This was almost certainly a breach of international law and Turkey has the right to take charge of a criminal investigation

Will the rule of law be applied to Israel this time? In principle, it is unlawful for a state to enforce a blockade against ships that are flying the flag of another state on the high seas. The only exceptions to this would be if the blockade were mandated by the UN security council acting under chapter VII of the UN charter. The basic principle under customary international law as regards ships in international waters was set out by the permanent court of international justice in the SS Lotus case (1927):

“… vessels on the high seas are subject to no authority except that of the state whose flag they fly. In virtue of the principle of the freedom of the seas, that is to say, the absence of any territorial sovereignty upon the high seas, no state may exercise any kind of jurisdiction over foreign vessels upon them.”

While international law does allow for exceptions to the above rule, entitling warships to interfere with ships flying the flag of another state while in international waters in limited circumstances, those exceptions do not apply to the events of 31 May. Indeed, a 1988 treaty (to which Israel is a party) criminalises the unlawful and intentional seizure or exercise of control over a ship by force, and all connected injuries or deaths.

If the Israeli boarding of the ship was illegal, then arguably the passengers were entitled to act in self-defence against the invading commandos. If so, they could use reasonable force to defend themselves, the amount of force permitted being determined by Turkish law.

And that is the point: it is clearly Turkish criminal law that can and should predominate from this point on. The Mavi Marmara is a Turkish-registered ship and was travelling peacefully in international waters when Israeli forces boarded it. At least one of the dead civilians is reportedly a Turkish citizen. The Turkish authorities have the absolute right to assert that their criminal justice system take sole charge of a criminal investigation.

Turkey is therefore perfectly entitled to demand that all evidence, including the identity of all Israeli naval and other forces, is handed over to its criminal justice authorities for a full investigation and that Israel allow Turkish law enforcement officials unimpeded access to the Israeli suspects. Israel is after all a party to the 1959 European convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters.

If Israel were to refuse, the UN security council, if concerned about a threat to international peace and security, could then back Turkish and international demands to this effect in a chapter VII resolution. The question therefore arises: will Turkey and the international community require Israel to comply with the rule of law on this occasion?

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We should applaud Sir Nicholas Wall’s decision to make public the reasoning of the usually secretive court of protection

“Can a distinction be made between a wise act carried out by a madman, and a senseless act of folly carried out by a man in full possession of his wits? Wisdom and folly are surprisingly close.” Michael Foucault’s observation lies at the heart of the problem doctors and lawyers face in demarcating this boundary.

Last week Sir Nicholas Wall, the president of the family division of the high court, made a rare public judgment disclosing insights into the usually secretive inner workings of the court of protection (COP), which makes “declarations about whether someone has the capacity to make a particular decision”. The COP, as the public guardian, is empowered to make decisions behind closed doors that it regards as being in its wards’ best interests, including giving coercive medical treatments such as sterilisations, abortions and vasectomies. In light of these decisions as to what is in a patient’s “best interests”, the legal safeguards for patients take on much greater significance, as they only have real meaning if they also allow you to refuse treatment.

In this case, the court ruled that a 55-year-old woman did not have capacity because she suffered from two phobias, one of which was nosocomephobia – a fear of hospitals, which must be a fairly common anxiety. Having disclosed or exhibited this and also her needle phobia, she was duly diagnosed and deprived of her capacity and will receive invasive surgery for cancer. In accordance with the legal test set out in the Mental Capacity Act 2005, she was deemed unable to make a capacious choice because her medical conditions impaired the functioning of her mind to make any decision about her treatment.

Consistently, the courts have opined that capaciousness should not be confused with the actual decision made by the patient, however grave the consequences. To usurp this hallowed presumption offends patient autonomy. A doctor’s challenge requires empirical testimony that a patient is experiencing a condition that interferes with their brain’s ability to make a functional – rather than a rational or wise – decision. An anorexic is force fed against his or her will on the basis of his or her underlying psychological condition. Note to self: be less cavalier in telling doctor that I have never had an operation as am terrified of having an anaesthetic and have in the past avoided hand surgery on this basis.

