Craven Conflict

by David Cooper

  The response was nowhere near plain and unequivocal confirmation of the actual interview date. Lennie’s irritation grew. To his mind, Wagstaff could easily have found out from his new fellow partner Squire when the interview had taken place, rather than answer in such oblique terms. It was hardly a shining example of the openness between opposing parties that the modern court rules required.

  Just a minute…

  Lennie flicked back through the most recent correspondence. He carefully read the update that Karen had sent him only a day earlier, when she had been asking Gemma Gabriel how anyone could have known that she was a Ripple candidate. Something to do with missing a computer training session…

  There was something in that memo…

  He found the document attached to Gemma’s original message to Karen and opened it, noting that it had been addressed to all partners and fee earning staff at Bastables as well as those at Lewis Hackett.

  ‘We anticipate our IT consultants needing to make use of all of the Bastables meeting rooms throughout the course of the induction day. Please therefore avoid arranging any meetings on that date unless they involve urgent and unavoidable client matters.’

  Lennie glanced back to the beginning of the memo. The induction session had been fixed for 21st March, the very same date when it was now being claimed that Craven had been interviewed.

  “Fancy that.”

  Lennie still knew that he should not jump to conclusions. The interview might have taken place off site. Or the date given in the letter might simply have been a mistake. In either case, there might be little scope to accuse Avery of anything more serious than soliciting a Ripple candidate whom he should have left alone. It would not be right to give Karen false hopes. But it was still a relevant line of enquiry to explore.

  He forwarded the explanation to Karen, adding his thoughts, and saw her response just as he was about to leave for the day.

  ‘Dawn’s still adamant Craven was in our office on business in the week before Wayne left. She’s totally on message. Surely that’s still relevant?’

  Lennie thought for a moment. Could there have been more than one interview? Perhaps the disclosure round might throw further light on the issues. It was certainly not something to treat lightly. If a serving company director had diverted a business opportunity before resigning, this would be far more serious than simply enticing an old client away afterwards. He quickly replied to Karen’s email to tell her that the issue was still very much a live one.

  Friday 3 rd May

  Craven looked up from his desk, sensing a visitor in the doorway. His customary anxiety turned to relief when he realised that it was an office junior, holding a clipboard.

  On this particular Friday lunchtime, he lacked a genuine prior engagement. Jackie had taken the day off, giving herself a four day weekend ahead of the Bank Holiday Monday. He had not encountered Squire since the previous morning’s conversation, and had feared another attempt to persuade him down to the pub. A work related excuse might be enough to put Roger Blake off, he thought, but if it was Squire himself…

  “Can you sign for this?”

  The junior had just parked a trolley outside. As Craven added his signature to the sheet on the clipboard, he reached into the trolley and pulled out a bulky ring binder. He handed the binder to Craven along with a covering note.

  “Cheers. Happy reading!”

  Craven nodded as the junior left, curious to know what now awaited his attention. He opened the binder and discovered that it contained the newly issued BLH Solicitors Office Manual, divided into a number of sections. Turning to one at random, he noticed the heading ‘Health and Safety Policy’, before deciding that it would be sensible to read the covering note first. He remembered that someone had told him on his first day that the existing manual, which he had never seen, was being overhauled. The last sentence, which had been printed in bold type, made him pause.

  ‘It is essential that every member of staff familiarises themselves with the contents of this manual and returns the accompanying copy of this note, duly countersigned, to confirm that they have done so.’

  It never occurred to Craven that the sole purpose of the closing instruction was to safeguard the firm’s compliance officers against any professed ignorance of the manual’s contents. Nor was he likely to appreciate that the vast majority of the firm’s staff would give the manual a perfunctory skim and never anticipate any need to open it again. He decided to take it home and find the time over the Bank Holiday weekend to read it properly. The ‘Equality and Diversity Policy’ section caught his eye next, but he only managed to look quickly at the first page of the Disability entry before his phone rang.

  “Paul, it’s Seb Finnie. Can you come over straight away to talk about a new matter? I’d like to involve you in this one.”

  Craven wasted no time in making his way to Finnie’s office. In his first month, Finnie had not delegated anything substantial to him, and their paths had scarcely crossed after they were first introduced. His general impression of Finnie’s attitude and demeanour from their few encounters was that he often seemed to act more like a recently qualified assistant than a partner. But this did not diminish Craven’s eagerness to find out what awaited him, especially so soon after Squire had praised his performance for the previous month.

  “Take a seat, Paul. You might remember me mentioning this one at the last department lunch. One of my old friends from university, Jerry Endacott, runs a software house by the name of Endbrack IT, down in Bracknell. Earlier this year, he bought out one of his smaller competitors…”

  Craven listened carefully. It did not take long before his dutiful interest in a new work matter turned into genuine enthusiasm to become involved. The deal had been full of promise, but had turned sour a few weeks later when the clients began to suspect that they might have been taken for a ride. The value of the order book and debtors’ ledger had come nowhere near what they had expected, and the development timescale for new products had been wildly optimistic despite the sellers’ assurances to the contrary. And the sellers had retaliated by blaming them for a superficial and inadequate approach towards the valuation of assets, before going on to assert that there was no longer any reason for Endbrack to withhold payment of the final six figure instalment that they owed.

