The following is a letter written by David Abbott to Russell Jones Walker complaining about Joanne Stephens and poor performance in Kristian's defence. RJW's response to that letter can be found here

Mr N Holroyd

Russell Jones Walker

1st Floor St James' House

7 Charlotte Street Manchester

United Kingdom M1 4DZ

Dear sir,

re: Kristian Abbott

I am writing to you on behalf of my son Kristian Abbott with his full knowledge and his full permission regarding the representation afforded by Miss Joanne Stephens, a junior solicitor at your firm. As you know we had to dismiss both Miss Stephens and the barrister Miss Crangle last week after our son was found not guilty of the second charge against him. This we felt we had to do due to the complete incompetence of Miss Stephens in her role as solicitor as well as the ineffectual defence provided (or not) by Miss Crangle.

From the outset we had concerns about Miss Stephens' performance and, had we known that she was newly qualified, we would have sought advice as to why she was running such a complex case as this was. In that regard I would like to know from you who the principal solicitor was who was overseeing Miss Stephens as per codes of practice.

The first part of our complaint covers the defence, or as we say, the lack of any defence, put forward by our defence team. The judge in the trial, Peter Lakin said at the end of evidence, whilst summing up both sides prior to closings, (I paraphrase) it is quite remarkable that the defence has relied solely on the prosecution evidence for their case. Indeed there are two things that can be drawn from this statement,

1. That the prosecution evidence pointed so strongly towards our son's innocence that no defence was necessary.

2. That the defence had simply not put forward a case.

Strangely enough both are true insofar as the prosecution evidence does actually prove our son's innocence and nothing the prosecution said or did changes that. That the defence team put forward no defence is also sadly true and both Miss Stephens and Miss Crangle. must bear the absolute blame for that.

There were two cases running in tandem, one for S A and the other for Danielle Gibbons. As you have the papers in the case, I will not bore you by going into the details, other than to point up the parts where more could have been done, which would ensure that an innocent man would not now be facing jail and the ruination of his life.

In the Gibbons case the timings were crucial to our son's defence and he was acquitted in this matter due, we think, to his having an alibi. It took the jury 13+ hours to reach that verdict. Back in May of this year, we asked Miss Stephens about obtaining evidence on the key fobs that police officers use to gain entry to police stations. This would show whether or not our son was in Littleborough station or not at crucial times. Throughout the next few months we kept asking her about this issue and it right up to the trial date she had no information. It was only during the trial that she sought evidence directly from the company who provided this service, Keyways of Hale Barns. This could and should have been done when we first asked for it.

It is also the case that we asked for vehicle log books for Littleborough early on in the proceedings and this was not done. Indeed in one email she says to our son that “your parents keep going on about these log books” .

Also in the matter of the key fobs she wrote one email to our son where she says “your parents keep banging on about these key fobs” although later on at the end of the trial she said in front of Miss Crangle that she would not use language like that. This was a lie. ¹

We also asked her to get in touch with a company called Airwaves ²who provide the communication systems for GMP as the “investigating officer” one DS Barnard, had said that the communication details for Kristian were not available. He stated that GMP only kept these logs for 90 days but we told Miss Stephens that Airwaves would keep records of all calls for at least 6 years for tax purposes. ³

She failed to contact them or, it seems, anyone about this even though we pointed out that this evidence could pinpoint Kristian's whereabouts within 10 metres. Indeed even at the end of the trial when I asked her what had happened about Airwaves she resorted to a lie and told us she was still trying to get the information. When I informed her that I had just rung airwaves on my mobile phone and got that information in less than two minutes, she said that she had to go through certain procedures and could not ring them direct. If one is to take the fact that she rang Keyways direct to gain information, then her statement about not being able to ring Airwaves direct is a lie.

