Rob Waugh
A SENIOR judge yesterday expressed concern about reports that compensation due to miners was instead finding its way to solicitors and other third parties involved in the multi-million pound scheme.
Sir Michael Turner, the judge appointe
d to manage the litigation, said that there was legitimate public concern that miners' compensation "goes where it is intended to go".
But he stopped short of calling for a suspension of payments because that would be unfair to the vast majority of cases which are being handled correctly.
The judge had called a special court hearing after reports last week revealed South Yorkshire Police had begun a fraud inquiry into how the scheme had been operated by the Union of Democratic Mineworkers.
He called for reassurance from the Department of Trade and Industry, the Law Society, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers and other interested parties in the light of reports that some payments had been subject to deductions in favour of the claims' representative who had handled the application.
"If and to the extent that sums may have been diverted from legitimate payments to miners or their representatives, those are matters which the DTI, as the guardians of the public purse, will urgently have to consider."
The DTI, which took over British Coal's liabilities, faces more than 700,000 claims from miners who suffer from conditions such as respiratory disease or vibration white finger. Over 200,000 claims have been settled by means of a judicially controlled agreement between the DTI and miners' lawyers with another 300,000 expected to be agreed.
Solicitors involved in handling the claims receive a set fee paid by the DTI but in some cases claimants have also had to pay a separate fee to either solicitors or unions handling their cases.
The judge, sitting at London's High Court, said: "The matters which were so extensively reported in last week's newspapers introduced a new element into the situation due to the fact that, as it happens and unknown to me at the time, the DTI had made a separate agreement with the UDM and claims handlers who are owned by or operated in conjunction with that union.
"It is the nature of those arrangements and the manner in which they have been operated which are currently subject to the police investigation."
After a day of submissions including representations from the DTI and the UDM, he concluded: "I am reassured about the steps which have been and continue to be taken to monitor the conduct of the few – for I am satisfied if there are any transgressors, as to which I cannot say, they are few – but they are under the potential supervision of their professional body, who has as great an interest as the court in the early and orderly disposal of the claims."
He said that it would be "in the highest degree mischievous" for any interruption to the claims process to be inflicted unless the court could be satisfied that irreparable harm would be done to the interests of justice, the claimants and the public.
John Cooper QC, for the Department of Trade and Industry, told the court that from its point of view, sums were being paid properly and any problems arose thereafter.
The Law Society, represented by Timothy Dutton QC, said that its inquiry into more than 30 firms was the largest group of connected investigations it had carried out into solicitors' conduct.
James Goss QC, for the UDM Nottinghamshire section, said that suggestions in the media that the UDM had a claims-handling agreement that was preferential to any other body was wrong.
