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Royal Free Hospital destroys 'consent' form to botched post mortem on MI5 whistleblower

• The calculated destruction of the original 'consent' document means that no forensic tests for handwriting analysis and fingerprinting can be done to prove forgery of relative's signature!

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Andrew Way, Chief Executive of the Royal Free Hospital, has issued a written apology to the family of whistleblower John Francis Smith after a protracted battle waged for the truth by the editor of News Alliance. But the London hospital, which has the worst record for MRSA infections in the capital, has refused to release the 'original' document 'consenting' to the post mortem on J F Smith.

And the hospital's solicitors have now made it clear why the original document cannot be released because it has been destroyed to prevent any forensic analysis of handwriting and fingerprint samples to prove that Simon R Smith's signature was forged by an employee of the 'hospital'.

Matthew Trinder of Bevan Brittain solicitors acting for the Royal Free said: 'It the Trust's standard practice to store a deceased patient's medical records on microfilm 2 years after the date of death and this is what happened in this case.'

But Mr Trinder's tale on behalf of the Royal Free is blown out of the water by the fact that on 23 April 2008, the hospital's medical records department admitted the records of J F Smith were not sent for microfilming until 3 January 2008 - nearly three years his death and which makes a mockery of the hospital's latest implausible statement.

On 23 April 2008, the Royal Free said that it would take approximately six months to get J F Smith's records back from the microfilming department in Leicester. But after the editor of News Alliance published a tape recording of the hospital's legal supervisor telling him that she could not speak English, the relevant documents were released almost immediately. And despite assuring the editor of News Alliance that disciplinary action would be taken against Claudette Brown, no such action has been taken.

And by destroying the original document, the Royal Free Hospital has prevented any possibility of it being examined forensically to analyse handwriting and fingerprint samples. Microfilms do not retain fingerprint samples from hardcopy documents and handwriting analysis cannot be done because there are no pen pressure points for a graphologist to examine.

This is a particularly damning development for the hospital given the fact that one of its employees attempted to forge the signature and address details of the editor of News Alliance to make it look as though he witnessed the signing of the consent to post mortem document and 'agreed' the prodecure should go ahead. In fact, the editor of News Alliance was opposed to the post mortem on the grounds that the hospital already knew J F Smith's cause of death and therefore no post mortem of any nature was necessary.

But Dr Alex Mayer working in conjunction with Duncan Moore told J F Smith's family on 09 March 2005 at the Royal Free Hospital that a post mortem would "help to advance medical science" and assured Leonard Smith that no body parts would be retained.

The hospital and Dr Mayer deceived Leonard Smith who was presented with a single-page document to sign his consent to a limited post mortem investigation. The editor of News Alliance advised his father not to allow any post mortem to be done because cause of death was known and he believed the hospital would not honour its promise because of NHS body parts scandals in the past.

And after a three-year battle to get a copy of the post mortem report, the editor of News Alliance was proved right when it was revealed the hospital had retained approximately forty per cent of his uncle's body in an unauthorised procedure.

Download Post Mortem report on John Francis Smith - PDF format

On page five (see above) of the 'consent' document, an employee of the Royal Free Hospital has attempted to forge the signature of Simon Robert Smith in an attempt to make it appear that he also consented to the post mortem to which he was completely opposed from the outset and made his opinion perfectly clear to his father Leonard Smith.

And realising what the Royal Free Hospital had tried to fabricate, the editor sent the 'photocopied' document for forensic handwriting analysis to prove that his signature had been forged. In fact, studying the 'document' it can be seen quite clearly that Dr Alex Mayer crossed out S R Smith's address details and forged signatures and replaced the forgeries with his own details.

But why simply cross out S R Smith's details to replace them with this own? If S R Smith genuinely signed the document as a witness, then the hospital would have a strong case but given the fact that his details were crossed out and replaced with Dr Alex Mayer's, this shows that the hospital knew perfectly well that S R Smith did not sign the document and wanted his details erased.

The clowns at the Royal Free obviously thought by making such an alteration nothing would come of the forgery but the law is perfectly clear on acts of forgery and tampering with documents to create a false impression: -

FORGERY: (derived through the French from Latin fabricare, to construct), in English law, " the fraudulent making or alteration of a writing to the prejudice of another man's right," or "the false making, or making malo animo, of any written instrument for the purpose of fraud or deceit." This definition, it will be seen, comprehends all fraudulent tampering with documents. "Not only the fabrication and false making of the whole of a written instrument, but a fraudulent insertion, alteration or erasure, even of a letter, in any material part of a true instrument whereby a new operation is given to it, will amount to forgery, - and this though it be afterwards executed by another person ignorant of the deceit " (Russell on Crimes and' Misdemeanours, vol. ii.).

