JUSTICE FILMS

 Justice? The Owen Paterson Story revisits the extraordinary story of Owen Paterson, the conservative cabinet minister, accused of “egregious lobbying” by a Labour led standards committee and thrown out of parliament.

The programme reveals that the two-year inquiry into Paterson not only did not produce a single scrap of evidence against him, but ignored seventeen witnesses, refused to apply the parliamentary code and even prevented his lawyers from speaking out.

Was the process fair?

Why weren’t witnesses interviewed?

Why had the Commissioner made up her mind before receiving witness evidence?

Why did it take so long for the Commissioner to speak to Owen?

Was justice done?

Justice? features in-depth interviews with Owen Paterson, who speaks in detail for the first time about this ordeal.

Andrew Pierce presents the film, with Rory Stewart and Sir Iain Duncan Smith providing their inside knowledge of parliamentary processes and takes on Owen’s character, and who both claim the process was flawed.

Legal authorities The Hon. James Lewis KC and Philip Barden, Owen Paterson’s lawyer, comment on whether the investigation was in line with natural justice.

And Julia Hartley-Brewer delivers several cutting insights into how this saga was viewed by an outsider. She says the system would be called out if it was in place in Iran, Russia or China, and asks why the Commimssioner, Kathryn Stone, thought Owen Peterson was lobbying when nobody present in the meetings thought he was.