The curse of the Blair Doctrine

The blueprint for the present international mess lies in the overthrow of Milosevic

Robert Henderson

The first Gulf War was the last Western intervention with force under the old Cold War rules. It was limited to evicting Saddam Hussein  from  Kuwait  and establishing a no-fly zone established over the Kurdish part of Iraq . No attempt was made to overthrow Hussein .  Indeed, the reverse is the case because the first President Bush deliberately lifted the no fly order in the immediate aftermath of  the War to enable Hussein to re-establish control, the USA’s  judgement being that it was the lesser of two evils, the greater  evil being  Iraq as a client state of Iran.  This was still recognisably the world of Communist East versus  capitalist West.

The wars which eventually occurred from the splitting of Yugoslavia after Tito’s death gradually  increased the West’s liberal imperialist tendencies and culminated in NATO bombing  – action unauthorised by the UN and illegal under NATO’s own rules because Slobodan  Milosevic offered no threat to a NATO member –  what remained of  the  Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. There was also something new, the desire to remake territories in the West’s image by imposing conditions on a sovereign state over part of its territory, in this case Kosovo. The first steps towards ignoring the UN Charter’s protection of national sovereignty  (chapter 7) had been taken not merely in actuality,  but intellectually.

It was the experience of the wars resulting from the break up of Yugoslavia  and the continuing difficulties represented by Saddam Hussein that persuaded Blair to develop what became the Blair Doctrine. He first outlined this in 1999 in a speech to the Economic Club in Chicago, viz:

The most pressing foreign policy problem we face is to identify the circumstances in which we should get actively involved in other people’s conflicts. Non -interference has long been considered an important principle of international order. And it is not one we would want to jettison too readily. One state should not feel it has the right to change the political system of another or foment subversion or seize pieces of territory to which it feels it should have some claim. But the principle of non-interference must be qualified in important respects. Acts of genocide can never be a purely internal matter. When oppression produces massive flows of refugees which unsettle neighbouring countries then they can properly be described as “threats to international peace and security”. When regimes are based on minority rule they lose legitimacy – look at South Africa.

Looking around the world there are many regimes that are undemocratic and engaged in barbarous acts. If we wanted to right every wrong that we see in the modern world then we would do little else than intervene in the affairs of other countries. We would not be able to cope.

So how do we decide when and whether to intervene. I think we need to bear in mind five major considerations

First, are we sure of our case? War is an imperfect instrument for righting humanitarian distress; but armed force is sometimes the only means of dealing with dictators. Second, have we exhausted all diplomatic options? We should always give peace every chance, as we have in the case of Kosovo. Third, on the basis of a practical assessment of the situation, are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake? Fourth, are we prepared for the long term? In the past we talked too much of exit strategies. But having made a commitment we cannot simply walk away once the fight is over; better to stay with moderate numbers of troops than return for repeat performances with large numbers. And finally, do we have national interests involved? The mass expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo demanded the notice of the rest of the world. But it does make a difference that this is taking place in such a combustible part of Europe.

Milosovec  lost a Presidential election in 2000, was arrested on April 1, 2001 and extradited to the Hague Tribunal on June 28, where he died in detention in March 2006, before his trial was completed.

What Blair saw  the fall of Milosevic as a success for the Blair Doctrine and this has  laid the foundation for all the misbegotten Western intervention since. Nor has it been simply a matter of military force.  The EU had a hand in making sure that Milosovec  did not survive by dangling carrots such as eventual membership of the EU for Serbia.  From this the EU became more and more ambitious in its expansionist plans to the East, something which is all too apparent in the EU’s messy hand in creating the Ukraine conflict we are presently witnessing by pressing for it to move close to the EU with eventual membership the end of the game.   The imperialist mindset of the EU is  unambiguously  described in an EU document  The Western Balkans and The EU:  ‘The hour of Europe’  (Edited by Jacques Rupnik Chaillot Papers,  June 2011), viz:

Today, more than fifteen years after the end of the wars of Yugoslavia’s  dissolution, the ‘Balkan question’ remains more than ever a ‘European question’. In the eyes of many Europeans in the 1990s, Bosnia was the symbol of a collective failure, while Kosovo later became a catalyst for an emerging Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In the last decade, with the completion of the process of redrawing the map of the region, the overall thrust of the EU’s Balkans policy has moved from an agenda dominated by security issues related to the war and its legacies to an agenda focused on the perspective of the Western Balkan states’ accession to the European Union, to which there has been a formal political commitment on the part of all EU Member States since the Thessaloniki Summit in June 2003. The framework was set, the political elites in the region were – at least verbally – committed to making Europe a priority and everyone was supposedly familiar with the policy tools thanks to the previous wave of Eastern enlargement. With the region’s most contentious issues apparently having been defused, the EU could move from stability through containment towards European integration.

There are favourable trends to make this possible: the EU has emerged as the unchallenged international actor in the Balkans; the region, exhausted by a decade of conflict, is recovering stability and the capacity to cooperate; the EU has no other equally plausible enlargement agenda in sight and could use the direct involvement of some of its Member  States in the region to facilitate the accession process.

I wrote the essay below in 1999 for Free Life, the magazine of the Libertarian Alliance.  Reading it now I am glad I placed a question mark after Milosovec in the title. Milosevic  might be said to have won the war and lost the peace, for it was Western interference which did for him. Had he been left,  as Saddam Hussein was after the First Gul War, to fight to retain power in the rump Yugoslavia without international interference he would probably have remained in office. As it was when the Presidential Election was run in 2000 Milosovec

What the 1999 essay does do is show how the move from non-intervention to regime change and nation building was well under way fifteen years ago, with all the disastrous consequences we have seen since, including creating false hopes in many countries democracy could be magicked up simply by removing  a dictator.

Rousseau wrote that people must be forced to be free for their own good : the Blair Doctrine states that people must be forced for their own good  to live by the rules of political correctness.

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A victory for Milosevic?

Robert Henderson

Now that the big boys toys have been put back in the  cupboard and Mr Jamie Shea is returning to run his whelk  stall in the Mile End Road, we really do need to ask why this bizarre act of aggression by Nato occurred because it  has profound implications for Britain. What was it all about?  Well, we all know that, don’t we? To put the Albanians back  into Kosovo, stupid! Wrong! The war started because  Milosevic would not accept the Nato proposals drawn up at  Rambouillet, which was scarcely surprising for they might  have been designed to ensure their refusal.

Not only did the Rambouillet Proposals give foreign soldiers  the right to enter any part of Yugoslavia, they provided for a referendum on independence for the Kosovan population. Add to that the demand that Serb troops withdraw from Kosovo and the refusal to allow Russian troops to be part of a peacekeeping force, and it is all too easy to see why  Milosevic refused them. Moreover, the Rambouillet proposals were not put forward as a basis for negotiation, but as a  fait accompli. They then became the subject of a naked  ultimatum, issued effectively by the US in the egregious  person of Madeleine Albright.

The Rambouillet proposals would have reduced Yugoslavia to the status of a dependent territory, with the virtual  guarantee that the land (Kosovo) which had the greatest  emotional significance for the majority Serb population would  be lost to the hated Albanian minority. Moreover, they had  the knowledge that the loss of Kosovo through a referendum  would almost certainly result in the expulsion of the two  hundred thousand Serbs normally resident in Kosovo, assuming  that they had not already left after the withdrawal of  Serbian troops. Milosevic was offered the prospect of  tremendous humiliation and nothing else. If Nato had wished  to ensure a war they could scarcely have done better. As  Henry Kissinger remarked in a interview with Boris Johnson of  the Daily Telegraph (28/6/99,) Rambouillet was a provocation.

But the Rambouillet proposals were only the immediate cause  of the conflict. The war was really about the imposition of  Liberal Internationalist ideals. Since 1945, the Liberal  Internationalist cause have been growing in strength until it  has become the ostensible ideology of the ruling elites  throughout the West. During the Cold War the territorial  ambitions of the Liberal Internationalists were considerably  constrained. Since 1989 those constraints have been removed.

The result has been an unhappy sequence of interventions,  covered by the fig leaf of UN colours, which have  demonstrated the utter impotence of the Liberal  Internationalist creed by invariably creating situations the exact opposite of those intended by the interveners: Somalia  is a mess of anarchy, Bosnia a UN protectorate with the  warring ethnic groups largely segregated and future conflict  just waiting to happen. The war against Serbia marked a new stage in Liberal Internationalist ambitions: naked  aggression was undertaken without even the indecent cover of  the UN fig leaf.

The persistent failure of international intervention has not  deterred the Liberal Internationalists because, like all  fanatic ideologues, the Liberal Internationalist is  incapable of admitting that his creed is plain wrong no matter have often events prove it to be so. For the Liberal  Internationalist any failure is simply the result of  insufficient resources and time, a spur to behave in an ever  more totalitarian manner; from peacekeeping through outright  war to de facto colonial occupation. Consequently those with  the power in the West continue to intervene ineptly in  conflicts inherently irresolvable in liberal Internationalist  terms. Their response to failure or the contrary evidence of  events is to embark on ever more intervention regardless of  the havoc caused or the long term consequences.

What the war was not about was morality, despite Blair and  Clinton’s inordinate and deeply risible posturing. (In fact  war is never about morality. It is always about territory,  aggrandisement, the removal of competitors and the  imposition of the victor’s will.) The nations attacking  Yugoslavia had stood by during many greater man made horrors  such as the massacres in Rwanda. Most pertinently, the West  had not merely stood by while hundreds of thousands of Serbs  were expelled from Croatia, but in the guise of the UN had  actively assisted in that expulsion by providing arms and  airpower to support the Croat military. Most tellingly, and  most repellently, because it was utterly predictable, Nato  has not meaningfully protected the Kosovan Serbs since the  end of the war. Nor could they have had any reasonable expectation of doing so, for the size of even the projected  peace keeping force (50,000 – which numbers have not been  met) was obviously inadequate to mount a general police  action against an Albania population of nearly two million in  which there were plentiful arms. A cynic might think that  Nato’s aims were from the beginning to produce a Kosovo  ethnically cleansed of Serbs.

The course of the war laid bare the stupidity, incomprehension, incompetence and amorality of the Nato members’ leaders. The objective facts say that the conflict  has greatly worsened a naturally fraught situation. Before the war, the vast majority of the Albanian population of  Kosovo was in Kosovo living in their homes. Since the war  began the, vast majority have either left the country or  remain in Kosovo having been driven from their homes. Thus,  just as the Second World War signalled the beginning of the  Holocaust, so Nato’s action signalled that of the Kosovan  Albanians’ tragedy. Without the war, it is improbable to the  point of certainty that the greatest movement of a  population in Europe since 1945 would have occurred.

The hypocrisy of the whole business was graphically  demonstrated in the Nato members’ attitude towards the  refugees. The public posturing on the need to provide for the refugees was all too clearly balanced by the fear that  any large scale import of refugees to Nato countries outside  the Balkans would arouse considerable dissent in those  countries. Amongst many stomach heaving moments, Clare  Short’s protestations that Britain did not want to move the  refugees away from the Balkans simply because Britain did not  wish to unwillingly assist Milosevic rank very high. The double standards, both amongst politicians and the media  have continued with the end of the war, as the Liberal  Ascendency quietly tolerates ethnic cleansing of the Kosovo  Serbs and the gross acts of revenge taken by the Kosovo  Albanians.

What if there had been no war? Judged by what had gone  before, there would have been continued harassment of  Kosovan Albanians by Serb paramilitaries and some action by  the regular Serb forces, the latter primarily directed  against the KLA. One simple fact alone gives the lie to  Nato’s claims that wholesale ethnic cleansing would have  occurred regardless of Nato intervention. Prior to the war,  Milosevic had ten years to undertake the task and did not  attempt it. Fine ideals are not fine at all if  they are so  out of keeping with reality that they produce evil ends.

Who won the war? Well, let us follow the Dragnet example and just look at the facts. Milosevic remains in control of  Yugoslavia minus Kosovo. Two of the prime demands of the Rambouillet proposals – that the Kosovo population be given a  referendum on independence within three years and the right of peacekeeping troops to go anywhere in Yugoslavia – have been dropped. There is also to be no referendum and the  peacekeeping force will operate only within Kosovo. In  addition, Russian troops are involved in the peacekeeping  force, a token Serb presence will be allowed in Kosovo and  there are signs that the force may eventually come under UN  not Nato auspices. Those are very significant political gains for Milosevic.

Let us make the assumptions which most favour Nato. That the agreement which was reached between Milosevic and Nato was not ambiguous. That Milosevic will keep his word. That the  peace keeping force will be Nato led under a unified  command. That the Russians involved in the peace keeping will not subvert the process on the ground. That money will be forthcoming in sufficient amounts to rebuild Kosovo. That the  KLA will allow themselves to be disarmed. A collection of pretty improbable occurrences. But no matter, let us grant  them. What then?

Even under such propitious and unlikely circumstances, it is  highly improbable that Kosovo will be quickly returned to  normality. The destruction of housing and the spoliation of  farm land alone make that immensely difficult, but given the  will and the money, the material damage might be repaired.

But material renaissance is not the heart of the problem.  That lies in the all too simple fact of the existence of  two incompatible ethnic groups occupying the same territory,  both sides replete with ancestral hatreds and recent hurts.  In such circumstances a peaceful multicultural Kosovo is a  fantasy.

We have the example of Bosnia before us. Stripped of all cant, it is now a good old fashioned League of Nations Protectorate, a mandated territory. It has the experience of several years of UN control. Yet the vast majority of the displaced populations in Bosnia have not returned to their homes and the various ethnic groups there lead largely segregated lives.

But the post bombing situation in Kosovo is unlikely to be anything like so favourable as I have described. The KLA have shown no more willingness to generally disarm than the  IRA. The agreement which was reached is not unambiguous.

Milosevic cannot be relied to keep his part of the bargain.  The Russians have shown that they are not willing to accept  Nato command unconditionally. Money in the quantities suggested as needed for rebuilding (anything between 15-25  billion pounds) may well prove to be too great a hurdle for  politicians to sell to their publics who are being told of  the need for cuts in welfare – The USA and Europe are already  squabbling over who should bear the cost of rebuilding  Kosovo.

Milosevic also has one great general political advantage; he  knows that political life amongst the Nato powers is ephemeral. While he may be in power in five years time, the  majority of his opponents will not. He can afford to sit and  wait until a propitious moment comes to regain all or part of  Kosovo. Milosevic’s position is not as strong as that of  Saddam Hussain in purely authoritarian terms, but he has a vital quality which Saddam does not, namely his authority does not rely entirely on force.

Before the war started the Nato leaders must have known that  a western led occupation of Kosovo would simply replace one   form of repression with another. At best they could expect  a replica of Bosnia: at worst, an ethnic cleansing of Serbian  Kosovans. Since the end of the war, all too predictably the  worst has occurred as the western disregard shown for the welfare of ordinary Serbs elsewhere in the Balkans has been  repeated. The peacekeeping force has stood ineffectually by  whilst Kosovo is cleansed of Serbs by the KLA and their associates.

Perhaps no one has won the war, but that is often the way of  wars. The real question is who has suffered the most damage.  At the moment it may look like Milosevic, not least because the Nato countries in truth had nothing material to gain and  everything to lose from the War. Yet Milosevic has reduced  the Rambouillet demands, probably tightened his control on  Yugoslav politics and large parts of Kosovo has been ethnically cleansed. The Nato countries have made  significant concessions and committed themselves to massive expenditure and the deployment of troops indefinitely. This  will both take money from their own electorates and influence  their future foreign policies. It is a strange sort of victory if victory it be for Nato.

For Britain there is much about which to be ashamed and worried. We have bombed defenceless targets which plainly  were not in any meaningful sense military. This places us in an impossible moral position in dealing with terrorist  action. What moral argument could we have against Serb  reprisal bombs in Britain? That it is wrong to bomb innocent civilians?

More worryingly Blair has shown himself to be an unashamed warmonger. I would like to believe that Blair’s public words were simply a cynical manipulation of the public to promote his reputation and were made in the certain knowledge that  Clinton would not commit troops to a land war. Unfortunately I think that Blair was anything but cynical in his belligerence. The Observer reported on 18 July that Blair had  agreed to send 50,000 British troops to take part in an invasion force of 170,000 if Milosevic had not conceded Kosovo to Nato. Incredible as this may seem, (and it was not  denied by Downing Street) such recklessness fits in with  Blair’s general behaviour. So there you have it, our prime  minister would have committed the majority of Britain’s armed  forces to a land war in which we have no national interest,  regardless of the cost, deaths and injuries. The danger  remains that Blair will find another adventure which does  result in a land war. Over Kosovo, he behaved like a reckless adolescent and nearly came a fatal political  cropper. Yet this government appears to have learnt nothing  from the experience, vide the unpleasant and malicious fanaticism in Blair and Cook’s declarations of their intent to both unseat Milosevic from power and bring him before an international court, vide the humiliation of Russia, vide the ever more absurd declarations of internationalist intent  since hostilities ceased. That adolescent idealists’ mindset could lead Britain down a very dark path indeed. It is also incompatible with a foreign policy that supposedly encourages  elected governments (however imperfect they are) over  dictatorships.

What other lessons does this war teach us? It shows above  all the utter powerlessness of the democratic process and  the sham of international law. In the two countries which have taken the lead, US and Britain, parliamentary support  was not formally sought nor given, funds voted or a  declaration of war sanctioned. The other members of Nato have  been impotent bystanders.

The American Constitution was designed to prevent aggressive  acts of war without congressional approval. That  constitutional guarantee has been severely tested since 1945, but perhaps never so emphatically as in the past months. If  an American president can commit such considerable forces to  a war regardless of Congressional approval, it seriously  brings into question the value of the constitutional  restraint. Where exactly would the line be drawn in the Constitutional sand?

In Britain, the matter was debated at the government’s  convenience but at no one else’s. Incredibly, many will  think, support for the war was never put to a vote in the  Commons.

As for international law, that has been shown in the most  unambiguous manner to be a sham. The war was fought without a  declaration of war, in contravention of the UN Charter and in  a manner guaranteed to cause significant civilian casualties.

Yet Judge Arbour at the War Crimes Tribunal does not indict  the likes of Clinton and Blair, only Milosevic. (Readers might like to note that formal complaints to Judge Arbour about Blair and Clinton have been ignored). Law which is not  equally applied is no law, but merely a tool of the powerful  against the weak. Moreover, there does not appear to be any  illegality at which the US would draw the line. Apart from  incitements to murder Milosevic, there have been newspaper  reports of attempts by the CIA to illegally enter Milosevic’s  bank accounts and drain them of funds (we honest folks call that theft). If governments do not obey the core moral and  legal commandments of their own societies, law does not  effectively exist.

If international law meant anything, the Nato action would  be deemed objectively illegal. It was so first because of an  absence of lawful international authority, there being no  UN sanction for the War. On a national level, neither the  British nor the American Parliaments sanctioned either the  action or the expenditure which permitted the action.

The war also drove a coach and horses through the UN Charter  and the Nato Treaty. The UN Charter was breached because it  prohibits action to amend a sovereign state’s borders. As for  the NATO treaty, this only provides for action to be  taken in defence of member countries. Clearly the Yugoslav  government had offered no direct threat to NATO members because there was no attempt to act outside the territory  of Yugoslavia. Moreover, the only NATO countries  which might have called for assistance to a perceived  threat – Greece and Hungary – did not do so and made it  clear that they were far from supportive of the Nato action.

In general terms, it was impossible before the war began to  make a convincing case that Yugoslavia could present a threat  to the peace of Europe. It is a country of ten  million souls, poor with an underdeveloped industrial base. Moreover, its natural poverty had been greatly  increased by years of civil war and UN sanctions.

Balkan history tells a single story: any of its peoples  which become possessed of the advantage of numbers, wealth  or arms will oppress as a matter of course any other of its  peoples. If the Albanians gain control of Kosovo, rest  assured that they will behave as abominably towards the Serbs  as the Serbs have behaved towards them. The disputed territory is Serb by history and Albanian by present  settlement. There is no absolute right on either side.

 

Cast iron proof of Piers Morgan’s criminality distributed widely to the mainstream media

Robert Henderson

Over the past two days I have sent the following to some 200 individual mediafolk and media outlets. The email addresses are at the bottom of the email – these are all emails which did not produce a bounce so you should be able to use them if you wish to.

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My name is Robert Henderson. Over a year ago I supplied the Metropolitan police with unequivocal evidence that  Piers Morgan when Daily Mirror editor received information from one or more of their officers in circumstances which can only have been illegal.  That evidence is in a letter from Morgan to the Press complaints Commission in which he writes”The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect)”.   The letter is in text form below and in  facsimile form in the attached file Morganletterscan.docx . Please ask Hogan-Howe why this is not being investigated.

The accusations of criminal behaviour  made against me by Morgan in the letter are a tissue of lies. The reality of my dealings with the Blairs  is neatly précised in an  Early Day Motion put down by Sir Richard Body:

10 November 1999

CONDUCT OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR SEDGEFIELD 10:11:99

 Sir Richard Body

 That this House regrets that the Right honourable Member for Sedgefield [Tony Blair] attempted to persuade the Metropolitan Police to bring criminal charges against Robert Henderson, concerning the Right honourable Member’s complaints to the police of an offence against the person, malicious letters and racial insult arising from letters Robert Henderson had written to the Right honourable Member complaining about various instances of publicly-reported racism involving the Labour Party; and that, after the Crown Prosecution Service rejected the complaints of the Right honourable Member and the Right honourable Member failed to take any civil action against Robert Henderson, Special Branch were employed to spy upon Robert Henderson, notwithstanding that Robert Henderson had been officially cleared of any illegal action.

This motion is now part of the official House of Commons record – see  http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=16305&SESSION=702

Robert Henderson

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FROM THE EDITOR

By fax (0171-353 8355) & by post

16 October 1997

Your ref: 970738

Christopher Hayes Esq

Press Complaints Commission

I Salisbury Square

London

EC4Y 8AE

 

Dear Mr Hayes

Mr Robert Henderson

I refer to Mr Henderson’s complaint as outlined in his letter of 23 September.

As you are aware, we have been in contact with Mr Henderson for some time due to his propensity to bombard individuals and this office with correspondence. There are certain irrefutable facts that escape emphasis in Mr Henderson’s correspondence.