  “So we need to get to the bottom of what went on when Jerry and his sidekick Colin Dowling were allowed into the seller’s offices, under the non-disclosure agreement, to take a proper look at what was on offer. They’re as convinced as they will ever be that they were stitched up…”

  Compared to the claims that Craven had routinely handled in his previous job, the sums involved were eye watering. He wondered exactly what he was going to be asked to do, and soon found out.

  “So Jerry’s up here in Birmingham at the back end of next week. Conference at the Aston Villa stadium on Thursday, and a trade fair over the following two days. Booked into a suite at the Hyatt. You’ll go up there at four o’clock on the Thursday afternoon and interview Colin Dowling on your own, then I’ll join you at half five and you can take notes when I interview Jerry…”

  For a moment, Craven was startled that Finnie had taken it for granted that he would be available to work beyond normal office hours. He was on the verge of objecting, but his growing interest in the dispute won through, and he nodded politely until Finnie had come to the end of his outline.

  “Is there anything I can read into?”

  “Just the latest correspondence. Everything else is likely to be pretty much down to what they can remember. Or what they think they can remember. No harm in pushing the boundaries a bit.”

  Again Craven hesitated, thinking to himself that he would much rather have the plain truth from a client, with straight answers to straight questions. He wondered how comfortable he would be in a subordinate role behind Finnie.

  “Right, that will do. My secretary will confirm all the arrangements. And while I think of it, we’ve decided th
at I’m to be your permanent supervisor from now on. Caroline Shore’s obviously not going to be back in the office for a long while.”

  There was a brief pause before Craven realised that Finnie evidently had nothing more to say. He picked the file up from Finnie’s desk and left, distracted for a moment by the incongruous sight of an open cigarette packet next to it. With his dislike for the habit even more deep rooted than his attitude towards pubs, he had been relieved to find out soon after starting at BLH that the firm’s smoking policy was as robust as he could have expected, the only options being the street or the underground car park. But he found it curious that a partner in the firm should make it so plain to any visitor to his office that he was one of the minority who still indulged.

  Four hours later, having spent a productive afternoon, he packed the new office manual into his briefcase and turned off his lights. Although he knew he was not heading for home ahead of the firm’s official finishing time, his encounter at the beginning of the week had left him hesitant to risk any argument with officious bystanders. He could not help glancing around nervously as he left, just as he had done for the last three days. It annoyed him to think of how little his colleagues would have done that afternoon following their collective return from the pub.

  Tuesday 7 th May

  “OK, are you ready to run through this?”

  Lennie had arranged a phone call with Karen to discuss the next procedural step under the court timetable. This was the disclosure round, where the opposing parties would be obliged to list and produce copies of documents in their possession that were relevant to the facts in dispute, whether they helped or harmed their owner. He was in no doubt that Karen was well on top of the issues, but he never liked leaving anything to chance where the court rules were concerned.

  “Ready when you are.” Karen was just as keen to know what was needed of her.

  “Right. We need to exchange lists of documents by this coming Monday. So let’s just have a quick stocktake of what you’ve already given me. If we start with what we used when we applied for the injunction, there’s Wayne’s employment contract, his resignation email, the emails from the three paralegals, the company formation documents for Wave Recruitment, and a modified version of your database – just names, no contact details…”

  “Can you be sure I won’t have to produce the whole database?” Karen interrupted. “I’m as convinced as I’ll ever be that he stole an old version when he left. I’m damned if I’m going to hand the latest one over.”

  “No, you’re OK. The principle’s actually quite easy to understand. If you win a full injunction at trial, he’ll have to be made aware who he mustn’t approach. The names will do. He’s got no good reason to ask for the email addresses and phone numbers. And all the law firm clients are known to everyone anyway.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Then there’s the other material that’s come up since the first hearing. The copies of Wayne’s desk diary, the newspaper article about Paul Craven, the mailshot that your friend Fiona had from Wayne, and that rewrite of your original Lawjobs advert. Then there’s the card that was attached to Dawn’s flowers, and Dawn’s text messages.” Lennie paused. “Are you absolutely sure she’s prepared to stand up and give evidence? It could be a real blow if she changed her mind.”

  “Don’t worry about Dawn. She’s still rock solid.”

  “Good.” Lennie looked at his list again. “Did you say you kept the prompt sheet from that first meeting when you broke the news about the redundancy? We know he’s dropped the claim that you sacked him on the spot, but anything we can use to get at his credibility will be useful. That was a pretty serious allegation, so we’re entitled to remind him about it.”

  “Yes, I’ll dig it out.”

