Oral evidence: MoD Support for Former and Serving Personnel Subject to Judicial Processes, HC 109
Oral evidence, 14 September 2016.
Witness
Martin Jerrold, Group Managing Director, Red Snapper Group.
Chair
Good morning, Mr Jerrold. Thank you very much for coming in. I would like to start with James Gray.
Mr Gray
Mr Jerrold, treat me as a newcomer, and forgive me if I ask foolish questions. Tell me about Red Snapper—the nature of your business, what you are for and all that.
Martin Jerrold
Of course. I am the managing director of the Red Snapper Group. That is a trading name for three separate limited companies: Red Snapper Learning, Red Snapper Media and Red Snapper Recruitment. That latter business has a contract with the MoD IHAT, a copy of which I have brought today, if that would be useful. The business has a turnover of approximately £32 million and a team of 70 staff—a mixed, blended team of former police professionals and business managers. We are a law enforcement professional services business, providing training services and media services. We own police journals, and we provide recruitment agency services or staffing services. Having watched the first session, I feel there has been a bit of a misunderstanding as to the sort of services we provide into the MoD IHAT.
Mr Gray
Tell us what they are.
Martin Jerrold
Well, in the first session, a civil lawyer, Hilary Meredith—
Mr Gray
Rather than correcting previous evidence—we can judge for ourselves later on—what I would like you to do is tell us what your company does.
Martin Jerrold
Right. We provide specialist agency staff who work under the control and supervision of the end user under classic recruitment agency terms, which is very distinct from outsourcing an operation or piece of business. When we provide staff into any police force—all our clients are law enforcement agencies—they work under the control and supervision of that end user client and are representatives of that end user client. In the inquiry, descriptions were used such as “the Red Snapper investigation”, with investigators reporting at gates of barracks and purporting to be from Red Snapper. If that were the case, it would be completely inappropriate, because they represent MoD IHAT and are working under their supervision and control.
Mr Gray
So you are saying that you are entirely a recruitment agency, just like a recruitment agency recruiting secretaries.
Martin Jerrold
Correct. If you will indulge me, I will talk about the unique features of our particular service, because we provide business-critical agency workers. That means they are collecting evidence. They don’t have any designated powers, such as police officers, but they are doing very important jobs such as collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses and so on. It is a bit more involved than simply providing agency staff. They are provided on unique contracts that are suitable for that sort of condition, and their training—their CPD—is maintained by our business. Of course, all the inquiries we work for—Hillsborough, Stovewood, IHAT—go on for quite some time. I know that’s a contentious issue. We need to maintain their skills. We have become a de facto HR team.
Mr Gray
So these people are employed by you. If I wanted to employ a secretary, I would go to a recruitment agency and say, “I want a secretary with these skills.” They find that person, and the person’s first month of salary goes to the agency, and that person then becomes my employer.
Martin Jerrold
Well, that’s not quite how it works, and that’s not what I’m referring to. First, you are talking about a service where a recruitment agency finds you staff to directly hire. In that situation, the candidate does not pay their first month’s salary to the agency; the agency simply charges a fee. I am talking about the provision of agency workers. The provision of agency workers, under the Employment Agencies Act 1973, is a very unique contract where workers are engaged by an agency, but they are provided to an end user to work under the control and supervision of that end user.
Mr Gray
But they remain your employees?
Martin Jerrold
Well, under the law it is actually a split liability between the end user and—
Mr Gray
You’re doing the training and the career development management and all that stuff. They remain your employees. Presumably if the end user doesn’t want them anymore because they have finished the contract they then come back to you and you find something else for them, so they very much remain Red Snapper employees, albeit on a contract to—
Martin Jerrold
That’s right, but—I am not trying to distance myself from any potential issues that you are looking into—the reality is that we do not manage these people day-to-day. They are managed by MoD appointed staff. The command team down at the IHAT would thoroughly back me in saying that and would want me to point that out.
Mr Gray
So if people were turning up at the gates of barracks and saying, “I work for Red Snapper”, you’d be unhappy about that?
Martin Jerrold
Very unhappy. Of course, after I heard that in the last session I spoke to my opposite numbers at the IHAT command team and they were surprised and they would be equally unhappy if that were to be taking place. The name Red Snapper would not resonate in that context. It is ridiculous to be putting that forward. Has it happened? I can’t say. If it has happened it shouldn’t have. Of course, it would be for the command team to look into it.
Mr Gray
Tell us about the name then, since you mentioned it. Why are you called Red Snapper?
Martin Jerrold
That’s a long and quite dull story. We launched in 2004 with a mission to have three divisions that operated in the offender management market, the counter-fraud market and the police market. We had original brands called Police Skills, Criminal Justice Skills and Counter Fraud Skills. We needed any name underneath that to send out the bills, if you will, and Red Snapper was thought up on the hoof. Sadly, embarrassingly and sort of luckily, the brand has simply come to the fore accidentally.
Mr Gray
I have to tell you Red Snapper sounds intimidating. If somebody turned up at my door and said, “I’m from Red Snapper”, I’d immediately feel concerned about that.
Martin Jerrold
Well, okay, noted. First, they shouldn’t be turning up at your door saying they are from Red Snapper. If they are, and if they are using that term and it is intimidating, I can only apologise. It is not done with intent.