Far from ignoring any of his correspondence we have written to him on the 20 May, 22 July and 6 August We have consistently made it clear  that we have no intention of entering into any further correspondence with him.

Be that as it may I will address his concerns:-

In essence, the basic “sting” of the article, of which he complains, was that he had been sending numerous insulting letters, some with racist undertones, to Mr and Mrs Blair which had been passed to the  Crown Prosecution Service for consideration.

Mr Henderson himself admits that he sent Mr and Mrs Blair at least thirteen letters. I have no way of directly knowing of the content of those letters because I have not had sight of them. However, clearly  they sufficiently concerned Mr Blair’s office to be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service and I think the Commission is perfectly entitled to draw an adverse inference on the contents of those letters as a result of that referral.

I cannot accept Mr Henderson’s explanation for writing to Cherie Blair.

To do so was clearly designed to intimidate.

In Mr Henderson’s draft article “Moral Simpletons Target Innocent Man”  the bile that he shows on the second page of that article clearly  illustrates his capacity to insult in his letters to Mr and Mrs Blair (to the extent that they be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service). I would also refer the Commission to Mr Henderson’s gratuitous reference to a “Blaireich”.

He also admits to expressing his disgust (we can only guess in what terms) of the decision of Mr and Mrs Blair not to send their son to a school whereby a white schoolboy was, apparently, murdered by five other boys (and that that murder was racially motivated).

The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect) gave us the detail of the letters that we then published. Nothing that Mr Henderson writes has convinced me that the article was anything other than accurate.

Perhaps one can get a flavour of his correspondence with Mr and Mrs Blair by examining the final sentence of his draft article in which he states “It was a cargo of ancient male gonads”.

The Commission may be aware (I am attempting to get hold of the article) that the article of Mr Henderson’s that appeared in Wisden’s Cricket Monthly in 1995 gave rise to an extraordinary amount of controversy and resulted in Wisden paying substantial libel damages to the Cricketer, Devon Malcolm, whom the Commission will be aware is a coloured fast bowler for England. As I understand the matter, and Mr Henderson will correct me if I am wrong, the article implied that coloured players will not try as hard when playing for England as white players.

I have discussed the legal position with the newspaper’s solicitor, Martin Cruddace , and he has assured me that the law has recently developed whereby words (be they written or spoken) can constitute assault if the pattern of those words is such as to make the recipient of them either anxious or ill. It has developed as a reaction to the former impotence of the law on stalking.

The law has therefore developed since the publication of the dictionary reference on which Mr Henderson relies.

I cannot accept that the taking of the photographs of Mr Henderson, given the clear public interest concerning the subject matter of The Mirror article, could possibly constitute harassment under the Code.

I am most concerned not to waste any further time in dealing with Mr Henderson’s complaint but, naturally, if the Commission wishes me to address any further matters then I will endeavour to do so.

However, I hope that the above is sufficient to convince the Commission that the basic “sting” of the article is accurate and that Mr Henderson’s complaint ought to be dismissed.

Yours sincerely

 

 

Piers Morgan

 

 

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Sent successfully to these addresses

Press

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Operation Elveden, Piers Morgan, et al – The Metropolitan Police are struck dumb

To:

Chief Inspector Andy Dunn

Head of complaint support

Directorate of Professional Standards

Metropolitan Police

23rd Floor North

Empress State Building

Lillie Road

London SW6 ITR

CC Alison Saunders (DPP)

G McGill (CPS Head of Organised Crime Division)

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe (Commissioner)

Commander Neil Basu (Head of Operation Elveden)

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith (Operation Elveden)

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Sir Gerald Howarth MP

Mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

3 February 2014

Dear Mr Dunn,

More than a year has passed since I submitted evidence (on 21 January 2013)  to Operation Elveden concerning the illegal supply of information by the Metropolitan Police to the Daily Mirror, the perjury of Piers Morgan and Jeff Edwards when giving evidence under oath to the Leveson Inquiry and the failure of Det Supt Jeff Curtis to investigate my original complaint..

The evidence included a letter from Piers Morgan when editor of the Daily Mirror to the PCC in which he admitted receiving information from the Met Police in circumstances which can only have been illegal. That letter alone is sufficient to charge  Morgan. Scandalously,  no investigation has  begun.

On 6^th December you wrote to me asking for a recapitulation  of my complaints,  something that would have been unnecessary if you had read my initial submission to Elveden. Nonetheless, I provided you with the recapitulation (see below my email of 9^th December ).  I am still waiting for a response to  that  email from you or anyone else within the Met Police.

The longer  the Met  delays making a decision, the deeper the hole the organisation is digging for itself.  If  there is a continuing refusal to investigate  Morgan et al,  the Met will simply make the hole deeper, for no disinterested party  is going to believe that an investigation should not have been made once they have seen the Morgan letter.  Because of that the Met needs for its own sake to supply me with a conclusive  answer very soon saying either an investigation has been started or that no investigation will be made. If it is the latter, I shall require a full explanation for the failure to investigate.

The reasons for the failure to begin an investigation  are plausibly (1) the  high profile nature of those accused and (2) the misconduct of police officers in dealing with my original complaint and the present complaint. Those reasons constitute both an attempt to pervert the course of justice and misconduct in a public office.  You might like to bear that in mind when considering your own position.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

—————————————————–

 

• Andy.J.Dunn@met.pnn.police.uk

• Today at 10:01 AM

To

• anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk

Mr. Henderson,

Once again, I am sorry for the delay in letting you know what is happening. It has been decided that your complaint about the decision of Op. Elveden not to investigate your criminal allegations will be recorded and will be dealt with by DCI Tim Neligan, who is the Professional Standards Champion for DPS. I was waiting for the complaint to be formally recorded so I could give you the reference number but unfortunately there has been some confusion about the way it should be recorded, which I am in the process of sorting out.

I will ask DCI Neligan to contact you and will ensure you are given a reference number in due course.

Regards,

Andy Dunn.

 —————————————————–

The previous post on this subject :  

https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/operation-elveden-and-piers-morgan-the-metropolitan-police-commissioner-brought-into-play/

Click on Operation Elveden tag for all posts on this story.

Operation Elveden and Piers Morgan – The Metropolitan Police Commissioner brought into play

To:

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe

Commissioner

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

(Tel: 0207 230 1212)

CC Alison Saunders (DPP)

G McGill (CPS Head of Organised Crime Division)

Commander Neil Basu (Head of Operation Elveden)

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith (Operation Elveden)

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Sir Gerald Howarth MP

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

5 December 2013

Dear Sir Bernard,

In January 2013 I submitted to Operation Eleveden a complaint against Piers Morgan and others regarding the illegal receipt of information from a Met police officer by  Morgan when he was editor of the Daily Mirror.  The evidence against Morgan could not have been stronger, because I supplied Elveden with a letter sent by Morgan to the PCC in which he admitted receiving information in circumstances which could only have been illegal. I attach a copy of the Morgan’s letter in facsimile.

Despite my requests that I be interviewed by Elevden  and make a formal statement,  Elveden denied  my requests and eventually after six months of prevarication refused to investigate my complaints without giving any meaningful reason. This refusal was clearly absurd because they had a letter from Morgan admitting his guilt.

At that point I wrote to the DPP to complain about the failure to investigate a cast-iron complaint. . This prompted a referral of my complaint to the Metropolitan Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards, where it was dealt with by the head of that unit, Det Chief Superintendant Alaric Bonthron .

Mr Bonthron has had the complaint for  more than three months. I have received nothing more than holding emails from him, the last of which was sent on 2 October. He has ignored my requests to meet him and has failed to answer my last email to him dated 8 October.

It is now more than ten months since I made the original complaint to Elveden and Morgan and the others mentioned in my complaint have still to be investigated. The evidence I have provided is unreservedly conclusive of the crimes alleged  and the bald failure to investigate constitutes prima facie both misconduct in a public office and a perversion of the course of justice.  The way to judge what has been going on is simple: just ask yourself what the general public would make of the Met’s behaviour in this matter.

Because I cannot get any meaningful response from anyone I have dealt with within the Met, I ask you, as the head of the force, to intervene and ensure an investigation into my complaints is begun immediately.   I also seek a meeting with you to discuss the matter.

I include in this email my complete correspondence directly with Elveden and the other correspondence arising from Eleveden’s behaviour.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

———————————————————————————————————-

My last email to the Met Police Commissioner elicited these replies and my responses:

From: “Bernard.Hogan-Howe@met.pnn.police.uk” <Bernard.Hogan-Howe@met.pnn.police.uk>
To: anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk
Sent: Friday, 6 December 2013, 12:18
Subject: RE: The Met’s Directorate of Professional standards still refuses to meet me

Mr Henderson

Thank you for your e mail.I am sorry to read of the frustration you have encountered.

Unfortunately it is not possible for the Commissioner to become involved in individual allegations, however I asked that you receive a response from those dealing with this matter.

Best Regards

Neil

Neil Williams

Detective Chief Inspector

Commissioner’s Private Office

 ——————————————————————————————————————–

To:

Neil Williams

Detective Chief Inspector

Commissioner’s Private Office

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

(Tel: 0207 230 1212

CC Alison Saunders (DPP)

G McGill (CPS Head of Organised Crime Division)

Det Chief Superintendent Alaric Bonthron

(Head of the Metropolitan Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards)

Commander Neil Basu (Head of Operation Elveden)

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith (Operation Elveden)

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Sir Gerald Howarth MP

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk9

9 December 2013

Dear Mr Williams, I have your email of 6 December. You say the Commissioner cannot become involved  in individual allegations,. Please answer these two questions:

1. What legal bar is there to prevent him doing so?

2. Are you claiming that in the entire history of the Metropolitan Police has (1829 to date) has there never been a case where a  Commissioner has intervened?

Bear in mind when answering that unless there is a legal bar to him acting in this capacity, I would need to find only example where a Commissioner has intervened to knock the legs from under your claim.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

    

 ——————————————————————————————————————————–

 From: “Andy.J.Dunn@met.pnn.police.uk” <Andy.J.Dunn@met.pnn.police.uk>

To: anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk
Sent: Friday, 6 December 2013, 11:54
Subject: Your Correspondence with the Commissioner Concerning Operation Elveden.

Dear Mr. Henderson,

I am sorry for the delay in replying to your messages. As you are aware this is a complex matter with a considerable history and it is taking us some time to gather together all the relevant information so that we can provide you with a proper reply. I am afraid that we are still having trouble getting together some of the older material so I thought I would take this opportunity to thank you for your patience, to let you know what is happening and to clarify a few issues with you.

I am the Chief Inspector in charge of complaint support within the Directorate of Professional Standards in the MPS. This means I have responsibility for the way that complaints about officers are dealt with. As such, DCS Bonthron has asked me to review the issues you have raised. In order to assess them properly could I just check my understanding with you? Following the Leveson Enquiry, you asked Operation Elveden to investigate criminal allegations you are making against Piers Morgan and the way that he obtained information for an article about you that appeared in the Mirror in 1997. The background to this is an article you wrote for Wisden Magazine and the subsequent correspondence you entered into with Mr. and Mrs. Blair, the then Prime Minister and his wife. You allege that information about this was supplied to the Mirror by the police. You now wish to complain about the fact that Operation Elveden have refused to investigate that criminal allegation. I appreciate that this is a very brief summary but is it basically accurate?

I am less clear about the following: I also understand that you may have made similar criminal allegations previously in around 2002? These were referred to DCS Simon Foy and you then made a complaint about the way he dealt with them, which in turn was dealt with by DCS Tony Dawson of DPS? This is the older material I referred to above and our files seem to be incomplete. Can you confirm whether the matters that you raised at this time were the same criminal allegations you are now making about Piers Morgan, or is this a different issue?

Once again, thank you for your patience.

Yours sincerely,

Andy Dunn.

Total Policing is the Met’s commitment to be on the streets and in your communities to catch offenders, prevent crime and support victims. We are here for London, working with you to make our capital safer.

—————————————————————————————————————

To:

Chief Inspector Andy Dunn

Head of complaint support

Directorate of Professional Standards

Metropolitan Police

23rd Floor North

Empress State Building

Lillie Road

London SW6 ITR

CC Alison Saunders (DPP)

G McGill (CPS Head of Organised Crime Division)

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe (Commissioner)

Commander Neil Basu (Head of Operation Elveden)

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith (Operation Elveden)

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Sir Gerald Howarth MP

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

9 December 2013

Dear Mr Dunn,

I have your email of 6 December.  This is not a hideously complicated matter either in its detail or in the way I have presented it to Operation Elveden. In fact, I would go as far as to say I have done most of the spadework for the bringing of charges because the evidence I have provided is so compelling.  The only reason it seems complicated is the large amount of correspondence it has generated, a fact which is down to the failure of the Met Police to do their duty and investigate cast-iron evidence of wrongdoing.

Having explained the position concisely but fully in my correspondence with Elveden, I really should not need to go over the matter yet again. However, your email suggests you do not possess the full papers relating to the case, which if I am correct is rather disturbing because you are meant to be reviewing the case. It also suggests that Alaric Bonthron has not been working from the full papers because  presumably you are working from what he gave you..   Consequently,  I will write yet another summary to ensure there is absolutely no room or opportunity for a claim of misunderstanding on your office’s part.

The whole business did start with the publication of an article of mine in Wisden Cricket Monthly (WCM) entitled “Is it in the blood?” This created a storm of media protest which severely libelled me. To this I was allowed no opportunity to reply.  I  could not afford to sue   so I went through all the possible channels – the PCC, my MP, the BBC complaints system and so on  – without any success.  I then wrote to the Blairs for help: Blair because he was odds on to become the next PM; his wife because she was a noted human rights lawyer as well as being Blair’s wife.  All I got was non-replies  from their offices.

At the beginning of the 1997 general election campaign I sent copies of my letters to the Blairs together with the non-replies from their offices  to every mainstream media outlet in the country. It was then that the Blairs went to the police and tried to have me prosecuted under the Malicious Communications Act.   They obviously had not been worried by the letters  as letters  because they only went to the police after I had supplied copies to the media not when they received the letters. Presumably their motivation was a  concern their non-replies showed them in a bad light. The police referred the matter to the CPS immediately and the CPS sent the papers  back to the police on the day they received them marked NO CRIME. (I obtained all this data using the DPA).

Blair then set Special Branch  on to me – you will find that mentioned in the Mirror story –  and I also used the DPA to prove that both Special  Branch and MI5 had opened files on me. I then endured the ten years of Blair’s premiership being harassed by one or more of  Special Branch, MI5 or some other  agency  with everything from the ostentatious opening of my post to incitements to attack me posted on various social media which included my name, address and phone number.   The harassment stopped as soon as Blair was out of office. The general circumstances of the affair are summarised in an Early Day Motion put down by Sir Richard Body MP, viz:

Early Day Motion put down on my behalf by Sir Richard Body on 10 November 1999:

CONDUCT OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR SEDGEFIELD 10:11:99

 Sir Richard Body

That this House regrets that the Right honourable Member for Sedgefield [Tony Blair] attempted to persuade the Metropolitan Police to bring criminal charges against Robert Henderson, concerning the Right honourable Member’s complaints to the police of an offence against the person, malicious letters and racial insult arising from letters Robert Henderson had written to the Right honourable Member complaining about various instances of publicly-reported racism involving the Labour Party; and that, after the Crown Prosecution Service rejected the complaints of the Right honourable Member and the Right honourable Member failed to take any civil action against Robert Henderson, Special Branch were employed to spy upon Robert Henderson, notwithstanding that Robert Henderson had been officially cleared of any illegal action.

This motion is now part of the official House of Commons record – see  http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=16305&SESSION=702

My complaints to Eleveden are these:

1. That Piers Morgan when editor of the Mirror obtained information from a Met Officer(s) in circumstances which can only have been illegal. The letter from Morgan to the PCC which I have supplied to Elveden and which you have a copy of in facsimile conclusively proves this.

2. That Jeff Edwards when chief crime reporter for the Daily Mirror illegally received information from Met Officer(s).  Morgan’s letter plus the story printed by the Daily Mirror about me conclusively prove Edwards received such information.

3. That both Morgan and Edwards  committed perjury when questioned under oath about receiving information illegally from the police. I provided Operation Elveden with the relevant Leveson transcripts.

4. That Det Supt Jeff Curtis committed misconduct in a public office and perverted the course of justice by claiming he had investigated my complaints against Morgan and Edwards when the reality was that he failed to conduct any investigation at all, and that  despite having Morgan’s letter to the PCC and the Mirror article about me.  Curtis eventually shamefacedly admitted to me in a phone call that he had  not spoken to anyone at the Mirror including Morgan and Edwards and consequently there had been no  investigation of the Mirror’s accounts  and other records to see whether any money had been paid. Curtis failed to investigate Morgan and Edwards despite his promise to do so in an interview with me which I recorded. I have supplied Eleveden with a copy of that recording so you can hear  him making the promise on which he reneged.

That I could not get any redress when I made my original complaint against Morgan and Edwards was simply a consequence of the powerful people involved in the affair, most notably the Blairs.    My complaints to the police were deliberately not acted upon because they involved the Blairs, either directly or indirectly. There was no way I could do anything at the time because I had no money to employ lawyers nor any access to the media.  This was a very clear who shall guard the guards? territory. In short, it was a perversion of the course of justice.

Those were my complaints to Elveden. It would already be perfectly reasonable for me to make complaints of misconduct in a public office and a perversion of the  course of justice against  those in Eleveden who refused to investigate the clearest evidence of criminality (criminality which definitely falls within its remit). Whether I proceed with such complaints will  depend on whether an investigation is made.  In view of the strength of evidence I have provided, it is extremely difficult to see how such an investigation  could not result in charges being brought against, Morgan, Edwards and Curtis.

You will find below your email to me the complete correspondence arising from my complaint to Eleveden.  As your department is reviewing the case you should already have this, plus the tape recording of my interview with Jeff Curtis which I supplied the Elveden.  The correspondences is grouped so that emails to each person or office appear in a block. In addition to the correspondence and the tape I passed these documents to  Holborn Police:

 

The documents I  passed to PC G James 423EK and PC L Scully 471EK  from Holborn police station were:

1.Piers Morgan’s Letter to the PCC date 16 October 1997  in which he admits receiving information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal.

2. A copy of the Daily Mirror  story about me dated 25 March 1997 which produced the complaint to the PCC  which caused  Morgan to write the letter in which he admitted receiving information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal.

3. Copies of the then director of Presswise Mike Jempson’s correspondence on my behalf with the PCC relating to the Mirror story dated 23 December 1997, 9 January 1998, 20 January 1998, 18 February 1998, 2 March 1998.

 4. My evidence to the Leveson Inquiry of  Morgan ’s perjury dated 23 December 2011

5. My evidence to  the Leveson Inquiry of Edwards’ perjury dated 25 March 2012

6. My original submission to the Leveson Inquiry dated 25 November  2011

7. Sir Richard Body’s Early Day Motion 10th November 1999 which dealt with the general context of the events surrounding the Mirror story  with the role of the Blairs at its heart.

8. A copy of my Wisden Cricket Article Is it in the Blood? (from the July 1995 edition). It was my gross mistreatment by the mainstream British media after the publication of the article that led me ultimately to write to the Blairs asking for their assistance after all other available avenues of redress had failed me .

9. A copy of my final letter to  Det Supt Curtis dated 2 December 1999, Det Supt A Bamber’s reply to that letter 13 December 1999 and the PCA’s letter dated November 1999  refusing  to investigate further

10. A letter addressed to the new head of Operation Elveden Deputy Assistant Commissioner  Steve Kavanagh dated 21 January 2013.

To date, despite my repeated requests, I have yet to meet  anyone from Elveden or your office to give a formal statement and interview. That in itself says a great deal. Why not break this dismal pattern Mr Dunn by meeting me?

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

    

       Click on the tag Operation Elveden for the full story

Operation Elveden and Piers Morgan et al – I try to bring Norman Baker MP into the picture

Note:I have had some dealings with Norman Baker regarding both the Blairs’ attempts to prosecute me and its aftermath and the David Kelly death. Robert Henderson

Mr Norman Baker MP

House of Commons

London  SW1A 0AA

9 October 2013

Dear Mr Baker,

Congratulations on your promotion to the Home Office.

I have a scandal which comes within your new remit. In January this year I supplied Operation Elveden with a letter sent by Piers Morgan to the PCC when he was editor of the Daily Mirror. A copy of that letter is attached in facsimile.

In the letter Morgan writes “The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect”. That can only mean the information was given illegally. Moreover, the information which the Mirror received was of a nature which could not have been legally given  to a newspaper.  The information concerned me.

Operation Elveden refused to investigate – It took them around  five months to tell me they were not going to act. During that time I made repeated requests to be interviewed  and  give a formal statement,   but these requests  were ignored.

I then wrote to the DPP asking him to intervene.  I received no overt encouragement from him,  but something may have happened behind the scenes because Elveden  emailed me to say the matter had been referred to the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards .  That was nearly two months ago. The matter is being dealt with by the head of the Directorate, Det Chief Supt Alaric Bonthron.  I have made several requests for him to meet me but he has simply ignored them.

As a subsidiary scandal, I  give you this.  I supplied to the Leveson Inquiry a copy of  the Morgan letter along with a good deal of other material relating to press abuse . Leveson refused to allow me to be a core participant, refused to call me as a witness, failed to use the letter as evidence against Morgan when he was giving evidence under oath and was so desperate to write me out of the script that he excluded me from the list of people who had made submissions to the Inquiry.

I would greatly value a meeting with you to discuss this matter.  I realise that you will be immensely busy as a minister , but this is a matter which falls absolutely within the Home Office remit.  Moreover, it goes to the heart of  our justice system because this is who shall guard the guards territory.  The police are in effect perverting the course of justice by refusing to act on the clearest evidence of a serious crime having been committed.

There is a good deal of correspondence below this email, but  please do not be daunted by that. I suggest that you concentrate for the moment on the Morgan letter and,  if you are willing to meet me,  I will run you through the story then.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

Click on the tags Operation Elveden and Leveson Inquiry for the full story of those issues. Click on the category The Scandalous Blairs for that story.

