Judicial Ambiguity & Structural Collusion: Evidence from the Get SAFE Fellowship
By Steve Conley, Academy of Life Planning
Introduction: When Justice Becomes a Maze
For over a decade, Britain’s financial victims have been told that justice exists — they simply need to follow the process. But as the Get SAFE Fellowship has shown, those processes too often lead to closed doors, circular reasoning, and opaque judgments that protect institutions instead of people.
In 2025, during a series of Get SAFE investigative meetings, our citizen investigators uncovered something more troubling than individual cases of misconduct. They exposed the pattern itself: judicial ambiguity intertwined with systemic collusion.
The Pattern: Ambiguity Disguised as Authority
Across dozens of possession, fraud, and misconduct cases examined by Get SAFE, the same symptoms appeared:
- Judges interpreting identical securitisation or beneficial-ownership arguments in opposite ways.
- Regulators and ombudsmen quietly deferring responsibility to one another.
- Lawyers admitting in private that certain truths — like who actually owns a securitised mortgage — are “too complex” to test in open court.
These inconsistencies are not random errors. They are structural patterns that protect the financial system from scrutiny. What we are witnessing is not a conspiracy, but a self-preserving ecosystem: courts, regulators, and banks aligned by institutional incentives rather than public accountability.
Evidence from the Fellowship
Case A: The Silent Transfer
One homeowner, represented in court against a major high street bank, requested disclosure of the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that now owned the beneficial interest in her mortgage. The judge refused, declaring it was “not relevant to enforceability.” Months later, another judge in an almost identical case ruled that the same question was central to the dispute. The first repossession went through; the second was halted.
The difference? Judicial discretion.
Case B: The Vanishing Bundle
A victim of a pension mis-selling scheme submitted a 2,000-page dossier including FCA correspondence proving misrepresentation. In the hearing, key evidence was omitted from the court bundle — and the judge dismissed the claim for “lack of substantiation.” When challenged, the clerk admitted the missing documents were “lost in transmission.”
No appeal was granted. The bank retained the proceeds.
Case C: The Circular Referral
A small business owner defrauded through a hidden credit facility wrote to the FCA. The FCA redirected him to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS then declined jurisdiction because the issue “involved securitised products,” referring him back to the FCA. The loop continued for 18 months until the limitation period expired.
Justice was deferred until justice was impossible.
The Legal Nexus: Ambiguity by Design
The problem is not merely judicial inconsistency — it is legislative silence. The intersection of mortgage law, securitisation, and beneficial ownership remains legally unresolved. Conflicting precedents like Three Rivers (1996) and Pender (2005) still guide possession courts in opposite directions. Recent rulings such as Lloyds Bank v Cook [2025] confirm that these conflicts are real and material.
The system depends on ambiguity because clarity would force reform.
When a bank sells the economic benefit of a mortgage to an SPV but retains legal title, questions arise:
- Who truly owns the debt?
- Who has standing to enforce it?
- What are the borrower’s rights of disclosure?
For decades, the answer has been suppressed under a doctrine of convenience: “Securitisation does not affect the borrower.”
But as the Get SAFE Fellowship’s cases prove, it affects everything.
Structural Collusion: Not a Crime, But a Culture
Let us be clear: there is no grand conspiracy among judges or regulators. There is, however, a cultural alignment of incentives that rewards opacity and punishes transparency.
- Regulators rely on data supplied by the institutions they oversee.
- Courts prioritise efficiency and risk containment over discovery.
- Law firms depend on repeat corporate clients, not aggrieved citizens.
- Government relies on the banking system to maintain fiscal stability.
Each actor behaves rationally within its frame. Yet collectively, they create an environment where victims of financial exploitation are treated as inconveniences to be managed, not citizens to be protected.
This is what Get SAFE defines as Structural Collusion — the silent cooperation of systems that should, in theory, hold each other accountable.
Why Judicial Ambiguity Matters
Judicial ambiguity corrodes trust. When two identical cases produce opposite outcomes, citizens lose faith not only in law but in democracy itself.
For those facing repossession, this ambiguity is existential. It determines whether a family keeps its home or loses everything. For victims of mis-selling, it defines whether their trauma ends in closure or despair.
Ambiguity is not neutrality. It is a veil behind which injustice hides.
Get SAFE: From Exposure to Reform
The Get SAFE Fellowship was founded to break this cycle. By combining survivor testimony, legal analysis, and AI-driven evidence mapping, we are transforming anecdotal outrage into structured, verifiable evidence.
Our approach is simple:
- Listen: Collect anonymised data from victims across cases and sectors.
- Analyse: Identify recurring structural patterns of institutional behaviour.
- Synthesize: Translate lived experience into policy insight.
- Advocate: Present findings to regulators, MPs, and journalists with documented precision.
Where others see isolated injustice, we see systemic design flaws — and we bring the data to prove it.
The Evidence-Based Reform Platform
Get SAFE now functions as a bridge between three worlds:
- Victims and Citizens — gaining agency through access to knowledge and AI tools to manage their own investigations.
- Regulators and Parliamentarians — receiving structured, anonymised data revealing patterns too large to ignore.
- Policy and Practice — translating citizen evidence into reforms that build structural trustworthiness into the system.
Already, we have:
- Assisted victims in challenging unlawful possession orders by uncovering securitisation chains.
- Supported FCA and APPG inquiries with verified citizen evidence bundles.
- Presented training on AI-assisted justice at Transparency Task Force and other national forums.
We are not adversaries of the system. We are its conscience.
Towards Structural Trustworthiness
The Get SAFE Fellowship does not seek to destroy institutions but to rebuild them on higher ground. Our vision is simple yet radical:
A justice system where transparency is the default, not a demand.
A regulatory framework where victims are seen as data sources, not nuisances.
A financial sector where complexity cannot be weaponised against comprehension.
This is what we call Structural Trustworthiness — the antidote to collusion, opacity, and moral fatigue.
Conclusion: From Collusion to Courage
Every movement begins with people who refuse to look away. The Get SAFE Fellowship is proving that courage, data, and conscience can do what institutions have failed to do: reveal the truth behind structural injustice and light the path to reform.
Judicial ambiguity and systemic collusion are not inevitable. They are the consequences of design — and what is designed can be redesigned.
The Fellowship stands for that redesign.
Rebuilding Lives. Restoring Justice. Redefining Trust.
For media or policy inquiries, contact:
Academy of Life Planning | Get SAFE Initiative
Email: steve.conley@aolp.co.uk
Website: www.aolp.co.uk
Academy of Life Planning 