Fired Up

Two days after Maxwell Confaitʼs body was discovered in April 1972 three fires got the policeʼs attention. They arrested 18-year-old Colin Lattimore. He quickly confessed to setting the fires with Ronald Leighton, then 15. 14-year-old Ahmet Salih was also arrested. Although Lattimore was 18 he had the IQ of an eight-year-old. All three were or should have been considered children in need of every protection the law had to offer. Lattimore quickly implicated his friends Leighton and Salih.

Contrary to the law even four decades ago, the children were interviewed without appropriate adults being present and claim that they were hit by police officers. They all confessed to arson at Doggett Road and other fires, Lattimore to the murder and Salih and Leighton to a robbery as well. Salih insisted that he was present, but had not taken part in the murder. They retracted their confessions, but it counted for nothing.

Rule of Thumb

All three claimed to have been the victims of police violence, but this occurred in the days when interviews were recorded by contemporaneous notes – the accuracy of which had to be taken on trust. Time would eventually prove that trust to be sadly misplaced in many cases illustrating the need for tape-recording or better still video-recording interviews.

A rule of thumb would be only those with something to hide could object to the recording of interviews. Recording of interviews, not only with suspects, but also witnesses is commonplace now and rightly so. It not only protects suspects or witnesses, but police from spurious accusations of malpractice. But it still needs an integrated approach to investigation, as forensic sciences can affect case-hypotheses. In this case it plainly would have done, but for a crass error by the Crownʼs pathologist Professor James Cameron.

Hopelessly Mistaken

Teare was adamant that Confaitʼs death could not have occurred later than 10.30 on April 21^st. Simpson agreed with Teare. They were right and they were wrong. Maxwell Confait did not die later than 10.30 that night. He died at least two days previously, so they were proved to be badly wrong, but that came later.

Nevertheless, the ʻmistakenʼ opinions of Teare and Simpson proved enough to result in a successful appeal as the new timings that they provided destroyed the case that the police had brought against the three young men they rushed to convict. It would later become clear that the forensic pathologists had got it hopelessly wrong.

The original pathologists had wrongly assumed that rigour mortis was just beginning after the fire. In fact, it had almost passed. Death had occurred over 48 hours earlier. The discolouration of organs supported that conclusion – something that experienced forensic pathologists Cameron, Teare and Simpson should never have missed.

Professors Alan Usher and Keith Mant opined that that due to organ discolouration death had occurred over 48 hours before the fire. They reached those conclusions for the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure. The fiasco over the timing of death had set the investigation down the wrong path and made a complete mockery of that investigation.

A Mockery

The fire was an enormous red herring. In fact, it was far worse. It may just explain the remarkable change of opinion of Professor Cameron as well. His original opinion suggested a likely time of death hours early than the one he sprang on the defence without warning at trial, but the original time posed serious problems for the police and prosecution.

His original opinion meant that the murderers had waited around for around three hours at least after killing Confait before starting the fire. That was utterly absurd. Why would anyone commit a murder, then wait around the scene for around three hours before deciding to start a fire there? If they had not done that then the subsequent fires evidence that Colin Lattimore and later Ronald Leighton and Ahmet Salih were arrested over was irrelevant and the police and prosecution must have known that this rendered their case-hypothesis ludicrous long before it came to trial and resulted in shameful convictions.

Despite investigations and a Royal Commission the conduct of the criminal justice system which allowed such a change of opinion to prejudice the Catford Threeʼs right to a fair trial yet again escaped censure for that (see Ambushed http://fittedin.org/fittedin/?p=647). It wasnʼt the only thing that the trial and appeal process got wrong – hopelessly wrong in fact.

Timings

In the early hours of April 22^nd 1972 a police surgeon pronounced mixed-race transvestite Maxwell Confait dead. A fire had just been extinguished at the Doggett Road residence in Catford, South-East London. This would prove to be one of Britain’s most shameful miscarriages of justice. The victim was unsympathetic as far as investigators and even the public were concerned and there were obvious angles to look into.

Establishing the time of death was important and the fire helped to do that, as long as it was linked to the murder. It was investigated as if that was a fact, but it wasn’t. The forensic pathology – horribly botched as it was – should have made that clear from the beginning. Somehow, the significance of it was missed by everyone.

