Council face paying up over Miller

OLDHAM Council has been ordered to pay almost half a million pounds immediately in legal fees following its failed prosecution of kitchen trader Vance Miller.

His trial collapsed in January when Judge Jonathan Foster QC threw out the case, criticising trading standards for conducting an investigation he said had been “misconceived” from the start.

He said he found no evidence that Mr Miller defrauded customers of his Oldham kitchen firm, Kitchens, and said he could not rely on evidence from the head of trading standards, Tony Allen, who was suspended as a result.

At a costs hearing at Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, it was revealed that the legal bill just for solicitors and barristers involved in the mammoth hearing which began last September is likely to amount to £1.3 million, and it has been claimed the total bill facing the council could be as high as £4 million.

Judge Foster will ultimately have to decide on the precise figure in legal fees that the authority will have to pay.

He will now carry out a detailed assessment, helped by experts, before making a ruling.

At the hearing this week, however, he agreed to a request from lawyers involved in defending the case for an interim payment of about a third of the likely total.

He has given the authority 14 days to pay up.

The judge was told that for many of the key legal experts involved in the case, it had amounted to about six months work, and they were frustrated by the council’s lack of action in trying to deal with its responsibilities.

Guy Gozem, who defended Sadiya Hussain (29), one of Mr Miller’s co-defendants, told the judge: “Counsel offered to meet Oldham Council to discuss our fees and agree them. It is all costing Oldham taxpayers more money, but we have had no response. It really should not be allowed to carry on much longer.”

Jim Gregory, who represented Alan Ford (45), another co-defendant, described the Miller trial as a deeply unhappy case, and said he and his colleagues expected Oldham Council to at least pay that part of the legal bill which was uncontroversial.

The court was told that a large percentage of the legal bill was based on an acknowledged system of fees, but other expenses have been classed as special preparation work — an excessive amount of work made necessary because of the unusual nature of the case.

These are the fees that will come under particular scrutiny.

Mr Miller, who faced three counts of conspiracy to defraud, was accused of cheating customers by selling supposedly high-quality kitchens made of chipboard and MDF.

The investigation alone, triggered by a 2006 raid on Mr Miller’s Cardwell Street mill complex, cost £2.1 million.

Judge Foster, when he threw out the case in January, told jurors: “The investigation was flawed from the start. Mr Allen’s initial desire to close the business down coloured his thinking thereafter. It led him to lose his objectivity.”