However, some beliefs confound empirical analysis. One patient thought her blood was evil “because it is red”. Clearly irrational, she disclosed: “It carries evil around my body. Although the blood given in transfusions is perfectly healthy and clean once given to me, it mixes with my own and also becomes evil. Therefore the volume of evil blood in my body will have increased and likewise the danger of my committing acts of evil.” Mr Justice Charles ruled her incapacitated and suggested that “it seems to me that this assertion and belief is a misconception of reality”. The judge thought her views capable of being “alternatively symptoms or evidence of incompetence”.

If one considers the refusal itself as a symptom or evidence of some underlying misconception of reality to challenge capaciousness, consider Emma Gough, a Jehovah’s Witness. Aged 22, she had complications following the birth of twins and refused a life-saving blood transfusion on the basis of an incoherent, if not bogus, religious belief, leaving her two children without a mother. Religion is not a medical condition but clearly can strongly direct an arbitrary decision to refuse treatment based upon a personal morality that is a misconception. Would the doctors have adopted the same approach if a patient suggested they were a member of a Jedi Knight sect, something no less rational than religion, to make the same decision?

In seeking to protect patients from benevolent but paternalistic doctors who may intuitively disagree with their patient’s choices, it is important that the legal response to this Foucauldian conundrum the rules are clear, coherent, applied universally and transparent. Sir Nicholas Wall’s decision to open these closed doors should be welcomed. For my part, I will simply say nothing about my phobia and deprive the doctor of the ability to challenge me – unless of course they come up with a medical condition for that.

In court, Watts’s legal team argued that there was no case to answer as the four woman he is accused of sexually abusing were not safe witnesses

Jim Watts, 57, a former disability bus driver, is serving a 12-and-a-half year jail sentence for sexually assaulting four severely mentally and physically disabled women.But there are serious concerns, raised by his legal team, that Watts, a married father of two, has been the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice, and that his case could serve as a significant deterrent to people thinking of working with severely disabled people.

Watts’s trial last October was described throughout by the judge as “highly unusual”. None of the women could give evidence in court. Two (referred to as women 2 and 3) were able to give evidence via video link – one communicated by looking up for yes and down for no, the other used a computer and voice synthesiser. Another of the women could not communicate at all, and the fourth had had a severe stroke.

None of the women, along with the North Devon care home and Watts’s employer, can be named, for legal reasons.

Watts maintains that the charges of rape and sexual assault against him are a weird fiction; that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) allowed an unsafe case to go to trial; and that the judge directed the jury away from compelling evidence that would have led to acquittal. His appeal starts next month and it is understood it will be heard by the lord chief justice.

When Watts was sentenced, the CPS issued a statement making much of the use of “expert intermediaries” and video links used to help the women give evidence. Yet, in some cases, detailed allegations about Watts’s abuse were not the women’s own words, they had to rely on images provided by police and care home staff, and identify their abuse and abuser using pictures of care staff and sexually explicit images.

Watts, with his grey beard and ponytail has the look and dress of a world-weary country singer. He used to sing and play guitar in local pubs, as well as being a bus driver, tree surgeon, electrician and driving instructor. He has volunteered as a Samaritan and an “appropriate adult” supporting vulnerable youngsters in custody.

Emotional visit

I met him at Exeter prison, earlier this year, on an emotional visit with his wife of 35 years, Su Bennett. Watts’s voice cracked when he told me: “I didn’t do anything.”

He explained that he had been a driver for the care home for more than two years. He worked 12 hours a week, taking residents to pub lunches and for carriage drives at an equestrian centre. He would help with feeding but did not get involved in dressing or toilet duties.

He says that he believes his case has done great harm to the recruitment of staff in care homes: “Many people I know have ceased to work in care. They have told me, ‘If it can happen to you it can happen to any of us.’ One described working in a care home as ‘swimming with sharks’.”

The story starts when a volunteer carer told the care home manager that Watts “tickled” a woman’s breasts over her clothes as he was putting on her bib to feed her in a crowded pub. Watts says that he and the volunteer would sit back-to-back when feeding the women and that she is simply mistaken. The severely disabled woman is unable to communicate at all.

The volunteer carer also said she heard a second woman scream when Watts was alone with her in the disability bus at the equestrian centre. But in court she said that what she heard was the screeching noise the woman makes when happy.