The time of death – admittedly a range – was given as earlier that night by the distinguished forensic pathologist James Cameron, who would later be severely criticised for his role in one of Australiaʼs most notorious miscarriages of justice Lindy and Michael Chamberlain – the Dingo Baby case.

At the trial in November 1972 Cameron moved it even further, saying it could have been as late as just half an hour before the fire was extinguished. This was necessary to explain the inexplicable. Why had brutal killers stayed around for hours and then started a fire there? And then knowing that they had done this why had they started some more in that area, knowing it would draw attention to themselves. This was the breakthrough information that led to the arrests and interrogative strategy.

But it was completely wrong. The fire had nothing to do with the murder. Professor Cameron’s original opinion was wrong. His change of opinion at the trial turned out to be even further wide of the mark than he had previously been. While timing death is not an exact science, especially over 40 years ago, Cameron did not check the organ for discolouration. If he had done so he would have realised that the fire had occurred over two days after Maxwell Confait was murdered – this was badly botched by Cameron to put it mildly.

Expert Errors

Cameron would prove to have eminent company in getting the time of this death badly wrong. Professor Donald Teare was one Britainʼs most eminent forensic pathologists at the time and so was Professor Keith Simpson. Both were very experienced and had distinguished themselves in their chosen field, but they too were involved in an investigation of a miscarriage of justice – one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in any jurisdiction – Timothy Evans – another vindication case¹. Evans was wrongfully convicted and hanged in 1950².

Teare was the main pathologist in that case, which became a cause célèbre three years later when a resident at the same address, John Christie was exposed as a depraved serial killer rather than the respectable witness he had been portrayed as at Evansʼ trial.His colleagues Francis Camps and Keith Simpson were also involved, but Teareʼs role was the most controversial and despite his attempts to put right the Confait case, his error – also made by Simpson and Cameron – was crass for experts of such standing.

Inconvenient Evidence

The case of the Catford Three (Colin Lattimore, Ronald Leighton and Ahmet Salih) is now acknowledged as of Britain’s pivotal miscarriages of justice – one that changed the criminal justice system. Their alibis – Lattimoreʼs was particularly strong – were treated as little more than an inconvenience to be overcome and this appears to explain the forensic pathologist Professor James Cameronʼs sudden change of opinion regarding the time of death.

Outrageously, Cameron waited until the trial was under-way to inform the defence during his evidence that he had changed his mind. Lattimoreʼs lawyers had prepared their defence of alibi on what they had been informed was the time of death that the police and prosecution were relying on. It was all they could do.

Ambush

They had no time to prepare for this change in the prosecution case or even get expert opinion to counter it. They were ambushed by Cameronʼs shifting of the goalposts at trial. It was outrageous and the judge should not have allowed it and nor should the Court of Appeal. Twenty years later the Court of Appeal famously said that it does not allow convictions secured by ambush in the shameful case of Judith Ward.

In its way this was worse as it was not even concealed – it was brazen. The court actually witnessed the ambush in progress and not only tolerated it, but rewarded it with the prize the prosecution sought. After an 18 day trial in November 1972 Lattimore was convicted of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility and Leighton of murder – Salih of the offences he confessed to. Lattimore and Leighton were convicted of the other offences as well.

Outrageous

In November 1972 the three youngsters began their sentences. There was no indication that this would become one of the most important and notorious miscarriages of justice in British history – one that would command two major enquiries and usher in pivotal changes in the law, but there should have been. Cameronʼs shifting of the goalposts on the time of death was outrageous. It destroyed the alibi work the defence had conducted.

It was obvious that Cameron had not changed his mind by such a considerable amount of time when he gave evidence, so when had he come to that conclusion and why? There was another obvious problem with the previous time of death – the fire evidence. If the original time of death was correct it meant that the murderers had stayed around for almost three hours and then set the fire. Why would anyone do that?

Fair Trial?

Changing the time of death neatly avoided that question and avoided the obvious conclusion – the fire had nothing to do with the murder of Maxwell Confait whatsoever. Cameronʼs conduct had rendered a fair trial impossible. The trial should have been stopped immediately and the issue resolved before any retrial occurred. It did not. The fact that this was allowed to happen to children – treated as adults by the law – makes it even more unconscionable.