What Miss Stephens has done throughout this trial is to only ask for evidence from the CPS rather than seek out evidence from any other source. We informed Miss Stephens very early on that we had concerns about the ability of DS Barnard to carry out a fair investigation both towards and away from guilt. It has since been proved in Court that DS Barnard carried out a one sided investigation which sought to prove guilt only. Indeed Barnard actually sought to mislead over evidence. ⁴

When we continually brought this to Miss Stephens' attention, she made statements such as “ I have to be careful what I say because our firm relies on a lot of work from the police federation and the police and I would not want to be the cause of losing it.” You can see this kind of thing in the email attached marked police. ⁵ In one email Miss Stephens actually acknowledges her misgivings about Barnard yet she still only ever seeks information from the CPS.

We wrote Miss Stephens on occasions and rec'd no reply and, on asking for the reply some days later we were told that she had forgotten to do what we asked. Our son asked Miss Stephens for copies of the statements in the Danielle Gibbons case and she wrote back saying that they had been sent out in January of 2008. We have doubts as to the veracity of this statement as to the best of our recollection they had not been released to the defence until February. I am sure that you will have evidence of when they were posted as per normal solicitor's offices. In the end they were sent out in late summer and we went through them and made various points. Where we criticised DS Barnard she seemed to defend him. ⁶

Suffice it to say that in Gibbons there were a lot more occasions when we had to keep pressing for information etc.

In the case of S A, it seems to us that no defence was put forward other than our son's testimony in the witness box and that of his wife's.

The main elements of the prosecution's case in A were as follows:

1. The statements and evidence in the witness box by S A.

2. The semen on the trousers.

3. The torn condom wrapper in the car.

4. The timings in the journey.

The evidence given by S A varied wildly between her statement and the witness box. She was treated as a vulnerable witness by Miss Crangle despite that status having been removed by the judge. In her statement A states that Kristian took the condom from her put it on his penis and masturbated with his left hand. In the box A says that she did not watch him masturbate and Miss Crangle did not press this point any further despite the fact that Kristian is right handed. The fact that she has made 5 other allegation of sexual assault, including rape, which have all to the best of my knowledge been shown to be fabricated, was not particularly pressed home.

The semen on the trousers was not even DNA tested at the specific request of DS Barnard and yet it was us that noticed this, but this was never brought into cross examination except by the prosecution when cross examining Kristian. Why did Miss Stephens not put this point forward?

The torn condom wrapper was DNA tested and no DNA was found. Yet this piece of non evidence that could not be linked to Kristian or S, was allowed to be seen by the jury as a major piece of evidence. Why were perforation tests not done or batch number tests not carried out? The only time mention was made of this wrapper by the defence was in closing!!

The timings in the journey prove conclusively that Kristian could not have committed this offence as there was simply no opportunity. This is based solely on the prosecution's evidence. Why was more not made of this? Perhaps a chart in court and a measurement expert.

There is more but I hope that I have given you enough to think about.

It seems to us that Miss Stephens was too junior to have been put in sole charge of this case and that a more senior solicitor would have provided a defence worthy of that name. It also seems to us that Miss Stephens made her mind up quite early that Kristian was guilty hence her email that Kristian had a case to answer. I am aware that she makes quick judgements about people hence her insulting remark that I am a misogynist.

On that last point, let me make you aware that the reverse is and always has been true. Anyone who has ever known me, would only ever have the right to complain that I am too much in favour of women's rights as I always have been. It has always been my firm belief that women should rule the world as they are far more suited to do so than men. Where my wife will castigate feminists it is I who will support them. It is obvious that Miss Stephens is aware that she has failed miserably at her job, and seeks to divert attention from that fact by throwing post modernist accusations around like chaff from a fighter, Indeed this shows clearly her inability to remain dispassionate about her clients.

In the latter stages of the trial my son raised the issue of continuity of evidence in respect of the trousers but although we made both Miss Stephens and Miss Crangle aware of this they did nothing about it.

It is our firm belief that our son has been in shock since the beginning of this whole episode and that he has been unable to deal with the issues facing him. That is why we have played such a large part in trying to promote his defence. He wrote to Miss Stephens expressing concern about his welfare but she took no notice.