Mr Gray
How did you get the contract with the MoD?
Martin Jerrold
We bid for it. There was a competitive tender 2013. There was an incumbent supplier. The first tender went out in 2010 and we bid then and narrowly lost it. G4S won in 2010. We bid for it in 2013 and won under a competitive tender.
Mr Gray
How many of you bid?
Martin Jerrold
Gosh. I think about six, from memory.
Mr Gray
What was the value of the contract?
Martin Jerrold
For detail, we bid again in 2015, so it has just been renewed. Total billing is a shade under £5 million.
Mr Gray
Which is roughly 25% of your turnover.
Martin Jerrold
No, it is about 12% of our turnover. It is our second largest client after West Midlands police.
Chair
You laid out very clearly where your responsibility and the MoD’s responsibility starts and finishes, and I understand that. The problem is how has this Red Snapper name got out there? If it is simply a recruiting team, HR, management or whatever, how has that got out there? Multiple cases of servicemen who have left or are still in are using this name—does that not suggest that someone somewhere is going out and saying this?
Martin Jerrold
It does.
Chair
Why would they do that?
Martin Jerrold
I really can’t answer that. This first came to my attention through this process. We have supported this contract for four years—three years, then the rebid, and one year since then into the new contract period for us. This has never come up across that period. The command team have the ability to draw down training support from us and, if this had come up historically, I am convinced they would have said to me, “For goodness’ sake, we need to have a training package to re-remind all of the individuals that they are representatives of MoD IHAT and should not be saying Red Snapper.” The last month or so is the first I have heard of it. I genuinely can’t answer that; I don’t know.
Chair
Okay. Can you just tell us how the IHAT contract between the MoD and Red Snapper operates?
Martin Jerrold
It’s a broad question.
Chair
How long does the contract run for?
Martin Jerrold
Two years. The new contract period for us began in February ’16—so the bid process was at the back end of ’15. I think there were four or five bidders at that point. We won again. It is for two years, with the ability for them to renew for a further year should they choose to; but that is in their gift, not mine. We have a contracts management team, which is a team of about half a dozen individuals in our London headquarters. We have an on-site representative who is full time on site down there, embedded—if you like, a de facto HR manager. We have monthly meetings with the command team, which I attend or another member of the executive team attends, and that deals with very much sort of contract management issues to do with the delivery of staff, the welfare of staff, the training of staff, etc.
Chair
Okay; it is not open-ended, then.
Martin Jerrold
No.
Chair
Can you just clarify for me: the staff you provide—where is the line between the military staff, so the Royal Navy Police, and your teams?
Martin Jerrold
I can give you my best answer to that. The command team would be able to give a better answer. Clearly, the team we provide—again, working under the control and supervision of the MoD—are embedded with the Royal Navy Police representatives, and I actually don’t know the number of RNP staff who work on the IHAT contract alongside the staff we provide. I believe it is upwards of about 15 to 20. I hope my estimate is right, there. Again, it is not part of my role to know that. Of course, as civilian investigators with no designated powers—
Chair
That is what I was going to ask. What are the level of powers that have been conferred on you by the MoD?
Martin Jerrold
Zero. They have no powers whatsoever. They are civilian investigators. Right across the market civilian investigators have no designated powers if they are working through a third party provider such as the business I represent. It is always the Royal Navy Police who are there to, if you like, enact an arrest, if that is the appropriate action; but civilian investigators—and this happens in territorial policing and right across the market—are, then, support to that process, conducting interviews, etc.
Chair
I am just, really, trying to understand this; Red Snapper provide the investigators: do they operate independently?
Martin Jerrold
No.
Chair
Or is there always someone from the MoD with them?
Martin Jerrold
Yes.
Chair
At all times?
Martin Jerrold
Not at all times, no—and, again, a question to ask the command team, but my take on that would be it is completely appropriate for civilian investigators within territorial policing, within all contexts outside the MoD, to work autonomously to interview a witness, for example, but it would not be appropriate, again in my understanding, for civilian investigators without designated powers to enact any sort of arrest or anything where—
Chair
So if you turned up to my door and said, “We want to speak to you about x, y and z,” and I just said, “No, thanks,” what would Red Snapper’s response be?
Martin Jerrold
Well, it is not a Red Snapper response; it is an MoD—
Chair
But what would your staff’s response be?
Martin Jerrold
Well, they would be trained, I assume, by the MoD. Again, in any policing context, if you turn up at a witness’s doorstep—
Chair
Sorry, I thought they were not police.
Martin Jerrold
No, but I am talking about civilian investigators who work with the police.
Chair
Yes, so two civilian investigators turn up at my door and start asking me questions, and I say, “No, thanks. I’ve been through two investigations on this already. I’m not interested. Go away.”
Martin Jerrold
They would have to go away. My assumption would be they would have to leave.
Chair
They have no powers to arrive on a base.
Martin Jerrold
No.
Chair
No powers to threaten arrest.
Martin Jerrold
No, absolutely not. Again, I am talking with my best knowledge. I am not an expert, here. I would ask you to talk to the command team—the IHAT command team. I know for certain that there are absolutely no powers of arrest. Of course not.
Chair
Obviously you read the newspapers and you see what we get here in our inquiry. There are not one or two cases of this happening. There are a significant number—significant enough for someone to take the view that something has broken down in the system.