To commit rape, Watts says, he would have had to get the woman out of her wheelchair, undress her and take off her double nappy and then replace it, all while parked in a van with large glass windows in full view of a busy riding school. And, Watts explains: “I always took the woman back to the van first because of her wellknown allergy to horses.”

Medical and forensic examinations of all four women could find no evidence of sexual or physical assault.

The third woman was mentioned to police by the care home manager after the volunteer spoke to him about her.

Watts was suspended from work in March 2008 but not interviewed by the police until June. After a nine-month investigation by the police’s newly created North Devon protection of vulnerable adults team, he was charged with 13 counts of rape and sexual assault – in a pub, the van, the women’s rooms and on a beach.

Watts worked part time and claims he was not there when the attacks were supposed to have taken place.

In court, his legal team argued that there was no case to answer as these woman were not safe witnesses. The rape charges were rejected but Watts was found guilty of six counts of sexual assault by a 10-2 majority.

Unreliable testimony

Watts’s legal team says the judge failed to give jurors a fair summary of the case, making no reference to crucial evidence given by witnesses in court that would have demonstrated that the women’s testimony was “unreliable”.

The team will argue at the appeal that the police failed in the basics of interviewing witnesses with cognitive impairment, making no attempt to confirm that the women knew the difference between truth or lies, about anatomy or sexual matters, or to establish whether they understood the purpose of the interview, or its seriousness.

Both the women who gave evidence in court via video, according to an expert’s report, had almost non-existent knowledge of sexual matters, or the physical difference between men and women. Woman 2 used a computer communicator, which she operated with a switch in the headrest of her wheelchair. She cannot read.

She was told by police and care home staff that pictures of staff and body parts, including sexually explicit pictures, had been added to her computer to give her the opportunity to “tell us if anyone had done anything to her that she did not want”. The icons she selected were pre-installed with words or phrases, which were then synthesised to the court.

While there were computer icons for “yes” and “no” there was no icon for “I don’t understand”, or “I’m not sure”, which the defence argued means she was forced to give an answer when she may not have understood the question or may not have had an answer to give.

In the police report of a witness interview, the officer said “victim 2″ repeatedly hit the cursor on the “I’m scared” picture and “almost immediately disclosed she wanted to tell us something had occurred with Jim Watts”. “[She] then disclosed that Watts had punched [the computer's pre-installed word] her in the anus with his penis and it had made her cry.”

In the transcript of the interview, the police officer gives detailed descriptions. At one stage the officer says: “It’s Jim Watts in the car. He’s put his penis inside your bottom, your anus, on more than one occasion and you didn’t like it. Is that right?” The woman answers “no”. But the defence says it is not established whether she means “no it’s not right”, or “no I didn’t like it”.

The interview continues with allegations of rape and sexual assault being put to the woman only to receive seemingly contradictory “yes” and “no” replies. The interview is halted amid confusion when the woman starts communicating about other members of staff.

In her interview, woman 3, who, according to witnesses, uses not entirely reliable movements of her eyes to indicate yes or no, clearly does not understand the words “penis” and “vagina”, says Watts’s defence team. Yet the police statement says that she alleges that Watts forced the fourth woman and herself into sexual activities on numerous occasions including on a beach. But the defence says care home logs reveal that he had taken the two women out together only once to a pub with another member of staff.

In a video of her police interview played in court, the fourth woman got simple facts about her family and Watts’s appearance wrong. Yet she alleged that Watts repeatedly raped her at knifepoint. She also claimed that she had told her husband, although he told the court he knew nothing of the allegations. She could not be cross-examined as she had had a second stroke before the trial.

Zara Svensson, Watts’s solicitor, says: “I am amazed that at every stage somebody didn’t step in and say this case is not safe.”

Watts’s wife says the last two years have been a nightmare not just for them but for the families who have been misled into believing their loved ones have been abused. “There has been no justice for these disabled women and certainly none for Jim,” she says.

And she asks: “If Jim wanted to be a serial sex abuser why didn’t he take up the home’s offer of being a care assistant and have unlimited access to these helpless women?”