  “OK, you’ve also let me have the later emails from those two solicitors Russon and Nicholas who jumped ship and went over to him. And that internal memo about the computer training day at Bastables, the one that Gemma Gabriel gave you. That might rattle them. So that leaves me with a shopping list of back up items. I’ll need your terms and conditions, to prove the commission rates that the law firms pay you when you place candidates. That’s going to help me work out your loss of profits. I’d like paper copies of your templates too – your notepaper, your standard form candidate CV, and your website home page. You never know, we might be able to make something of the fact that he parodied your logo.”

  “Not a problem.” Karen made some further notes. “What else?”

  “I think that just leaves the candidates’ internal files. The paralegals, Gemma Gabriel and the other solicitors who abandoned you. Not forgetting Paul Craven…no, hang on, didn’t you say there was no trace of anything for him?”

  “Afraid so. We’ve hunted high and low.”

  “That’s a pity. Everything on Craven’s going to turn on what Dawn thinks she remembers, and what we can try to infer from the odds and ends. Anyway, that brings me to what I can ask Wayne to disclose. Even if it helps you and harms him.”

  “I’m still a bit confused about this.” Karen said. “Isn’t there a law somewhere that says no one can be expected to incriminate himself?”

  “Not in civil law cases, fortunately. If there’s a smoking gun in his papers that proves your argument or destroys his, we’re entitled to ask for it as long as it’s relevant. Anyway, the court rules say we’re all supposed to co-operate with each other nowadays. Help the court and all that. Not that Mr Paragon of Virtue Wagstaff would ever understand, but that’s another story.”

  “Horrible man.” Karen thought back to the most recent hearing, and to the filthy look she had received when the judge had refused Wagstaff’s application for her to be ordered to deposit funds in court. “So what can we get out of Wayne?”

  “Well, first and foremost, I can ask for every email and text between him and the paralegals. If the emails and texts don’t demonstrate that they all just found out about him and followed him, we ought to get somewhere. I did warn Wagstaff long ago to tell Wayne he had to preserve everything. You told me Wayne usually preferred texting to emailing, so that could be tricky, but our long stop will be his phone records.”

  “That’s just what Alex said.” Karen remembered how she had discussed the outcome of the first court application with Alex and Susie Harris over a takeaway, when Alex had reassured her that all was not lost despite her defeat on that very day. “What else?”

  “Any of his tape transcripts from the conversations he recorded. I haven’t forgotten what you said long ago. He told you that he only ever wrote a few notes of what went down on the tapes, just enough to get things moving, and then he erased them and scrapped the notes. There’s an outside chance he might have kept something relevant. Especially knowing that you heard him crashing and banging around in the office on the last day, when he thought he’d lost one. At the very least, I can demand that he tells us if he ever taped anything with the paralegals…”

  “Unlikely, but you never know.”

  “Then there’s the fringe material that we’d need to look at, if we won on liability. Any invoices he sent to firms for introducing any of these candidates, any start confirmations, all that…Come to think of it, I don’t see why I shouldn’t ask for his company bank statements either. If they show he started trading through Wave when he was still a director of Ripple, that could be a real find…”

  Lennie carried on until he sensed that Karen was well on top of what would be happening next.

  “And let’s not forget, every witness in this case will still need to come up to proof. If someone on his side gets caught out telling a lie, or if they have to admit something damaging, that could make up for anything we can’t prove from documents alone.”

  * * * * *

  Avery read the message that Wagstaff had forwarded, then turned to the earlier advice about his disclosure obligations.

  ‘While it is my duty under the rules to draw your attention to the scope and extent of what may
be relevant for disclosure in litigation, and your duty in turn to preserve all such items for actual disclosure, it would be absurd to try to force anyone to preserve and physically disclose anything that no longer existed. For instance…’

  As he considered how to reply, Avery could not stop himself from sniggering. It was plain that Wagstaff had deliberately phrased his advice from a few weeks earlier in terms that would not only cover himself against any allegation that he was ignoring professional duties, but would also show Avery the direction towards a blatantly uncooperative and unhelpful answer. His response to Wagstaff was natural and consistent.

  ‘Tony, I will look for the items you have described. I should just confirm that my phone settings have always been based upon text messages being auto-deleted after seven days, whether sent or received, so I do not expect to be able to find anything in those categories…’

  The thought suddenly crossed Avery’s mind that he ought to make doubly sure that his tracks were covered. Although Wagstaff had assured him that a mere witness in a civil dispute could only very rarely be compelled to produce documents against his will when attending to give evidence, this was not something he felt he could leave to chance. He quickly fired off a text message to Chris Thompson, Mark Davenport and Dale Rider, the three paralegals who had confirmed their switch of allegiance from Ripple to Wave in the early days of his new venture. It would be wise, he thought, to ensure that their phones left no trail either.

  Thursday 9 May

  “Hi there, Jerry, you old wanker! How’s tricks?”

  Craven kept a straight face, but his inner revulsion was heartfelt. He found it hard to believe how Seb Finnie had introduced himself after turning up at the hotel suite where Craven had been waiting with Jerry Endacott, owner of Endbrack IT, and his associate Colin Dowling. The contrived man hug between Finnie and his client that immediately followed the vulgar greeting left Craven with an even greater sense of discomfort.