been
on the Statute books since 1958.
Giving false information to Parliament shows contempt for us all.
So let us take an example case, who for now will be nameless, and we invite you
to offer your opinion as to whether you believe that justice has been done.
A similar story could be told by thousands of other poisoned people.
A loyal farm worker aged 42 having worked all his life, and much of it on the
same farm, is exposed to a chemical which had been illegally stored and
disposed of also in a manner contrary to regulations.
He became too ill to work after exposures to the chemical and its vapours but
the doctors did not recognise the symptoms and he was treated with
contraindicated drugs which obviously served to make matters worse.
The cause was lost as the doctors treated the symptoms, many of which
were induced by the drugs they gave him in their efforts to help.
He became unemployed when he was referred to a poisoning specialist and
was instructed to report his poisoning to the Health and Safety Executive.
The HSE inspector found that there were no records as required in law and the
employer had also failed to report the incident as required in law but there
was no prosecution of the employer.
What occurred instead was a systematic persecution of the labourer by the
staff of the Health and Safety Executive who had never even bothered to see
him or to ask him for the evidence to support his story.
The employer was asked to name the chemical but failed to do so which again
was in breach of specific pesticide regulations. Still no action was taken.
The labourer was informed that he had all the symptoms of poisoning and
that he would need the toxicologist's evidence to support him in court even
though at this time no such action had been envisaged. He simply wanted to
recover but time was to prove that this was impossible and he had to wait a
full 18 months for the tests for poisoning.
By this time the Health and Safety staff were hard at work and they managed
to persuade the toxicologist that the labourer could not have been poisoned
because the farmer had assured them that there had been no chemical and no
incident and the fear of losing their jobs and homes had his staff agreeing
with him and making statements to that effect.
The labourer was by now recognised as permanently disabled.
The chemical company became involved and they also claimed that the chemical
was safe even though they had no idea what that chemical had been, their opinion being based on the false information provided to them.
The labourer had to devise experiments which were to prove that the claims
about the safety of the chemical were false but no matter how hard he tried
the authorities refused to acknowledge the facts which he had discovered.
The labourer was advised to go to a lawyer well known in the field and the lawyer was
asked to discover what that chemical really was and to obtain the medical
records. He failed on both counts and arranged for the labourer to see
another specialist at great cost to the labourer and his friends who helped.
A meeting was arranged with the HSE and the lawyer attended. The labourer
was able to help the lawyer in arguments over another case involving the
same chemical which was later successfully fought in court but he turned on
the labourer when it came to his own case and sided with the HSE.
The specialist eventually declared that the labourer had been poisoned but
that it would be difficult to prove in court because the proper tests were
not performed by the doctors in the early stages. The lawyer decided to
destroy the case by making false accusations that the labourer had refused
a reasonable settlement offer of just two thousand and five hundred pounds.
He gave the labourer two weeks to reply but within that time had his
funding removed by the Government's Legal Aid Board.
That "lawyer" was discovered to be entirely unqualified and had professional links with the HSE.
A new lawyer referred to the first as "shysters" and stated that there had
never been an offer to settle and in any event the case was worth far more.
Within months with no change in evidence this firm also sent false evidence
to the board and the labourer had to fight for a year to regain the funding.
The case then entered a new phase and became part of the major group action.
However the labourer was not permitted to join the others for tests because
he was not a victim of the OP sheep dips like the others. This was lucky
really as it turned out that the often painful procedures were to lead
nowhere as the results were never released and the costs were held against
the victims. The controversial nature of the cases resulted in a falling out
amongst the lawyers and the case was transferred to another firm.
This firm had close connections with the new Prime Minister and it was strange
to see that the lawyers chose experts with links to the industry to examine
their clients. By now our labourer was too ill to travel and his wife was
undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy for breast cancer.
By this time the lawyers had calculated that the compensation due to him should
be in the region of a million pounds.
Luckily again for him he avoided these experts because it was later to
transpire that they would not support the victims and often misrepresented
the facts.
