FCA Meeting Yesterday And The Times Article Today

Dear all,

Not surprisingly more information is now coming in further to the meeting at the FCA yesterday with members of SME Alliance and SBCB. I would like to include some of this in our newsletter but have to go through it first. In particular the issue of 'responsibility' has been raised again and unfortunately it remains as clear as mud who is responsible for potentially criminal misconduct by banks. Is it the regulator or is it the police? And even were the regulator to report our concerns to the police, I'm not sure if the police would just return it with a label saying “this is civil.”

Hopefully, after the excellent article in the Times today by James Hurley and Harry Wilson additional material will now start coming in which will assist the case we are making. Just to be clear about what we were both alleging and evidencing yesterday at the meeting – it is now evident in many cases that information, e-mails, documents, transcripts, and recordings of transcripts have been manipulated, falsified and tampered with in some cases and the result is the information on the central files of some client accounts is no longer reliable. The ramifications of this are almost unthinkable because in some of the cases Andy Keats and Steve Middleton have looked at on behalf of SME Alliance, SBCB and Modus Mediation, the banks have used falsified evidence to wrongly influence the judicial process – and they have been successful.

As I said in a blog yesterday – we cannot be precipitous in our actions. We have an excellent barrister who is helping SME Alliance and we must allow him time to make the further submissions to the FCA. We must also then allow the FCA to evaluate both the barristers opinion and yesterday's presentation – which was substantial. I add the caveat – I know exactly how frustrated some members are with the regulator and in particular with regard to the IRHP review scheme. I am not known for being a huge fan of the regulatory bodies myself! But there is no point in Andy Keats or Steve Middleton spending hours collating information to take to the FCA if we then pronounce judgement on their decisions prior to them making any!!

We will of course continue to collate the information arriving now and, in order to do this efficiently can I please ask any members of SME Alliance or any one who feels they have relevant information about the potential manipulation or falsification of client data to send it to any of the following e-mail addresses marked – Client data from banks – strictly private and confidential:

smealliance2014@gmail.com

andyk@sbcb.org.uk

steve@middletonfins.co.uk

Your information will be held in strictest confidence and we will not share it with the press or the regulator or anyone else without your express permission. Alternatively you can send it directly to James Hurley or Harry Wilson (I don't have Harry's e-mail) at the Times or to Andy Verity at the BBC who is following the story closely.

james.hurley@thetimes.co.uk

andrew.verity@bbc.co.uk

I am aware other campaigning groups who were not directly involved with the FCA presentation or the Times article have realised how important this is and have reached out to their members who may also have information that is crucial and we thank them for their support.

This is a very serious matter. Let's get it right. If this is as systemic as we believe it is (remembering not all the evidence is from RBS) then we must be absolutely sure all the evidence we are presenting is as indisputable as the evidence we presented yesterday to the FCA.

The newsletter will be out tomorrow and will include information that may help members further their cases. Sorry I can't get it out tonight but it is important I read everything that has come in.