Meanwhile, Watts, a man who has never before been in trouble with the law, is in Exeter jail marked as an extremely deviant sex offender. He is writing songs, trying to stay sane. He even entered the prison poetry competition, its theme: the joys of life.

But he says: “I am angry at the cavalier way my life and good name have been taken from me.”

The care home operator did not wish to comment on the case.

Financial crisis threatens coalition government’s ambitious scheme to consign multi-agency approach to history

The coalition government’s much-vaunted plan to abolish the Serious Fraud Office and replace it with a super-agency to fight white-collar crime may never happen because of the financial crisis, it emerged last night.

Ministers are publicly committed to merging the SFO, plus part of the Financial Services Agency and the Office of Fair Trading, into one large economic crime agency that would tackle bribery, fraud and insider trading. Other departments, such as the City of London police fraud unit and parts of the criminal prosecution service, might also be folded in. However, the ambitious project faces potentially insurmountable hurdles in raising enough money to fund a reorganisation. Ministers are warning privately that the government’s top priority is reducing the national deficit and that, in the circumstances, the agency scheme will have to be cancelled if it costs too much.

Treasury officials are working on detailed costings for presentation to a cabinet committee later this year. “The biggest problem is money,” said one source.

George Osborne, the chancellor, promoted the idea of creating the super-agency while in opposition. He claimed during the election campaign that it “will sweep away the confused, multi-agency approach and create a single, focused body with the mandate, expertise and authority needed to tackle serious economic crime”.

The super-agency would be responsible to a beefed-up Law Officers department, headed by the attorney general, Dominic Grieve. His deputy, the solicitor general, Edward Garnier, is known to be an enthusiast.

The FSA is funded through a levy paid by the list of financial companies it regulates. This consists of 29,000 firms involved in the financial services industry. The new agency would take over the FSA’s enforcement arm, which costs around £40m to run. The 300-strong SFO, on the other hand, is funded by the taxpayer to the tune of £43m a year.

Ministers will either have to extend the levy in some way to fund the new agency or pay for it entirely from the public purse, a figure which could potentially run to more than £80m.

The reorganisation cost of abolishing the existing agencies and setting up the new organisation could also be high.

Setting up the super-agency would require new legislation. The government decided not to include this in the first programme of coalition bills outlined in the Queen’s speech, and it is not yet clear whether the agency would be given new powers, for instance to impose liability on corporations, strike plea bargains, or offer immunity to whistleblowers.

One insider said setting up a new agency merely by “rearranging the Whitehall furniture” would be inadequate if the aim was to secure more convictions than the existing agencies.

Prosecutor tells trial in Amsterdam that company put ‘self-interest above people’s health and the environment’

The London-based oil trader Trafigura faced criminal charges for the first time today, over the environmental scandal which caused international uproar last year and forced it to compensate thousands of Africans made ill by toxic waste.

At the start of a trial in Amsterdam – at which Trafigura is accused of an initial attempt to get rid of the waste cheaply in the Netherlands – prosecutor Look Bougert told the court the company had put “self-interest above people’s health and the environment”.

He said Trafigura first tried to conceal how dangerous the waste was, then pumped it back on board its tanker and left the Netherlands with hundreds of tonnes of oil residue, contaminated with foul-smelling sulphur mercaptans and toxic hydrogen sulphide.

Instead of paying for specialist disposal, Trafigura “dumped it over the fence” in Abidjan, the main port of poverty-stricken Ivory Coast in west Africa. “Cheap, but with consequences,” Bougert said.

Trafigura lawyer Aldo Verbruggen said the charges were based on an unfounded moral judgment. He said: “Trafigura is a company that takes responsible entrepreneurship very seriously.” The Dutch charges, if upheld, could lead to a large corporate fine and prison sentences of up to six years for two relatively junior individuals, the tanker’s Ukrainian captain, Sergey Chertov, and a London-based Trafigura employee, Naeem Ahmed.

Evert Uittenbosch, director of the Dutch waste disposal firm Amsterdam Port Services, and the Amsterdam city authorities also deny charges of “leaving dangerous waste in the hands of someone not qualified to process it”.