The Judgeʼs Rules were amended on the treatment of child suspects and on the vulnerable – then termed ʻeducationally sub-normalʼ, but nothing was done about Cameron’s late change of opinion. The Police And Criminal Evidence Act was a direct response to this case and the Prosecution of Offences Act facilitated the establishing of the Crown Prosecution Service as a result of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedures as well.

Shamefully, nothing was done to prevent expert prosecution witnesses ambushing children or even adults at trial. Lord Justice James, delivered the decision of the Court of Appeal in July 1973. It proved to be yet another wretched judgement betraying the arrogance and complacency of a system that believed itself infallible.

“There was no misdirection in the summing-up to the jury and no representation of facts which can be relied upon as justifying the grant of leave to appeal”, said James, regarding Mr Justice Chapmanʼs summing up, but before long it would emerge that there were certainly facts that could justify not only granting leave to appeal, but quashing the convictions which had been secured by contemptible means.

Origins

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is over a quarter of a century old. It was established in 1986 by the Prosecution of Offences Act (1985), but why? Previously, the police were responsible not only for arresting suspects, but deciding whether they should be charged and prosecuted as well. It became clear that this was not an efficient system as inappropriate cases were prosecuted and occasionally cases that should have been prosecuted were not. An independent prosecuting authority was needed, but why then?

In part the answer lies in an egregious, but strangely neglected miscarriage of justice – a case that seemingly had it all. It was a nasty murder that involved a botched investigation by police and pathologists, shameful bullying of juvenile or otherwise vulnerable suspects, an intransigent criminal justice system and ultimate vindication of the wrongfully condemned. It was a case where tunnel vision overwhelmed the evidence-led approach, resulting in an egregious miscarriage of justice.

An Egregious Miscarriage of Justice

The Catford Three (Colin Lattimore, Ronald Leighton and Ahmet Salih) were wrongly convicted of the murder of mixed-race transvestite Maxwell Confait in November 1972. Eight months later their first appeal was rejected along with their claims of police brutality. A year later a change in government resulted in the convictions being referred back to the Court of Appeal.

By this time the scientific evidence – time of death – had collapsed. Professor Donald Teare put the time of death as significantly earlier, insisting that it must have been between 6.30-10.30. His distinguished colleague Professor Keith Simpson agreed. They would later be proved to be wrong by several hours, but that was no consolation to the police or prosecutor as their expert Professor James Cameron was even further out.

At the trial Cameron changed his time of death to possibly being as late as 1.00 a.m. – just 21 minutes before the fire was reported. This change of timing mangled the alibis of the three defendants who had prepared their defences for the earlier time of death that the police doctor and Cameron had previously said. That undermined the strength of alibis, especially Lattimore, who had a good alibi by ambush.

The retraction of their confessions counted for nought as well. They had been secured without a solicitor or even an appropriate adult being present. In 1975 the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions. Headed by Lord Justice (Sir Leslie) Scarman as he then was, the appeal judges criticised the policeʼs investigation and noted that the lack of injuries indicating a struggle suggested that Confait knew his killer.

Enquiries

Scarman took the rare step of declaring Lattimore, Leighton and Salih innocent. That prompted Roy Jenkins to re-open the inquiry, but Peter Fryer, who later became Assistant Chief Constable of West Mercia Police, failed to solve it. A full enquiry of the policing, especially regarding the effectiveness of the Judgeʼs Rules in the treatment of children and the vulnerable (then termed educationally sub-normal) was also ordered.

It was chaired by Mr Justice (Sir Henry) Fisher, who demanded and got the power to apportion guilt on the balance of probabilities if he wanted to – an outrageous concession that should never have been agreed to. Fisher made recommendations to the Judgeʼs Rules, but declared two of the Catford Three guilty.

He avoided libel proceedings as the report was returned to Parliament, which made it immune . It should not have been. Fisherʼs insistence on being allowed to declare people probably guilty when they were not should have had personal consequences, especially as the person responsible was a judge who should have known better – far better.

Fisherʼs serious error resulted in the Royal Commission of Criminal Procedure (1979-81). During that Commissionʼs investigation evidence emerged not only of the innocence of the Catford Three, but of who the real perpetrator was. Nevertheless, it was one that Fisher refused to apologise even when requested to by then Attorney General Sir Michael Havers.