Martin Jerrold
Of what happening, just to be precise?
Chair
Of investigators turning up, saying, “I’m a retired detective-inspector”, threatening arrest, trying to get on to bases, turning up at ex-girlfriend’s houses—
Martin Jerrold
Sorry to talk over you. The first I have been made aware of this has been through this process. In the four years that I have run a business that has provided the MoD/IHAT with services, this has not been brought to my attention. We have never had a command team meeting where we have been asked, for example, to intervene in training because these sorts of events are happening. Are there actual examples, actual incidents and named people?
Chair
Well, yes, there are—that is the answer to that. We are trying to get clearance for them to come and speak to this Committee. They have come forward and they have given evidence to legal teams, saying that this is going on. I would say from the outset, nobody has a problem with doing things properly and with investigating these matters. Absolutely. Anybody who breaks the law, regardless of whether they are on operations or not, should feel the full force of the law. The problem is that there seems to be this situation that has come about where we have young men and women, who may have left the Army, been out for some time, having people turning up on their doorstep saying that they are from your organisation, and asking quite intrusive questions without any warning whatever. So our question is, who is controlling this? Do they receive any notification of that, for example?
Martin Jerrold
I cannot answer that, because I am not part of the operational planning team—I do not give out operational instruction, nor does any member of my team. However, what I would say in response, is that if it is going on, it is completely unnecessary that it should be, because of the access that this command team has to extensive training support. We are able and ready to intervene if there are any performance management issues. We can be on site to address these issues. It is just such a shame that if this has gone on, that I—the business—have not been asked to intervene, to sit down with all investigators, to make sure that they present themselves, and so on. But in terms of who at the IHAT command team, day to day, sets out operational tasks to interview witness X or visit suspect Y, I am simply not involved in that part of the business.
Chair
Okay. May I just give you an example? This is a problem that I have come across a number of times, and I have only been in this place for a year. I get the impression at times from the MoD and other organisations that we just sort of make this stuff up, which is simply not the case. We have people come and tell us things, and we then try and get to a place where they can do that in public, getting it on the record so we can investigate. Clearly with this, it is very difficult to do so. But to give you an example, this was in Hilary Meredith’s evidence: “There is one person who has contacted me who was actually acquitted within the military 10 years ago and then was faced with an arrest at the barracks gates by somebody purporting to be from Red Snapper.” Have you heard of this before?
Martin Jerrold
No—beyond seeing Hilary set it out.
Chair
Okay. “His commanding officer questioned them and their reference, and they found out first of all they were not police officers and there was no authority to arrest, and they went away”. Have you never heard of that within your organisation?
Martin Jerrold
No. If I had—
Chair
Chair: Will you look into this and write to us to let us know? These guys aren’t making it up—or do you think they are?
Martin Jerrold
I don’t know. As I set out a moment ago, I am struggling to reconcile, I suppose, the four-year history we have with this contract, supplying these services to—
Chair
And this is only coming out now. So there is a delay in time, but what these people may do is see other cases in the paper. There has been good work in The Sun and the Mail, and they will think, “Actually, yeah, that happened to me. This investigator turned up at my door and started asking me questions.”
Martin Jerrold
Some of this, I got the impression, was second or third hand. However, my take on it is that it must be happening, because there is too much of a pattern.
Chair
That is precisely my view.
Martin Jerrold
Exactly, and I share it. I simply cannot respond meaningfully at the moment because this is new. We have the tools, as I say, to sit the team down and deliver extensive intervention training, saying, “Look, for goodness’ sake”—well, we would not put it like this, of course. We would say, “This is the correct way you engage with a suspect. Here are the protocols. This is what you say.” So—
Chair
You just don’t recognise it.
Martin Jerrold
I don’t. No, I don’t—absolutely.
Chair
I want to bring in James Gray, but before I do, let me just ask this. When you heard of this, what did you do within your company? Did you do anything to find out whether it had happened?
Martin Jerrold
I had a meeting with the command team. I don’t have, if you like, the authority—
Chair
When you say “command team”, you are talking about the MoD?
Martin Jerrold
IHAT’s command team—IHAT.
Chair
And did you talk about this case?
Martin Jerrold
Yes. We talked about all of Hilary Meredith’s comments, yes.
Chair
And what was your view?
Martin Jerrold
Well, the view—there was no view taken. I asked them to come back to me to explain, in the knowledge that I would be attending this meeting, and setting out how I was surprised, for example, the company’s name was being used; “Red Snapper” was being used—individuals were not explaining that they were representing MoD IHAT. And effectively what I have been told is that it’s being looked into and they will come back with a response. That response I expect to receive on 27 September, which is my next meeting with them.
Mr Gray
The divergence here is that anecdotally we hear there are people turning up saying, “I’m from Red Snapper,” which they should not be doing, and indicating that they have powers of arrest, which they do not.
Martin Jerrold
No.
Mr Gray
Both of which would be very serious breaches of your company’s rules and regulations and training.
Martin Jerrold
Absolutely.
Mr Gray
If that was found to be a common practice, would that be sufficient for Red Snapper to lose the contract?
Martin Jerrold
A provocative question, of course. I would suggest no. If you allow me, I will explain why. Again, it will sound like I’m trying to push away responsibility, but the control and supervision of agency workers is fully accepted by the end user. In this case, it’s the MoD, so it would be an MoD management failure if it were happening.