It has been ruled that the company’s chief executive, Claude Dauphin, should not face personal charges. Nor does the prosecution cover the events after the tanker, the Probo Koala, left Amsterdam, and the subsequent dumping in Abidjan, which sent 30,000 people choking, retching and seeking medical treatment.

Instead, the trial, which is expected to last two months, focuses on the relatively technical question of Trafigura’s behaviour in Amsterdam when the tanker made its first attempt to dispose of the contaminated waste. The prosecution says it was misdescribed as routine “slops” from ordinary tank-cleaning. When the disposal company received protests from residents about the foul smell and demanded payment for specialist disposal, Trafigura was allowed instead to pump the waste back aboard and leave the port. It is illegal to export hazardous waste from a European location to be dumped in Africa.

Trafigura gained notoriety last year when it hired British lobbyist Bell Pottinger, and libel lawyer Carter-Ruck, to threaten European media organisations which sought to investigate the firm’s behaviour. The company overreached itself and was forced to withdraw, when it attempted to enforce a so-called “super-injunction” against the Guardian, gagging it from reporting proceedings in the British parliament.

From the autumn, complaints about the legal profession will be handled by an independent watchdog. But will it have teeth?

Have you ever complained about the service you received from a lawyer? It’s not always the easiest thing in the world: lawyers do not really see themselves as a service industry, and so tend to treat complaints as a personal affront rather than as a chance to ensure their clients have had a good experience.

This probably explains why around 16,000 complaints were made to lawyers’ regulators last year, and why the supervisory regulator, the Legal Services Board, last week felt the need to issue guidance about the obligations on lawyers to tell their clients how to complain.

I once sat in on the helpline at the Legal Complaints Service (LCS), the Law Society’s complaints-handling arm, which received nearly 70,000 calls last year. It was an eye-opening experience.

What struck me, as someone who trained as a lawyer many years ago and has lived in the legal world since, was just how befuddled and intimidated the general public were by the law. There was one woman who had been involved in a case for five years, but when the caseworker asked her whether she was the claimant or defendant, she simply replied: “What’s that?” Lawyers sometimes forget this.

This autumn, the LCS and the other legal professional bodies’ complaints-handling operations will be replaced by the Office for Legal Complaints, an independent legal ombudsman service (sometimes known as LegO but perhaps, unsurprisingly, now more often as LeO). It is often forgotten that unhappiness with how the profession was dealing with complaints was one of the main drivers behind the 2007 Legal Services Act, and creation of the LeO has to date been overshadowed by other aspects of the act.

Solicitors generate the vast majority of complaints. They have long been under an obligation to try to resolve them in-house, and it is only once this fails that clients then go to the LCS; that so many do implies that solicitors are not brilliant at mollifying dissatisfied clients.

So the board’s guidance last week outlines how it expects lawyers to respond to unhappy consumers – and, importantly, what their regulators should be doing to monitor them.

If the LeO is still called into action, it could prove a shock to solicitors. The LeO can award a remedy of up to £30,000 and will do so even in straightforward cases of professional negligence. However, allegations of professional misconduct, rather than poor service, will be referred back to the lawyer’s own regulator.

It will not be a formal, legalistic procedure, as LCS matters can sometimes become. Adam Sampson, the chief ombudsman, told me recently: “This is a quick and inquisitorial process designed to elicit sufficient information on which an ombudsman can base a decision.” It will also take action if the underlying cause of complaint has no merit but the complaint was dealt with badly.

Lawyers will be concerned that it is sufficiently rigorous to weed out those complainants who are just trying it on to get a bit knocked off their bill, or are simply unhappy with the outcome of their case. Sampson stresses that he sees his role as protecting lawyers from consumers as much as the other way round, and bridles at the suggestion that the LeO could represent rough-and-ready justice. Whatever the reality, lawyers need to realise that providing a good service does not simply mean getting the law right.

So will this improve the experience of the client who has cause to complain? It will certainly be different, and make for very interesting reading if the LeO decides to start publishing lawyers’ complaints records, as it may do.

The irony, however, is that since the nadir a decade ago, which triggered the reform process, the LCS is now performing to high standards. But it will forever be undermined by a perceived lack of independence from the profession whose standards it is judging. For that reason, if for no other, the LeO will be a step forward for all.