Vindicated

That Royal Commission produced important legislation – the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) in 1984 and the Prosecution of Offences Act a year later. PACE became operational in 1986 and the Crown Prosecution Service was established that year as well. The CPS in particular would prove to be a terrible disappointment on many levels.

It also ended any doubt about the innocence or guilt of the Catford Three as it became an early vindication case – a miscarriage of justice that was resolved either by the conviction of the real killer, or if deceased by acceptance by the criminal justice system that the real perpetrator had been identified. That is what happened in this case.

The Royal Commissionʼs investigation established that Confait had in fact been murdered at least two days before the fire of April 22^nd 1972 which alerted police to Confaitʼs death. Professors Alan Usher and Keith Mant showed that through the discolouration of organs, which begs the question of how Cameron, Teare and Simpson – all distinguished forensic pathologists – missed something as obvious as that.

Detective Chief Superintendent E J George and Detective Chief Inspector Eddie Ellison identified not only the real murderer, but an accomplice and witness to the murder as well. They had interviewed Paul Pooley who admitted being in Confaitʼs Doggett Road abode when Douglas Franklin murdered the unfortunate Confait. Franklin, knowing the game was up, committed suicide shortly after being interviewed.

In February 1980 they presented their report to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Sir Michael Havers. It destroyed the case against Lattimore, Leighton and Salih once a,nd for all. Havers made a statement to Parliament declaring the three innocent in August 1980. They had been vindicated, but it would take more than five years for the legislation born of that tragedy to result in the ʻindependentʼ prosecuting body, the CPS, opening for business.

Fired Up

Two days after Maxwell Confaitʼs body was discovered in April 1972 three fires got the policeʼs attention. They arrested 18-year-old Colin Lattimore. He quickly confessed to setting the fires with Ronald Leighton, then 15. 14-year-old Ahmet Salih was also arrested. Although Lattimore was 18 he had the IQ of an eight-year-old. All three were or should have been considered children in need of every protection the law had to offer. Lattimore quickly implicated his friends Leighton and Salih.

Contrary to the law even four decades ago, the children were interviewed without appropriate adults being present and claim that they were hit by police officers. They all confessed to arson at Doggett Road and other fires, Lattimore to the murder and Salih and Leighton to a robbery as well. Salih insisted that he was present, but had not taken part in the murder. They retracted their confessions, but it counted for nothing.

Rule of Thumb

All three claimed to have been the victims of police violence, but this occurred in the days when interviews were recorded by contemporaneous notes – the accuracy of which had to be taken on trust. Time would eventually prove that trust to be sadly misplaced in many cases illustrating the need for tape-recording or better still video-recording interviews.

A rule of thumb would be only those with something to hide could object to the recording of interviews. Recording of interviews, not only with suspects, but also witnesses is commonplace now and rightly so. It not only protects suspects or witnesses, but police from spurious accusations of malpractice. But it still needs an integrated approach to investigation, as forensic sciences can affect case-hypotheses. In this case it plainly would have done, but for a crass error by the Crownʼs pathologist Professor James Cameron.

Hopelessly Mistaken

Teare was adamant that Confaitʼs death could not have occurred later than 10.30 on April 21^st. Simpson agreed with Teare. They were right and they were wrong. Maxwell Confait did not die later than 10.30 that night. He died at least two days previously, so they were proved to be badly wrong, but that came later.

Nevertheless, the ʻmistakenʼ opinions of Teare and Simpson proved enough to result in a successful appeal as the new timings that they provided destroyed the case that the police had brought against the three young men they rushed to convict. It would later become clear that the forensic pathologists had got it hopelessly wrong.

The original pathologists had wrongly assumed that rigour mortis was just beginning after the fire. In fact, it had almost passed. Death had occurred over 48 hours earlier. The discolouration of organs supported that conclusion – something that experienced forensic pathologists Cameron, Teare and Simpson should never have missed.

Professors Alan Usher and Keith Mant opined that that due to organ discolouration death had occurred over 48 hours before the fire. They reached those conclusions for the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure. The fiasco over the timing of death had set the investigation down the wrong path and made a complete mockery of that investigation.