Mr Gray
But suppose your people were ignoring their immediate bosses in IHAT and were using a previous regular process, a process that Red Snapper has used previously—
Martin Jerrold
There are no previous Red Snapper processes; these are the terms and conditions we work under with all our clients. That would be ridiculous.
Mr Gray
Okay, so it wouldn’t be written on the form. However, if that were happening on a systematic or widespread basis, it would be the employees’ fault.
Martin Jerrold
The employees/MoD—correct, yes.
Mr Gray
No. If the employees were doing that, despite the fact that Red Snapper told them not to and despite the fact that IHAT told them not to—
Martin Jerrold
Yes, indeed.
Mr Gray
So would that be an offence justifying dismissal of those employees?
Martin Jerrold
Completely. This is why I’m finding it so surprising: it’s such a critical issue—both the way you present the reason for being there and not pretending or putting forward that you have designated powers and also setting out that you are a representative of the MoD IHAT. It is so critical that of course it would be misconduct of a gross kind, yes.
Mr Gray
So you would fire somebody—
Martin Jerrold
Yes—absolutely, yes.
Chair
Before I come to Madeleine, let me just ask this. Did you have any concerns about taking on this contract?
Martin Jerrold
Gosh. In short, no. We work with other high-profile contracts like Hillsborough, Operation Stovewood—
Chair
Sorry, what’s that last one?
Martin Jerrold
Operation Stovewood. That’s the NCA contract looking into the Rotherham child sex exploitation allegations. No, they are all unique in their own right. When we took this contract on, it was already acknowledged it had gone on too long, and I suppose we were sort of alive to the fact that there could be public relations issues around it, which has proven to be true. But again, we are a service provider to the master, who—
Chair
I know, and this is the challenge for us. Forgive me, but the challenge for us is that you are going to sit here and say it was them and they are going to come in and say it’s you guys, and between us it’s like squeezing jelly—we’re not going to get an answer.
Martin Jerrold
Well, with respect, Mr Mercer, we are not going to come in and say it was us—Red Snapper. The terms and conditions of the contract—
Chair
No, I see that, and we can read them for ourselves. The problem is that the evidence speaks differently; that’s all. We have people coming in and saying this is occurring, so we need to find out. And there’s enough of them, to my mind—I am very clear in my mind. I know what soldiers are like. I have spent my career with them. I know that some will embellish things and some will talk up a story, but there comes a critical point where you think, “Actually, hang on. Something’s not going right here,” and we have absolutely reached that point. We need to understand—whether it is your company or the MoD—what is going on.
Martin Jerrold
I agree: it seems too much of a pattern for there not to be some grain of truth to it. Again, if it were going on, it would be a management failure at the MoD’s end.
Chair
At the MoD.
Martin Jerrold
Yes, and they would accept that. I have already had that conversation with them.
Mrs Moon
Can I just clarify something for myself? I am not a lawyer, so you can perhaps clarify this. I always thought it was an offence to impersonate a police officer.
Martin Jerrold
I’m not a lawyer either. My understanding is that it is an offence to impersonate a police officer.
Mrs Moon
So to skim as close to not actually saying, “But I’m not actually a warranted police officer”—whether that comes from instructions from your company or from IHAT, it would still be an offence.
Martin Jerrold
I don’t know the law well enough, but I know what you’re getting at, and to misrepresent yourself and misrepresent the authority you have in that sort of context is something that, if it is not illegal, is clearly hugely inappropriate. I would accept that completely.
Mrs Moon
Okay. So what guidance do you give to your staff? You do the training and you do the management, so what guidance do you give to your staff around working close to that edge?
Martin Jerrold
We don’t do the management course, as I have set out; we do the training. We provide training interventions on request from—
Mrs Moon
Sorry, I meant the management of contracts rather than—
Martin Jerrold
Yes, well, to provide agency staff. The guidance we give is—there is a one-week induction process. Of course, they’re issued with their employment contracts, which clearly set out their responsibilities as civilian investigators. Of course, they’re not all civilian investigators; some are intelligence analysts and what have you. That clearly sets out their roles and responsibilities. They have a one-week induction process, across which they are embedded, and that is more on-base, in situ training in terms of embedding them with their Royal Navy Police counterparts. In terms of this particular issue, there is no specific training module, because it is something that is so acknowledged and understood that it is not an issue. It has only become an issue for us as a business at Red Snapper since this inquiry has deliberated.
Mrs Moon
You have said that you have a number of contracts. Have you ever been asked to remove someone who you provided to service a contract, or have you yourselves ever dismissed someone from your agency list as a result of a misrepresentation of themselves as a police officer?
Martin Jerrold
Not as a result of misrepresentation. We have placed over 10,000 individuals across 12 years, but to my knowledge, that has never come across my desk. We employ at this moment over 1,000 agency workers, so dismissal is not a daily event, but it is a regular event. In short, no—to my knowledge, never.
Mrs Moon
Can you tell us a little bit about your employees? Who do you employ, how many, and what is their background? What is the typical range of people that you would employ that you might be asked to provide to an inquiry of this nature? What is the skills base?
