CSM EDITORIAL

An anti-discrimination law that would prevent banks from blocking accounts over customers’ political views is to be tabled by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg. The former business secretary is proposing an amendment to the Digital Markets Bill to prevent banks from apparently blacklisting customers who hold ‘controversial’ views.

The issue came to the fore recently when Nigel Farage complained about having his account closed at Coutts. Farage suggested banks had denied him accounts because of his politics, and that those with “traditionalist or conservative views” could face the same treatment. Then a Reverend Richard Fothergill complained about having his account closed after writing what he called a polite rebuttal of Yorkshire Building Society’s promotional output during Pride month in June.

It might surprise customers of UK banks that the banking institutions they trust to safeguard their hard-earned monies offer banking to all kinds of disreputable individuals and companies…

For example, how are those many customers with a military background who bank at the prestigious Hoare’s Bank on Fleet Street feeling about ‘Tank Chasers’ – the law firm Leigh Day – banking there?

Founded by Sir Richard Hoare in 1672, C. Hoare & Co. is the UK’s oldest privately-owned bank, owned continuously by the Hoare family for 12 generations.

Lawyers from Leigh Day Associates have in the past faced misconduct charges over their handling of claims against the Ministry of Defence alleging the mistreatment and unlawful killing of captives at Camp Abu Naji in May 2004. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) prosecuted them following the Al-Sweady inquiry in 2014, which found the most serious claims of murder and torture were “entirely false” and the product of “deliberate lies”.

The Conservative MP Johnnie Mercer famously ripped to shreds Leigh Day’s controversial boss, Martyn Day, in a Defence Committee hearing at which he called Day, amongst other things, ‘dishonest and deluded’:  

At the time, the Law Gazette commented:

“And let’s say for the record: Day and his firm made serious errors in how claims were handled following the conflict in Iraq. While Day was cleared of professional misconduct, the firm pursued the Al-Sweady claims when it unwittingly had filed away a note which would have cast serious doubt on them”

Earlier in July the BBC reported on how UK Special Forces (SF) are now at the centre of a war crimes inquiry and mentioned that Leigh Day are representing the families of Afghans killed in seven separate SF operations. A quote appears from Leigh Day – from a ‘Tessa Gregory’, a partner at the firm.

Tessa Gregory happens to be the same solicitor the Squires have been dealing with on-off over the past two years in relation to a Chris Packham defamation legal action. Before working for Leigh Day, Tessa Gregory was a solicitor with the notorious Public Interest Lawyers, the now-closed firm run by the disgraced solicitor Phil Shiner.

^{Phil Shiner (left) & Tessa Gregory}

Shiner was struck off the roll of solicitors in England and Wales in 2017 over misconduct relating to false abuse claims against British troops. In June 2022, Shiner was charged with three counts of fraud and entered a plea of Not Guilty. The charges related to claims made against British soldiers in Iraq. Shiner is alleged to have failed to disclose to the Legal Aid Agency that he had engaged in cold calling to solicit cases and had paid referral fees to agents in Iraq. It is also alleged that he committed fraud by false representation by providing an ‘untrue and misleading’ response to a question from the Solicitors Regulation Authority. In November 2022 a Trial Date was set for Shiner in September 2024.

Here’s Tessa Gregory alongside her old boss, Shiner, in The Guardian having a go at the then Labour Government’s policy towards Israel:

Here is Gregory, a trustee and director for Lawyers for Palestinian Rights, having a pop at MI5’s ‘professionalism and competency’ after defending a lady accused of being a Russian spy.

You may know Leigh Day from social media, popping up in annoying ads asking you to claim against car companies for diesel emissions:

Here’s an interesting article about Leigh Day getting a ticking off from a judge in relation to the Trafigura case, involving a bank account located in the African country, Ivory Coast.

Here’s an email sent out in error last February to the Squires by associate solicitor Carol Day from Leigh Day, talking about giving Fieldsports TV and their journalist Ben O’Rourke “something to think about for the weekend”:

This is how that email exchange ended:

The Editor of Country Squire Magazine, Dominic Wightman, was accused during recent defamation proceedings of being ‘gratuitously offensive’ to Leigh Day. Yesterday, speaking from a family holiday, he had this to say about those accusations:

I found the rudeness accusations, amongst others, peculiar and I’ve paid zero attention to them. Over the past two years, I wrote a few responses to legal letters to Leigh Day which commenced ‘Dear Tank Chasers’ and a couple of my response references mentioned the word ‘Shiner’ on them. I wear my rudeness, if that is how my language is deemed, as a badge of honour. At worst it was righteous incivility. Leigh Day have some ghastly people working for them – I’m jealous of all the people who haven’t met them – and frankly anyone who can should remind them of their firm’s murky, British soldier-bashing past whenever they get the chance. Getting Friday night letters from them, as we regularly did, just as you were settling down with family for the weekend, was like taking loved ones out for a relaxing dinner only to have a tramp piss on the window next to your restaurant table. If ‘Dear Tank Chasers’ and the occasional reference to their pal Shiner is considered ‘rudeness’ by the legal profession then English legal professionals are lightweights who’d not last one minute in the Chicago Merc, in military circles, let alone anywhere near a battlefield. Incidentally, the latter is a place I hear Leigh Day solicitors know next to nothing about.”

And on Leigh Day banking at Hoare’s Bank:

When I was a child, I’d go to bed in my bedroom on a Friday night and very occasionally wake up in some other bedroom in our family home in Surrey. I’d get moved during the night on account of a visit from my father’s great friend Michael Hoare, or ‘Mr Michael’ as he was known at his family bank. A lovely chap, and a gentleman. He’d have missed the last train home after some social event or other and so stayed at ours as we were nearer to London than his family home – I was booted out of my bedroom so our family could accommodate him – he’d leave in the morning after a Full English with us all during which he entertained us with amusing stories. His family bank, Hoare’s Bank, was one of butlers and sherry back then. They’d support entrepreneurs and, when the entrepreneurs became too big for their little bank, they’d get a gentlemanly tap on the shoulder – ever so polite – asking them to move their business elsewhere, so as not to expose Hoare’s to the perceived risk elevation. It was a well-run and picky bank – its clients had to pass the smell test. When I discovered during recent legal proceedings that Leigh Day were banking with Hoare’s I was shocked. When the bank details I was given by Leigh Day popped up as Hoare’s on my screen I had to double check. Leigh Day are a tawdry outfit and definitely fail the smell test, in so many ways. My first thought was for the military personnel with family trusts banking at Hoare’s, who would be rightly repulsed by any association with a firm like Leigh Day. I expected Leigh Day to bank with, I don’t know, the Co-operative Bank or someone, certainly not Hoare’s. I’d be surprised if wonderful Mr Michael is not spinning in his grave. His descendants are good people known to provide a great service to other good people and should think again about providing banking facilities to these tank chasers – whoever let them slip in under the Hoare’s radar must have had too much sherry that afternoon.”

• Anyone wishing to complain to Hoare’s Bank can do so by contacting them here.
• Sir Jacob should consider these facts whilst tabling his amendment. Sometimes banks are right to block entities, such as Just Stop Oil, Animal Rising, anti-Semites, racists or Britain-haters? Would you provide banking facilities to Anjem Choudary?
• The MOD should back the brave Special Forces soldiers who are being accused, rather than offering any of them up as sacrifice, as they have tended to do in the past, merely to protect the MOD. These soldiers – especially these SF soldiers – deserve better. They are some of the very best of British – some at Leigh Day comprise the very worst.