Neil Rose is the editor of Legal Futures

Analysis of the legal implications of the raid on the Gaza flotilla as both sides invoke international law.

Both sides of the major diplomatic incident sparked by Israel’s decision to storm the Gaza-bound flotilla are invoking international law to condemn the others’ actions.

Israel had vowed to block the flotilla from entering Gaza since last week, accusing the boats of embarking on “an act of provocation” against the Israeli military, and that its entry into the 20-nautical mile closure of the sea off Gaza would amount a violation of international law.

But there is mounting criticism that Israel breached international standards and human rights law through its use of armed force to storm the vessels.

International human rights law protects the right to life, and United Nations standards on the use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials set strict guidelines on the response by military and police in law enforcement situations.

Under the international basic principles, the use of violence is prohibited unless it is strictly necessary, and the use of lethal force can only be justified in self-defence or to protect life.

“We consider this a situation where once the Israeli commandos boarded the ships, and where they had effective control. These international standards are how a state is meant to respond to any acts of violence in a law enforcement situation,” said James Ross, Legal and Policy Director at Human Rights Watch. “We are calling for a credible and impartial full investigation of the incident by the Israeli authorities.”

Although competing accounts persist as to whether there were any arms on board the flotilla, and Israeli spokespeople have insisted that the attack was an act of self-defence.

But international law also requires that any use of force is proportionate, something that other states have already begun calling into question. Yesterday French President Nicholas Sarkozy said French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned “the disproportionate use of force” against the flotilla.

Questions have also been raised about the violation of international maritime law by Israel’s actions, after reports that the flotilla was around 80 miles from Gaza’s coast when Israeli commandos boarded.

The position of the vessels in waters regarded as “the high seas” raises the prospect of an action for piracy and other violations of international law.

Although there remain competing definitions of piracy, it is defined by UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as illegal acts of violence or detention on the high seas outside the jurisdiction of any State.

Israel has already argued that its actions could not be regarded as piracy because it did not commit any crime when boarding the vessels, and experts say that government vessels are exempted from piracy claims, discounting legal challenges based on the use of military boats to intercept the flotilla.

The incident also places renewed attention on the blockade of Gaza, which has itself been described as a breach of article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the use of collective punishment.

Last year the report by international judge Richard Goldstone gave both sides in the conflict three months to show they were willing and able to undertake investigations that met international standards.

Hamas has still failed to investigate, and a recent report by the Israeli military has been heavily criticised for failing to comply with international standards. Although the UN human rights council referred Goldstone’s report to the General Assembly for follow-up, it has never reached the Security Council for possible referral to the International Criminal Court.

Will the condemnation of the News of the World by crown court judge Christopher Mitchell make the slightest difference to the way the newspaper goes about its business?

No. Judges have made similar damning comments in the past about the paper’s penchant for entrapping people. It hasn’t changed its behaviour.

Why? Because the paper’s editors and journalists don’t care. As far as they are concerned it’s job done because Edward Terry has been sentenced for selling cocaine.

So who should bring the paper to book for its objectionable sting? How about the Press Complaints Commission?

Well, let’s explore that a little further. First, there’s the thorny problem of the absence of a formal (and non-third party) complaint. I doubt if Terry will go to the PCC.

The commission could investigate off its own back, but would doubtless point out (a) that the matter has dealt with by the courts (and is therefore not within its remit), and (b) that it would not wish to cause Terry any further embarrassment without his explicit permission.

Then there’s the matter of deciding whether the paper could be said to have breached the editors’ code of practice. Which of the 16 clauses would be appropriate?

Clause 10, relating to clandestine devices and subterfuge, springs to mind. It states, in part:

i) The press must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by using hidden cameras or clandestine listening devices…

ii) Engaging in misrepresentation or subterfuge, including by agents or intermediaries, can generally be justified only in the public interest and then only when the material cannot be obtained by other means.

So the key would be to decide whether entrapping Terry was in the public interest. I imagine the NoW would argue that it had prima facie evidence (which may, or may not, have had a basis in fact) that Terry was prepared to sell drugs.