Martin Jerrold
Okay. It’s criminal justice skill sets—that is what we are specialist in. That spans law enforcement, offender management and offender supervision. Starting with the latter, we are the market leading provider to the National Probation Service and we are providing probation officers, probation service officers and offender rehabilitation type professionals too numerous to list. Within the law enforcement space, we are providing what would be described as civilian investigators. I will come back to their background in a moment, but they are much more niche roles, such as MIR staff—
Mrs Moon
Sorry, say that again.
Martin Jerrold
MIR staff, which is—
Mrs Moon
What does that mean?
Martin Jerrold
Murder incident room—a rather dramatic phrase, but effectively these are individuals whom run database systems. It all hangs off a system called HOLMES—the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. It is a database used for all major inquiries. Indexers, readers and receivers, intelligence staff and disclosure staff would be the broad brush description.
Mrs Moon
What does disclosure staff mean?
Martin Jerrold
Disclosure professionals are people who disclose evidence to barristers and solicitors through a prosecutorial process. They would have opposite numbers on the defence side. We harvest our staff, if you like. We sort our talent from the UK’s law enforcement work community. I set out at the beginning of my evidence that we are also a leading provider of media. So we own our own very niche magazines that talk to this market, so we are talking to the talent—tomorrow’s available contracting talent today—while they are in situ at their desks. Traditionally, we have targeted people once they get to retirement. However, that has changed. The demographic has changed because of the winds of reform within policing and the criminal justice space more generally. The job for life culture no longer exists, so people now leave the services after five or 10 years and we are capturing them and training them. Where we add a lot of value is where we capture people who have been out of service for two or three years. We are training them in our own time and providing them. That is a long-winded answer, but I hope I have covered it.
Mrs Moon
That is fine. Who is responsible for the inspection and oversight of the services that you provide? Who inspects your agency, if you like?
Martin Jerrold
BIS, I believe, is our regulator.
Mrs Moon
What does that involve? Does somebody come in and go through your records?
Martin Jerrold
We have been inspected once in our 11-year history. They come in and they effectively do an audit. We are subject to lots of audits, funnily enough. Our clients audit us a lot—it is often in-built in our contracts. But in terms of a governmental-type regulatory audit, it has happened once in our lifespan and they have come in, checked that we comply. They are very hot on vetting, as you would imagine. When you supply agency workers, you need to have collected identity, qualifications and done basic checks—like any employer. It really hangs off that.
Mrs Moon
Okay, but nobody actually monitors your staff on the ground.
Martin Jerrold
No, because, again, coming back to the point I made in the previous answers, the control of supervision is always at the end-user end. So they would not have the authority to inspect that. How well a particular police force or central Government agency is managing its agency workers would be inspected by someone else, not by this organisation.
Mrs Moon
Okay. So have you ever had a situation where another agency has been inspecting an organisation that you had provided staff to and expressed concern about any actions of your staff?
Martin Jerrold
To my knowledge, no. I might be misremembering, but I think in 2006-07 there was an inspection by the Probation Inspectorate into the probation sector which expressed some concerns about the efficacy of agency workers doing probation officer roles—how worthwhile they were and how much impact they had—and also about their calibre and quality. But I would have to check, because that was quite some time ago. Certainly, that would be the only event I can recall. Certainly not within the policing space, no.
Mrs Moon
Thank you. In terms of your staffing, can you give us some idea of the rank at which some of them might have worked when they were in the police service?
Martin Jerrold
All ranks. However, within the investigative space—setting aside intelligence and so on—typically we would be looking for what is called PIP 2 or PIP 3 qualified detectives.
Mrs Moon
And what does that mean?
Martin Jerrold
Professional policing—it is a detective qualification. I am sure you will be aware that not all police officers are detectives. Detectives can be at any rank—detective constable, detective sergeant, etc. For the investigative roles, it will be a qualified detective at any rank, but normally a detective constable, detective sergeant, detective inspector or detective chief inspector—doers. People who at the end of their career were taking statements and gathering evidence—doers. We would also provide more senior staff—what used to be called ACPO staff but are now called National Police Chiefs Council staff; basically, chief officer rank staff—from time to time, in more strategic roles. There is an individual at the IHAT at superintendent rank who has a more strategic role. We have a couple of those experienced individuals at the NCA. At the risk of sounding dismissive, it is more at the more junior ranks that we provide.
Mrs Moon
Do you ever employ people who are, say, ex-professional standards investigators with police forces?
Martin Jerrold
Yes, lots—a great deal. For reasons on which I couldn’t comment, because I do not know, they are actually quite favoured.
Mrs Moon
Do you know what legal framework your ex-police but now civilian staff are operating under? Is that clarified to them? Are you clear in your mind about what that guidance is when instructing your staff?
Martin Jerrold
Again, at induction—military law dictates the governance around this. There is a lot of military law, and I believe the Armed Forces Act 2006 governs a great deal of how their investigations are set out. That is part of a training package that is set out to civilian investigators at the front-end of their contract. Of course, the civilian PACE and that sort of legislation lives large across all criminal investigations. In short, yes.
Mrs Moon
Mr Jerrold, just to be quite clear, although members of this Committee may understand some of the terms you use, the public are watching and reading this, and they also need to understand. Rather than using acronyms, it would be extremely helpful if you could always clarify the terms that you use.
Martin Jerrold
Right; apologies.