A Diary of the Hutton Inquiry

It is ten years since the suspicious death of the British weapons expert Dr David Kelly who disagreed with the claims of the dossier used  by Tony Blair to justify committing the UK to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  His death has never been satisfactorily explained. The journalist Andrew Gilligan, who was a central figure in the furore over the Blair dossier’s claim that Saddam Hussein could have nuclear weapons in the air within 45 minutes has looked back at the years since Kelly’s death in a recent article:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10192271/The-betrayal-of-Dr-David-Kelly-10-years-on.html

I wrote the diary  below day by day during the Hutton Inquiry.  Particularly noteworthy are these general matters:

1. The frequent contradiction of evidence.

2. The eagerness of Kelly’s wife and daughter to support the suicide theory.

3. The thinness of the suicide theory.

4 No  public  enquiry has every fingered a  serving  PM  as  being seriously at fault.  That alone told you the Hutton inquiry would be  a charade.   Hutton’s willingness to sell-the-pass on honest enquiry  was confirmed  when  he failed to recall Blair for  re-examination  in  the second  half  of  the  hearing.  The failure  to  publish  the  further submissions    confirms Hutton’s tacit complicity in protecting  Blair.

Robert Henderson 2 August 2013

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The Hutton Inquiry

Preliminary statement 1 8 2003

Lord Hutton opened the inquiry today, 1 August. He made a statement detailing  how  he  would proceed generally,  the  sequence  of  events leading  up to the inquiry and the detailed agenda of witness  hearing.

The main points are:

1. He and he alone will determine the way the inquiry is  conducted, citing Lord Scarman’s words in the 1974 Red lion disturbances inquiry.

2. He will hold public hearings except where national security prevents it.

3. A transcript of the   public hearings will be available to the public.

4. Lord Hutton delayed a decision on the issue of televising the proceedings until the inquiry reconvenes on 11 August.

5. Lord  Hutton  will allow cross-examination where  he deems it necessary.

6. Those called before the committee will be allowed to use legal representation.

7.  Lord  Hutton will call, amongst others,   Blair,  Straw,  Campbell, Hoon,  MoD civil servants,  BBC members including Gavin Davies  and  Dr Kelly’s widow to give evidence.

8. Lord Hutton has the post-mortem report compiled by a Dr Hunt.  This suggests  death was due to bleeding.  However,  it also  revealed  that Kelly  had  serious coronary disease and this may have  contributed  to the  speed of his death.  Intriguingly,  Kelly had four electrode  pads such  as  are  used  for  ECGs on his  chest  (I  have  ECGs  performed regularly. Occasionally the technician will forget to remove an odd pad but it is pretty rare.  Moreover,  if they do forget it is very obvious that they have done so – RH ).

9. Dr Kelly’s wrist was described as having several cuts and the watch had been taken after bleeding had begun. Dr Hunt, rather oddly, took this as an indication that it was suicide.

10. Lord Hutton will call both medical evidence on Dr Kelly’s physical state and psychiatric advice as to what his state of mind might have been.

11. Lord Hutton will seek details of what  religious tenets the Baha’i faith  might  have  which could have affected Dr  Kelly’s  attitude  to death.

12. Lord Hutton will consider submissions from anyone who thinks they have useful information to give. (This is my note taken directly from his broadcast address. RH)

—

-Note: I rang them today and attendance for the public is first come first served on the day. I know court 73. It is not large. There will be places reserved fro the  media, so public seats will be very limited.

No schedule of hearing dates is yet available.  RH

http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk

Hearing Dates

For public attendance enquiries, please contact the Hutton Inquiry team on 0207 855 5295 .

For Press attendance enquiries, please contact Mike Burrell on 0207 210 8692.

Unless otherwise noted all hearings will take place in Courtroom 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

At the opening of the Kelly Inquiry, Lord Hutton  stated that the four ECG electrode pads  found on Kelly’s chest had been placed there by the ambulance staff  who had attended the discovery of his body. They supposedly put them on the chest to allow them to test for any heart action.

So, we are asked to believe that it takes three weeks for this explanation to come to light  – surely the ambulance staff  would have come forward rapidly?  Moreover, would paramedics check for heart activity in this manner? Is it normal practice? Opinion in the main British ngs seems to be that it is within the competence of paramedics but not routine practice.  RH

Whose in for a grilling this week from the Hutton Inquiry ?

http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/

The inquiry does not sit on Fridays. Day 5 will be next Monday.  During WC 18 Aug  Alastair Campbell and Tom Kelly (No 10 spokesman  who called David Kelly a Walter Mitty) will appear. RH

THE INQUISITORIAL PHASE

WEEK  1

The Hutton Inquiry day 1 – 11  8 2003

At the opening of the Kelly Inquiry, Lord Hutton  stated that the four ECG electrode pads  found on Kelly’s chest had been placed there by the ambulance staff  who had attended the discovery of his body. They supposedly put them on the chest to allow them to test for any heart action.

So, we are asked to believe that it takes three weeks for this explanation to come to light  – surely the ambulance staff  would have come forward rapidly?  Moreover, would paramedics check for heart activity in this manner? Is it normal practice? Opinion in the main British ngs seems to be that it is within the competence of paramedics but not routine practice.

Two other important points.

(1) It was confirmed that  Kelly was a high level state employee who  was THE British expert in his field,  who had  top level  security clearance  and   who  worked  with the  security  services  of  various countries. Ergo, he had every reason both to know what the WMD evidence was and to have knowledge of intelligence service dissatisfaction with the dossier.

(2) he was a disappointed man who may well have felt moved to tell  the truth to Andrew Gilligan out of pique at what he saw was a lack  of official recognition. RH

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The Hutton Inquiry day 2 – 12 9 2003

The BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, stood by his story that Kelly had raised  the subject of the dubious nature of some of  the  intelligence and the name of Campbell but admitted some of his language in one Today interview  was unfortunate – he  suggested that the government knew the 45-minute warning was wrong when it was merely dubious because it came from a single source.

The  Newsnight  reporter,   Susan  Watts,  also  gave  evidence   which supported Gilligan’s story in its main details,  the 45-minute  source, Campbell’s involvement etc.

Watts’ tape of her meeting with Kelly is to be broadcast to the Inquiry today. RH

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The Hutton Inquiry day 3 – 13 9 2003

The main entertainment of the day was the Newsnight presenter Susan Watt’s  tape of a meeting she had had with Kelly. Unfortunately the tape was of poor quality  and even with technical enhancement was unclear in parts.

An  interesting  development  was   conflict  between  Watts  and   her employers  (the BBC).  The BBC had a transcript of the tape made  which Watts  was  not  satisfied with and she made  her  own  which  differed places  where she used “her recollection of the meeting”  to  “clarify” indistinct passages.

Watts  claimed that BBC management had tried to  pressurise her into massaging  her  story  to agree with Andrew  Gilligan’s   and  she  had refused   to   do  so.   (Interestingly,  Watts  has  her   own   legal representation at the hearing, reputedly paid for by the BBC).

Despite Watts claims about BBC management’s attempts to tailor her story, the odd thing was that the tape  essentially told the same story as Gilligan had told – Kelly is to heard saying that the British intelligence bods  are unhappy with the treatment of their material and that No 10 is the point at which it was  mistreated –  with the exception of claiming directly that Campbell had doctored the story.

Even here the difference is  less  than decisive.  On the tape Kelly is to  heard  saying  that  the NO 10 press  office  was  responsible  for altering  the dossier.  When Watts asks him if Campbell was involved, Kelly says he cannot say that but adds that  the No 10  press office is “Synonymous with Campbell” because he runs it.

Bizarrely,  Watts interprets  this as a clear statement  that  Campbell had  not  part  in altering the balance and tone of  the  dossier  with regard  to the 45-minute warning.  To  most people,  including me,  it looks  like a routine oblique finger-pointing at Campbell by  Kelly  “I can’t name him but nudge, nudge, wink, wink…”

Very odd behaviour by Watts, suggesting she had been got at by either the security services or NuLabcur.

The  question also has to be asked,  if the BBC did try to get  her  to massage  her  story,  why  on earth did  they  bother?  Her  story  and Gilligan’s  did not contradict one another in any fundamental  way  and her  tape   supported   Gilligan’s  on all the  major  points   of  his original story. RH

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The Hutton Inquiry day 4 – 14 9 2003

The main interest  on day 4 was the involvement of the Government, MoD and by implication, the intelligence services, in exposing Kelly to public scrutiny.

The permanent under secretary at the MoD, Sir Kevin Tebbit, advised that Kelly appear only before the Commons Security and Intelligence committee – which meets in private – and not before the Foreign Affairs Committee which holds public hearings. He was overruled by Geoff Hoon, the Defence Minister.

Kelly  was  called to two internal MoD disciplinary  meetings.  At  the first  he  was “read the riot act” .  The second took  place  after  Blair wanted  a further examination of the  discrepancies  between Gilligan  and Kelly’s account of what was said.  Mr Velveteen’s  wishes were committed to paper in a letter from Sir David Omand,  the  Cabinet

Office  co-ordinator  of  intelligence.  At  the  disciplinary   second interview, Kelly was interviewed by the MoD head of personnel,  Richard Hatfield.

The head of the Joint Intelligence Committee , John Scarlett, wanted Kelly subjected to a “security-style” interview to “clarify” inconsistencies in Kelly’s remarks. This never took place. Kelly was told at his first disciplinary interview that if further details came out which contradicted his original story, he could face further disciplinary action. However, on 14 July, three days before Kelly’s death,  a friend of Kelly’s a  foreign office employee, Patrick Lamb,   phoned Kelly to assure him that his pension was safe and added “David, the worst is over. You have nothing to fear.

Kelly was receiving phone calls and emails from the MoD hierarchy right up to his death, including one from his line manager Brian Wells, after Kelly had gone for his final walk.   RH

—

Other Kelly news in the week:

The Kelly Inquest was resumed yesterday, 14 August, by the Oxfordshire coroner, Nicholas Gardiner, to hear medical evidence not available at the previous hearing.

An amended cause of death was submitted. This stated that Kelly’s death was from a  “massive haemorrhage”  from the left wrist, compounded by furred arteries, which Kelly probably did not know about. An overdose, but not a fatal one, of co-proxamol was found in his body.

One can understand that tests for drugs would take time, but why would death through massive haemorrhaging not have been immediately obvious from the post mortem?

Also, how likely is massive haemorrhaging likely to take place from a cut to a single wrist? RH

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WEEK 2

Monday, 18 August

Pam Teare Ministry of Defence Press Office

Jonathan Powell Prime Minister’s Office

David Manning Prime Minister’s Office

Tuesday, 19 August

Alastair Campbell  Prime Minister’s Office

David Manning Prime Minister’s Office

Wednesday, 20 August

Sir Kevin Tebbit Ministry of Defence

Godric Smith Prime Minister’s Press Office

Tom Kelly Prime Minister’s Press Office

Thursday, 21 August

Donald Anderson MP Foreign Affairs Select Committee

Nick Rufford Sunday Times, journalist

James Blitz Financial Times, journalist

Richard Norton-Taylor Guardian, journalist

Tom Baldwin The Times, journalist

Lee Hughes Hutton Inquiry Secretariat

The Hutton Inquiry Day 5 –  18 8 2003

— Jonathan Powell, Blair’s  chief of staff appeared, Sir David Manning,  Blair’s chief foreign policy advisor and Pam Teare, MoD director of news, appeared.  Main points:

1.  Powell admitted no consideration was given to  the effect on  Kelly on being forced into the public fold – failure of an employer’s duty of care.

2. An email sent by Powell  before the  Sept 2002 dossier was published and referring to an earlier draft, ran: “The  document does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam Hussein.

In other words it shows he has the means but it does not demonstrate he has the motive to attack his neighbours, let alone the West.”  Clear evidence that the original draft was altered to demonstrate a political point rather than an interpretation of the raw intelligence.

3. On Sept 5 2002 Alastair Campbell chaired a meeting of the Iraq Communications  Group.  Afterwards Powell emailed Campbell asking  what was going on. Campbell replied: “Re dossier, substantial rewrite,  with JS  [John  Scarlett,  chairman of JIC] and Julian M [Miller ,  head  of Cabinet  Office  Assessment staff] in charge…Structure  as  per  TB’s[Tony Blair’s] discussion.”

4. On July 7 2003 Balir  called a meeting of Sir David Manning, Sir Kevin Tebbit (MoD permanent Secretary), John Scarlett (chairman of Joint Intelligence Committee), Jack Straw (Foreign Secretary), Alistair Campbell, Jonathan Powell and others to discuss the matter.

5.Blair  was concerned about Kelly might say before the committee, ie that he would say something at odds with the official Government  line on the dossier –  Powell: “The Prime Minister asked what do we know of Dr Kelly’s views on weapons of mass destruction?” Kelly was probably only allowed to go to the FAC after Balir  had been reassured that Kelly was a supporter of the invasion.

6.  An email from Tom Kelly, the No 10 press spokesman,  was introduced to the evidence.  It read ”  It is now a game of chicken with the  BBC. The only way they will shift is if they see the screw tightening.”

7. Kelly reviewed the final draft of the Sept 2002 dossier with defence intelligence staff.

8. Powell admitted that Kelly’s identification to the media was done to disprove the BBC story. At the time  Blair and co.  were unaware of Kelly’s   deep  involvement in the intelligence side of the  dossier.

Because of this No 10 believed exposing Kelly would discredit  Gilligan as  Kelly could not possibly have known what the dossier  contained  or the  disputes which had arisen between the intelligence people  and  No 10.  If true,  it reveals an incredible ineptitude by Blair and co.  in not establishing Kelly’s true status and knowledge before throwing him to the media.

Further material:

From:  Jonathan Powell

Sent:  17 September 2002 19.41

To:  Scarlett John – SEC – A

Cc:  Alastair Campbell; David Manning

Subject:  Dossier

The  dossier  is good and convincing for those who are prepared  to  be convinced.  I have only three points,  none of which affect the way the document is drafted and presented.  First the document does nothing  to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat to Saddam.

In other words it shows he has the means but it does not demonstrate he has  the  motive to attack his neighbours let alone the west.  We  will need  to make it clear in launching the document that we do  not  claim that  we have evidence that he is an imminent threat.  The case we  are making  is that he has continued to develop WMD since 1998,  and is  in breach  of  the  UN resolutions. The  international  community  has  to enforce those resolutions if the UN is to be taken seriously. Second we will be asked about the connections with Al Que’ada.  (The next section is blanked out but seems to start with) The dossier says nothing  about those  and TB will need…?  ( it continues) Third,  if I was Saddam  I would take a party of western journalists to Ibn Sina factory or one of the  others  pictured in the document to demonstrate there  is  nothing there. How do we close off that avenue to him in advance.

———————-

Second email

———————-

From:  Jonathan Powell

Sent:  5 September 2002 14.41

To:  Alastair Campbell

Subject:  RE

what is the timing on preparation of it and publication? Will TB have something he can read on the plane to the US? —original message— From: Sandra Powell On Behalf Of Alastair Campbell

Sent:  5 September 2002 14.38

To:  Alastair Campbell

Subject:

Re dossier, substantial rewrite, with JS and Julian M in charge, which JS will take to US next Friday, and be in shape Monday thereafter.

Structure as per TB’s discussion. Agreement that there has to be real intelligence material in their presentation as such.

—original message—

From:  Jonathan Powell

Sent:  5 September 2002 13.50

To: Alastair Campbell

Subject:

( A blank section, then)

What did you decide on dossiers?

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The Hutton Inquiry day 19 8 2003

The Inquiry  devoted  most the day to questioning  Alastair Campbell. Campbell’s performance can be summed up  as  er, didn’t see that… er can’t remember… er… if I’d known them what I know now… er… 1. References to dossiers in emails to Campbell, from Campbell, between other No 10 staff,  before a meeting  on 5 Sept 2002 between Campbell and various MoD and FO officials were, Campbell said, not references to drafts of the dossier but, wait for it, “documents”.

2.  At the meeting of 5 Sept 2002,  Campbell claims that it was decided to create a new dossier. Challenged by Lord Hutton – “It looks like a fairly detailed draft dossier [Mr Campbell]” – about his email to Jonathan Powell of 5 Sept that ran “Re dossier, substantial rewrite, with JS [John Scarlett, chairman of JIC] and Julian M [Miler, head of Cabinet  Office  Assessment staff] in charge…Structure  as  per  TB’s [Tony  Blair’s] discussion…”  Campbell replied “I don’t  recall  this document  forming a substantial part of our discussions [on  writing  a new dossier].  In other words, a an earlier draft dossier did exist and Campbell must have had sight of it.

3. Various emails relating to the early drafts of the dossier  were introduced into the evidence,  for example,  an email from David Pruce, an FO press officer working in no 10, called for the dossier to be “personalised” and concentrate on Saddam Hussein. In another mail to Philip Bassett, a special adviser in Downing Street, Pruce  wrote ” I think we are in a lot of trouble as this stands.” Campbell claimed that he had either not seen  the emails or they were disregarded because the people sending them were acting above their station.

4. A week before publication, Campbell asked the Joint Intelligence Committee for 15 changes to the re-written dossier.  The JIC accepted some and refused others. The question has to be asked, if intelligence is to be trusted, why should politicians and their creatures have any influence into its presentation?

5. Campbell admitted that it was in his interest for Kelly to have been identified.

6.  Campbell said that with out old friend hindsight things could have been handled better in presenting Kelly to the media.

7. Campbell claimed that Blair had told him to “stand back” from the question of what to do about Kelly after Kelly had admitted that he might be Gilligan’s source.

8.  An email from the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan to a Lib Dem  member of  the  Foreign  Office  select  committee,  David  Chidgey,   MP  for Eastleigh,  has come to light.  This suggested that Chidgey  ask  Kelly certain  questions  when he appeared before  the  committee,  including Kelly’s assessment of the threat  from Iraq saying with Gilligan saying that  :   “If  [Kelly  is]  allowed  to  answer  frankly  it  will   be devastating.”  RH

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The Hutton Inquiry Day 7  20 8 2003

No 10 mediafolk Tom Kelly and Godric Smith official (title: The Prime Ministers   Official  Spokesman)   and  Sir  Kevin  Tebbit,   permanent secretary at the MoD, provided the main entertainment of the day.

Tom Kelly

1. Kelly was the No 10 creature who called David Kelly a “Walter Mitty fantasist”.  Asked why he had described him so, Kelly said: “it was a mistake to be sucked into that conversation  in that climate.” Not ashamed or morally wrong, but simply an error of tactics. Kelly claimed he had been speaking off the record.

2. Asked if he was trying to plant an impression in journalists minds, Kelly said:” I wanted journalists to be aware of possible questions and issues from the government’s perspective.”

Godric Smith (Smith has already announced that he would be leaving No 10’s employment before the Kelly story broke).

1. Smith related how he had overheard a conversation between Alastair Campbell  and the defence secretary Geoff Hoon (on speaker phone) in which Campbell suggested that  “the news that an individual had come forward who could be  the possible source be given that evening  to one paper”.  This rather destroys Campbell’s claim in evidence yesterday that he had kept well away from the Kelly affair on Blair’s orders.

2. Asked why drafts of the Sept 2002 dossier had landed on the desks of relatively junior press officers when it was supposedly “owned” by the intelligence services, Smith said “It is not unknown fro drafts of documents to be circulated”.  Compare this with Campbell’s assertion that the oversight of the dossier was kept within senior advisors and civil servants.

Sir Kevin Tebbit

1. Tebbit confirmed that  Geoff Hoon had overridden his wish to keep away from the Foreign Affairs select committee. On being asked how he felt about it, Sir Kevin replied: ” I acquiesced. It’s perfectly reasonable for ministers to decide who appears before  committees, not for officials. That was the secretary of state’s prerogative and I accepted that.”

2. Tebbit advised ministers that Kelly should not be treated as a “windfall bonus”.

3. Lord Hutton asked why, after the Foreign Affairs committee had exonerated Campbell  of the charge of deliberately putting in false

evidence and the BBC  had accepted that Campbell had not done so,  that it  was necessary to expose Kelly to public view.  Sir  Kevin  replied: “The pressure and strain issue was not one we were aware of in the sense you are implying,” A clear failure of an employer’s duty of care.

4. Sir Kevin said that he had had no input into the dossier whatsoever, an amazing thing if true as he is in charge of the MoD.  Taking his statement as true, it means the dossier responsibility  was kept strictly within No 10 and the intelligence agencies.

Other news

Documents released by the Inquiry yesterday showed that Campbell had urged a change to the text of the “45-minute warning”, changing a “may” to an “are” in the original se text.  The change was ostensibly to ensure that the summary and the main text agreed in sentiment.  Compare this  with  his  claim  to  the  Inquiry  that  he  had  no   influence “whatsoever” in the wording of the claim of 45 minutes deployment.

The Foreign Affairs committee have also complained that Campbell only mention  11  of  his   15 suggested  changes to  the  dossier  when  he appeared before them. RH

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The Hutton Inquiry days  8 – 22 August 2003

The main players were Donald Anderson, the chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) and a surprise witness, David Broucher, a British FO diplomat who is Britain’s permanent representative to the Conference of Disarmament in Geneva, an ambassador rank posting.

Donald Anderson

1. Anderson said that his instincts were against calling Kelly at all because he did not want to get involved in the dispute between the Government and the BBC. He agreed that  Kelly should appear after Blair and Campbell made it clear they were determined he should appear.

2. Anderson revealed that the Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon had imposed conditions on the questions David Kelly  could be asked if he appeared before the FAC. These included the issue of Iraq’s WMDs. Anderson said that he agreed to the request because he thought it reasonable and also feared Kelly would not be allowed to appear at all if he refused Hoon’s request.

3. Anderson claimed that the briefing of an FAC member (David Chidgey) by Gilligan was “unusual and unprecedented” (Chortle). 4. Anderson said that he though the interviewing of Kelly by the committee had been fair overall.

David Broucher

1.  Broucher  met David Kelly in February 2003 before the  decision  to go to war had been officially made. 2.  Broucher  said that at that meeting Kelly ,  far  from  being  100% behind the war as previously claimed,   was seriously disturbed by  the prospect of war.