A Mockery

The fire was an enormous red herring. In fact, it was far worse. It may just explain the remarkable change of opinion of Professor Cameron as well. His original opinion suggested a likely time of death hours early than the one he sprang on the defence without warning at trial, but the original time posed serious problems for the police and prosecution.

His original opinion meant that the murderers had waited around for around three hours at least after killing Confait before starting the fire. That was utterly absurd. Why would anyone commit a murder, then wait around the scene for around three hours before deciding to start a fire there? If they had not done that then the subsequent fires evidence that Colin Lattimore and later Ronald Leighton and Ahmet Salih were arrested over was irrelevant and the police and prosecution must have known that this rendered their case-hypothesis ludicrous long before it came to trial and resulted in shameful convictions.

Despite investigations and a Royal Commission the conduct of the criminal justice system which allowed such a change of opinion to prejudice the Catford Threeʼs right to a fair trial yet again escaped censure for that (see Ambushed). It wasnʼt the only thing that the trial and appeal process got wrong – hopelessly wrong in fact.

Timings

In the early hours of April 22^nd 1972 a police surgeon pronounced mixed-race transvestite Maxwell Confait dead. A fire had just been extinguished at the Doggett Road residence in Catford, South-East London. This would prove to be one of Britain’s most shameful miscarriages of justice. The victim was unsympathetic as far as investigators and even the public were concerned and there were obvious angles to look into.

Establishing the time of death was important and the fire helped to do that, as long as it was linked to the murder. It was investigated as if that was a fact, but it wasn’t. The forensic pathology – horribly botched as it was should have made that clear from the beginning. Somehow, the significance of it was missed by everyone.

The time of death – admittedly a range – was given as earlier that night by the distinguished forensic pathologist James Cameron, who would later be severely criticised for his role in one of Australiaʼs most notorious miscarriages of justice Lindy and Michael Chamberlain – the Dingo Baby case.

At the trial in November 1972 Cameron moved it even further, saying it could have been as late as just half an hour before the fire was extinguished. This was necessary to explain the inexplicable. Why had brutal killers stayed around for hours and then started a fire there? And then knowing that they had done this why had they started some more in that area, knowing it would draw attention to themselves. This was the breakthrough information that led to the arrests and interrogative strategy.

But it was completely wrong. The fire had nothing to do with the murder. Professor Cameron’s original opinion was wrong. His change of opinion at the trial turned out to be even further wide of the mark than he had previously been. While timing death is not an exact science, especially over 40 years ago, Cameron did not check the organ for discolouration. If he had done so he would have realised that the fire had occurred over two days after Maxwell Confait was murdered – this was badly botched by Cameron to put it mildly.

Expert Errors

Cameron would prove to have eminent company in getting the time of this death badly wrong. Professor Donald Teare was one Britainʼs most eminent forensic pathologists at the time and so was Professor Keith Simpson. Both were very experienced and had distinguished themselves in their chosen field, but they too were involved in an investigation of a miscarriage of justice – one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in any jurisdiction – Timothy Evans – another vindication case¹. Evans was wrongfully convicted and hanged in 1950².

Teare was the main pathologist in that case, which became a cause célèbre three years later when a resident at the same address, John Christie was exposed as a depraved serial killer rather than the respectable witness he had been portrayed as at Evansʼ trial.His colleagues Francis Camps and Keith Simpson were also involved, but Teareʼs role was the most controversial and despite his attempts to put right the Confait case, his error – also made by Simpson and Cameron – was crass for experts of such standing.

Origins

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is over a quarter of a century old. It was established in 1986 by the Prosecution of Offences Act (1985), but why? Previously, the police were responsible not only for arresting suspects, but deciding whether they should be charged and prosecuted as well. It became clear that this was not an efficient system as inappropriate cases were prosecuted and occasionally cases that should have been prosecuted were not. An independent prosecuting authority was needed, but why then?

In part the answer lies in an egregious, but strangely neglected miscarriage of justice – a case that seemingly had it all. It was a nasty murder that involved a botched investigation by police and pathologists, shameful bullying of juvenile or otherwise vulnerable suspects, an intransigent criminal justice system and ultimate vindication of the wrongfully condemned. It was a case where tunnel vision overwhelmed the evidence-led approach, resulting in an egregious miscarriage of justice.