He did not escape the attentions of dishonest medical examiners though for
he faced them as the result of his claim for the benefit which would be his
right in law because he was poisoned at work and had medical backing for
the diagnosis. Sadly by now the influence of the Health and Safety over his
case had reached the highest levels in the land and their efforts to have
him seen as a deluded trouble maker were succeeding. The DSS examiner denied
that he was eligible and so did the appeal medical but the appeal was a sham
and the reasons for denial were taken directly from the first examiner's
report. The labourer appealed again and appeared before a tribunal but he
was in a very bad state and had to be assisted from the building after the
DSS called off the hearing because their own papers were not in order.
The tribunal members decided unanimously that it was obvious that the
labourer was suffering from neurological problems and demanded that next
time the tribunal should be held at his home but not before he saw a
neurologist who they said would support him.
Sadly that neurologist was not well versed in chemical poisoning and did not
understand the difference between chronic and acute poisoning. He had to
refer to a book for the symptoms and decided to diagnose somatisation
syndrome even though by now the labourer had managed to obtain hard evidence
of damage to various systems in his body including the heart, lungs, brain
and vision.
The next tribunal was a complete farce and although it was agreed that the
DSS papers were still not complete and that the labourer could introduce any
evidence he wanted which supported his case this was in fact denied. Although
at his home they appeared supportive, and suggested that he was 80% disabled,
when the report came they too suggested somatisation syndrome.
At least one of the members was linked to the hospital which employed the
toxicologist and which had denied access to the full medical records.
None of the DSS hearings or mdical examiners took into account the fact that
the labourer's exposures had been unusually high for many years or that he
had been exposed to the toxins on a daily basis and that this had left him
vulnerable to even a small further exposure to approved chemicals.
By now the lawyers had decided that they did not have evidence that any OPs
could cause long-term harm to human health, despite the Industrial Disease
which recognises just that having been on the statute books for decades.
The lawyers decided to "blackmail" all the members of the group action into
signing away their rights to justice or face the full costs of the
defendants which would run into millions. Very few signed.
The lawyers dropped the cases having first failed to put the medical
evidence before the court at the agreed times.
A new firm rescued the cases and the labourer went with them.
He appeared before a court for his benefit appeal and was so poorly that
the judge offered to read his statement for him. The labourer faced the
judge and a barrister with little support and was able to show that many
of the reports before the court were grossly inaccurate. The judge
criticised the toxicologist who had written two reports of opposite opinion
on the case on the same day suggesting that this was "totally unacceptable"
He refused to address several of the points of law raised, including the
failure of the tribunal members to declare potential conflicts of interest.
He ignored the evidence which showed that the neurologist had provided a false
report and his own report "reluctantly" upheld the tribunal's decision.
The labourer was to appeal this decision but events overtook him.
He was criticised for failing to challenge a chemist's report provided by
the defence but he had never seen it. When he did he realised that he had
been totally misled about the dangers of the chemical. It had not been a
simple dilution of a grain store chemical but an illegal mixture, as
confirmed by government officials and both chemical companies.
It was therefore a criminal act and would strengthen his case.
Another report came to him from a doctor, again for the defence, who had
never even spoken to him and who based his entire case on inaccurate
information and upon records from the hospital's toxicology department.
Both reports were destroyed with scientific facts by the labourer in time for the court hearing.
The case now had evidence of a criminal act, of perjury and inaccurate
statements given by "expert" witnesses. The labourer had the foresight to
send supporting medical evidence to the court before the deadline missed
by the previous solicitors and so he firmly believed that his case was
solid. This view was strengthened by the firm opinion of the court that
cases of negligence against employers should be allowed to go ahead.
The court hearing was unbalanced with the defence team fielding more than
half a dozen top barristers for a week. Employer defendants, backed by
the Farmer's Union Insurance, were supported by the chemical companies and
their top teams.
Unbelievably the labourer's case was thrown out by the judge on the grounds that it would be "an abuse of process" to allow it to continue to trial.
Disabled "for life" as the result of a series of negligent actions and living in a "tied" cottage with no prospects of employment, failing health and a wife in remission from serious cancer the labourer now faces the costs of the case, possible eviction from his home of 30 years, further appeals for his rightful benefits and deteriorating health.
Feel free to say what you think by email to futurefirst@btinternet.com
A simple "yes" or "no" in the subject line would suffice!
Dated 2/8/2001.
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