3. Broucher said Kelly had been telling Iraqi contacts working for Saddam  Hussein that if  they persuaded Hussein  to cooperate  with the weapons inspectors then no invasion would take place. By February Kelly doubted this and feared he would had put his contacts at risk if and when an invasion occurred because Hussein would see them as traitors.

4. Just before the end of their meeting Broucher asked Kelly what he thought would happen if an invasion took place. Kelly replied ” I will probably be found dead in the woods”.  Broucher said he took it as a throwaway  remark  and  thought  little of it,  thinking  if  it  meant anything Kelly feared reprisals by Iraqis against him. Broucher did not mention  it to anyone else at the time,  and only revealed it  to  the Inquiry recently – see email at the bottom of the post.

Assuming Broucher is telling the truth, and there is no obvious reason why  he  should not be,  what are we to make of Kelly’s  statement?  It could  be  indicative  of   either a deep  feeling  of  pending   moral betrayal  by  Kelly  of  his Iraqi  contacts,  he  could,  as  Broucher surmised,  be  afraid of reprisals in the event of an invasion   or  it could simply be a flip remark without Kelly meaning anything serious by it.

If Kelly was in a  suicidal mood or feared for his life from Iraqi  before he became embroiled in the Gilligan affair, he both resisted the urge to kill himself and had the reassurance of not having been attacked for months after the invasion. The suicide and fear  would surely have been diminishing if they existed at all. So,  why would he kill himself in July after he had ostensibly got through the worst of whatever would happen to him? The answer may lie in the “dark actors”

Kelly referred to shortly before his death. Could he have been threatened  by  someone  representing the British state  or  a  foreign power?

Other points

The second  page of Gilligan’s email to LibDem MP David Chidgey   was released. It showed Gilligan trying to steer Chidgey away from Kelly as his source.

David Broucher’s memo to FCO

Text of ‘death in woods’ e-mail

This is the text of an e-mail sent by senior diplomat David Broucher to Patrick   Lamb,  deputy head of counter-proliferation  at  the  Foreign Office on 5 August,  2003, marked confidential and personal.

Patrick,

Is the FCO preparing evidence for the Hutton Inquiry? If so, I may have something relevant to contribute that I have been straining to recover from a  very deep memory hole.

In  a  conversation  in Geneva which took place in  late  February,  he explained to me that he thought that the weapons inspectors could  have a good idea what  the  Iraqis had built and destroyed because they were inveterate keepers of written  records, something they had, he thought, learnt  from  us.  There was a paper file on  everything  down  to  the smallest item.

He said that his Iraqi contacts had pointed out to him that revealing too  much  about their state of readiness might well heighten the  risk that they would be attacked. To gain their trust he had been obliged to assure them that if they  complied with the weapons inspectors’ demands they would not be.

The implication was that if an invasion went ahead that would make  him a liar and he would have betrayed his contacts,  some of whom might  be killed  as a  direct result of his actions.  I asked what would  happen then  and  he replied in a  throwaway line he would probably  be  found dead in the woods.

I did not think much of this at the time, taking it to be a hint that the Iraqis might try and take revenge against him,  something that  did not  seem  at  all  fanciful then.  I now see that  he  may  have  been thinking on rather different  lines.

This aspect has not come out at all in the press, though for all I know it  may  be common knowledge amongst his colleagues,  in which case  my contribution would add nothing. But if it is a new thought,  perhaps it should be fed in.

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WEEK 3

The Hutton Inquiry day 9 –  25 August 2003

The  Joint  Intelligence  Committee  (JIC)  chairman,   John  Scarlett, provided  the  main event of the day.  Labour MP  Andrew  Mackinlay,  a Foreign  Affairs  Committee (FAC)  member,  and Sir David Omand  of  the cabinet office also appeared.

John Scarlett

Note:  Scarlett’s   evidence  should  be read  in  the  knowledge  that Alastair Campbell described him to the inquiry as “a mate”.   It should also be remembered that Scarlett is a senior civil servant. Such people do not rise to their positions unless they are thought to be compliant personalities  as  far as politicians are concerned.  The  Yes  Minster  portrayal  of   politicians being terrified of civil  servants  is  the exact reverse of the truth. (I write as an ex-head office civil servant in one of the largest departments). Newspaper reports also describe Scarlett as being very close to Blair and  being a “moderniser” within MI6 when he worked there.  (Moderniser = Blairite)

Scarlett’s approach to the Inquiry is essentially keep repeating the mantra “I was placed under no pressure by No 10” whilst conveniently forgetting evidence to contrary.

1.  Scarlett  denied  feeling any pressure from No  10  to  alter   the wording of the Sept 2002 dossier.

2.  The Inquiry’s chief counsel,  James Dingemans QC,  referred  to  an email  sent  by  an (unnamed) member of  Scarlett’s  staff  which  ran: “Unsurprisingly, they [No10] have further questions and answers they want expanded… No 10 wants the document to be as strong as possible…”   Scarlett denied that this was pressure on intelligence services to come up with  something good.

3. Scarlett claimed he found it “quite useful to have presentational advice” from various Whitehall press officers such as John Williams, head of the FCO press office.

4. Alastair Campbell has told the inquiry that with regard to the 45 minute WMD claim,   he had “No input, output  or influence at any stage of the process” . Scarlett contradicted this by admitting that a memo from Campbell on 17 Sept 2003 – seven days  before the dossier was published – amounted to requests for changes such as changing the use may  in the sentence “the Iraqi military may be able to deploy chemical or biological weapons with 45 minutes”. Scarlett  replied the next day to Campbell saying the language had been “tightened”.  Scarlett denied that such changes were more than presentational and fell into the realm of intelligence assessment.

5.  Scarlett received several more emails from Campbell with further suggestions. 6. The 45 minute claim first appeared in an intelligence assessment from MI6 on 30 August and appeared first in dossier in the draft of 5 Sept 2003, ie before Alastair Campbell denies seeing any form of the dossier.

7. In the published dossier the 45-minute claim was unqualified stating that the Iraqi military “are able to deploy chemical and biological weapons with 45 minutes of an order to do so.”

8. Scarlett denied that there had been any dissent  within “the intelligence community” over the dossier  despite the claim by a former JIC head, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, that the dossier had caused “turbulence” within intelligence circles.

9. During his questioning, reference was made to a Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) meeting to discuss the strong terms in which an early draft was  couched.   David Kelly attended that meeting  which  supports  his claim to have inside and detailed knowledge of the dossier  development and the opinion of intelligence officers of the dossier and the way  it was being changed.   Kelly;s involvement at such a high level conflicts with Scarlett’s  claim that Kelly could not have given the information Gilligan claims he gave.

Andrew MacKinlay

1. Mackinlay  was the MP who described Kelly as “chaff” at his  FAC appearance.

2.  MacKinlay defended  his  aggressive FAC questioning  because  Kelly was prevaricating.

3.  MacKinlay described Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon’s  restriction  on what could be asked of Kelly  by the FAC as ” monumental cheek”.

4. He criticised Gilligan’s contact with a FAC member to influence him in his questioning of Kelly.

Sir David Omand

1. Omand revealed that Geoff Hoon had originally wanted Kelly to appear before the Commons  security and intelligence committee in public session, a procedure absolutely out of the ordinary for this committee which almost invariably sits in camera.

2. Omand admitted that the MoD owed Kelly a duty of care as their employee.

What has the Inquiry shown so far?

1.  The complete absence of cabinet involvement in either  the  dossier

or

the Kelly affair before his death.

2. Blair’s utter reliance on an unelected circle of favourites.

3. No  obvious trigger for Kelly to kill himself has emerged.

——————————————–

The Hutton Inquiry day 10 – 27 8 2003

The Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon provided the main entertainment of the day.  Having  arrived  to a crowd of demonstrators  outside  the  Royal Courts of Justice singing “You ain’t nothing but a Hoondog,  lyin’  all the  time”,   Hoon  proceeded  to  unwittingly  engage  in   the   most excoriating  exercise in self humiliation as he comprehensively  denied having  any  meaningful  function within either the Government  or  the ministry of which he is supposed to be in  charge.  His performance can be summed up as “I am a British cabinet minister… I know nothing”.

Others to appear were  a friend and work colleague, Wing-Commander John Clark and a Labour MP, Ann Taylor, who is a member of the Commons Intelligence and Security committee to which David Kelly gave evidence in camera.

Geoff Hoon

1. Hoon said that he had first learned of Kelly’s name on 4 July from Sir Kevin Tebbit, permanent secretary at the MoD.

2. Hoon claimed that he had not wanted to name Kelly before it was certain that he was the BBC source and that was not certain until after Kelly’s death.

3. Hoon said that the only person outside government to whom he had revealed the name was the chairman of the BBC,  Gavyn Davies, and that revelation was

4. Hoon denied he was involved in a proposal by Alastair Campbell to leak  Kelly’s name to the media. Godric Smith gave evidence that he had overheard  a conversation on speakerphone between Campbell  and Hoon in which Campbell suggested leaking to a paper.

5. Hoon denied he had been involved in  the MoD decision to interview Kelly after he had admitted talking to Gilligan.

6. Hoon claimed that the decision to issue a public statement revealing that an unnamed civil servant had been identified as the BBC source was made in Downing St and the Cabinet Office.

7. Hoon denied that as far as he was concerned, “there was some sort of conspiracy, some sort of plan, some sort of plan to covertly make his [Kelly’s] name known [to the media]”.

8. Hoon claimed that he had not seen the instructions issued to MoD press  officers   instructing them to confirm a name if it was  put  to them by the media,  although under questioning  he admitted knowing  of its existence; “I was obviously aware of the advice that I had received that  if the right name was given to the MoD press office  they  should confirm it”.

9. Hoon admitted he had overridden the advice of the MoD permanent secretary, Sir Kevin Tebbit, that Kelly should not give evidence in public before the Foreign Affairs Committee, but, bizarrely, tried to evade responsibility by saying that his private secretary. Peter Watkins,  had written the letter overruling Tebbit, not Hoon himself.

John Clark

1. Clark shared an office with Kelly at the MoD. He is an expert in counter  proliferation and arms control.  He described Kelly  as  being THE EXPERT when it came to understanding Iraq’s WMD status.

2. Clark said  that Kelly  had not, as Downing Street and the MoD claimed, resigned to his name being made public.

3. Clark said that Kelly was much disturbed by having to appear before TV cameras.

4. Clark said that the Kelly’s were  greatly unsettled by  the media attention which forced them to flee to Cornwall.

5. Clark said that even after Kelly’s  appearances before the Commons committees, he [Clark] and other MoD officials were forced to harry

Kelly  with further questions  sent to them by the Foreign Affairs Committee.

6. Clark said that Kelly was utterly thrown by the FAC question about the Newsnight  journalist, Susan Watts, because he had not expected her name to come up.

Ann Taylor

1. Taylor said that in evidence given in camera to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee, “He [Kelly] did describe the dossier as accurate  – as a fair reflection of the intelligence available at the time.” RH

——————————————–

The Hutton Inquiry day 11 –  28 8 2003

The appearance of  Tony Blair and  Gavyn Davies (BBC Chairman)

Tony Blair

Balir arrived with his usual small  army of bodyguards in a bullet-proof car (very wise) and passed a group of demonstrators with a tasteful array of Blair  masks with Pinocchio noses and BLIAR placards.

His evidence is best  summed  up as  “I take full responsibility for everything  but none of it was my fault. ”

1. Blair gave evidence for two and a half hours.  His answers showed he had been intimately involved in the strategy to deal with the Kelly affair after Kelly admitted he had spoken to Andrew Gilligan – Blair convened at least 3 meetings   in four days of senior defence and intelligence staff to deal with the matter.   Compare this with http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=438133

“Just over five weeks ago, on learning of Dr Kelly’s apparent suicide during  an  official  flight  from Shanghai to  Hong  Kong,  the  Prime Minister had  “categorically” and “emphatically” denied he had played a part in revealing  the scientist’s name…

“But the Prime Minister, under questioning, conceded that no one was even  present from the MoD at a crucial meeting on 8 July, chaired by him, in which the decision was taken to issue a statement about a civil servant  coming forward as Mr Gilligan’s contact. He also acknowledged there was no such thing as “normal MoD procedure” in this unusual situation.”

2. Bizarrely, Blair claimed that the MoD had been left in charge of dealing  with  Kelly  while  admitting  that  he  had  been  intimately involved.

3. Blair claimed that Kelly’s name would have come out regardless. This is nonsense. Had Kelly kept quiet, Gilligan would have done and nothing could have been established. Had the MoD and No 10 kept quiet after Kelly came forward (I have my doubts whether he did this – I suspect he was  already  under  surveillance and  suspicion  by  Special  Branch), Gilligan  would  have kept quiet and no one outside  Government   would have known Kelly was involved.

4. Blair said the Sept 2002 dossier was produced after he had spoken with Bush about Iraq and they had decided “something must be done”.

5. Blair had the same  memory lapses as Campbell, Hoon et al. He had no recollection of seeing any draft dossier before  10 Sept. He had no recollection of John Scarlett (JIC chairman) wanting Kelly to be subjected to a “security interview”. He had no knowledge of any scheme to leak Kelly’s name to the media. In fact he could remember precious little of anything which happened.

6. Blair denied categorically that he or anyone else in NO10 had inserted the “45 minutes” notice of biological and chemical attack into the Sept 2002 dossier.

7. Blair said that if the charge of tampering with intelligence, in particular the 45-minute charge,  to justify action against Iraq  had been true he would have had to resign because it was “an attack that went to the heart of the office of prime minister, but also …to the credibility of the country.” (Note to  Mr Velveteen: you must resign immediately because this has been objectively  established).

8. Blair claimed the  dossier did not make the case for war but merely laid out the then position regarding Iraq’s WMDs.

9.  On  four  occasions Blair he said  he  took  “full  responsibility” without saying what it was exactly he took full responsibility for, but claimed  that all the decisions  he was responsible for were the  right decisions:  “I take full responsibility for the decisions…I stand  by them; I believe they were the right decisions.” (I suggest readers have a quick lie down after reading that).

10. Blair admitted he was the first person to  tell someone in Government that  a  source had come forward when he spoke to Gavyn  Davies.  Blair said that he felt that the only way to resolve the dispute with the BBC was for the BBC to issue “a clear and unequivocal# statement that the original story was wrong.

11. Blair was disconcerted by an email sent by Godric Smith, his official spokesmen, to his private secretary, Clare Sumner on 9 July, the day after the MoD had announced it had identified the possible source of Gilligan’s story. . Miss Sumner claimed that she had not opened the email until w/c 18 Aug. The purpose of the email appeared to be to instruct Labour members of the FAC to insist  David Kelly appeared. The text of the email runs:

“In the light of the new evidence from the MoD last night and the BBC’s own statement in response we believe we need to see AG [Andrew Gilligan], RS [Richard Sambrook, the BBC news chief] and source.

“If the individual who has come forward is the same source as the BBC source then we know he is not a senior intelligence source, which we believe could be material to our inquiry.

“”AG  said in answer to John Maples [a tory on the committee]  that  he had  only discussed the WMD dossier with one source before   the  story was  broadcast.  We  now  know from the MoD  statement  that,  if  this individual  is not the source,  that statement cannot be correct.  This too could be material to our inquiry.”

There  was  no indication on the email to whom it had been  sent  apart from Miss Sumner,  but the wording is clearly intended to give the  FAC reasons to call Kelly. Blair denied any knowledge of the  email.

Gavyn Davies

1. Davies apologised for the conduct of Andrew Gilligan in suggesting questions to a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.  The matter  is to be referred to the BBC board of governors.

2. Davies said it was wrong for a journalist to reveal a source of another  journalist’s  work  as  Gilligan  appeared  to  have  done  by revealing Kelly’s link with Susan Watts, the BBC Newsnight presenter, in his email to  a Lib Dem research assistant  who passed the information to Lib Dem MP, David Chidgey. Davies offered a partial excuse for Gilligan’s behaviour by saying that Gilligan was under great pressure and thought the  FAC was trying to discredit him as a journalist.

3. Davies blamed Alastair Campbell for keeping the story running and expanding it with his belligerent appearance before the FAC.

4. Describing his phone call with Blair on 7 July, Davies said that Blair wanted to come to an agreement with the BBC to lower the temperature. This did not happen because the BBC stood by Gilligan.

5. Davies said it was reasonable for the BBC to report a source who was trusted on the basis that it was simply their opinion and not that of the BBC.

6. Davies accepted that Gilligan had made a mistake in his first broadcast  of 29 May when he claimed that the Government  had  inserted the  45-minute claim into the dossier.  Asked by Lord Hutton   why  the BBC had not offered a qualified withdrawal,  Davies replied that it was up to people to make their assessment of what was said.

7. Davies said that Gilligan reporting style was one written in primary colours not in shades of grey.

8. Davies did make a reasonably convincing display of regret at Kelly’s death, unlike anyone on the NuLabcur side to date. RH

——————————————–

WEEK 4

The Hutton Inquiry – Day 12 – 1 9 2003

The  day  was  taken up by David Kelly’s widow,  Janice,  58,  daughter Rachel  and sister,  Mrs Sarah Pope.   Mrs Kelly and Rachel gave  their evidence via audiolink.

Janice Kelly

I.  Mrs Kelly said that it was part of her husband’s job to talk to the media.

2.   Mrs Kelly noticed a change in her husband’s behaviour towards  the end   June – the same time when he began to suspect people  thought  he was  Gilligan’s source.  (It is worth noting that  Kelly’s   subsequent claim  that Gilligan’s report bore little relationship to what  he  had told him  sits ill with the suspicion that he was being fingered as the source.  After all, if he had merely given Gilligan innocuous technical information,  why would Kelly have been suspected or thought himself to be suspected?).  Eventually,  Kelly told his wife  one evening that  he was going for a walk to “think something through”.  Soon after he  made his admission to the MoD.

3.   Mrs Kelly contradicted the claim put out by both No 10,  Blair and the MOD,  that Kelly expected to identified. According to Mrs Kelly the first  he suspected it was when he heard on the TV news of 8 July  that the  MoD  had  admitted that someone had  come  forward  as  Gilligan’s source.   Kelly told his wife at that point that he was the person  who had come forward.

Mrs Kelly asked whether his job or pension were threatened.  Kelly said they could be if things got worse. Note:  Kelly was told before he died that his pension was safe.

4.   On 9 July,  a Sunday Times journalist Nick Rufford  visited  their home.   He  spent  four or five minutes with Kelly  before  Kelly  said “Please leave now”.  Kelly then told his wife that Rufford had told him his name was about to be made public and the media would be  on the way en  masse.    Kelly   then  said  Rupert  Murdoch  had  offered   hotel accommodation   for the Kellys away from the then media if Kelly  would write  an  article for them.  Rufford subsequently wrote up  his  brief meeting with Kelly as a full blown interview.  Kelly commented: “Thanks Nick,  the  MoD will think I have been talking to the  papers  after  I expressly said I wouldn’t.”

5. Mrs Kelly said that the first Kelly had known of his name being made public was when Rufford  told him.   The first he knew of the MoD press statement was after the event.

6.  The MoD then rang and told them to leave in five minutes. They left within ten minutes and went to a hotel in Weston-Super-Mare. At no time did the MoD provide them with any active support.

7.   Mrs Kelly said that her husband had felt “let down”:  “He told  me several times that he felt totally let down and betrayed … by the way the  MoD  had  let his name be known.”  Note:  we  know  from  previous evidence   that the MoD  wanted to keep Kelly’s name out the media  but were overridden by No  Blair.

8.  Mrs Kelly described how, after Kelly’s name came out,   he appeared more and more unhappy and “diminished”. He was not only angry about his “outing”  by the MoD but regarded his description  as a middle  ranking civil servant as demeaning.

9.  Mrs Kelly said that on the day of his death,  17 July,  David Kelly worked  in  study  until the early afternoon.  Mrs Kelly  said  he  was subdued  and looked “wretched”…I just thought he had a broken heart ,  he  had  shrunken  into  himself.    He  couldn’t  put  two  sentences together”.

Note: I wonder if I am alone in finding the evidence of Mrs Kelly and her daughter a little Mills and Boonish?

10.  The police informed her of Kelly’s death on the 18 July and showed her  a photocopy of a knife which she identified as an old  Boy  Scouts knife he had had since childhood.

Rachel Kelly

1.  Rachel  said  that  her  father  was  “really  very,  very   deeply traumatised by the fact that [it] would be televised. It was playing onhis  mind.”    When he arrived at her house the day before he  appeared the  Commons committee  she could “see in his face [that] there  was  a lot of distress and anxiety…  he seemed childlike and I was conscious that our roles had reversed, he needed me to look after him.”

2.  Rachel said that when she saw her father  on 15 July soon after  he had  given his evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs (FAC)  Committee he  was  angry at his treatment describing one of the  MPs  –  probably Andrew MacKinlay who accused him of being a “fall guy” and “chaff” – as “an utter bastard”  for the manner in which he had asked his questions. All  he would say generally about the experience was that it was  “very hard”   and blame himself for memory failures.

3.  Rachel said  that  her father  expressed incredulity at  Gilligan’s report being based on what he had told him. Here we know, from the tape made by the Newsnight reporter, Susan Watts,  that Kelly lied,  just as he  lied to the FAC.   Doubtless he was trying  to create a  protective fictional shell to protect himself, both emotionally and to sustain the story he had told since his admission to his MoD line manager onwards.

3. Rachel described how her father had been rather thrown by the change in his schedule in the Commons.  He was scheduled to appear before  the Intelligence  and  Security  committee (ISC) in camera  before  the  FAC public hearing and had hoped to use the ISC appearance as a dry run for the FAC.  In the event the ISC meeting was put back until the following day  and  Kelly had to go before the cameras with the FAC  without  any “practise”.

Sarah Pope

1.  Mrs Pope said  that David Kelly had,  a  ten years or so after  the event,   given  her  some  sketchy  details  of  his  debriefing  of  a biological weapons expert,  a task Mrs Pope suggested which would  only have been given to someone who was absolutely trusted.

2.   Mrs  Pope pointed to  a possible discrepancy between  the  British Diplomat, David Broucher’s recollection of his meeting with David Kelly at which he said Kelly had claimed that if the Iraq invasion went ahead he would be found dead in the woods. Broucher put this in February 2000.  Mrs Pope said that David Kelly’s diary put it a year earlier.