Mrs Moon
Do you ever employ ex-military police or Home Office police?
Martin Jerrold
We do, absolutely. For reasons that I expect you will understand, they are not employed on the IHAT contract—are you aware of why they would not be? But, of course, on contracts where there is no conflict, we would engage with any law enforcement talent that is good enough to do the job.
Mrs Moon
Finally, I assume that you are very clear in instructing your staff that, as civilians, they have no power of arrest.
Martin Jerrold
Absolutely. Again, it is universally understood across the market. It is not just IHAT; it is Operation Stovewood. A thousand workers have worked through us doing these sorts of roles. It is all universally accepted and understood.
Mrs Moon
Can I just be clear? In terms of the responsibility and where it lies, I know that you try to say that responsibility is sort of 50:50. You train and instruct your staff that under no circumstances must they ever give a suggestion that they have a power of arrest, but we have had evidence that suggests that people have turned up and said, “Well, we have to arrest you if you don’t do this, if you don’t give us this information or if you don’t let us in.” Are you also quite clear with those to whom you provide staff—the people you are contracted to work with—that under no circumstances must they ever instruct your staff, even though your staff are supervised and under contract to them, to do anything to suggest that they have the power of arrest or that they are warranted police officers?
Martin Jerrold
Yes.
Mrs Moon
Thank you.
Mr Gray
Are any of your staff Royal Military Police reservists or special constables?
Martin Jerrold
In terms of the former—Army reservists—I would not know; it is not data we collect. Special constables is highly unlikely because we could not employ special constables—we would like to—simply because they would not really have the level of competency and experience gained across their volunteer period.
Mr Gray
All right. Let us focus on Royal Military Police reservists. If they are Royal Military Police reservists, they will have a warrant card and will have powers of arrest in their part-time activities, won’t they?
Martin Jerrold
Royal Military Police reservists—okay, I know little about them. I have not come across this issue. I cannot comment, basically.
Mr Gray
You accept the principle that if I am in the Royal Military Police reserves, which do exist, or any of the others—the same applies to the Royal Navy and the RAF—I have a warrant card and powers of arrest in my part-time occupation. Is there any risk of a confusion arising that those people, insofar as they work at Red Snapper, might—
Martin Jerrold
Is there a risk? Clearly, as you just set it out, of course there is. Is there a risk of that particular incident happening on this particular contract? Absolutely none whatsoever, because of the recusal process.
Mr Gray
What process?
Martin Jerrold
The recusal process is a unique vetting process for the IHAT contract. It is very important that everyone is security cleared and we security clear people through various contracts we have. There is a specific additional vetting process that looks at people’s military backgrounds, because you can serve on the IHAT contract with us if you have a military background, but it has to be looked at—to put it into broad terms. So that would be picked up on, the confusion would not be accepted and they would not be allowed on to the contract.
Mrs Moon
I’m sorry, may I just clarify? You said that if you had a military background, you could serve on the IHAT investigation but it would have been examined.
Martin Jerrold
Exactly right.
Mrs Moon
So what would you be looking for?
Martin Jerrold
Well, again, the process is an MoD process, but my understanding is that if you served in Operation Telic, you would not be considered. That is the broad brush thematic of it. There may be other issues that I am not aware of.
Mrs Moon
So, basically, you could not have served in Iraq at any point in your career.
Martin Jerrold
Correct. That is my understanding. That part of the vetting process is owned by the MoD, so I would ask you to ask them specifically, but that is my understanding. We do the security clearance.
Chair
Have any of your agency staff ever raised concerns with you over the conduct of the IHAT team, the investigations, the manner in which it is perceived this investigation is going about, or even the productiveness of it? Having seen, I think, still, nobody charged and over 1,500 investigations, that says to me—the untrained eye—that this is all a bit odd. Have any of your team said that?
Martin Jerrold
Have we had concerns raised? We have, from time to time.
Chair
What sort of concerns?
Martin Jerrold
Not concerns—being absolutely straightforward with you—touching on any issues we have discussed today about arrest and representation or things like that. Forgive me, but it is more everyday team dynamic concerns about how they are being managed and how they are being communicated with.
Chair
What sort of concerns do they look like? What does that look like?
Martin Jerrold
Those concerns look like—I am trying to think generally of some recent concerns that have come across our desks. There has been some frustration with a team called the Mensa team. The Mensa team are a team that fly to Turkey—Istanbul—to interview witnesses, as I understand it. There have been huge frustrations around their inability to conduct that job because of visa issues, as I understand it.
Mrs Moon
Sorry, because of what?
Martin Jerrold
Visa issues with Turkey: they are unable to go because they are not being given visas. As I understand it, since the recent political upheavals within Turkey, things have changed and suddenly it has all been stopped. Some of that team have been redeployed into other investigative teams called pods, and they are unhappy about it. It is that sort of HR thing—
Chair
Okay. That is going to exist wherever you work.
Martin Jerrold
Exactly. That’s what I meant: it is day-to-day stuff.
Chair
But there has been no concern raised? I am not being funny, but if I was one of these investigators and I was flown out to the middle east to interview someone who had a case, and if I was doing it all the time and none of the cases were stacking up, I would probably say to my boss, “Something’s not quite right here.” Has nobody done that?
