The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

The Nimrod Review
Martyn Mahy’s arguments
11.305 In interview with the Review, Martyn Mahy raised a number of points which I have carefully considered but
rejected. First, I reject Martyn Mahy’s suggestion that he may have been influenced by being told by Witness
O [QinetiQ] that BAE Systems had informed the Customer Acceptance Conference that it had carried out an
‘independent review’ of the NSC. There is no record of Witness O [QinetiQ] having relayed this to Martyn Mahy.
Nor does it feature in his Situation Report. There is also no evidence that QinetiQ received the minutes of the
meeting at this stage. Even so, it would in any event have been inappropriate for QinetiQ to have supported the
sign-off without having satisfied itself that a proper ISA report had been prepared in accordance with Def-Stan
00-56. Second, I reject Martyn Mahy’s evidence that at the Sixth PSWG meeting he raised with Frank Walsh
the issue of why QinetiQ had still not received copies of the BLSC Reports or the CASSANDRA Hazard Log and
was told that QinetiQ had already had the opportunity to inspect on 17 June and on 31 August/1 September
2004, and so he did not pursue the matter further. Third, I reject Martyn Mahy’s suggestion that QinetiQ was
purporting to support the sign-off of the NSC in a limited capacity which related to ‘process’ only because
QinetiQ were not given access to the documents:
330
“MR PARSONS QC: So how can you have a final sign-off of a safety case, unless and until
it has been independently assessed?
MR MAHY: Yes, I agree. All we can do is give approval to, if we accept the processes and
methodology used in producing it. But if we are not given an opportunity to review the
documents or be involved in an independent safety assessment, our approval in terms of
a sign-off is limited to the processes that they have employed in producing it.”
11.306 In my view, there was little excuse for the manner in which he, on behalf of QinetiQ, was prepared to ‘sign-off’
or ‘support the sign-off’ the BLSC Reports. Martyn Mahy had no answer to this in interview:
“MR HADDON-CAVE QC: How is it possible that you [QinetiQ] managed to find yourself
in the situation where you approved the baseline safety case without ever having looked
at it?
MR MAHY: Because the meetings that we went to with the IPT, the goalposts continually
moved. We were never sure from one meeting to the next what their expectation was.
The wording differed between the minutes and what was agreed outside of the meetings.
And at the end of the day, we were at the point where: we’ve done everything that we’ve
been asked to do and we will support you on that basis. But, you know, we couldn’t insist
on them doing anything. We could only advise them.
MR HADDON-CAVE QC: What you could have done was say, “I’m sorry, we haven’t
seen the baseline safety case report, we haven’t examined it, we haven’t read it and we
certainly haven’t had an opportunity to assess or audit it, for which of course we would
need task money, therefore we cannot possibly sign off the baseline safety case report”.
...
MR MAHY: In hindsight, it would have been a better answer, yes.
MR PARSONS QC: But that is the right answer.
MR MAHY: Yes, we should have said that.
MR PARSONS QC: And the whole purpose of any safety system is to have a series of
checks and balances, and the last line of defence is the independent safety adviser, even
putting it at its lowest, saying “This is not good enough. We cannot support this”. Isn’t
that right?
MR MAHY: Yes.
MR PARSONS QC: And that is what should have happened here.
MR MAHY: Yes, with hindsight.”