Defence Sub-Committee
Oral evidence: MoD Support for Former and Serving Personnel Subject to Judicial Processes, HC 109
Wednesday 14 Sep 2016
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 14 Sep 2016.
Members present: Johnny Mercer (Chair); Mr James Gray; Mrs Madeleine Moon.
Questions 60-179
Witness
I: Martin Jerrold, Group Managing Director, Red Snapper Group.
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.
Q60 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.
Q61 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.
Q62 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.
Q63 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.
Q64 Mr Gray: But they remain your employees?
Martin Jerrold: Well, under the law it is actually a split liability between the end user and—
Q65 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.
Q66 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.
Q67 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.
Q68 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.
Q69 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.
Q70 Mr Gray: How many of you bid?
Martin Jerrold: Gosh. I think about six, from memory.
Q71 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.
Q72 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.
Q73 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.
Q74 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.
Q75 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.
Q76 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.
Q77 Chair: Okay; it is not open-ended, then.
Martin Jerrold: No.
Q78 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—
Q79 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.
Q80 Chair: I am just, really, trying to understand this; Red Snapper provide the investigators: do they operate independently?
Martin Jerrold: No.
Q81 Chair: Or is there always someone from the MoD with them?
Martin Jerrold: Yes.
Q82 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—
Q83 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—
Q84 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—
Q85 Chair: Sorry, I thought they were not police.
Martin Jerrold: No, but I am talking about civilian investigators who work with the police.
Q86 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.
Q87 Chair: They have no powers to arrive on a base.
Martin Jerrold: No.
Q88 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.
Q89 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?
Q90 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?
Q91 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.
Q92 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.
Q93 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—
Q94 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—
Q95 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—
Q96 Chair: You just don’t recognise it.
Martin Jerrold: I don’t. No, I don’t—absolutely.
Q97 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—
Q98 Chair: When you say “command team”, you are talking about the MoD?
Martin Jerrold: IHAT’s command team—IHAT.
Q99 Chair: And did you talk about this case?
Martin Jerrold: Yes. We talked about all of Hilary Meredith’s comments, yes.
Q100 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.
Q101 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.
Q102 Mr Gray: Both of which would be very serious breaches of your company’s rules and regulations and training.
Martin Jerrold: Absolutely.
Q103 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.
Q104 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.
Q105 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.
Q106 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.
Q107 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.
Q108 Mr Gray: So you would fire somebody—
Martin Jerrold: Yes—absolutely, yes.
Q109 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—
Q110 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—
Q111 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—
Q112 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.
Q113 Chair: At the MoD.
Martin Jerrold: Yes, and they would accept that. I have already had that conversation with them.
Q114 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.
Q115 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.
Q116 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—
Q117 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.
Q118 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.
Q119 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—
Q120 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.
Q121 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.
Q122 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.
Q123 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.
Q124 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.
Q125 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.
Q126 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.
Q127 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.
Q128 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.
Q129 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.
Q130 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.
Q131 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.
Q132 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.
Q133 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.
Q134 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.
Q135 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.
Q136 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.
Q137 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.
Q138 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.
Q139 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.
Q140 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.
Q141 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.
Q142 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—
Q143 Chair: Okay. That is going to exist wherever you work.
Martin Jerrold: Exactly. That’s what I meant: it is day-to-day stuff.
Q144 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—
Q145 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.”
Q146 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.
Q147 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.
Q148 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.
Q149 Chair: The MoD flies you out?
Martin Jerrold: The MoD flies the team whom we provide, yes.
Q150 Chair: Okay. And your investigators will speak to these Iraqis concerned and take their evidence.
Martin Jerrold: Correct. That is my understanding, yes.
Q151 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.
Q152 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.
Q153 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.
Q154 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.
Q155 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.
Q156 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.
Q157 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.
Q158 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.
Q159 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.
Q160 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.
Q161 Mrs Moon: Working alongside?
Martin Jerrold: Yes, I believe so. That’s right.
Q162 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.
Q163 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.
Q164 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.
Q165 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.
Q166 Chair: You are asked to leave the room?
Martin Jerrold: Correct.
Q167 Chair: Why?
Martin Jerrold: Because there is a definitive line between what we do and operations.
Q168 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.
Q169 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.
Q170 Mrs Moon: Can I get a quick picture of the sort of salaries your staff get?
Martin Jerrold: Of course.
Q171 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.
Q172 Mrs Moon: That is to provide 127 staff.
Martin Jerrold: Correct. Within that, we have to process all the expenses and things like that.
Q173 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.
Q174 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.
Q175 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.
Q176 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.
Q177 Mrs Moon: Are pension contributions paid?
Martin Jerrold: We are legally obliged to opt them into pensions, again under current legislation.
Q178 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.
Q179 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.