But remember now what the judge – having heard all the facts – said in court:

It is a very, very clear case of entrapment solely to create a newspaper story…

The facts in this case are highly unusual. In fact the offence was actually created by the actions of the newspaper sending a journalist to set you up. It is clearly an entrapment case and the only reason they did this was to create a story because of your connections to a well known footballer.

What emerged was that NoW reporter Dan Sanderson, posing as a chauffeur, spent six weeks befriending Terry at a wine bar. Then, having gained his trust, he asked Terry where he could buy cocaine for his boss and his friend.

Terry fell for it and did the deal. As his lawyer told the court: “Mr Terry would not have acted in the way he did and committed this offence but for being enticed by the journalist who befriends Mr Terry, meets with him on a couple of dozen occasions at the minimum, simply for a tabloid story.”

Ok, in the light of that, here are two questions for the PCC’s commissioners.

Are you collectively happy that Britain’s highest-selling national paper has been criticised by a judge for entrapping a man “solely to create a newspaper story”?

If your answer is yes, then you might as well pack your bags. If the answer is no, then what do you propose to do about it?

Any business that wants to make money from a new school could face a long tendering process and public scrutiny

The latest announcement from Michael Gove on the coalition’s school plans suggests that businesses could profit from academies.

As he says, Conservatives have no problem with profiteering in the state sector. But he might find that the courts do have a problem with that.

Academies generate controversy among parents and teachers, but they have also given rise to their fair share of legal action.

In a case brought last year by Gillian Chandler, a mother living in Camden, where University College London intends to open an academy, the court of appeal ruled that the agreements to set up academies were exempt from tendering requirements.

Why? Because the European public procurement regime – the cause of the extended tendering processes so disliked by public authorities – does not apply where there is no profit motive.

Academies are established under section 482 of the Education Act 1996, which gives the education secretary the power to enter into a contract with any person, known as a sponsor, who wishes to establish an academy.

The secretary of state can agree to make payments to the sponsor “in consideration of his undertakings”, effectively covering his costs, but the sponsor does not make a profit from the school.

One of the reasons academies have caused concern is that the education secretary is not obliged to invite alternative proposals for their establishment in the same way that local authorities do when they set up maintained schools under the Education and Inspections Act 2006.

The creation of an academy too often seems like a secretive process between sponsor and secretary of state that shuts out local communities.

Chandler, whose children were eligible to apply to a new academy in Camden, tried to challenge this process in the court of appeal.

Her case invoked the Public Contracts Regulations 2006, which oblige the secretary of state to follow a tendering process when he contracts out public services.

Her challenge failed after the court – led by Lady Justice Arden – employed esoteric definitions of service providers and public contracts in the European directive to find that the academy contract was “philanthropic” and so not covered by the regulations.

Here lies the problem for Gove: if businesses want to profit from schools, the regulations are likely to apply and sponsors will find themselves entangled in protracted tendering negotiations that open up the academy process to competitors and public scrutiny.

Given that the attraction for many sponsors is discreet access to the education secretary and the quick establishment of their school, the application of the regulations could pose a serious obstacle to the plans for academy domination.

Of course, if the Conservatives are serious about community engagement in schools, they ought to welcome an open process for choosing academy sponsors.

But regard for profit, not transparency, appears to have been the motivation behind this most recent academy initiative.

Elizabeth Prochaska is a barrister at Matrix Chambers

Chemist from Stockport was allegedly mistreated, raising further concerns about possible UK complicity in torture

A third UK citizen has been detained in Bangladesh and allegedly mistreated while being interrogated about his associates and activities in both countries, raising further concerns about possible British complicity in torture.

Faisal Mostafa is said by his lawyers to have been subjected to “physical torture, threats, coercion and intimidation” when he was being questioned about his work for the Muslim Parliament in London, about associates in the UK who had fought as mujahideen in Afghanistan, and about fundraising activities in the UK.

Mostafa, a chemist from Stockport, Greater Manchester – who was once accused, but cleared, of involvement in al-Qaida’s first plot to attack the UK – is said to have been suspended from his wrists and his ankles for long periods, subjected to electric shocks, beaten on the soles of his feet, deprived of food and exposed to bright lights for long periods.