Martin Jerrold
I understand what you are saying, Mr Mercer. To my surprise, when we go out for socials with the teams on a quarterly basis—
Chair
With the IHAT team?
Martin Jerrold
With our guys based down there. Much of my day-to-day engagement will be in that sort of context. I am continually surprised at their lack of discontent about the progress, because common sense, as you suggest, would say that it does not look like a great deal of progress has taken place in however many years the inquiry has gone on for. I appreciate that PIL, the Public Interest Lawyers, are now no more, but the sort of feedback I continue to see is “It’s not us, guv, it’s this stakeholder or that.”
Chair
Yes, that’s exactly the problem we have now. Our challenge now is to reconcile what you have said in your representations here with the very clear evidence we have got from elsewhere. We are going to speak to the MoD and to Ministers, but the challenge we have is that the buck is being passed round. The people who bear the brunt are always the soldiers, and their only protection is people like us trying to work out what is going on. Do you acknowledge how vulnerable some of the people who are being investigated are?
Martin Jerrold
From a common-sense stance, of course. I am a citizen of the UK and British soldiers are there to be respected and admired, of course. For anyone who is subject to a judicial process, it is a very worrying thing. So of course, absolutely.
Chair
Have any of your staff had issues at all? You say that if there are any concerns, there is a helpline and so on. Has anyone ever relied on that?
Martin Jerrold
Yes, that is interesting. That helpline has been used on a couple of occasions by our deployed staff down at IHAT, always for non-related issues. So yes, we have had people who have expressed and manifested mental health issues and we have dealt with that. That particular situation, which was late last year, ended with that person being given a soft landing elsewhere because he was not coping with the work, but actually it had nothing to do with—
Chair
The subject matter that we are looking at.
Martin Jerrold
No, it was to do with his wife and other issues.
Chair
Just for clarity, you fly teams out to Istanbul or to the middle east to interview Iraqi nationals who are making these complaints.
Martin Jerrold
The MoD does.
Chair
The MoD flies you out?
Martin Jerrold
The MoD flies the team whom we provide, yes.
Chair
Okay. And your investigators will speak to these Iraqis concerned and take their evidence.
Martin Jerrold
Correct. That is my understanding, yes.
Chair
You said you had a meeting on 27 September to talk about Hilary Meredith’s evidence. First, what is your view on that evidence?
Martin Jerrold
Surprise. I was surprised and concerned. We are meant to be—forgive the expression—under the radar; we are not meant to be at the forefront of this sort of work. We provide the staff, as I have set out today. Like you, I felt that there was too much of a pattern for there not to be a grain of truth in there. I felt we needed to intervene with some training immediately, with the team, to make sure that everyone understands how they should conduct themselves at the gate of a barracks. That was my response.
Chair
You’ve got this meeting on the 27th, or you’ve got this report coming in. Would you be prepared to share that report with us?
Martin Jerrold
It’s an MoD report, so it’s subject to their agreement.
Chair
Would you make representations to them? Can you highlight to them, perhaps, the importance of sharing that report with us?
Martin Jerrold
Of course. I am very anxious to get to the bottom of this. As I say, we have the ability and the resource to intervene and, if there is an issue—which I suspect there must be at the fringe, at the very least—to just get on and do it. We must sit down with the teams and conduct that training. I would be very robust in my view with the command team that—belts and braces—let’s do it anyway. Rather than be so defensive, let’s do it. In the contract, they can draw down this training, so why not? Yes, that would be my response. I will ask, of course. I am sure that they will be watching and they will be looking at the transcript.
Mrs Moon
Mr Jerrold, I’m not sure if you answered. I quickly looked at the notes I’ve made and I can’t see any figure. Can you refresh my mind if you have already given it to us—how many personnel do you actually provide to the IHAT team?
Martin Jerrold
At the moment it is about 127, I think.
Mrs Moon
And how many of those will be ex-police officers? How many will be intelligence analysts? Can you give us a breakdown?
Martin Jerrold
Nearly all of them. I would say 90% would have worked for a police organisation in their past. Not all of them would have been sworn officers—i.e. police officers. Some of them would have worked in a civilian capacity, and that will be more the intelligence professionals, the MIR staff—the database end of the inquiry. I would hazard a guess that about 70% would be straightforwardly ex-sworn officers or ex-police officers.
Chair
How many are on the MoD side of the IHAT team? You’ve got 127. How many are on the MoD side?
Martin Jerrold
How many are Royal Navy Police?
Chair
Yes.
Martin Jerrold
I don’t know the answer to that. I genuinely don’t.
Chair
So, 127 people are working full time on the IHAT investigation team. Why is it taking so long?
Martin Jerrold
I don’t know. That’s not a question I can answer.
Chair
Who can answer that question?
Martin Jerrold
The Royal Navy Police representative, Jack Hawkins, or Mark Warwick, the head of the IHAT command team.
Mrs Moon
Can I just come back again? I just want to get the line management structure clear in my head. Of your 127 staff—
Martin Jerrold
Yes.
Mrs Moon
Are they all supervised and directed by an IHAT operative?
Martin Jerrold
My understanding of the structure is that there is a six or seven person command team of MoD staff. They then have two or three deputies, in particular Royal Navy staff. There are individuals who have been selected from the agency workers.
Mrs Moon
Your agency workers?