Further notes

1.  The painkillers found by Kelly were Mrs Kelly’s which she used  for her arthritis.

2.  Judging by a photograph published in the Daily Telegraph on 2 Sept, the  Kellys  own  a substantial detached house.  The  house  is  in  an expensive  area. It must be worth 500,000 plus. Hence, the Kellys were not without assets.

——————————————–

The Hutton Inquiry – Day 13 – 2 9 2003

A  medley of witnesses,  the main among them being Prof  Keith  Hawton, Professor of Psychiatry at Oxford University, Ruth Absolom, a neighbour who met him on his final walk,  Louise Holmes,  a volunteer dog handler in  the  local search and rescue team who found Kelly’s body,  Det  Sgt Geoffrey Webb of Thames Valley Police and Barney  Leith,  the secretary of the emanational Assembly of the Baha’i faith (in Britain).

Prof Keith Hawton

Note:  The kindest and most accurate  description of psychiatry is that it  is  institutionalised quackery.  As the psychologist  Hans  Eysenck never ceased to enjoy pointing out,  psychiatric treatment has no better record  in  curing  those with psychiatric  problems  than  the  simple passing of time,  ie, the evidence is that psychiatrists have no effect and  their claims of cures and alleviations are simply attributable  to the natural process of circumstances changing over time.

1.  Hawton claimed that Kelly’s death was almost certainly suicide:  “I am well-nigh certain.”

2.  Hawton believed the trigger for suicide was Kelly’s  sense of being publicly disgraced,  his fear of losing his job (he was very near civil service   retirement  age)  and the continuing pressure  he  was  being placed  under by the MoD to answer questions,  including  questions  by MPs.   On the day he vanished, he received an email from the MoD asking for  further  information  to answer a question from  the  Tory  Shadow Defence spokesman, Bernard Jenkin, about his links with the media.  Ask by counsel to the inquiry,  James Dingemans,    to describe the factors leading  to his death,  Hawton said: “The major factor was  the  severe loss  of self-esteem  resulting from his feeling that people  had  lost trust in him  and from his dismay at being exposed to the media.”

3.  Hawton said that Kelly had swallowed approximately  30  co-proxamol painkilling  tablets.

Note:  These are meant to his wife’s.  How many tablets did she normally have,  how many were left in the bottle  found by him  and how many would the bottle hold?

4. Hawton said a majority of suicides did not leave a suicide note.

5.  Hawton  claimed  that  a lay person would not  have  been  able  to anticipate Kelly’s suicide from his behaviour.

6. Faced with evidence such as Kelly’s arrangement with his daughter to meet  her on the 18 July and an emails sent at 11.18 am on the  day  of his disappearance which expressed optimism for the future,  Hawton said this pointed to Kelly’s decision to kill himself came late in the  day: “It is my opinion that it is likely that he formed the intention  either during  the morning,  or during the early part of the afternoon  before that walk.”   Dontcha just love the way psychiatrists fit the facts  to

their opinion?

Ruth Absolom

1. Absolom is the last  person known to have seen Kelly alive.

2. Absolom described Kelly as “his normal self”.

3.  “See  you again,  then Ruth”.  The last words of Kelly as  he  bade Absolom goodbye.

Louise Holmes

1.  Holmes said that her dog discovered Kelly shortly after 8am on the day  after his disappearance.   Note: This means the  paradmedics  must have seen Kelly’s body some time later. It is odds on that Kelly  would have killed himself before dark the previous day. If so,  he would have been  dead  for 12 hours or more by the time the  paramedics  saw  him.

Rigor mortis would have begun to set in. Why did the paramedics not see that he was obviously dead and put the ECG pads on him,  if indeed they did?

2. Holmes approached the body until she “stood within a few feet of the body…  He  was  at the base of a tree  with almost his  head  on  his shoulders,  just slumped back against the tree.  His legs were straight in front of his, his right arm was to the side of him, his left arm had a lot of blood on it and was bent back in a funny position.”

Note:  why the “funny” position?

3.  Holmes said that she was convinced the body was Kelly’s and that he was dead.

Note: compare this with the paramedics behaviour.

4.  Holmes checked for signs of life,  found none and the went back  to raise the alarm.  She estimates her time at the scene of death to  have been “probably a couple of minutes”.

5.  A  subsequent  police  search of the scene  revealed  a  flat  cap, glasses,  a wristwatch, a scout knife and a bottle of painkillers.  The police said there was no sign of a struggle.

Det Sgt Geoffrey Webb

1.  Webb interviewed the Kelly family before the body was found.:  “The Kelly family were very upbeat at that time.  They were hopeful that  no harm  had  come to Kelly  and genuinely believed that  perhaps  he  had become ill somewhere.”

Note:  compare this with the evidence yesterday

of Mrs Kelly and Rachel Kelly that David Kelly had been most  disturbed in the days leading up to his death.

2.  Webb told the Inquiry that a photograph dated to 1993 of  Dr  Kelly outside  the  parliament building in Moscow standing with  someone  who looked very like Andrew Gilligan was removed from Kelly’s study.

Note: if  it is Gilligan,  it would mean both Kelly and Gilligan  were  lying about how long they have known one another.  The BBC issued a statement on  Gilligan’s behalf (2 Sept)  saying that Gilligan had never been  in Moscow. No denial from Gilligan himself.

Barney Leith

1.  Leith  said that there was nothing in the Baha’i faith to encourage suicide.

Other notes

1.  Kelly was authorised to speak to the media but in theory only  with official permission.

2.   Kelly  began  “using  his  discretion”   to  speak  without  prior permission,  with the unofficial agreement of his bosses.  According to a  letter from one of Kelly’s line bosses, Patrick Lamb,  this  worked well until the past year, with Dr Kelly telling the Foreign Office (FO) press office about his   contacts after the event. By the beginning  of 2003  Kelly began talking to journalists without telling the  FO.   The MoD also complained that they were not in the picture.

3.  Kelly was only supposed to give technical information or  objective details about individuals engaged in the WMD world, ie,  what their job was.  Section  6  of  the  MoD personnel  manual,  under  the  heading “Principles governing disclosure of information” the manual states “You must  not  comment  on,  or  make  disclosure  of:  classified  or  ‘in confidence’   information;   relations  between  civil   servants   and ministers,  and  advice given to ministers,  politically  controversial issues…information that would conflict with MoD inter-state or  bring the  Civil Service into disrepute…anything that the MoD would  regard as objectionable about individuals or organisation.”  As the  Newsnight reporter, Susan Watt’s tape showed, Kelly had gone way beyond this.

4.  It follows from 3. that Kelly  clearly lied to his superiors in the MoD, the two Commons Committees he gave evidence to and his family.  It also  explains  why he was so disturbed the Foreign  Affairs  Committee member,  Andrew MacKinlay,  pressing him on his other contacts with the media.

5.  Kelly  denial of meeting another journalist,  Gavin  Hewitt,   also comes into the category of a lie.

6.  Kelly was receiving no medication from his GP,  who had very little contact with him in the past few years. No history of depression.

7.  An  unopened  letter  from the MoD’s  head  of  Personnel,  Richard Hatfield containing an official reprimand was found in Kelly’s home. It was sent some days before Kelly’s death. The police opened the letter.

——————————————–

The Hutton Inquiry – Day 14 – 3 9 2003

The  Inquiry  heard  evidence from Brian Jones,  the  recently  retired assistant  director  (nuclear,  chemical  biological)  in  the  Defence Analysis staff and a Mr A (The names A,  James A).  a chemical  weapons analyst  who  was  to chemical weapons what  Kelly  was  to  biological weapons.

Brian Jones

1. Jones said that David Kelly provided expert advice to his staff. He, Jones, had a friendly relationship with Kelly.

2.  Jones  said that the term WMD had become a  “convenient  catch-all” and that it was difficult describe most chemical and biological weapons were dubiously described as such.

3. Jones described disquiet within  his staff and other people involved in  intelligence gathering at the  way  the information supplied to  No

10   had  been  used.   He  described  the  use  of  the  material   as “over-egging”, ie the material was not invented but overemphasised.  As a regular visitor to the department, Kelly was aware of the disquiet.

4.  Jones said that reservations amongst his staff were not  heeded  by the JIC and left out of the dossier.   Jones said of   Mr A (see below) that    “He  was  very concerned that some of  the  statements  in  the dossier did not accurately represent his assessment of the intelligence available to him.”

5. Jones was so concerned at this failure to accept expert opinion that he  wrote  a  formal memo to the MoD’s  Defence   Intelligence  Service putting his disquiet on the record.

6.  Jones  contradicted  Alastair Campbell’s claim  that  he  had  only suggested presentational changes to the dossier.   He  said some of the changes  suggested by Campbell to John Scarlett,  the chairman  of  the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC),  such as the  successful request to strengthen  the  word  “may”  in the  45-minute  claim,  were  normally discussed  between intelligence staff:  “These are the kind  of  things which  we spend  hours  debating.  They are  very  important  in  this business.  The use of a might or a may does convey some uncertainty  in the information you are trying to present.”

7. Jones said that when he went on holiday in 2002  work on the dossier lacked urgency.  When he returned from  holiday on 30/8/02 he found the mood  had changed and it was all hands to the dossier wheel.  “”One  of the  first  things  that  my staff told me was  that  the  dossier  had suddenly become very active and that they had been very busy working on it,  looking at several drafts and responding to drafts in a very short timescale. It really had dominated their workload.”

8.  Jones said that Kelly was one of the first people he  saw  when  he returned from holiday. He asked Kelly his opinion of the dossier. Kelly said he “thought it was good”.

9.  Asked by James Dingemans, chief counsel to the inquiry, whether the extra  workload  had causes complaint amongst  his staff,  Jones  said: “There  was  certainly higher pressure than we normally relate  to  any particular  single piece of work.  My staff were being pressed  to  get their comments back to the assessment staff very quickly indeed.”

10.   Jones  said  neither  he  nor  his  director  had  seen  the  new intelligence  which  supposedly  backed up  the claim   that  Iraq  was producing  chemical and biological weapons.

11.   Jones said the 45-minute claim would have been acceptable to  him with the qualification “intelligence indicates”.

The  executive  summary  to the dossier said  that   the  weapons  “are deployable”. Jones  thought that was  “too strong.”

12.  Jones said he was aware that people within No 10’s  communications department were making suggestions about the dossier. Under  questioning  by Mr Dingemans, admitted that  pressure  had  been brought to bear by No 10.

13. Jones said that to the best of his knowledge the final draft of the dossier had not been discussed by the JIC.

Mr A

1. Mr A said he was a friend of Kelly.

2.  When he read the draft dossier  for the first time Mr A  concluded:  “There were errors of detail and errors of emphasis in my view.”

3.  Mr A was most disturbed by the inclusion of a chemical plant at  Al Qa’Qa which he did not view as a WMD threat.   Mr A was so disturbed by this  inclusion  that  he emailed Kelley on Sept,  the  day  after  the publication of the dossier saying”:  You will recall [blank – who  he?] admitting they were grasping at straws.  Another example supporting our view   that you and I should have been more involved in this  than  the spin  merchants  of this administration. Let’s hope  it  [the  dossier] turns into tomorrow’s chip wrappers.”

Further points

The  evidence  of  Jones and Mr A are utterly at odds with  the  No  10 version  of disquiet over the use of intelligence.    Blair  and  Straw before  the Foreign Affairs committee (FAC)  have denied  categorically that  they  were  aware of any dissent  from  within  the  intelligence services,   while   Alastair Campbell  told the FAC that   “I  remember being  called  out of a breakfast with the Prime  Minister  and  Polish prime  minister  because  I  had to speak  to  John  Scarlett  just  to absolutely  double/triple  check  there was nothing in  this  idea  the intelligence  agencies  were somehow unhappy with the  way  we  behaved during  the thing.  John said,  ‘Absolutely.  It is complete and  utter nonsense and you can say that with my  authority.'”

Scarlett  told  the   Inquiry a week later:  “I was not  aware  of  any unhappiness within the intelligence community about the contents of the dossier and the judgments we were making in it.”

However,  such denials are a little difficult to square with John Reid, the  then leader of the Commons, saying earlier this year that   “there have been uncorroborated briefings by a potentially rogue element –  or indeed  rogue  elements – in the intelligence services…  “I  find  it difficult to grasp why this should be believed against the word of  theBritish  Prime  Minister  and  the  head  of  the  Joint   Intelligence Committee”.

——————————————–

The Hutton Inquiry – Day 15 – 4 9 2003

A  short  day  – Lord Hutton ended the  proceedings  around  1pm.   The Inquiry is now adjourned until 15 Sept. The main players in the abbreviated day were Richard Taylor,  a special adviser  to the Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon,  and The  journalist  Tom Mangold and   a UN arms inspector Olivia Bosch.

Richard Taylor

1.  Taylor said that Kelly was never told his name would be made public in the way it was made public.  Note:  This raises questions about  the truth  of Hoon’s claim that he had never seen the document  instructing MoD press officers how to react to media questions.

2.  Taylor  revealed that Geoff Hoon,  chaired a meeting on 9  July  at which  the  decision to confirm Kelly’s name to journalists  was  made. Hoon  failed  to mention this meeting in his evidence.  Others  at  the meeting were Pam Teare, MoD director of news, and Peter Watkins, Hoon’s permanent secretary.

3. Taylor said that the decision to put Kelly’s name in a letter to the BBC  chairman,  Gavyn  Davies,  was made  at  the  same  meeting.  This contradicts Hoon’s claim that it was Jonathan Powell, chief of staff at No 10, who had made the decision.

4.  Taylor  confirmed  the  name of Kelly  to  a  journalist  from  the Financial Times later in the day (9 July).

5.   Taylor agreed with James  Dingemans, chief counsel to the inquiry, that  he  had never previously confirmed a civil servants name  to  the media in such a manner.

Tom Mangold

1. Mangold used Kelly extensively in preparing his book Plague Wars. He knew Kelly well.   He described Kelly as a “Decent honourable and  well informed man”.

2. Mangold related a conversation he had with Kelly about the 45-minute claim:  We  gossiped  about the 45-minute claim because  I  thought  it seemed risible to me.” Kelly agreed that it was risible and “He [Kelly] did not think that the weapons could be deployed or activated within 45 minutes.”

3.  Mangold  said that identifying Kelly as Gilligan’s source  was  not that  hard  for those interested in the subject because “It is  such  a small  world,  the biological weapons world, and there aren’t many  UK inspectors …I only know four or five. Of those, only he [Kelly] spoke to the press.”

4.   Mangold  emailed  Kelly  before  his  name  was  public  knowledge suggesting  he  might  be Gilligan’s source,  suggesting  it  might  be “Someone i know and admire.”  Kelly replied: “Tom.  Thanks.  Not a good time to be in communication.”

Olivia Bosch

1. Bosch is a former Unscom inspector who got to know Kelly well during that   work.    She  currently  works  for  the  Royal   Institute   of international Affairs and has dealings with the MoD.

2.  Bosch  related  a conversation she had had  with  Kelly  about  his meeting  with Gilligan on 22 May 2003:  “He [Kelly] said he  was  taken aback by the way Andrew Gilligan tried to elicit information from  him. I said:’Yes,  but that is what journalists do.’ But he said that he had never  experienced it in the way that Gilligan had tried to do so by  a name game.”

3.  That “name game”,  Kelly said,  consisted of Gilligan putting names for him to confirm or deny. The first name was that of Gilligan.  Kelly claimed that he merely said “Maybe”.

Note:  this directly  contradicts Gilligan’s  account which has Kelly mentioning Campbell’s name off  his own  bat.  As  Kelly has been shown to be a  liar  before  the  Foreign Affairs  Committee,    and  we  have  the  evidence  of  the  Newsnight journalist  Susan  Watt’s tape in which Kelly mentions  Campbell,   the odds  are  he  lied  to  Bosch  and  was  simply  trying  to  create  a psychologically comfortable version of what happened.

4. Bosch claimed to have had daily conversations with Kelly in the days leading up to his death, during which up to his death.

Note: a possible relationship  between the two?  He mentioned that his pension  and  job might be affected.

We know that Kelly had been told his pension was  safe  before  he died and that he was only months  away  from  the normal civil service retirement age of 60.

5.  Bosch said that Kelly had told her that the question of his  naming had  been raised at in meetings with MoD and that he had been asked  to comment  on  the  press  statement  before  its  release.

Note:   this contradicts  Janice  Kelly’s evidence that Kelly had told  her  he  had assurances  that  his name would not be made public and  that  he  knew nothing  about  the  press release until a few minutes  before  it  was released.   The possibilities that Kelly was either a pathological liar or more probably a man driven to systematic lying by pressure,  have to be considered.

Lord Hutton’s closing statement

1.   Hutton will now spend the next week digesting the evidence to date and  deciding  which  witnesses  should be  recalled  and  whether  new witnesses should be called.

2. Whether witnesses are recalled or not will not be evidence of itself of whether Hutton intends to criticise them in his report.

3.  Hutton has written privately to those witnesses whom at this  stage he intends to criticise.  If they accept his criticism they will not be ecalled unless there is a specific reason for doing so,  eg to clarify a point of fact.  Witnesses who wish to dispute criticism will be given the chance to do so by being recalled.

4.   Hutton stressed that he might well change his view of a particular witness between now and the end of the enquiry depending on what  fresh evidence was given.

Other points

1.  Documents released yesterday included  minutes of a Cabinet  Office meeting  on 18 Sept 2002.  The first item in the minutes is  under  the heading  “Ownership of the dossier”.  It states “Ownership lay with  No 10”.  This contradicts the Joint Intelligence Committee  chairman  John Scarlett’s  claim that ownership of the dossier lay with him until  the approved final text was handed over by him on 20 Sept 2002.

2.  The  minutes were not supplied to the Inquiry when  the  Government  submitted  its  original papers.  A covering note by  the  Government’s solicitors  stated  that  it  was  not  included  because  it  was  not considered “relevant”.

Summary of the four weeks

The first phase of the inquiry is now complete.  What are we to make of it?

1.  It is important to realise the limitations placed on the Inquiry. Hutton  does  not  have the power to compel witnesses  to  appear  or documents to be disclosed. The  documents  released by  No 10, the MoD et  al  are  only what they are prepared   to  release.    Think  how different  it would be if this was a police investigation  with   the power  to  enter premises and seize whatever documents  and  computer equipment they  alighted upon.

2.  The other  serious restrictions are  the fact that witnesses  are not compelled to give witness statements or give their oral  evidence under  oath.  This greatly increases the ability of witnesses to  lie and evade because the witness knows that they cannot be charged  with perjury.   Nor can they be held in contempt.

3.  The absence of  the oath also has had an important  side  effect. The  inquiry  has taken over the  function of the  coroner  and  will perform the inquest on Kelly. This means that unlike a normal inquest the evidence relating to his death will not be taken under oath.

4. Hutton’s hands may have been tied in the matter of oaths,  calling witnesses and seeking documents,  but I also think he has handicapped the inquiry by deciding that the first stage would  be inquisitorial, ie,  witnesses would be allowed to tell their story with a minimum of questioning.

5.  It  is all very well to get people  to  commit  themselves  first before  trying  to  pick  holes in  their  story,  that  is  standard interrogation technique. But it is necessary to pick holes as soon as possible  after the telling of the story to prevent the person  under interrogation being given time to think about what they have said and to  fabricate a defence of any weak points.  Hutton has  allowed  the witnesses ample time to do just that.  The question is why did Hutton decide on this way of conducting the inquiry?

6.  The other administratively weak point so far has been the failure to call people from No 10 who were involved with the dossier but  are further down the pecking order than the likes of Campbell and  Godric Smith.  Subordinates will often panic in such circumstances and spill the beans.

7.  Finally,  apart from John Scarlett,  there was a curious lack  of intelligence  witnesses.  In particular why was the head of  MI6  who gave evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee on the day of  Kelly’s disappearance (17 July), not called?

When  the inquiry resumes,  cross-examination will be allowed.  Counsel not only for the inquiry but for the government,  the BBC and Mrs Kelly (and possibly others) will be allowed to into the proceedings. RH

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The Hutton Inquiry phase 2 – week 5

Day 16 – 15 9 2003

Phase 2 of the inquiry will allow cross-examination by  counsel for the government, BBC, MoD, Mrs Kelly and others,  eg representing the various witnesses. Apart from James  Dingemans QC, counsel for the inquiry, Jeremy Gompertz QC  will appear for the Kelly family, Andrew Caldecott QC for  the BBC, Heather Rogers, QC, for Andrew Gilligan and  Jonathan Sumption QC for the government. All will be paid  for, one way or the other, by the taxpayer – Mrs Kelly’s  legal expenses are being covered by the taxpayer, while the  BBC is using licence payers’ money to pay their own and  Gilligan’s legal expenses. God alone knows what the cost  will be.

Before witnesses were called counsel for the inquiry, James  Dingemans, outlined the manner in which matters would be  handled. From this statement it is clear that the  cross-examination will be tightly controlled and that the  inquiry will attempt work to a strict timetable, although the  timetable could be breached if Hutton thinks it necessary.  The suspicion must be that any really awkward questions for  the government will suddenly be discovered to be “not  relevant” to the inquiry and cross examination on them  forbidden.

The weakness of the general structure of the inquiry –  information gathering first, followed by a long gap before  cross-examination is obvious, giving as it does plenty of  time to prepare defences to weaknesses or contradictions in a  story.

The people to be recalled will include Alastair Campbell,  Geoff Hoon and John Scarlett (chairman of the Joint  Intelligence Committee) but not Blair. It is possible but  improbable that he could be yet called if further information  is unearthed in this stage of the inquiry suggest he should  be recalled, eg if evidence is brought forward which  contradicts what Blair has said or points to his direct  involvement in something relevant and damaging.

The fact that Blair has not be recalled to be cross-examined  despite the ample evidence that he had a central role in  deciding what to do about Kelly and the BBC is a strong

pointer to the way Hutton will approach the writing of his  report – unless some really dramatic and unambiguous evidence  is unearthed fingering Blair, I predict it will  criticise the likes of Hoon, Campbell and the BBC, but say  nothing about Blair.

