"This scandal was brought to our attention by Alan Darby of Staffordshire, one of our English members. Our purpose in including it on our website is to illustrate that crooked lawyers are not restricted to Scotland. Also, to put English crooked lawyers On Notice that they also are under observation by SACL. It is a truly appalling tale and our thanks and admiration go to Alan Darby for never giving up in his pursuit of Justice for the victims." - Stuart Usher, SACL Co-ordinator

Brief summary of the scandal:

• In November 1992 the MP for North Warwickshire, Mike O'Brien MP, a lawyer, contacted Alan out of the blue promising to help Alan to expose two lawyers, partners in the law firm of Argyles, solicitors, of Atherstone, Warwickshire. Alan had been trying in vain to bring these two solicitors, Michael Archer and Robert Peddar-Adams, to account for years. These two lawyers had been stealing money from the accounts of their elderly clients in the period 1989-92. They had passed some of stolen money to accomplices who purchased properties with it for the solicitors, Archer and Adams. O'Brien wrote to Alan on the 10 th of April 1993 asking for the evidence that Alan had on the two rogue lawyers. Alan, much encouraged, met Mike O'Brien and gave him the evidence. In the two meetings that Alan had with Mike O'Brien MP, his suspicions were aroused because O'Brien appeared to be far more interested in how and where Alan had got the evidence, and who his witnesses were, rather than the explosive evidence of the theft and the properties purchased with the proceeds.

• On 9th June 1993 Mike O'Brien MP wrote to Alan informing him that he (Alan) could not substantiate the accusations. Further, that he had passed the evidence onto the Warwickshire Police. And finally that the matter was “closed” as far as he (Mike O' Brien MP) was concerned! Naturally Alan was outraged. Particularly so as the criminal activity was still continuing (and continued to do so for the next five years). This led Alan to conclude that Mike O'Brien's offer to “help” him bring the two rogue lawyers to account was simply a ruse and that the real reason was to gain access to the rogue lawyers with a view to making money out of them.
• For years thereafter Alan wrote to Mike O'Brien MP. All Alan's letters were ignored by Mike O'Brien MP. From 1993 to 1998 the fraud and theft continued until it reached £5.4 million.
• In 1995 Alan notified the Law Society of England and Wales of the theft and sent it the evidence, believing that it would instantly take the appropriate action against the rogue lawyers and any one else involved in the theft. Like thousands of others before him Alan discovered that his belief in the integrity of the Law Society was entirely misplaced and he eventually came to regard it as just another Crime Protection Syndicate, like so many others who had had the misfortune to deal with it. His reporting the criminal activity to the Law Society resulted in the institutional self-protectionism with which most members of SACL are very well acquainted.
• On the 23rd of September 1998 Mike O'Brien MP, now a Minister in the Foreign Office, wrote to the Law Society of England and Wales requesting the Law Society send him Alan's evidence. This File, still under “investigation” (notional) by the Law Society contained additional incriminating evidence in addition to the evidence which Alan had given Mike O'Brien MP back in 1993. The Law Society sent the incriminating evidence to O'Brien on the 26 th of October 1998 without letting Alan know. The documents in question included forged Law Society sales contracts dated 1989 in connection with two properties purchased with the stolen money and signed by Robert Peddar-Adams.
• Two months later, on the 19th of June 1998 the other rogue lawyer (Michael Archer) gave himself up to the Police. In essence he had been thrown to the wolves by the others involved in the fraud as the price of their freedom. He was charged first with stealing £1.2 million from his clients. This was later increased to £3.2 million. He stood trial at Coventry Crown Court, found guilty, and jailed for 5 years by that Court in 1999. Just before being sentenced Michael Archer, in an attempt to mitigate his fraud before the Court made the statement: “I only kept £100,000 for myself and gave the rest away so that people would like me”! Most sinister however was that the Police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Law Society were fully aware of the identity of those who had received the stolen money but failed to charge them along with Michael Archer.
• Here the ubiquitious Mike O Brien MP popped up again! Having found out from Alan who the rogue lawyers were he had started blackmailing them (see above) as the price for his silence. However, as so often with criminals, there was a quarrel and two other individuals who had received some of the stolen money now, in turn, started blackmailing Mike O'Brien MP, threatening to blow the whistle on him to Tony Blair.
• Remember that Alan had reported the theft to the North Warwickshire Police in 1989/90. These years of fraud with in excess of 100 elderly people being robbed blind would never have happened if the Police had carried out their duty to protect the public from criminals. Another reason why the Police refused to take any action was that Mike O'Brien MP did not report the crimes to them. Ironically, the Head of the Fraud Squad in charge of the investigation was himself jailed in 1997! He had taken early retirement and started a Private Investigation business. To promote his business he got serving Officers at Warwickshire Police HQ to steal information from the National Crime Computer database. He got 9 months jail time for this.
• Obstructed at every turn, Alan decided to take matters into his own hands and publicise the crime and the identity of the criminals himself. He distributed tens of thousands of leaflets all over the Midlands, Westminster and other areas. Predictably Mike O Brien MP kept his head down, mouth shut and ears wide open as crooked lawyers always do when caught out! As an MP and minister of state, it was absolutely incumbent on him to respond to Alan's allegations contained in these Leaflets in which he stood accused of criminal activity, not to mention defending his own name and the Office of State he now held, by instituting an Action of Libel against Alan. But O'Brien is terrified of Alan's overwhelming evidence coming out in a Court of Law.
• On the 13 th of Febuary 2001 one of the receptors of the stolen money wrote to Mike O'Brien admitting that he had received £25,000 from Archer in 1997 threatening to blow the whistle on Mike O'Brien MP, and the other criminals, to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. For the record Mike O'Brien MP, again, never drew this letter to the attention of the Police. Concealment of Crime is a criminal act in itself.
• To save himself and his fellow partners in crime, Mike O'Brien MP set up a Hearing for the receptor (the Blackmailer) in the Birmingham County Courts, Chancery Division (Claim No BM200413), in June 2002. The object of the Hearing was to sanitise the Receiving of Stolen Money offence thereby letting the Receptor keep the money and at the same time let Mike O'Brien MP and his fellow malefactors off the hook. The Court acquiesced in this charade by letting the malefactors off the hook in a judgement it knew to be false, thereby perverting the course of justice. It turned a blind eye to the money laundering that had taken place. Apart from anything else Chancery Courts have no jurisdiction to preside cases involving serious criminal activity. Its conduct of this qualified it as a Kangaroo Court.
• This Kangaroo Court Hearing achieved its objectives in that the Court allowed the Receptor and his family to keep all the stolen money that they had received from Archer, including a £300,000 farm. This, in itself, was manifestly in breach of just about every law imaginable and in particular the Proceeds of Crime Act of 2002. The Receptor therefore did not blow the whistle on Mr O'Brien and his fellow crooks. In passing this judgement the Judge simply ignored the law, abused the Court system, disregarded the victims of the serial crimes and allowed the criminals to keep the stolen money and property acquired with stolen money that they had received from the solicitors. Charming!
• In 2003 Alan acquired a Transcript of the Chancery Court Hearing of 2002 (Claim No BM200413) which listed the amounts of money which Michael Archer had stolen from his “clients” over a period of six years; to whom he had paid these amounts and the dates they were paid. The amount on the Court Transcript paid to one recipient alone totalled £615,865. Actually the total amount stolen by Archer and Peddar-Adams together from their clients over the years amounted to a whopping £5.4 million.