Martin Jerrold
Correct. They have been given reporting powers into the command team. There are four or five of those individuals, I believe, or perhaps six or seven; I am not sure. So, it would be a command team and deputy team of all MoD staff, then there would be appointed supervisors from the agency workers, who are described as team leaders, if you like, then a flat structure underneath. Again, I would ask you to ask the command team this, but I think there will be Royal Navy Police and more day-to-day investigative staff also on the ground.
Mrs Moon
Working alongside?
Martin Jerrold
Yes, I believe so. That’s right.
Chair
Just so that we understand the proportion of Red Snapper employees to MoD, do you have any idea roughly of how many there are? Are there five or are there 100?
Martin Jerrold
My approximate guesstimation, having attended meetings and observed, if you will, is that there are probably about 30.
Chair
So the vast majority is done by your—
Martin Jerrold
Correct. It might be more. The command team will be able to answer that.
Chair
Having 127 people working on something full time and getting this far is pretty slow going, isn’t it?
Martin Jerrold
From my perspective, not being an expert in this—
Chair
You guys didn’t mind because you were getting the contract. They’re on £33 an hour. I would drag that out all the way.
Martin Jerrold
The MoD doesn’t owe the business I represent a living. We were successful before we won this contract and we will be successful afterwards. Of course, we have got no ability to continue on the contract for our own purposes. That is all out of our hands. You are right that, from a common-sense perspective, the progress seems very slow, yes.
Chair
Do you have any idea why that might be?
Martin Jerrold
No, they don’t share that with me. If operational issues ever come up in the meetings we have, I am asked to leave the room.
Chair
You are asked to leave the room?
Martin Jerrold
Correct.
Chair
Why?
Martin Jerrold
Because there is a definitive line between what we do and operations.
Chair
Sorry. Can you explain that a bit more?
Martin Jerrold
The contract management team that I provide, which I represent—the six or seven individuals that are directly employed by us—are, if you like, the HR, the welfare, the training people and so on. It rarely happens, because our meetings are about the sort of issues I set out before. If they come to specific things like particular soldiers who are under investigation or may have been arrested, we are asked to leave the room because they don’t share that information with us.
Chair
Okay. Do you not think that is a bit odd?
Martin Jerrold
No, not at all. That is how it works in all the inquiries we provide staff to.
Mrs Moon
Can I get a quick picture of the sort of salaries your staff get?
Martin Jerrold
Of course.
Mrs Moon
Your contract, you said, is for £2 million over a two-year period.
Martin Jerrold
No, no, the total billing is about £4.8 million per year. That is the total.
Mrs Moon
That is to provide 127 staff.
Martin Jerrold
Correct. Within that, we have to process all the expenses and things like that.
Mrs Moon
What things come under “expenses”—other training and so on?
Martin Jerrold
IHAT and the MoD have always paid for accommodation for those people. You are all aware of where it is based—in a fairly remote location. People who live beyond a certain proximity are given expenses.
Mrs Moon
That is from the MoD, not from you.
Martin Jerrold
We process it. My point is that it is wrapped into the gross billing rate. We get a fee. We administer it on their behalf. Yes.
Mrs Moon
So what else is coming out of this £4.8 million?
Martin Jerrold
The wage bill and expenses. That’s it. I expected to be asked these questions. Our mark-up on the contract is 8% and in keeping with all our contracts, our profit position is around 3%. Our accounts are publicly available.
Mrs Moon
So what is an average salary?
Martin Jerrold
The salaries are dictated by legislation that has come out of this place—the Agency Workers Regulations. Therefore, the salaries are legally bound to be pegged against similar posts in UK policing. Again, they are published on the site. They are pretty much in the middle of policing bands. For a straightforward investigative post—this is not particularly accurate—the salary will be around £31,000 or £32,000.
Mrs Moon
Are pension contributions paid?
Martin Jerrold
We are legally obliged to opt them into pensions, again under current legislation.
Mrs Moon
So these are people who have retired and are perhaps receiving a senior police pension.
Martin Jerrold
Some have, but not all. I would hazard a guess that about 70% of them are in receipt of a pension. That is shooting from the hip. I don’t have that data. As I said in a previous answer, the demographics of those we supply is starting to change quite dramatically. Quite a few are former officers not in receipt of pensions, but a significant section of them are.
Mrs Moon
Thank you.
Chair
Thank you very much for coming in today. Having that many people working full-time on this project and for it still to be going on is incredible, even by your own admission. It seems to be some sort of self-financing industry that has yet to produce a single case to stand up in court. This is all public money that we as a Government are having to bear down on at the moment. We are just funding a machine that many people who are abroad from this place, outside of here and have left the military think is totally insane. Thank you so much for coming in today. It is clear that we need to have a conversation with the IHAT team. You have certainly provided some clarity and we would be really grateful if you would share the report of that meeting on the 27th. This isn’t about hanging people out to dry or going after people, but we need to do this properly. We are wasting phenomenal amounts of money and making the lives of some of our servicemen and women, who can be quite vulnerable and have served this nation, miserable for what end? Not a single case. It is extraordinary Thank you very much for coming in.
Mrs Moon
I have to say that if this was local government, there would be heck to pay.
Martin Jerrold
Would you like me to leave a copy of the contract?
Mrs Moon
Yes please.
Chair
That would be very helpful.