WHEN THE REGULATOR BECOMES PART OF THE EVIDENTIAL QUESTION
The documentary record concerning solicitor Philip Hyland has moved considerably beyond a dispute about professional regulation.
It establishes that:
• Government (
@cabinetofficeuk) security personnel developed a documented interest in Philip Hyland and PJH Law (
@pjhlaw).
• Material concerning Philip and CRN 6029679/21 entered a DHSC (
@DHSCgovuk) “Formal Reporting Escalation Process of Security Issues” on 14 February 2022.
• The following day, Paul Easter approached the SRA concerning PJH Law.
• Government records subsequently referred to “our interest in this individual and the steps we took with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.”
• Other disclosed material refers to “[TPDW]/PJH law targets” for transmission to the SRA (
@sra_solicitors).
Meanwhile, the the allegations relating to Metropolitan Police (
@metpoliceuk @MetCC) CRN 6029679/21 had reached the national policing architecture:
The NPCC (
@PoliceChiefs) Chief Constables’ Council was informed of an expected final assessment, a peer-review assessment existed, and Operation Talla was tasked with sharing its result with chief constables.
Philip was then subjected to regulatory proceedings and ultimately appeared before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
The documentary record further establishes that Paul Easter, the Government-security figure who approached the SRA and Gary Gracey, who subsequently sat upon Philip’s Tribunal Panel, were publicly associated during the relevant chronology with the same specialist intelligence/security advisory organisation, Minerva.
And there is more.
When Philip complained that the SRA lacked independence from Government, his supposedly independent complaint review was conducted by Helen Holmes, then a serving senior Cabinet Office official.
By May 2025, Holmes was publicly identified as an SRA “Legal Policy Consultant”, undertaking substantive regulatory-policy work for the regulator itself.
These are no longer matters of rhetoric. They are matters of documentary record.
• Government security activity.
• National policing.
• A contested crime report.
• Professional regulation.
• Disciplinary adjudication.
All converging around the same solicitor and the same subject matter.
At that point, institutional reassurance ceases to be an adequate answer.
The records themselves must speak.
Read/download Supplement No 2 here:
ethicalapproach.co.uk/supple…