On 29 July 2008, one of Britain's leading handwriting experts who cannot be named for legal reasons of sub judice, wrote to the editor and explained: "Unfortunately it would not be possible for me to base a conclusive report on examination under magnification of a photocopied document. Pressure patterns do not show up well in photocopies and such information is essential when there is only a relatively small amount of script available for examination."

But the Royal Free Hospital now claims the original document has been destroyed and handwriting experts have no document to analyse and the police have no document to fingerprint. At the very least the hospital has conspired to pervert the course of justice by destroying a document which could have been used as a part of criminal investigation.

And Andrew Way, Chief Executive of the hospital, stated in his letter to the editor on 29 July 2008: With regard to the involvement of Mr Duncan Patrick Moore, Ms Hilary Nightingale, acting director of human resources has confirmed that there is no record of anybody by that name on our employment records."

But on 09 March 2005, Leonard Smith and S R Smith met Duncan Moore at the Royal Free Hospital's main reception. Beforehand, Mr Moore advised Leonard Smith to go to the main reception at approximately 11.30hrs and report he had arrived and to ask for Mr Moore who said: "I will then come down and meet you at the main reception."

On the day Leonard Smith did as he was advised and Duncan Moore came down from the hospital's administration department where he worked "part-time" according to him and introduced Leonard Smith and the editor to Dr Alex Mayer who wanted 'consent' to conduct a post mortem on the body of British Government whistleblower John Francis Smith.


77 South Hill Park, Hampstead, London NW3 2SS

And Duncan Moore had already explained to Leonard Smith on 05 March 2005, following the death of J F Smith that same morning at the Royal Free Hospital, "a post mortem will have to be carried out and I will explain everything when we meet."

Mr Moore told Leonard Smith that he had been "John's landlord for overy twenty years and John sort of came with the property, we sort of inherited him." But the Land Registry will not release the name of the previous owner of 77 South Hill Park, Hampstead, and despite several written requests, Duncan Moore will not name the previous owner of the property. This is entirely relevant in that Mr Moore claims J F Smith had lived at the property for "close to forty years".

And Mr Moore also tried to deceive J F Smith's family into believing that a 73-year-old man, suffering from serious heart disease, was smoking "100 cigarettes a day" and passed Leonard Smith a bundle of cash in his living room on 09 March 2005, apparently the proceeds of J F Smith's State pension but pensions are not paid out when a pensioner goes into hospital for treatment. In fact, a hospital has to inform the DWP that a pensioner has been admitted and payments are deducted accordingly.

Mr Moore claims that he had not heard or seen J F Smith for "three weeks" before he was admitted to the Royal Free Hospital on 06 February 2005 but in the post mortem report this period is contradicted with the hospital's doctors reporting that Mr Moore had not seen J F Smith for "6-8 weeks".

The bundle of cash passed to Leonard Smith by Mr Moore was in the region of £1200 in used banknotes and does not tally with any pension entitlement J F Smith could have been paid. At the time J F Smith, who had been robbed of his Government Service pension for attempting to expose corruption in the corridors of Whitehall, was being paid £90.08 per week by the DWP.

Even over a period of "6-8 weeks" his pension entitlement would not have amounted to £1200 and certainly not over a "three-week" period. This begs the question where the money actually came from and was not enough to pay for J F Smith's funeral at J H Kenyon's Funeral Directors which cost Leonard Smith £2,592.50.

What is perfectly clear now that the Royal Free Hospital has denied Duncan Moore worked for the hospital is that either Duncan Moore lied about his employment or the hospital is lying to cover his tracks and by so doing avoid legal responsibility for Moore's actions?

And in September 2006 (see video below), Reginald Barton-Smith explained to his nephew and editor of News Alliance that his son Richard Barton-Smith, a Senior Inspector with the Hong Kong Marine Police, had made inquires about J F Smith's Government Service before British rule came to an end.

Reginald Barton-Smith explained that in his view Duncan Patrick Moore was a Government employee paid to "mind" former Government employees who had resigned from Government Service. But whatever the truth of the matter, News Alliance will now conduct a thorough investigation into Duncan Patrick Moore's employment background and life history to detemine the truth.

The editor of News Alliance has now instructed lawyers to bring an action under Public Law against the Royal Free Hampstead NHS 'Trust'.

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