‘Warts and all’ Miller £2.1m trial dossier

STEWART DOBSON

Oldham council tax payers can now read the full report into the flawed Vance Miller trial which cost the local authority £2.1 million.

The 44-page report, by lawyer and former acting chief executive of Birmingham City Council Stewart Dobson, reviews the collapse of the trial after 17 weeks, which led to the sacking of Trading Standards chief Tony Allen.

The court case followed a high profile raid on Mr Miller’s kitchens business at the Maple Mill, Hathershaw, in 2006.

The Dobson Report, now published in full on the council’s website, reveals that even after charges were laid against Mr Miller, he wrote a letter to Trading Standards staff in February, 2009, offering to work with officers to “make sure our customers get what they want.”

Even though the trial had already been listed for Manchester Crown Court, a meeting was arranged between Mr Miller and council staff, and the possibility of a compromise raised.

Several months later their lawyers also met, but no compromise emerged and the court case went ahead.

Mr Dobson admits he was working with the benefit of hindsight and praises the initial handling of the investigation.

He says: “I do think the council deserves some credit for being willing to take enforcement action on behalf of trading standards authorities up and down the country.

“I am not in a position to confirm the factual accuracy of the claim, but I understand that at the time it was claimed Mr Miller was one of the most complained-about traders in the entire country.”

From the outset, he says, the scale of resources needed was seriously underestimated, and Trading Standards staff were always “running to catch up”.

The officers responsible for the prosecution were inexperienced in major investigations.

Before the charges were laid against Mr Miller there should have been more rigorous examination and scrutiny from senior officers of the council.

The possibility of the collapse of the trial was not logged on the council’s risk register, even though its own costs reached £1.1 million.

After the case it also had to pay Mr Miller’s defence legal costs of almost £1 million

Despite his reservations, Mr Dobson says the council could not have reasonably foreseen the collapse of the trial.

And he says: “I cannot say that if the matter in question had been better dealt with, it would definitely have made a difference to the eventual outcome.”

A short summary of the report was released to the public last week.

Dobson spent eight months interviewing witnesses including councillors, lawyers, trading standards and legal officers, Oldham’s former head of Police, Chief Supt Caroline Ball, and former chief executive Andrew Kilburn.




See the full report at:

www.oldham.gov.uk/council/council-news/dobson_review.htm