The witnesses

The main entertainment of the day was provided by the head of  MI6, Sir Richard Bingham Dearlove, and the Director General  of the BBC, Greg Dyke. Supporting roles came from Tony Cragg,  former deputy chief of defence intelligence, and Sir Joe  French, the chief of defence intelligence.

Sir Richard Dearlove

1. “C” as Dearlove is known (I will leave readers to imagine  what the “C” stands for), gave evidence as a disembodied  voice over an audiolink.

2. Dearlove was not cross-examined – he could in theory be  recalled for it. This points to one of the great weaknesses  of inquiry, its disjointed nature. Dearlove should have been  called in the first stage of the inquiry and then, if he was  to be recalled, cross-examined yesterday before the recalled  witnesses reappear. That would have given the inquiry the fullest information to tax the likes of Campbell with when  they are cross-examined.

3. The appearance by Dearlove is (I think) the first occasion  where such a senior intelligence officer has given evidence  in public. His appearance, together with the considerable  amount of MI6 data made public gives the lie to the claim  beloved of all British governments that security data must be  kept secret. In fact, the vast majority of it, and especially  the analysis, could be made public with no damage to agents  and sources.

4. Dearlove criticised Kelly for having unauthorised contact  with the media declaring himself horrified to discover what  Kelly had done, describing it as a severe disciplinary  breach.

5. Dearlove defended the “45-minute” single source claim,  saying it was from a strong source and that much of  intelligence was “single-sourced”. The original source was  claimed to be a senior Iraqi officer (a brigadier) whose  statement was reported by another Iraqi source.

6. Dearlove denied having any knowledge of dissatisfaction about the dossier within the intelligence services.

7. Dearlove accepts, with the benefit of our old elite friend  “hindsight” , that the “45-minute” claim might have been both  misinterpreted by some as referring to long range weapons and  have been given too much prominence in the dossier.

Tony Craig and Sir Joe French

1. Craig and French admitted they ignored the concerns of  two members of their staff. They also disclosed under  questioning that the concerns went beyond those two, Dr Brian Jones and MR A, a memo of 16 Sept 2002 objecting to the  passage on Iraq’s chemical and biological capacity at that  time as “too strong”.

2. Cragg said that he had not passed on his staffs’ doubts  because he thought they had been resolved at a meeting between  Defence Intelligence Service staff, Cabinet Office officials  and MI6. Consequently, the doubts were never passed to John  Scarlett and the JIC.

3. French supported Cragg and attempted to play down the  significance of the staff who had objected, a rather  difficult thing to do considering the positions they held and  the work they did.

Greg Dyke

1. Dyke adopted the “I am in charge of the BBC; I know  nothing” as a general tactic.

2. Dyke admitted he had not heard Gilligan’s broadcast or  read a transcript of the broadcast until weeks after it was  broadcast – he read a transcript on 5 July 2003.

3. Dyke said that he had been on holiday at the time of the  Gilligan broadcast and he was not really aware of any great  difficulty until after Gilligan and Campbell had appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee.

4. Asked by James Dingemans how many times a BBC journalist  had given evidence to a Commons select committee in recent  years, Dyke said “I do not know”.

5. Dyke said he believed Alastair Campbell’s general attack on BBC news reporting was pre-planned and that he heightened  the tension by writing to Richard Sambrook, head of BBC News.

6. Dyke said, with our old elite friend hindsight in close  company, that he should have ordered a full investigation  of the matter before responding to Campbell.

Other points

1. A document released by the inquiry headed “Note for the  record”, stated that the writer of the note, the BBC chairman  Gavyn Davies, had been told by an unnamed MP that Alastair  Campbell had hardened up the dossier. The MP claimed an MI6 official had told him this.

The Hutton Inquiry phase 2 week 5

Day 17 – 16 9 2003

A rather quiet day with Martin Howard, the deputy chief of  defence intelligence at the MoD, Kate Wilson, MoD chief press  officer, Nicholas Hunt, pathologist and Det Con Graham Coe,  the first policeman on the scene.

Martin Howard

1. Howard prevented the views and doubts of Dr Jones (A  Defence Intelligence Analyst staff scientist) and those of Mr  A (a chemical weapons specialist) from being presented to the Intelligence and Security Commons Select Committee  (ISC). Asked by Caldecott why  this had been done Howard  replied: “My feeling was that this dealt with internal  correspondence in the DIS [Defence Intelligence Service]  which happened last September… it would not be appropriate  to reveal what was internal correspondence to the ISC.”

Note:  feeble in the extreme. The whole point of the ISC meeting in  public is that it can hear anything.

2. Eventually, after Kelly death, Howard did supply the  information to the ISC. Asked why, he admitted it was simply  due to the establishment of the Hutton Inquiry.

4. Questioned by Gompertz about the procedure for confirming  Kelly’s name to the media, Howard said that he thought  Kelly’s name would have come out regardless of the MoD  procedure, which he justified on the grounds that it allowed  the MoD to be avoid telling a direct lie. He also pointed out  that the failure of Kelly’s name to come into the public  realm would have led to others being suspected by the media.

Gompertz suggested that the MoD was “playing Russian roulette  on Kelly”. Howard unsurprisingly did not agree.

Kate Wilson

1. Wilson denied Andrew Gilligan’s claim that he had warned  the MoD of the story before it was broadcast.

2. Wilson denied that clues to Kelly’s identity had been  given to the media by the MOD.

3. Wilson denied of how the Q and A MoD material was altered.

Nicholas Hunt

1. Hunt described five cuts to the left wrist, with one,  presumably the last, cutting the main artery. Other cuts were  tentative according to Hunt. In Hunt’s opinion the nature and  development of the cuts was consistent with a normal  suicide’s pattern.

2. Hunt said that the overdose of painkillers hastened the  death, as did the hardening of the arteries.

3. There were no signs of a struggle on the body.

4. Hunt described the removal of the watch and spectacles as  also typical of suicide.

Note: The only problem with this  argument is that the first cut or cuts to Kelly’s wrist were  made while, apparently , the watch was still on – blood was  found on the strap.

5. Hunt said that the type of private spot in which Kelly was  found was “often favoured by people intending self-harm”.

Graham Coe

1. Coe found Kelly’s body lying on his back by a large tree:  “I saw blood around his left wrist. I saw a knife like a  pruning knife and a watch.”

Note: how difficult would it be  to cut the artery with such a knife?

2. Coe said that no other part of the body was bloodstained.  The body was fully clothed, wearing a Barbour jacket,  trousers and cap. A small water bottle was nearby.

Other points

1. Friction between the BBC Governors and BBC management is  reported. In particular a Governor Dame Pauline Neville Jones  apparently believes the BBC management  “betrayed” the  Governors . Dame Pauline has denied that she has said this.

The Hutton Inquiry phase 2 – week 5

Day 18 – 17 9 2003

The day was dominated by Andrew Gilligan, Richard Sambrook  (head of BBC News) and Richard Hatfield, director of  personnel at the MoD.

Andrew Gilligan

1. Before his cross examination, Gilligan made a number of  admissions which removed much of the potential venom from his  cross examination.

2. Gilligan admitted making a mistake in his initial  broadcast (at 6.07am) when he claimed that the government had  probably known the 45-minute claim was false. However, by  7.32am the wording had been changed from “wrong” to  questionable”.

Note: this is an unnecessary admission because  it is a reasonable conclusion from both the political  circumstances surrounding the dossier and what we now know  from the disclosures to the inquiry, that Campbell and Blair  had every reason to doubt the intelligence.

3. Gilligan apologised for his description of Kelly as a “intelligence service source:”It was not intentional, a kind of slip of the tongue. It is something that does happen in  live broadcasts. It is an occupational hazard.”

Note: This is a reasonable apology – Kelly should have described as  long the lines of “a source familiar with the preparation of  the dossier and the intelligence community”.

4. Gilligan apologised for sending an email to a member of  the Foreign Affairs Committee:”It was quite wrong to send it.  I can only apologise. I did not know for sure that David Kelly was Susan Watt’s source. I was under enormous pressure  at the time, I was simply not thinking straight so I really  want to apologise for this.”

5. Questioned by Mrs Kelly counsel, Jeremy Gompertz, Gilligan  denied that he had suggested the name of Campbell (or any  other name) to Kelly and insisted Kelly had come up with the  name off his own bat. Gilligan pointed out that he had  mentioned Kelly’s name to Susan Watts, the Newsnight  journalist, as well.

6. Gilligan directly contradicted Kate Wilson, MoD chief  press officer, who had claimed that Gilligan had given  neither her or anyone else in the MoD advance notice of the  story. Gilligan said that he had told the MoD the night  before the story went out to enable them to brief Adam  Ingram, Armed Forces minister.

Richard Sambrook

1. Sambrook said that Gilligan was a reporter who painted in  primary colours rather than more subtle shades. Good at  finding stories, weaker on presenting them.

2. Sambrook criticised Gilligan for not giving Downing  Street an opportunity to respond to allegations.

3. Sambrook said that the story should have been checked by  lawyers before it was broadcast but was not checked.

4. Sambrook denied he had given clues to Kelly’s identity  during a lunch at the offices of the Times newspaper.

5. Sambrook said that he had not know about Gilligan’s email  to the FAC committee member until it was revealed to the  inquiry. He described it as improper.

6. Richard Hatfield

1. Hatfield directly contradicted Mrs Kelly’s evidence that  the MoD had shown every consideration towards Kelly and  protected him as well as any employer could be expected to defend an employee. “The MoD gave outstanding support to Dr  Kelly”.

2. Hatfield said that Kelly had no power to veto the release  of his name to the media and had “not specifically discussed”  with Kelly the plans for naming him.

The Hutton Inquiry phase 2 – week 5

Day 19 – 18 9 2003

Richard Hatfield (MoD head of personnel) and Andrew Gilligan  continued their evidence. Pam Teare (MoD chief press officer)  and William Wilding (computer expert) were the main items on  the menu.

Richard Hatfield

1. Hatfield claimed that Kelly had only himself to blame for  becoming exposed to public scrutiny , because he was guilty  of a very serious disciplinary breach.

2. Hatfield criticised Kelly for failing to prepare his wife  for the media interest which he, Hatfield believed, must  have known would happen if his name became public.

3. Hatfield admitted that Kelly had not been told that he had  been identified to the media for two and a half hours after  it had happened.

4. Hatfield claimed that Kelly had been warned 24 hours in  advance of the press statement that it was to be made.

5. Hatfield admitted that no counselling had been arranged  for Kelly.

6. Hatfield said that had he known that it would come to an  inquiry such as this one, he would have asked Kelly if he was  happy to have his name given out.

7. Hatfield said with hindsight he would have instigated  disciplinary proceedings against Kelly.

Pam Teare

1. There were three versions of the Q and A drawn up by  Teare for MoD press officers if they were challenged on the  question of Kelly’s (then unknown to the media) identity.  The first refused to identify him, the second allowed him to  be named only after he had been contacted by the MoD, the  third allowed his name to be disclosed without contact.

Teare said the various drafts were simply a “work in  progress.”

2. Teare gave more details of a meeting she had with Geoff  Hoon, Defence Secretary. She said that contrary to his  denials, Hoon might have seen a copy of the Q and A briefing.

3. Teare denied having discussed with Alastair Campbell the  naming strategy. Confronted with Campbell’s diary entries  which said they had discussed it, she accepted that she had.

William Wilding

1. Wilding appeared on behalf of Gilligan. He had examined  Gilligan’s personal organiser in which he had made notes of  his meeting with Kelly on the 22.

2. Wilding found two versions of the notes, one dated 21 and  one date 22 May. Wilding said that judging by other files he  had examined the date setting on the organiser was out by a  day .

3. Of the two versions of Kelly’s file with his notes, the  earlier did not contain the name Campbell, the later version did.

Andrew Gilligan

1. Gilligan explained the two versions of the notes as being  made at the same time and the second version being what Kelly had agreed to Gilligan using for his report. He denied he had created the second file on the following day of his  meeting with Kelly. Note: Even if the organisers date setting  was a day out of kilter the only way that Gilligan could  have created the two files on the same day with different dates is if the organisers date change from the 21 to the 22 came during his meeting with Kelly. Rather improbable.

2. Gilligan remained adamant that Kelly had been the one to  mention the name Campbell first during his conversation with Kelly.

The Hutton Inquiry phase 2 – week 6

Day 20 – 23 9 2003

The defence secretary Geoff Hoon and Alastair Campbell were  back for cross-examination.

1. Hoon admitted approving the strategy to confirm Kelly’s  identity to the media and accepted that the strategy helped  the media to identify Kelly. He was not drawn on why he had  changed his evidence from his previous appearance.

Note: that  tells you what a farce this “inquiry” is.

2. Hoon’s change of evidence came after the publication of  extracts from Alastair Campbell’s diary which contradicted  his earlier evidence.

3. Hoon’s admission of responsibility for the strategy is the  first admission of responsibility for it.

4. Hoon said that he had overruled the Mod permanent secretary, Sir Kevin Tebbit, when it came to naming Kelly, but justified this on the grounds that civil servants merely  advised.

5. Hoon denied knowledge of the clues given to the media by Tom Kelly, the PM’s spokesman, to direct them to Kelly.

6. Despite the admissions, Hoon claimed that everything had been done “to ensure that Dr Kelly was properly supported.”

7. Hoon claimed that steps had been taken to keep Kelly’s name from the public and said that he had only revealed Kelly’s name to the BBC chairman, Gavyn Davies, in a private  letter.

8. Hoon denied that there was any Government policy to “out”  Kelly.

9. Hoon admitted allowing the country to falsely believe that  it was at risk from long-range weapons of mass destruction, a  misapprehension circulated by the media. Asked why he had  not corrected this misapprehension, he replied:”I have spent many years trying to persuade newspapers and journalists to correct their stories – – it is an extraordinarily  time-consuming and frustrating process.”

Note: an absurd  excuse in this reason as most of the media would have been only too anxious to point out weaknesses in the case to go to war.

Alastair Campbell

1. Extracts from Campbell’s personal diary contradicted his  and others previous evidence. They show that Campbell wanted  Kelly’s name out in the public sphere (“The biggest thing  needed…was to get the source out), that Kelly was to be  used as a weapon in No 10’s fight with the BBC and that, contrary to Blair’s claim, Kelly was coached by senior MoD officials before he went before the ISC and FAC Commons committees.

2. Campbell’s diary made clear the hysterical state he was in during the affair. He wrote of establishing Kelly as the  source to “f**k Gilligan up”. He also wrote of wanting a clear victory not a messy draw.

3. Campbell’s diary reported Sir Kevin Tebbit (Mod permanent secretary) as saying that Kelly was “a bit of a show off”.

4. Hilariously, Campbell’s lawyer tried to massage these highly damaging passages away by claiming that “The diary records Mr Campbell’s immediate reactions, which are not necessarily the same as the views he will take after a little time has passed fro reflection.” This is nonsense when it comes to the recording of facts rather than opinion. The sooner the writing after the event, the more accurate. Courts recognise this, treating contemporaneous notes and notes made shortly after an event by the likes of the police and the Revenue as of prime importance as records of fact.

5. Campbell was questioned again about his influence over the  dossier. Before the FAC Campbell claimed he suggested 10  changes, but in written evidence to the inquiry he admitted to 16. Campbell told the inquiry that he had not mentioned  the other six to the FAC because they merely “ironed out an inconsistency”.

6. Campbell insisted that his suggestions were merely  presentational and that John Scarlett (chair of the Joint  Intelligence Committee) was in control of the dossier.

7. Campbell denied that the 45-minute claim was an influential part of the dossier during the preparation of the dossier.

8. Campbell said that Blair would have resigned if it was shown that the dossier had been “sexed up”.

9. Campbell’s diary entries showed Blair to be arguing against extending the battle with the BBC and urging that the MoD deal with Kelly. Note: when were the diaries written?

The Hutton Inquiry phase 2 – week 6

Day 21 – 23 9 2003

Tom Kelly (Blair’s official spokesman), Godric Smith (No 10  press officer) and John Scarlett (chairman of the Joint  Intelligence Committee – JIC) were recalled for  cross-examination.

Tom Kelly (TK)

1. TK was questioned further on his description of Kelly as a “Walter Mitty” character at a private briefing with journalists. TK claimed he could not recall the conversation related by Paul Waugh of the Independent and claimed Waugh had “misunderstood him” both in terms of whether the briefing was off the record and what he intended when he described Kelly as a Walter Mitty. TK claimed any reference to Kelly as “Walter Mitty” was merely raising a possibility, ie was Kelly exaggerating.

2. TK apologised again for using the term “Walter Mitty”.

3. An email from Jonathan Powell (Blair’s chief of staff) suggested that Kelly was a “rogue element”. Questioned by the Kelly counsel, Jeremy Gompertz, as to whether Kelly was regarded as a rogue element by No 10, TK replied: “categorically not.”

Godric Smith

1. Questioned on the Alastair Campbell diary extracts showing that Campbell wanted to use Kelly to damage Gilligan Smith said: “I think there is a qualitative difference between a desire for something to happen and actually taking concrete steps to make it happen.”

John Scarlett

1. Scarlett admitted that he had changed a passage in the dossier at the suggestion of Jonathan Powell (Blair’s chief of staff). A memo from Powell – sent 45 minutes after the deadline for comments on the final draft – pointed out that the dossier as it stood implied that the threat from Iraqi WMDs would arise only if an attack on Iraq was carried out. Scarlett removed this reference claiming the change” was as a result of the exercise of my professional judgement, not the intervention of Downing Street” and that he had changed the dossier after going “back to the intelligence assessments” and finding that the original comment was not justified. (Ho,ho).

2. Scarlett was also questioned further on the changes requested by Alastair Campbell, particularly the change of “may be deployed” to are deployable” in the claim that Iraqi MDs could be deployed within 45-minutes. Scarlett denied the changes were anything other than intelligence driven: “In one way or another, all these points had a presentational angle to them, the question of clarity of language and the way things were expressed. At no point did I feel that there was a an attempt to question the editorial judgement or the intelligence judgement.”

3. Scarlett admitted that no final meeting of the JIC took place before the dossier was finally agreed. Scarlett said that such a meeting was not necessary because any member of the committee could have raised objections to the final draft and none did.

4. Contradicting his evidence in the first phase of the inquiry, Scarlett admitted he knew of concerns within the intelligence community about the dossier but said that he believed they were dealt with before publication of the dossier.

5. Questioned on the BBC’s counsel, Andrew Caldecott, about why battlefield weapons had been allowed to be described as WMDs, Scarlett said that they were WMDs. He was unable to explain meaningfully how these battlefield weapons could have threatened British bases in Cyprus or why the media misrepresentation of the weapons had not been corrected by the government.

Other points

1. When is Jonathan Powell to be re-questioned? He keeps popping up as the main mover after Campbell in this matter.

2. Kelly’s dental records disappeared from his dentist’s shortly after his death. The records turned up in the cabinettwo days later. The police said they could find no signs of a

break-in.

The Hutton Inquiry phase 2 – week 6

Day 22 – 24 9 2003

Gavyn Davies (BBC chairman) and Bryan Wells (Kelly’s line manager at the MoD), Nick Rufford (reporter on The Sunday Times), Keith Hawton (professor of psychiatry at Oxford) and Patrick Lamb (Kelly’s contact at the foreign office) were recalled.

Gavyn Davies

1. Davies admitted that the Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, had tried to stop the BBC governors publicly criticising editorial managers for their handling of the Andrew Gilligan story.

2. Davies based his defence of the Board of Governors robust stand against the government because “We were faced with such an unprecedented attack on our integrity. I think it was  perfectly reasonable for me to take the view that the public would look to the governors to stand up for the independence of the BBC.”

3. Pressed on why the Governors did not directly investigate what Gilligan had been told by his “source”, Davies said that the governors had been reassured by the BBC’s director of news, Richard Sambrook, that the source was credible and that Gilligan stood by his story. Davies made the point that the governors were not there to duplicate the work of the management and to have interfered directly over Gilligan would hav duplicated the work.

4. Davies said that several Governors wished to stop BBC journalists writing for the newspapers.

5. Davies claimed the Governors were all tough minded and independent figures who would not be bullied by the Government.

Note; The Board of Governors is the routine run of the great and the good.

Bryan Wells

1. Wells retracted evidence he had given when he appeared in the first phase of the inquiry. Wells said it was not true, as he had claimed, that Kelly had been warned at an early stage that his name might be made public. This possibility was not raised until Kelly’s second MoD interview on 7 July 2003 and even then, according to Wells, his naming was not treated as inevitable.

2. Wells informed Kelly that his name was to made public in a 46 second telephone conversation between Wells and Kelly – the call was made while Wells was travelling on a train. Wells claimed that Kelly took the news without expressing concern. This contradicts Mrs Kelly’s evidence of Kelly’s response to the news.

3. Questioned by counsel for the inquiry, James Dingemans, Wells said that Kelly was not involved in discussions about how his name might emerge. This contradicted the head of personnel at the MoD, Richard Hatfield’s evidence.

Nick Rufford

1. Asked about the offer of Murdoch newspapers to pay for the Kelly’s to go to a hotel, Rufford said: “It was a light-hearted context – when we met for a drink or a meal, Dr Kelly would always want to ensure that I did not pay personally and would say ‘Is this on Mr Murdoch?'”.

Keith Hawton

1. Asked for further comments on Kelly’s possible motive for suicide, Hawton said “I think one major factor was the immense loss of self esteem that he had from feeling people had lost trust in him and from his dismay – maybe that is an understatement – of being exposed to the media.”

Note: A weak piece of armchair psychology to say the least. In fact, the inquiry has signally failed to show any plausible cause for him to commit suicide when it is born in mind that he knew that his pension was safe, his daughter was about to be married, he was getting a good deal of private support from friends and colleagues and had a crippled wife to look after.

Patrick Lamb

1. Kelly had wanted Lamb to accompany him to the FAC hearing but he had had to refuse because Kelly was under MoD control.

Further points

1. Kelly’s 1985 vetting report contained a note that Kelly’s mother probably committed suicide in the 1960s.

The Hutton Inquiry phase 2 – week 6

Day 23 – 25 9 2003

Officially the final day of the inquiry, although Sit Kevin Tebbit, permanent secretary at the MoD, is slated to give further evidence after the inquiry has formally closed. 22 days of evidence and 70 witnesses.