An Egregious Miscarriage of Justice

The Catford Three (Colin Lattimore, Ronald Leighton and Ahmet Salih) were wrongly convicted of the murder of mixed-race transvestite Maxwell Confait in November 1972. Eight months later their first appeal was rejected along with their claims of police brutality. A year later a change in government resulted in the convictions being referred back to the Court of Appeal.

By this time the scientific evidence – time of death – had collapsed. Professor Donald Teare put the time of death as significantly earlier, insisting that it must have been between 6.30-10.30. His distinguished colleague Professor Keith Simpson agreed. They would later be proved to be wrong by several hours, but that was no consolation to the police or prosecutor as their expert Professor James Cameron was even further out.

At the trial Cameron changed his time of death to possibly being as late as 1.00 a.m. – just 21 minutes before the fire was reported. This change of timing mangled the alibis of the three defendants who had prepared their defences for the earlier time of death that the police doctor and Cameron had previously said. That undermined the strength of alibis, especially Lattimore, who had a good alibi by ambush.

The retraction of their confessions counted for nought as well. They had been secured without a solicitor or even an appropriate adult being present. In 1975 the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions. Headed by Lord Justice (Sir Leslie) Scarman as he then was, the appeal judges criticised the policeʼs investigation and noted that the lack of injuries indicating a struggle suggested that Confait knew his killer.

Enquiries

Scarman took the rare step of declaring Lattimore, Leighton and Salih innocent. That prompted Roy Jenkins to re-open the inquiry, but Peter Fryer, who later became Assistant Chief Constable of West Mercia Police, failed to solve it. A full enquiry of the policing, especially regarding the effectiveness of the Judgeʼs Rules in the treatment of children and the vulnerable (then termed educationally sub-normal) was also ordered.

It was chaired by Mr Justice (Sir Henry) Fisher, who demanded and got the power to apportion guilt on the balance of probabilities if he wanted to – an outrageous concession that should never have been agreed to. Fisher made recommendations to the Judgeʼs Rules, but declared two of the Catford Three guilty.

He avoided libel proceedings as the report was returned to Parliament, which made it immune . It should not have been. Fisherʼs insistence on being allowed to declare people probably guilty when they were not should have had personal consequences, especially as the person responsible was a judge who should have known better – far better.

Fisherʼs serious error resulted in the Royal Commission of Criminal Procedure (1979-81). During that Commissionʼs investigation evidence emerged not only of the innocence of the Catford Three, but of who the real perpetrator was. Nevertheless, it was one that Fisher refused to apologise even when requested to by then Attorney General Sir Michael Havers.

Vindicated

That Royal Commission produced important legislation – the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) in 1984 and the Prosecution of Offences Act a year later. PACE became operational in 1986 and the Crown Prosecution Service was established that year as well. The CPS in particular would prove to be a terrible disappointment on many levels.

It also ended any doubt about the innocence or guilt of the Catford Three as it became an early vindication case – a miscarriage of justice that was resolved either by the conviction of the real killer, or if deceased by acceptance by the criminal justice system that the real perpetrator had been identified. That is what happened in this case.

The Royal Commissionʼs investigation established that Confait had in fact been murdered at least two days before the fire of April 22^nd 1972 which alerted police to Confaitʼs death. Professors Alan Usher and Keith Mant showed that through the discolouration of organs, which begs the question of how Cameron, Teare and Simpson – all distinguished forensic pathologists – missed something as obvious as that.

Detective Chief Superintendent E J George and Detective Chief Inspector Eddie Ellison identified not only the real murderer, but an accomplice and witness to the murder as well. They had interviewed Paul Pooley who admitted being in Confaitʼs Doggett Road abode when Douglas Franklin murdered the unfortunate Confait. Franklin, knowing the game was up, committed suicide shortly after being interviewed.

In February 1980 they presented their report to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Sir Michael Havers. It destroyed the case against Lattimore, Leighton and Salih once and for all. Havers made a statement to Parliament declaring the three innocent in August 1980. They had been vindicated, but it would take more than five years for the legislation born of that tragedy to result in the ʻindependentʼ prosecuting body, the CPS, opening for business.