Since then Alan has increased his efforts to expose Mike O' Brien MP and the others involved in the fraud and corruption. He has repeatedly alerted the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Conservative Party, the Leader of the Liberal Party, the Lord Chancellor (Falconer) and a wide range of other politicians in Parliament. For sometime he had the support of the Charity “Help the Aged” until Dr Alan Burnett of Help the Aged was “warned off” by Mike O'Brien MP. Dr Burnett, being an honest man, admitted this to Alan before he withdrew his active support. To date everyone who could, and should, have taken the required action has, most pathetically, failed to do so; regardless of the overwhelming weight of the evidence of the crimes and the subsequent cover up by the Judiciary.
This is a good example of very serious corruption being allowed to flourish by the cowardice of our politicians and Government, the Crown Prosecution Service and other so called Legal Justice Departments. These craven people should rather think of the dozens of victims of this colossal theft, the aged and vulnerable, rather than themselves. And thereafter prosecute them, dispossess them of their £millions and return it to its rightful owners.
Alan has fought for years to get the stolen money returned to the victims. If and when Mike O'Brien MP is forced to defend these very serious accusations by instituting a Libel action against Alan, only then will Alan be able to expose the true extent of this horrendous crime.
In April 2005, Mike O'Brien was appointed Solicitor General of the United Kingdom. He is now Minister for Energy. It goes without saying that such a man in such a position poses a serious threat to the country.

Page References:

Report on Hinduja Passport Scandal

Mike O'Brien MP| Solicitor General | Lawyer MPs