The day was taken up by the various QCs, all paid for by the taxpayer in one way or another. They were: James Dingemans QC, counsel for the inquiry, Jeremy Gompertz QC will appear for the Kelly family, Andrew Caldecott QC for the BBC, Heather Rogers, QC, for Andrew Gilligan and Jonathan Sumption QC for the government.

James Dingemans

1. Dingemans said that Kelly had stepped into a maelstrom when he admitted his contact with Andrew Gilligan to his MoD superiors.

2. Dingemans said the inquiry must address the question of whether Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell had crossed the line of presentation to “making a case”.

Jeremy Gompertz

1. Gompertz said that Kelly had been used as a political pawn by the Government:”This was a cynical abuse of power which deserves the strongest possible condemnation.”

2. Gompertz accused the Government of failing to support Kelly and his managers at the MoD of displaying “a total lack of care”.

3. Gompertz accused the Government of misdescribing Kelly “to suit the needs of the hour, as a middle ranking official…”

4. Gompertz contrasted the Government’s We have made no mistakes or blunders approach with that of the BBC which had admitted mistakes.

5. Gompertz described the claim of Richard Hatfield (MoD head of personnel) that Kelly had received “Outstanding support” as “risible” if the events were not so serious.

6. Gompertz rejected strongly the idea that Kelly was the agent of his own misfortunes.

7. Gompertz claimed that Kelly had not committed a disciplinary offence. Note: this is simple nonsense. He had undoubtedly breached the MoD confidentiality code and arguably had committed a criminal offence under the Official Secrets Act.

8. Gompertz characterised the denials of Government use of Kelly to discredit Gilligan, including Blair, Campbell and Geoff Hoon, as “hypocrisy”@ “It was out of the question that

the Prime Minister should have no say in a document for which he had to be personally responsible to Parliament.”

9. Gompertz referred to an email received only yesterday and hence too late to be used in cross-examination. The email was dated 9 July and was sent by Hoon’s private secretary, Peter Watkins, to Mrs Wilson in the MoD press office. Part of it read: ” Jonathan Powell has separately suggested to the S of S [secretary of state, Mr Hoon] that we should simply name our man [Kelly], but left the decision to Mr Hoon who has not yet reached a final view.” This document showed again Hoon’s lack of candour to the enquiry. Note: Powell cropping up yet again.

Andrew Caldecott

1. Caldecott said that the BBC admitted mistakes had been made in the reporting but stood by the essential truth of the report.

2. Caldecott said that the public had the right to know about Kelly’s concern about the dossier. Caldecott said the BBC

defended its right to broadcast Kelly’s concerns absolutely,

3. Caldecott pointed out that concerns about the dossier had been justified by the evidence given to the inquiry.

4. Caldecott stressed that only the MI6 head, Richard Dearlove, had expressed concern about the way the public were mislead over the nature of the 45-minute claim, ie that it referred to battlefield weapons: “The reaction of Mr Hoon and Mr Scarlett borders on cynical indifference. The Government’s failure to correct is wholly indefensible.”

Heather Rogers

1. Rogers said that Campbell and Geoff Hoon behaved like “playground bullies” in their pursuit of Andrew Gilligan.

2. Rogers said the extracts from Campbell’s diaries showed a desire to “get even” with Gilligan.

3. Rogers pointed out that Gilligan had admitted errors in his initial reporting, but the story was true in its main substance, ie that serious unrest amongst intelligence bods existed: Andrew Gilligan will ask this inquiry to consider that he was right to talk to Dr Kelly, he was right to ask about the dossier, right to regard what Dr Kelly said was worth reporting and right to report it.”

4. Rogers said the concentration on Gilligan’s initial reporting was distracting form the main issue, the nature of the dossier.

Jonathan Sumption

1. Sumption said that Kelly had no right to anonymity because he was a civil servant. This is pedantically true, but it is a convention that civil servants are not put in the public fold except in exceptional circumstances such as permanent secretaries reporting to Commons committees. I think it would  be impossible to find a precedent for Kelly’s treatment. Normally politicians are only too glad to “protect” their civil servants because they are afraid of what the civil servants may reveal about politicians’ bad behaviour.

2. Sumption claimed that Kelly had known since 4 July that his name would probably be made public.

Note: This clashes with evidence given by Brian Wells, Kelly’s MoD line manager, yesterday, that the matter was not discussed with Kelly until his second interview of 7 July.

3. Sumption claimed that Blair, Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell had every reason to comment on the dossier for reasons of “basic constitutional principle.”

Note: Oh yeah?

4. Sumption defended Alastair Campbell’s memo suggesting 16 changes to the dossier as points amounting to “proof reading”.

5. Sumption dismissed the dissent of the likes of Brian Jones, a senior analyst, and Kelly as unimportant because they did not have access to the underlying intelligence material.

Note: As Jones and Kelly were the technical experts, one might think they had a better understanding of the weapons than any ordinary intelligence officer.

Note:

1. No calling of the women who converted Kelly to the Baha’i faith.

2. No recalling of Jonathan Powell.

3. No recalling of Blair.

Operation Eleveden, Tom Harper, The Independent and the censoring of elite criminality

Robert Henderson

On 11^th July 2013 I met the  journalist Tom Harper  who works for the Independent. I was introduced to him by the lawyer  Mark Lewis who has represented many of the phone-hacking victims.

The meeting was to discuss Operation Elveden’s refusal to investigate my complaints about  Piers Morgan  and Jeff Edwards receiving information from the police in circumstances that can only be illegal, Morgan and Edwards’ perjury before the Leveson Inquiry and the failure of the police (led by then Det Supt Jeff Curtis) to investigate my original complaints against Morgan and Edwards; this  despite my supplying them with a letter from Morgan to the PCC in which he admits the Mirror received the information from the police. The details of my dealings with Elveden are at  (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/operation-elveden-piers-morgan-et-al-the-dpp-advised-of-elvedens-refusal-to-investigate/).

We spent more than an  hour together. Our discussion expanded beyond Operation Eleveden  to the refusal of the Leveson Inquiry to call  me as a witness or use any of the information  I supplied to the Inquiry (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/the-leveson-inquiry-the-blairs-the-mirror-the-police-and-me/).  From there it went to the Blairs’ attempts to have me prosecuted and the use of Special Branch and MI5 to keep me under surveillance after failing to do persuade the  CPS to sanction an investigation of me.  (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/when-tony-and-cherie-blair-tried-to-have-me-jailed/) That in turn led to the story attached to the publication in Wisden Cricket Monthly  of my article  Is it in the blood?  in 1995. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2013/01/19/is-it-in-the-blood-cmj-and-the-hypocrisy-of-the-media/)

During our conversation I supplied Harper with a good deal of material and the next day I emailed him with the other information he requested such as the responses to my  Data Protection Act requests to Special Branch  and MI5. ( The major evidence is listed in my first email to Harper reproduced below.)  Thus Harper  had all the information he asked for by 12^th July.

Throughout our  meeting Harper was very enthusiastic about the material I gave him and the story I had to tell.  At the end of the meeting he said he was definitely going to run the story and wanted to do so quickly.

I rang Harper on 12 July and asked what was happening. He was still adamant the story was going to be used soon. I asked whether it would come out that  weekend . Interestingly, he responded in panicky fashion by asking me if I was going to offer the story to someone else. I assured him I had no plans to do that but did need some action soon. Harper promised to come back to me when publication was scheduled.

A week later I still had not heard from him. When I tried to ring him I always went to voicemail. I left messages but got no reply. Eventually on the 22^nd July I emailed him and copied the letter to Mark Lewis. That shamed him into action and I received the email from him which I reproduce below.

Harper’s email is utterly at odds with both his behaviour at our meeting and the phone call of 12^th July. My further email to him reproduced below deals with this transmutation of his attitude.  Harper did not reply to this email.

The most plausible explanation for his change of heart is that he has been leant on by someone in a position of authority, most probably his editor.  Whatever the reason, Harper can be added to the list of journalists and broadcasters who have censored the stories I have to tell, all of which are by any standard of prime public interest.

———————————————————————————–

From: robert henderson [mailto:anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk]

Sent: 22 July 2013 16:00

To: Tom Harper

Subject: I need to know your intentions Tom

Tom Harper

The Independent

22 7 2013

Dear Tom,

I have given you gratis  at least four  major stories:

1. The Blairs misuse of the security services against me

2. Unshakeable evidence of Piers Morgan’s illegal receipt of information from the police.

3. The failure of the police to twice investigate the Mirror’s illegal receipt of information.

4. Leveson’s corrupt behaviour in failing to call me as a witness or using  any of the evidence I supplied to him including the Piers Morgan letter – see below.

Most importantly, I have not simply asserted these things happened. Instead  I have given you absolute proof that they happened by supplying you with, amongst other things:

a) Piers Morgan’s letter to the PCC admitting he received information from the police in circumstances which can only be illegal.

b) A tape recording of Det Supt Jeff Curtis of Scotland Yard promising to interview Morgan and Edwards, something he failed to do.

c). My correspondence with Operation Elveden showing their utter refusal to investigate my complaints against Morgan, Edwards and Jeff Curtis despite the fact that they had cast iron evidence of the alleged offences.

d) Correspondence with Special Branch and MI5 relating to my use of the DPA which demonstrated (1) they held data on me and (2) there was data that the y refused to release. This despite the fact that the CPS ruled the Blairs’ complaints against me as “NO CRIME” within hours of receiving the papers from Belgravia police.

e) A copy of the Belgravia Police report on the Blairs’ complaint which clearly showed the “No Crime” ruling.

f) Correspondence between the Met Police and me relating to the Belgravia Police report. This shows (1) that I managed to get the report significantly changed using the DPA and (2) that the Blairs had referred to me as “an irritant like Henderson”, a distinctly sinister phrase  from a man who was on the brink of becoming PM.

When we met You assured me that you were going to use the information and that it would be used quickly. You have now had the information the better part of two weeks,. No story has appeared and my attempts to contact you by phone have proven fruitless.  I need to know ASAP whether you intend to use the story and if not why you have changed your mind.

All political ills flow from censorship and most particularly censorship of the misbehaviour of the powerful.   Milton put it beautifully:  ‘And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose upon the earth, so truth be in the field [and] we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter…’ [Areogapitica].

Only those who are uncertain of their case ever wish to suppress information and argument.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

—————————————————————————————-

From: Tom Harper <T.Harper@independent.co.uk>

To: robert henderson <anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk>

Sent: Monday, 22 July 2013, 16:10

Subject: RE: I need to know your intentions Tom

Dear Robert,

Apologies for the delay in responding to you. I have been tied up with other stories that were on the go before I met you.

I have reviewed the information now. I am very grateful to you for taking the time to come and meet me and show me your dossier.

However, I do not think I can use it for a news story in The Independent.

I do not doubt that what happened back in 1997 was wrong, inhuman and had a deleterious effect on your health. I am truly sorry you had to go through those awful experiences.

But I do not think the information you have provided proves the stories that you say. Although it is mildly embarrassing that Morgan has admitted The Mirror got the info from a police source, there is no suggestion any money changed hands. That is the allegation that would create my “top line” – and it is flawed.

I know you will strongly disagree and I am sorry about that. But if you read some of my past work, you will see I am not afraid of having a pop at the police and/or the press and I am not being censored. I just do not think the evidence stacks up in quite the way you suggest.

However, I do think that some of it could be used as background material for a wider piece, but sense you want to try and get maximum impact so I would suggest approaching other journos.

Thanks very much for meeting up with me and good luck.

Warmest regards,

Tom

——————————————————————————————-

From: robert henderson <anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk>

To: Tom Harper <T.Harper@independent.co.uk>

Cc: Mark <mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk>

Sent: Monday, 22 July 2013, 16:53

Subject: Re: I need to know your intentions Tom

Dear Tom,

Your response literally makes no sense. You had the all information by the end of our meeting. Your attitude throughout our meeting was very enthusiastic. Not only  that but you promised me you would be using the story. You said the same when I spoke with you  a week ago. Now suddenly you pretend it is no story. Do you honestly imagine, Tom, that any disinterested third party would believe that you have rejected the story because it is not of great public interest?  If you had run it not only would it have brought down  Piers Morgan and several senior police officers, but it would have put the Blairs in a very awkward position.

I will address the particular point of Piers Morgan letter. I explained the relevant law to you during our meeting. Whether or not Morgan, Edwards or any other Mirror employee paid for the information is irrelevant to whether a criminal offence was committed.  The offences of misconduct in a public office, conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office, breaches of the DPA and   breaches  of the Official Secrets Act  (there is a reciprocal offence for those knowingly  receiving material in circumstances covered by the Act regardless of whether they had signed the Act – the police do sign the Act)  were committed. Conspiracies to commit the other offences could conceivably also be brought. You will recall that Damien Green was investigated for conspiring  to commit misconduct in a public office in 2009 (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-misconduct-in-public-office-1669922.html).  Of course, the odds are that the Mirror did pay for the information and that needs to be investigated as well.

As for Jeff Curtis and Operation Elveden, a failure to investigate an alleged serious crime when there is clear evidence of it constitutes a perversion of the course of justice.

You have thrown away a most tremendous story. I will not speculate here as to why, but I think we both know why.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

Operation Elveden, Piers Morgan et al: the DPP advised of Elveden’s refusal to investigate

Keir Starmer (DPP)

Rose Court

2 Southwark Bridge

London

SE1 9HS

Tel: 020 3357 0000

CC

Alison Saunders Chief Crown Prosecutor (London)

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe (Met Commissioner)

Commander Neil Basu (Head of Operation Elveden)

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith (Operation Elveden)

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

John Whittingdale MP

Sir Gerald Howarth MP

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

25 July 2013

Dear Mr Starmer

I have been copying you in to a complaint I submitted to Operation Elveden in January this year. I have done this because my previous experience with the Met persuaded me that they cannot be trusted to behave honestly when complaints involve those with power, wealth and influence.   I enclose below my complete correspondence with Operation Elveden for your convenience.

There is a considerable scandal in the way Operation Elveden has responded to my complaints. Put simply they have been rejected without any investigation despite the evidence I provided being exceptionally strong.

The complaint  included a cast-iron case against Piers Morgan when editor of the Daily Mirror of receiving information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal.   The evidence I provided was just about as conclusive as you could wish: a letter from Piers Morgan to the PCC . In it he writes “The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect…”  I attach a copy of the letter in facsimile.

There is also conclusive evidence against the Mirror’s erstwhile Chief Crime Reporter of having  received information from the police illicitly  and prima facie grounds for believing Morgan and Edwards committed perjury under oath at the Leveson Inquiry when they were questioned about receiving information from the police illegally.  Finally, there is  the complaint against ex-Det Supt Jeff Curtis of Scotland Yard  for perverting the course of justice and misconduct in a public office  by failing to investigate the Mirror when the complaint about Morgan and Edwards’ illegal receipt of information was first submitted to the Metropolitan police.  This again is open and shut because Curtis failed to question Morgan and Edwards or examine the Mirror  accounts for evidence of payments  to the police officer who supplied the information referred to in Morgan’s letter to the PCC. He did this despite promising me that he would be interviewing Morgan and Edwards – provided Operation Elveden of a tape recording of Curtis making this promise.

The full details of  my complaint to Elveden can be found in the next  document down which is addressed to  the Deputy Assistant Commissioner  Steve Kavanagh on 21/1/2013.   Operation Elveden’s refusal to act (written by  Detective Inspector Daniel Smith)  and my response to that are the two last pieces of  the Operation Elveden correspondence below.

I am writing directly to you because this is a who shall guards the guards situation.  There is no point in my going to the Met to complain because they are the organisation about which I am complaining.

 Nor is there any point in my making a complaint to them about criminal behaviour arising from the failure of Operation Elveden  to investigate the clearest evidence of serious criminality. Consequently, I ask you to intervene to ensure that my original complaints and the criminal aspect of Operation Elveden’s refusal to investigate are properly investigated.

This has already been dragging on far too long so prompt action please.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

To

Deputy Assistant Commissioner  Steve Kavanagh

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

(Tel: 0207 230 1212)

                                                                                                                                       21 January 2013

CC Gerald Howarth MP

      Keir Starmer (DPP)

      mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

Dear Mr Kavanagh,

I submit conclusive evidence that (1) the editor of a national newspaper  received information from the  police illicitly and (2) when questioned under oath at the Leveson Inquiry committed perjury by denying that he had ever received information illicitly from the police.

Piers Morgan

The editor in question is Piers Morgan when he edited the Daily Mirror.  The evidence of his receipt of information is beautifully simple: he admitted this in a letter to the PCC dated  16 October 1997 in which  he wrote “The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect”.  If the information had been given legitimately there would be no reason for protecting the source.   Nor, because no charges were laid or investigation made, could there have been a legitimate reason  for releasing  the  information. A copy  of the letter is enclosed.

The  letter was sent to me after I complained to the PCC about a dramatically libellous article Morgan published about me on 25 March 1997  (copy enclosed).  The illicit information related to complaints made about me by Tony and Cherie Blair to Belgravia Police  in March 1997. I had written to them seeking their help and,  when they refused, I circulated copies of my letters and  the replies I received to the mainstream media at the beginning of the 1997 election campaign. The Blairs did not go to the police when I sent the letters, only after I circulated them to the media.  The  complaints  had so little substance  that they were dismissed by the CPS with the ruling “NO CRIME” within a few hours of them  being submitted to them for guidance by Belgravia Police.

The odds must be heavily on the  Mirror having paid for the information because it is difficult to see what other motive  a police officer would have for  releasing such information.  However, by accepting information illicitly from the police, whether or not money was paid, offences relating to Misconduct in a Public Office and  the Official  Secrets Act were committed, both by the police officer and Mirror employees including Morgan.  If money was paid by the Mirror to the police officer,  further offences arise under  the laws relating to corruption.

The evidence of Morgan’s  perjury before the Leveson Inquiry is contained in the copy of my submission to the Inquiry informing them of the perjury dated 22 December 2011 which I enclose.

I ask you to investigate both Morgan’s receipt of illicit information from the police and his perjury before Leveson.

Jeff Edwards

In addition to Morgan’s perjury, the Mirror reporter who wrote the story about me, their then  Chief Crime Reporter Jeff Edwards, also committed perjury before the Leveson Inquiry by denying ever receiving information illicitly from the police.   The details are included in the copy of my submission to the Inquiry informing them of the perjury dated  25 March 2012 which  I enclose .

As Edwards was the reporter who wrote the story to which Morgan referred in his letter to the PCC, he must have been the person to whom the police officer referred to in Morgan’s letter gave the illicit information.

I ask you to investigate Edwards for his receipt of illicit information from the police and his perjury before Leveson.

The original police failure to meaningfully  investigate my complaint

In 1997 I made a complaint about the illicit supply of information about me by the police to the Mirror. The case was handled by Detective Superintendent Jeff Curtis of Scotland Yard .  No meaningful investigation was undertaken because, as Det Supt Curtis eventually admitted to me during a phone call, the  “investigation” was ended without anyone at the Mirror being  interviewed; not Morgan, Edwards or anyone else.   I enclose my final letter to  Det Supt Curtis dated 2 December 1999, Det Supt A Bamber’s reply to that letter 13 December 1999 and the PCA’s letter dated November 1999  refusing  to investigate further. This again is self-evidently absurd because of the  failure to question Morgan and Edwards.

I ask you to investigate Ian Curtis for perverting the course of justice by failing to investigate conclusive and incontrovertible evidence of  a serious crime.

 Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

————————————————————————————————————————————

To

DC Paulette Rooke

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

(Tel: 0208  )

                                                                                                                                       29 January 2013

CC Gerald Howarth MP

      Keir Starmer (DPP)

      mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

Dear DC Rooke,

As we have not been able speak as yet I will try to expedite matters by ensuring that you have the basic details and by describing what I would like to happen.

The crimes committed

The evidence I have supplied leaves  Piers Morgan and Jeff Edwards  with no wriggle room. There is the letter from  Morgan to the PCC admitting that he received information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal;  Edwards as the writer of the Mirror article must have been the recipient of the information and both Morgan and Edwards objectively committed perjury by denying receiving information from the police illegally whilst under oath before the Leveson Inquiry. Det Supt Curtis is condemned by his wilful refusal to interview Morgan, Edwards or anyone else at the Mirror after my initial complaint.  (I have him on tape promising to interview Morgan et al during my initial meeting with him).

The political dimension

The complaints I have submitted to Elveden are part of a larger scandal which has deep political ramifications. The general scope of these can be seen from  the Early Day Motion put down on my behalf by Sir Richard Body on 10 November 1999:

CONDUCT OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR SEDGEFIELD 10:11:99

 Sir Richard Body

That this House regrets that the Right honourable Member for Sedgefield [Tony Blair] attempted to persuade the Metropolitan Police to bring criminal charges against Robert Henderson, concerning the Right honourable Member’s complaints to the police of an offence against the person, malicious letters and racial insult arising from letters Robert Henderson had written to the Right honourable Member complaining about various instances of publicly-reported racism involving the Labour Party; and that, after the Crown Prosecution Service rejected the complaints of the Right honourable Member and the Right honourable Member failed to take any civil action against Robert Henderson, Special Branch were employed to spy upon Robert Henderson, notwithstanding that Robert Henderson had been officially cleared of any illegal action.

This motion is now part of the official House of Commons record – see  http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=16305&SESSION=702

I bring this to your attention because it was the political dimension which prevented me from  getting any redress for complaints I made to the police  following the publication of the Mirror story. My experience from 1997 to 2007 when Blair retired was of being in  a Kafkaesque world in which,  despite being subjected to harassment which ranged from death threats and an internet campaign which incited violence against me by posting my address on social media sites  to regular interference with my post, I was unable to get the police to investigate meaningfully any of the complaints which arose from the Mirror’s involvement and the  harassment which followed.  You have a classic example in the failure of Jeff Curtis to investigate the Mirror despite having Morgan’s letter admitting to receiving police information.

