13 September 2022: James (Anita) - A

Anita James was first encountered as a frail older woman. The significantly thinning hair and frame, the walking aid, and the look of a rabbit caught in the headlights made it almost cruel to think of her having to face a grilling at a Public inquiry. But then, so many infected and affected people match the manner of presentation, and their appearance is not down to the ravages of time only. The witness quickly seemed unable to resist making a brief monosyllable response or making a noise to agree even with just a statement prior to an actual question being answered. Could this be simple nervousness, or something more gerontological?

If there is such a thing as a “career civil servant” – and there surely is – then Ms James was a “career Government lawyer”. She rose through the ranks to eventually covered both Health and Social Security. She had overall responsibility for legal matters, mainly civil litigation, but rarely to advise on policy matters. Her work included Judicial Reviews. Counsel went over the nuts and bolts of how legal work was done, including how documents were received from official files – almost always copies, not originals since that was considered inappropriate for the safety of the documents. The world of the legal profession certainly enjoys having its own linguistic and quirk-riven peculiarities.

Ms James had responsibility for assigning work to Government lawyers. Once again the graded hierarchy of the civil service reared its status-fixated head. She would deal with higher level matters herself, but rarely had reason to engage with Ministers themselves.

Records were archived at purpose built centres, with destruction dates attached. Nelson Stores archived records for the Department of Health and Hayward Stores were for Social Security. She designated destruction dates, but there was no guidance on setting these periods. The longest terms would up to 25 years; and the witness noted that it meant there would not be anything left from her time in post.

Counsel then shifted to a more direct topic, that of the potential for negligence by the NHS in the supply of infected blood as part of the HIV Litigation and subsequently. The main arguments to support the Government included the usual lines of the non-availability of tests, the weaknesses in those few developing tests, and all the rest of that narrative. The witness never checked the veracity of the statements, just accepting them as factual. She agreed that later it would have been more normal to check statements given to her.

Ms James became specifically involved in the work related to papers held by UKHCDO. The desire was to not disclose certain papers held by the UKHCDO, and if contested, to “fight it out in court”. She did not recall being shown the actual papers or knowing the content. Her main contact in these matters was Dr Rejman. The witness left it to the discretion of Dr Rejman and later Mr Scofield to decide what was not to be disclosed and why. Sir Brian intervened to clarify with Counsel the “rules of disclosure” since it seems that Mr Scofield was recommending going against these rules and was not challenged about that. During the brief exchange, the witness stayed silent – no words or sounds.

The non-introduction of tests was seen as making the Government vulnerable since it was not just a few countries which had gone forward and introduced tests, but almost every other comparable country. This was noted as a possible reason for litigants to “drag it through the courts”. Ms James did not recall having a view on the matter of the justifications, mainly because she did not really understand the science involved. As an aside note, the air conditioning in the room felt like it was working well. For the sake of the witness, that hopefully applied to the area of the room where she was sitting (being carefully slow cooked as the questions were incrementally turning up the heat).

Counsel asked about the suitability and attitude of Dr Rejman to carry out the document discovery exercise. “Dr Rejman was a ‘bit of a law unto himself’ since he was not a great respecter or lawyers, but that goes with the territory” said the witness. How telling as an insight into the way Government works (or doesn’t work) at the hard-end. She acknowledged a potential awareness of missing papers yet did nothing about it but could not remember why not. An exchange of words between members of the audience was seen to catch the eye of the witness and caused a grimaced distraction. If the lay persons in the room were getting how exposed she was becoming, maybe her fears were being realised.

On the matter of the destroyed documents, the witness was aware of the issue, but without having detail about the nature of the contents. This was highlighted as another example of a document gap being noticed but without action being taken to resolve that matter, and it again received the response from the witness of not recalling why that was not sought to be resolved. It is interesting to note that Dr Rejman had extracted what he considered to be relevant, listing several documents as coming from “expert witnesses” such as Bloom, Ludlam, etc. For the HIV Litigation, Ms James was the Junior Counsel, and while she felt she had provided Counsel with all they needed in terms of paperwork, in light of the missing bits she could not recall her thinking to justify the apparent inconsistency.

Internal documents include references to files referred to as “LIE 16 vol 15”. How was it possible that nobody noticed the unfortunate (and ironic) acronym? These document issues were clearly quite vexing internally to the DH and their lawyers, including the fact that even after the work by Mr Burrage, additional files were destroyed. The witness regretted that more was not done at the time to ensure the message of retaining documents was clearly received.

In time, Ms James moved on and was replaced by a Ms McEwan. The witness created a handover note which was full of the usual “lines to take” arguments and justifications for what the NHS had done. She still had not really questioned these statements. The vulnerability of the Government due to the “window period” (1989 to 1991) was the focus of her concerns, it appears. Almost immediately, Ms McEwan requested the HIV Litigation files from storage, but Ms James could not recall why she had not already requested these. When pressed after another “I can’t recall” answer, she suggested that there was a time issue, “I always had to find time to do things”.

Some of the missing/old files were eventually discovered in the basement of their own offices. Locksmiths had to break into the filing cabinets these were found in. The witness commented that it was a very unusual place to store these papers and said they should have gone to the off-site storage facility. She herself had never been down to the basement, even though it was the building she worked at. It seemed that all the missing papers were discovered apart from file 44. Of course, the temptation is to see this as adding up to a complete contrivance, despite the protestations of coincidental innocence. But the only important question to consider is what the Chair makes of it all.

It suddenly came out that the witness was at the time suffering from issues of overwork and being bullied by her line-manager. A tv drama scriptwriter could not have concocted such an effective cliff-hanger to leave the audience wanting more, after the morning break.