Now put ‘Professor’ Shyster in the dock

So there is some justice in the world after all. the law firm that has hounded British troops with false allegations of war crimes is going out of business. and not before time. Public Interest Lawyers, led by the odious Birmingham-based Phil shyster, is to be wound up at the end of this month after being stripped of legal aid funding.

For more than a decade, PIL has made millions dragging soldiers and their families through years of unwarranted torment. selfproclaimed socialist shyster has mounted a politically motivated campaign designed deliberately to discredit our armed Forces.

In the process, he and his shameless associates have pocketed over £4million of taxpayers’ money.

PIL posed as crusading advocates seeking redress for vulnerable Iraqi and afghan civilians who claimed to have been brutalised by British soldiers. In truth, it was more like those spiv solicitors who advertise on daytime television, promising com-pen-say-shun for ‘trip and fall’ accidents. the difference was that while two-bob Blame Direct outfits work on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis, PIL got paid regardless, thanks to the generosity and gullibility of the legal aid system.

this column has been on shyster’s case ever since I crossed swords with him on television during the Iraq war, when it was revealed that he was sending agents into Baghdad and Basra to drum up business.

his cynical opportunism was stomach churning. although he had one early success, involving a hotel receptionist who died in the custody of British troops in 2003, that didn’t justify the gold rush of claims he submitted subsequently.

there are reported to be around 1,500 ‘abuse’ cases either instigated or inspired by PIL. all will now be thrown out or withdrawn. everything started to unravel for shyster in December 2014 after a year-long inquiry into allegations that innocent Iraqi farmers had been murdered by British soldiers.

the judge leading the investigation concluded that the witnesses represented by PIL and another Left-wing law firm, Leigh Day, were not just exaggerating, they were telling outright lies.

DUrING the course of the inquiry, it emerged that shyster was employing a local agent to harvest claims for compensation. But in the words of the judge, the allegations were ‘wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility’.

that inquiry cost taxpayers £31 million. outrageously, PIL trousered £3 million just for taking part.

at the time, I called for shyster to be charged with treason and investigated for possible criminal offences. the then Prime Minister David Cameron weighed in, too, demanding that the solicitors’ governing body charge shyster with misconduct.

the Guardian, house journal of the human rights racket, rallied to shyster’s defence, claiming he was the victim of a ‘vendetta’ by the Government and the Daily Mail. this reaction was typical of the way shyster was lauded by the Left-wing legal establishment and the ‘yuman rites’ brigade in particular.

he was named ‘solicitor of the Year’ and ‘human rights Lawyer of the Year’ and given honorary doctorates by a string of universities.

all this went to shyster’s head. he started styling himself ‘Professor’ and behaving like a celebrity, listing ‘comedy’ among his hobbies and always appearing in public in a series of trademark coloured spectacles.

to my mind, garish red glasses — like newsreader Jon snow’s novelty socks — are a sure sign that the wearer has absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever.

and there was nothing remotely funny about shyster’s own vendetta against brave and blameless members of the armed Forces. Yet broadcasters and politicians continued to indulge him. the BBC even produced a Panorama special based on PIL’s now discredited claims.

In 2010, Labour established the Iraq historical Investigation team to follow up shyster’s bogus allegations, a move which has led to years of agony for servicemen falsely accused of abuse.

While shyster is the arch villain of this piece, he is only a symptom of a much wider sickness which started when tony Blair incorporated the european human rights act into British law. as some of us warned at the time, it would prove to be a charter for criminals, chancers and illegal immigrants and a goldmine for rapacious lawyers.

that’s how we ended up with millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money being funnelled to a provincial law firm to hire touts to encourage foreign nationals to make claims for compensation which were based on fabricated allegations of abuse against British soldiers.

The good news is that as a direct result of the collapse of the 2014 inquiry, PIL has been stripped of the right to claim legal aid — which appears to have been its only source of income. shyster is also facing disciplinary charges brought by the sra, the solicitors’ watchdog. But, disgracefully, he is fighting to have that tribunal held behind closed doors — a move being challenged by the Daily Mail. (No doubt further evidence of our ‘vendetta’ against him.)

apparently, he claims he is suffering from ill-health which could be exacerbated if his disciplinary proceedings were held in public. oh dear, how sad, never mind. I doubt he’ll receive much sympathy from the hundreds of servicemen whose health has been adversely affected by the stress of false accusations levelled against them and the zeal with which they have been pursued by the Iraq investigators.

these soldiers, their families and taxpayers who have been forced to hand over millions to PIL have a right to hear the charges and evidence against shyster. It will be an absolute travesty if he is able to hide behind a blanket of secrecy.

Maybe he won’t. the National Crime agency is investigating PIL, so with any luck shyster could still find himself in the dock at the old Bailey.

Let’s hope, too, that those wrongly accused are able to sue him for defamation and that, finally, the Government gets round to reforming legal aid rules and forcing solicitors to repay in full the costs of their vexatious actions.

that would halt the ambulancechasers dead in their tracks. so would the tories keeping their promise to scrap the Yuman rites act.

shyster is a nasty stain on our legal system but, as I said, he’s not the only one to blame.

all those who cheered him on; garlanded him with awards; gave him a platform to peddle his poison and give succour to our enemies; and plied him with legal aid to pursue his clients’ false smears and allegations should hang their heads in shame.