Members of his legal team told the Guardian that the periods during which Mostafa was suspended lasted for days rather than hours. Another person familiar with the defence being mounted by Mostafa’s lawyers said: “Faisal was tortured. And his questioning was mainly about what was going on abroad in the UK.”

The allegations relate to the period of his detention following his arrest in March last year. Earlier this year he was released on bail and is receiving hospital treatment in Dhaka for acute renal failure which his lawyers blame, in part, on his mistreatment.

Lawyers representing two other British nationals of Bangladeshi origin have said they were detained and tortured while being questioned about terrorism offences, and allege there is clear evidence that MI5 was involved in the mistreatment. One of the men, Gulam Mustafa, a businessman from Birmingham, who is no relation, remains in custody. When brought before court last month after several weeks in an interrogation centre, a journalist working for the Guardian could see that the man appeared too exhausted to stand, at one point sinking to his knees in the dock, while relatives say his face was swollen.

Counterterrorism officials in Dhaka have told the Guardian that, at the request of UK intelligence officials, they have investigated about 12 British nationals of Bangladeshi origin in recent years, and indicated that this was done in a manner that would have been unlawful in Britain. One senior Bangladeshi official said the questions that were being asked about these individuals “could not have been dealt with by British law – because of the question of human rights”. The official declined to elaborate.

British security and intelligence officials warned three years ago that significant numbers of Britons were travelling to Bangladesh to receive terrorism training.

The country remains a concern to officials, as assessments of the terrorist threat to the UK suggest an ever-changing picture. Known or suspected plots with links to Pakistan have reduced slightly in number, while Somalia and Yemen – and to a lesser extent Bangladesh – now pose potential problems.

It is thought that one British-Bangladeshi man has killed himself in a suicide bomb attack, possibly in Afghanistan.

However, the emergence of another case of alleged British collusion in foreign torture is likely to lead to renewed calls from civil liberties campaigners for the coalition government to establish a judicial inquiry to examine the UK’s role in rendition and torture.

Earlier this month William Hague, the foreign secretary, said there would be “an inquiry of some form” into allegations of complicity in torture, but did not give any further details. Whitehall officials later said the promise “came out of the blue” and suggested that any such inquiry would be held in secret.

That is unlikely to satisfy human rights groups and backbench MPs, who believe it should be held in public, and insist that it should examine the extent to which decisions taken by ministers in the last government led to abuses.

Faisal Mostafa, 46, came to the attention of MI5 in the mid-90s, having been acquitted of conspiring to cause explosions, after a trial in Manchester in 1996. He was sentenced to four years for illegal possession of a pistol with intent to endanger life.

Four years later he was arrested in Birmingham and accused of conspiring to cause explosions after police and MI5 officers discovered chemicals that could be used to produce the high explosive HMTD, along with a number of detonators, at a house in the city. Traces of the explosive were also found on the pin-stripe jacket he was wearing at the time of his arrest.

Mostafa did not deny an interest in explosives – the court heard that the tips of several of his fingers had been blown off during one experiment in the mid-80s – but denied being a terrorist, and was again acquitted. His co-defendant was convicted and jailed for 20 years. In 2006 John Reid, then home secretary, cited this case when insisting that al-Qaida’s plots against the UK preceded the UK’s involvement in the invasion of Iraq or in the war in Afghanistan.

After being detained and allegedly tortured in Bangladesh in March last year, Mostafa is said to have been questioned about his co-defendants in both these trials. When he was brought to court a month later, accused of hoarding firearms and explosives at a madrasa he was managing at Bhola, in the south-west of the country, the magistrate questioned him about each case.

Mostafa was arrested by a Bangladeshi unit called the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), days after the weapons were alleged to have been discovered. He was held at a secret location by RAB – notorious in Bangladesh for reports of hundreds of extrajudicial killings and frequent use of torture – for about 13 days before his capture was officially announced. RAB said at the time of his arrest, they had “shared information” with British intelligence as part of “bilateral co-operation”.

Mostafa is accused of running a terrorism training camp at the madrasa, employing funds raised through a charity, Green Crescent Bangladesh UK, that he ran from Stockport. He denies the charges.

The allegations of torture, and of the effects on his health, are disclosed in some detail in a bail application that his lawyers lodged with the courts late last year.