Gary Summers and my case at 187 Fleet Street

Gary Summers did work on my case, although he spent hardly any time on it during his period in the Andrew Trollope QC Chambers at 187 Fleet Street. This is why I find it so puzzling that I appear as one of their "Notable Cases" on the Home Page of Trollope's website.

In my opinion this is a false claim. I have received no reply to the e-mail I sent to both 187 Fleet Street and Gary Summers (at 23 Essex Street Chambers). Perhaps they are not interested to reply, but ignoring my complaint is no way to resolve such an important matter.

Here is my e-mail to them:

To: chambers@187fleetstreet.com

cc: Gary Summers

From: Michael John Smith

Date: 6 May 2010

Subject: I am not one of your "Notable Cases"

Dear Sirs,

I only noticed today that you make claims on your website that my case of R -v- Michael John Smith was one of your "Notable Cases".

I beg to differ, because your then Junior Barrister Gary Summers let me down badly in supporting my submission to the CCRC, a submission which I had prepared myself. In fact I later discovered evidence that proved that the key exhibit in my case, a document dated January 1982, was made obsolete in 1984 (over 8 years before my arrest) and therefore could not have been used on ALARM missiles deployed in the 1991 Gulf War.

Gary Summers has a lot to answer for in failing to uncover this evidence prior to my trial, and then telling me that he could do nothing to make this exhibit a ground of Appeal in 1995. I now suspect that Gary Summers knew all along that the document was obsolete, but the Prosecution case would have collapsed had it been raised by my defence at my trial.

I am told that barristers and QCs quite regularly let the Prosecution win cases like this, particularly when the MoD and MI5 stand to have egg on their faces for producing false evidence at an Old Bailey trial.

Shame on all you lawyers there for letting your standards sink to the corrupt and unethical methods employed to convict me. I could and will say a lot more, but will start by publicising this on the Internet.

Yours sincerely,

Michael John Smith