There is evidence to say that had Miss Stephens made more robust enquiries at a much earlier stage then more evidence proving Kristian's innocence in the Gibbons case could have been recovered. I refer specifically to the log book for a CID Astra car and to the CCTV tapes from Middleton police station which were only destroyed in may this year. She might argue that she did not then know that Kristian had been at Middleton that night. That is indicative of her abject failure to conduct any enquiries in this case, as if she had read the evidence, then she would have found the detail in the duty states that showed he was there as indeed we discovered.

As the defence only called one witness, you might be forgiven for thinking that this witness would be prepared and looked after by Miss Stephens as were all the prosecution witnesses. Again you would be completely wrong to assume such a notion were true. This witness, my daughter in law, came into court without Miss Stephens even speaking to her, let alone showing her her statement. Indeed the trial had to be halted so that she could go away and read her statement. This is a young woman who has never been inside a court before and who is extremely nervous of officialdom. This resulted in her having to sit in a room on her own throughout the lunch break, wondering what on earth was happening to her. I will confess that this outraged me so much that I did express my outrage to Miss Stephens and Miss Crangle in no uncertain terms. They both admitted that it was an error on their part.

On the subject of witnesses, we noted a letter dated the 10^th of October, ten days prior to the start of the trial, where the prosecution informed Miss Stephens that only one witness had been called for court and that if Miss Stephens required other witnesses calling she should let them know. It was only when 3 crucial witnesses that would give Kristian an alibi in the gibbons case, were due to be called that we discovered that they were not being called. Our defence team wanted to agree the witnesses’ statements but it was only at our insistence that they were actually called.

Whilst waiting for the jury to return a verdict, Kristian and I spoke to both Miss Stephens and Miss Crangle and asked them about possible grounds for appeal. Miss Crangle stated very firmly that there were absolutely no grounds for appeal. That shows the level of incompetence of Miss Crangle insofar as we have spoken to two other solicitors, who feel that there are extremely strong grounds for appeal on several issues. A more experienced solicitor would have been better able to judge grounds than Miss Stephens.

There is one final but nonetheless very serious lapse on Miss Stephens' part that I must bring to your attention. At the end of the Sophie Ashton case when Kristian had been found guilty, the judge informed him in open court that he had to wait to sign the sex offenders notification or some such document. After some time of us waiting outside the courtroom door the clerk of the court came out with the document and asked where Kristian's solicitor was. We informed her that she had left the building in the company of Miss Crangle. She then asked Kristian to sign the form and he expressed alarm as he did not understand what he was signing. The clerk then went back in to ask the judge for advice. The judge sent back saying that he should raise the matter with his solicitor the next day. The matter was not raised as she was not there the next day. This kind of behaviour towards a client comes under the heading of totally unacceptable and appalling.

I have attempted, despite my personal feelings, to be objective in this matter and I can only hope that you will be the same in your examination of Miss Stephens' conduct. It is extremely disturbing to me to think that other innocent people's lives may be put in jeopardy by her inability to function dispassionately and her incompetence.

What you should ask yourself is this:

1. Was Miss Stephens competent and experienced enough to take on a case as complex as this?

2. Did Miss Stephens act in the best interests of her client and provide an adequate defence as he was entitled to under the Human Rights act?

3. Did Miss Stephens act professionally and properly towards her client and witnesses throughout this case?

4. Was miss Stephens truthful and hones in her dealings with her client?

In our opinion, the answer to all of the above is a resounding no. I wonder if you will agree?

In summary it was wrong of your firm to place the fate of my son in the hands of one so junior and obviously inexperienced and although we will have to concentrate for now on securing other representation, we shall return to this issue in our complaints to the relevant bodies for both Miss Stephens and Miss Crangle. It may be in the future that we shall take advice with a view to litigation against your company but for now our son's future is our main priority.

I will be happy to provide you with copies of any correspondence in this matter that you require but I am sure you already have the most relevant ones.

I look forward to hearing your early response.

Yours sincerely,

David Abbott

on behalf of Kristian Abbott and Christine Abbott