That my complaints caused  considerable concern to the police because of their political nature can be seen from the number of senior officers who got involved in complaints of crimes,  most of which  would normally be investigated by a Det Sergeant or a Detective Inspector at most.   At various times I dealt with the following:

Det Chief Supt Tony Dawson – The Met’s Internal Investigations Command

Dept Supt Jeff Curtis

Chief Supt John Yates

Chief Supt Eric Brown

Supt Cliff Hughes

Supt Alex Fish

Chief Inspector Julia Wortley

Chief Inspector Ian West

Det Chief Inspector Stephen Kershaw

Despite their involvement no one was ever  charged, unsurprising as no complaint was meaningfully investigated.  I also met with the same obstruction from the CPS.

Documents passed to Holborn police

The documents I  passed to PC G James 423EK and PC L Scully 471EK  from Holborn police station were:

1.Piers Morgan’s Letter to the PCC date 16 October 1997  in which he admits receiving information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal.

2. A copy of the Daily Mirror  story about me dated 25 March 1997 which produced the complaint to the PCC  which caused  Morgan to write the letter in which he admitted receiving information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal.

3. Copies of the then director of Presswise Mike Jempson’s correspondence on my behalf with the PCC relating to the Mirror story dated 23 December 1997, 9 January 1998, 20 January 1998, 18 February 1998, 2 March 1998.

 4. My evidence to the Leveson Inquiry of  Morgan ’s perjury dated 23 December 2011

5. My evidence to  the Leveson Inquiry of Edwards’ perjury dated 25 March 2012

6. My original submission to the Leveson Inquiry dated 25 November  2011

7. Sir Richard Body’s Early Day Motion 10th November 1999 which dealt with the general context of the events surrounding the Mirror story  with the role of the Blairs at its heart.

8. A copy of my Wisden Cricket Article Is it in the Blood? (from the July 1995 edition). It was my gross mistreatment by the mainstream British media after the publication of the article that led me ultimately to write to the Blairs asking for their assistance after all other available avenues of redress had failed me .

9. A copy of my final letter to  Det Supt Curtis dated 2 December 1999, Det Supt A Bamber’s reply to that letter 13 December 1999 and the PCA’s letter dated November 1999  refusing  to investigate further

10. A letter addressed to the new head of Operation Elveden Deputy Assistant Commissioner  Steve Kavanagh dated 21 January 2013.  A copy of this is below.

I attach copies of 1,4,5,6 and my final letter to Jeff Curtis (see 9)  in digital form.

What I would like to happen

The first step would be for the two of us to have a long talk about this. Because of the political ramifications I would also  like to meet DAC Steve Kavanagh .

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

——————————————————————————————

Flag this messageOPERATION ELVEDENMonday, 25 February, 2013 11:10

From: “Paulette.Rooke@met.police.uk” <Paulette.Rooke@met.police.uk>View contact detailsTo: anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk

Mr Henderson

I write out of courtesy just to let you know that I am still looking into your recent correspondence with this office.

 I hope that you will receive a reply in the next couple of weeks.

 Yours sincerely

Paulette Rooke

DC PAULETTE ROOKE

JUBILEE HOUSE PUTNEY, 230-232 PUTNEY BRIDGE RD, London SW15 2PD

Internal  58526  External  020 8785 8526

Mobile 07771 553043 (office hours)

————————————————————————————————————————————–

To

DC Paulette Rooke

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

CC

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Gerald Howarth MP

Keir Starmer (DPP)

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

26 February 2013

Dear DC Rooke,

Thank you for your email of 25 February. It is now a month since I passed  my complaints  to Operation Eleveden.  I really do think an early meeting between you,  me and a senior officer from Operation Elveden (preferably Deputy Assistant Commissioner  Steve Kavanagh)  would be fruitful.

I have provided Operation Eleveden with conclusive evidence of  Piers Morgan and  Jeff Edwards’  receipt of information illegally from the police and of their perjury before Leveson.     Consequently, most of the investigatory work needed to bring charges has been completed.  Apart from the admin involved in  getting the cases to court, all that remains to be done is to interview Morgan and Edwards and to inspect the Mirror’s  records and  Morgan and Edwards’ private papers to see if information relating to payments for the information exist.  I really cannot see what obstacle there is to proceeding with an investigation.

 Morgan will not be able to deny the offence because to do so would put him in the absurd position of saying he had not written the letter, that he had no knowledge of it being sent and that the whole thing was done by someone else.  That would be ridiculous if it was just a letter sent without any outside stimulation, but this letter is sent in response to a letter from the PCC.  Morgan would have to argue that a correspondence initiated by  the PCC had proceeded without his knowledge even though the Mirror side was made in his name.

Even without the letter it would be clear that the police had illegally  passed information to the Mirror.  Information in the story could only have come from the police. In addition  Jeff Edwards’ story contains this:   ‘A Scotland Yard  source  said: “By sending letters in a very unpleasant tone the writer has committed an assault. ’ Special Branch, who organise protection for MPs have been informed of the situation”.   Just for the record my letters were deemed entirely legal by the CPS within hours of their receipt.  It was a try-on by the Blairs.

I have spoken to Edwards once. That  was on the morning of the publication of the Mirror story. When he discovered who he was speaking to he panicked immediately.  I think there is a good chance that when confronted with the evidence of Morgan’s letter  he will simply come clean.  I have never spoken to Morgan,  but I would draw your attention to the fact that he has behaved recklessly and dishonestly in the past, most notably in his fabrication of a photos of soldiers  when Mirror editor , something which caused his sacking. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/may/14/pressandpublishing.iraqandthemedia). Reckless people tend to be careless and impulsive. Always a plus when an investigation is under way.

My complaint against Det Supt Jeff Curtis is also straightforward. The fact that he did  not interview anyone at the Mirror despite having Morgan’s letter to the PCC can be verified by checking the Met’s case notes.

If the Mirror received  information from the police illegally in my case, it is not unreasonable to suspect that this was a widespread  practice within the Mirror group. Investigate my complaints and you will almost certainly find evidence of other instances.  There is also the advantage for the Met in investigating the Mirror because it shows they are not merely concentrating on the Murdoch papers.

I would greatly welcome a meeting in the near future.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

———————————————————————————————————————————-

OP ELVEDENFriday, 22 March, 2013 10:51

From: “Paulette.Rooke@met.pnn.police.uk” <Paulette.Rooke@met.pnn.police.uk>Add sender to ContactsTo: anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk

Mr Henderson

I have been asked by my Inspector to ascertain if you have any new evidence with regard to your allegations against those mentioned in your correspondence.

Yours sincerely

Paulette Rooke

ADS PAULETTE ROOKE

JUBILEE HOUSE PUTNEY, 230-232 PUTNEY BRIDGE RD, London SW15 2PD

Internal  58526  External  020 8785 8526

Mobile 07771 553043 (office hours)

Total Policing is the Met’s commitment to be on the streets and in your communities to catch offenders, prevent crime and support victims. We are here for London, working with you to make our capital safer.

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————————————————————————————————————————-

To

DC Paulette Rooke

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

CC

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Gerald Howarth MP

Keir Starmer (DPP)

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

24 March  2013

Dear DC Rooke,

You ask in your email of 22 March whether I have any new information relating to the accusations I have made.  The short answer is no. However, having listened  again to the tape recording I made of my interview with Det Supt Jeff Curtis I shall be sending you a copy of that for the reasons given below in paragraph 4.

Happily  you do not need any further information to begin investigations into Piers  Morgan, Jeff Edwards and Det Supt Jeff Curtis. In fact, I think any disinterested third party would be rather surprised that the investigations  have not  already begun, bearing in mind that you have a letter sent to Morgan to the PCC in which he admitted that the Mirror had received information from a police officer in circumstances which can only have been illegal.

The reason the crimes  (apart from the accusations of perjury before Leveson) were not meaningfully investigated when I made my original complaints is beautifully  simple: corrupt practice by the police prompted either by the Blairs’ involvement in the story and/or a known or suspected corrupt relationship between Metropolitan Police officers and the Mirror (and other press and broadcasters).

The corrupt nature of the way my complaints were handled is exemplified  by Jeff Curtis’ failure to interview anyone at the Mirror even though he had the letter from Piers Morgan to the PCC.   Curtis told me this in a phone call and you can verify that this is the truth by looking at the original case notes. The tape recording of my meeting with Jeff Curtis is important because in it he says he will  be going to the Mirror, says the case revolves around Morgan’s admission and says it is a straightforward case.  The recording was made with Curtis’  knowledge and agreement.  The fact that he knew he was being recorded is significant because it removed the possibility from his mind of saying something to me thinking he could deny it later. Clearly something  irregular  happened between him leaving me and starting the investigation. It is reasonable to suspect he was leant on by someone even more senior not to investigate the Mirror.  That the police never interviewed anyone at the Mirror also means that the Mirror accounts and the journalistic records kept by Edwards  and Morgan (and perhaps others) were never scrutinised for evidence of payments to the police.  All in all, this is   a very obvious perversion of the course of justice.

The events to which the these crimes relate are 15 years old,   but that is irrelevant to whether they should be investigated now, both because of the serious nature  of the crimes and the fact that those I allege against Morgan and Edwards  were not investigated meaningfully when they were first reported. Nor is there any problem with a lack of compelling  evidence  because of the time which has elapsed. In the case of Morgan and Edwards you have  Morgan’s letter to the PCC and the Mirror story, while  Curtis’ perversion of the course of justice speaks for itself. Moreover, although it is 15 years since the events, the age of fully computerised accounts had arrived  before 1997 and   it is probable that a copy of the Mirror accounts  for the period is still held in digital form. The same could  apply to journalistic records held by Morgan and Edwards or other Mirror employees or freelances.  I know from my use of the  Data Protection Act soon after the Mirror published the story that the paper was holding information about me  which they refused to release under the journalistic purposes provision of the DPA. They may well be still holding it.

As for the perjury accusations against Morgan and Edwards, these are very recent complaints about crimes recently committed which have never been previously investigated.   You have the information you need to investigate the perjury because I have supplied you with the Morgan letter to the PCC, the Mirror story about me and the transcripts of the relevant passages in the evidence given by Morgan and Edwards before Leveson.

Apart from the killer fact of Curtis’ failure  to interview anyone at the Mirror and a consequent failure to investigate the Mirror’s records, the circumstances of that failed investigation and of other complaints I made at the same time provide very  strong circumstantial evidence that my original complaints against Morgan and Edwards were not  treated  normally.  For example, why was a Det Supt from Scotland Yard  investigating crimes  which would normally be investigated by a Det Sergeant or just possibly a Det Inspector?  To that you can add the array of senior police officers  (the details of which I  sent to you in my email of 29^th January) who became involved in my various complaints at one time or another,  despite the crimes being of a nature which would normally have been investigated by  policemen of lesser rank.   The only reasonable explanation for their involvement is the political circumstances surrounding my complaints.

There are two scenarios which fit the receipt of information by the Mirror from the police.  The first is straightforward: a police officer, possibly of senior rank because of the Blairs’ involvement, has sold the information to the Mirror for mere personal gain.

The second scenario is more complex. It involves  a senior police officer engaging in a conspiracy with Tony and Cherry Blair  assisted by Alastair Campbell to feed misinformation to the Mirror.   This is more than a little plausible because the Mirror story was a farrago of grotesque  lies such as the claim that I had bombarded the Blairs with letters  or that the letters were “full of graphic racist filth”. There was also  a completely fabricated  quote “if he gets elected he’ll let in all the blacks and Asians”.  Ask yourself why the Mirror would have printed such things if they had read my letters after   they were given them by a police officer simply out to make money with no political axe to grind. It would not make sense. If, on the other hand, this was all part of a conspiracy between the Blairs, a senior police officer and Alastair Campbell  it would make perfect sense,  because then it transmutes from a political story  into an exercise in political propaganda to nullify me by smearing.  The story would then be whatever they wanted it to be with the content of the letters an irrelevance.

It is noteworthy that Morgan in his  letter to the PCC admits that the Mirror did not have copies of my letters and that he had not seen them.  That could mean one of four things: the Mirror did not have copies, the Mirror had copies but did not wish to admit it because they knew the letters would not substantiate their printed story about me, Edwards had seen the letters but  realised they were innocuous and not the basis for a smear story  or  no one at the Mirror had ever seen my  letters but had written their story simply from false information given to them by the police informant. The last possibility fits in most neatly with the conspiracy theory.  #

Why would the Blairs wish to engage in such a conspiracy?  The most plausible answer lies in the fact that they did not go to the police when I wrote to them, but only later after I had sent copies of my letters to the Blairs and the non-replies I was receiving from their offices to every mainstream media outlet at the beginning of the 1997 General Election campaign.  That can only mean the Blairs  wanted to  silence me during the election campaign.   Why? Only they can tell you that for sure. What is certain is that the Blairs  must have been very seriously worried about the media taking up the story told in my letters and their non-replies to get involved with a criminal investigation during the most important weeks of Blair’s life, namely, the General Election campaign.  Having miserably failed in the attempt to have me prosecuted it would have made perfect sense from their point of view to try to neutralise me by getting a friendly media outlet to print a false and hideously libellous story about me to dissuade anyone in the media from taking up the story told in my letters to the Blairs and their non-replies to me.

Here is something for you and your superiors to think upon. If the Met refuses to  properly  investigate my complaints (including questioning Morgan and Edwards) it will look  like yet another cover-up to go along with the persistent failure  by the Met to investigate phone-hacking until political pressure forced them  to  re-investigate cases which had previously been deemed to provide insufficient evidence for a prosecution or even a sustained investigation. The re-investigation of these supposedly hopeless cases has  resulted in dozens of arrests and quite a few charges, a fact which tells its own tale.

I repeat my previous requests for an interview with you and a senior officer within  Operation Elveden, preferably Steve Kavanagh . Apart from anything else you should be taking a formal statement from me based on the very strong evidence I have provided.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

————————————————————————————————-

To

DC Paulette Rooke

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

26 3 2013

Dear DC Rooke,

I have posted a copy of the tape recording of my interview on 8 April 1999 with Det Supt Jeff Curtis to you by recorded delivery. I have sent the tape to JUBILEE HOUSE PUTNEY, 230-232 PUTNEY BRIDGE RD, London SW15 2PD which is where you appear to be physically stationed.

Only one side of the tape has been used. You will need to listen to the entire tape,  but Jeff Cutris’ comments about going to the Mirror, it being a straightforward case and so on are towards the end of the meeting with  around 5/6ths of the tape played.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

—————————————————————————————

                                      Tel: 0207 387 5018   Email: anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk

To DC Paulette Rooke

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

2 April 2013

Dear DC Rooke,

Please confirm that you have received the tape recording of my meeting with D-Supt Jeff Curtis which I sent to you on 26 March by first class recorded delivery.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

——————————————————————————————————————-

To DC Paulette Rooke

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

CC

Commander Neil Basu

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Gerald Howarth MP

Keir Starmer (DPP)

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

17 May  2013

Dear DC Rooke

It is now more than four months since I submitted to Operation Eleveden cast iron  evidence of Piers Morgan’s  illicit receipt of information from the police, Jeff Edwards’ illicit receipt of information from the Met Police, the perjury of Morgan and Edwards before the Leveson Inquiry and Det Supt Jeff Curtis’ failure to meaningfully investigate Edwards and Morgan’s involvement in receiving information illicitly from the police.

To recap, the evidence I have provided includes a letter from Piers Morgan when editor of the Mirror to the PCC in which he admits receiving the illicit information, a Mirror story which  contains information which could only have been obtained illicitly from the police and a tape recording between Jeff Edwards and me in which D-Supt Curtis states that he will be interviewing Morgan and Edwards  and says the matter is straightforward because of the evidence I had provided. Curtis then failed to interview anybody at the Mirror or have any check made of their records for evidence of payments  for information.

With such rock-hard evidence in your possession, I think most people would be utterly astonished that no investigation appears to have commenced after 4 months. Yet that is, to the best of my knowledge, exactly what has happened.   I have had no substantive contact with Operation Eleveden since I submitted the complaint and my requests to give a formal statement and meet to  discuss the matter further  with a senior officer have been ignored.  When you reply please tell me exactly  what has been done so far to investigate this matter .

I repeat my requests to give a formal statement and meet with a senior officer from Operation Eleveden to discuss the progress of my complaint.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

————————————————————————————————————————————-

Paulette.Rooke@met.pnn.police.uk <Paulette.Rooke@met.pnn.police.uk>;

20 May 2013

Dear Mr Henderson

I have forwarded your email to my line manager.

Kind regards

Paulette Rooke

ADS PAULETTE ROOKE

JUBILEE HOUSE PUTNEY, 230-232 PUTNEY BRIDGE RD, London SW15 2PD

Internal  58526  External  020 8785 8526

Mobile 07771 553043 (office hours)

— ———————————————————————————————————

Metropolitan Police  TOTAL POLICING

Specialist Crime and Operations

SCO12-AC Private Office and  Business Support

2.211

Jubilee House Putney

230-232 Putney Bridge Road

London SW15 2PD

Telephone

Fascsimle

Email Daniel.Smith3@met.police.uk

www.met.police.uk

Your ref:

Our ref : Elveden

13 June 2013

Mr Robert Henderson

156 Levita House

Chalton St

London

NW11HR

Dear Mr Henderson,

I write in relation to the allegations you made following your contact with DC Rooke in January of this year. I have reviewed the matters raised by you in this, and subsequent communications, with DC Rooke.

I understand that the matters raised by you relate to an article published in 1997 and that the matter was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Service (Complaints Investigation Bureau). The matter was referred to the Police Complaints Authority in 1999.

I understand that there is no new evidence or information available and as a result I have decided that no investigation will be conducted into the points raised by you.

In relation to the Perjury allegation, having read the transcripts provided, I do not believe there is evidence that shows an offence has been committed. As a consequence this allegation will not be investigated.

Yours sincerely,

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith

—————————————————————————————————–

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

CC

Commander Neil Basu

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Gerald Howarth MP

Keir Starmer (DPP)

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

4 July 2013

Dear Mr Smith,

I have your letter dated   13^th June which arrived on 21^st  June in an envelope post marked 17 June.  I have mulled the matter over for a week or so before replying because your  decision regarding my complaints is  best described as inexplicable if taken at face value. Indeed, I think any disinterested third party would  react with the same feeling when faced with the truly indestructible evidence I have supplied to Operation Elveden and your blanket refusal to investigate.

To briefly recap the evidence, I have provided Operation Elveden with a letter from Piers Morgan to the PCC when editor of the Daily Mirror. In it he  admits to receiving information from a Metropolitan police officer in circumstances which can only have been illegal. You also have  a tape recording of a senior police officer D-Supt Jeff Curtis of Scotland Yard  promising to question Morgan and co and saying the evidence was straight forward plus transcripts of the evidence Morgan and Jeff Edwards gave under oath before Leveson in which they denied receiving information  from the police illicitly.  To that can be added the fact that,  despite his promise to me, Curtis failed to interview Morgan, Edwards or any other Mirror employee or examine the records of  the Mirror to look for evidence of payments to the police for information. Finally, there is the Daily Mirror story written as a result of the illicit information from the Met . That alone demonstrates that the police illicitly supplied information to the Mirror to their then chief crime reporter Jeff Edwards.

The fact that I was unable to get anyone in authority, not the police, nor the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) to act at the time of the original complaints  is not evidence that no crime had been committed. Rather, it is  further evidence of corrupt behaviour within the police and the police complaints system.  The criminal (take your choice between perverting the course of justice and misconduct in a public office) refusal to act in this matter was generated by the implication of  Tony and Cherie Blair in the  case.  To give you a short guide to that involvement let me quote the Early Day Motion about the matter put down by Sir Richard Body MP on  10 November 1999:

CONDUCT OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR SEDGEFIELD 10:11:99

 Sir Richard Body

 That this House regrets that the Right honourable Member for Sedgefield [Tony Blair] attempted to persuade the Metropolitan Police to bring criminal charges against Robert Henderson, concerning the Right honourable Member’s complaints to the police of an offence against the person, malicious letters and racial insult arising from letters Robert Henderson had written to the Right honourable Member complaining about various instances of publicly-reported racism involving the Labour Party; and that, after the Crown Prosecution Service rejected the complaints of the Right honourable Member and the Right honourable Member failed to take any civil action against Robert Henderson, Special Branch were employed to spy upon Robert Henderson, notwithstanding that Robert Henderson had been officially cleared of any illegal action.

This motion is now part of the official House of Commons record – see  http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=16305&SESSION=702

The Blairs made a profound misjudgement when they tried to get me prosecuted. As lawyers they must have known that their complaints were bogus and were relying on their political celebrity to persuade the CPS to charge me regardless of the evidence.  So feeble were their allegations  that the CPS sent them back within hours of receiving them  the papers submitted to them with an emphatic NO CRIME.

That immediately created a problem from the Blairs, but had they left it there that might have been the end of it,  because at no time did the police contact me about the Blairs’ complaints and I might never have known of their attempt to have me prosecuted. But the Blairs  could not leave well alone and made the further mistake of planting a false and toxically libellous story about me and their failed attempt in the  Daily Mirror. This alerted me not only to their attempt,  but the fact that Special Branch had been  set to spy on me (Special Branch are mentioned  in the Mirror story).   I then spent the entire Blair premiership suffering harassment which I can only presume came from either Special Branch, MI5 (I used the Data Protection Act to prove they held a file on me)  or some other agency employed by one or both of the Blairs.  The harassment included such things as death threats,  incitements to attack me on social media platforms and  regular interference with my post.

In addition to my complaints to the police against the Mirror, I also made a series of allegations  against the Blairs after I discovered they had been to the police. These  were also not  investigated in any meaningful way.

That was why everybody  but everybody in the Met Police  and the justice system refused to behave honestly when I first made the complaints about Morgan and  Edwards. If action had been taken against them then the Blairs would have been brought into the story, something they obviously could not afford to have happen.  The refusal  of the police and the  PCA to  deal honestly with my complaints is simply explained, namely, the political implications overrode their honesty  Until Operation Elveden began there was no  opportunity for me to again bring any part of the scandal to the police.  An amazing story but a true one.

The conduct of my complaints to Elveden has  been distinctly odd. I have made repeated requests to give a formal statement and meet with a senior member of Operation Elveden. Despite those requests I have not been given the opportunity to make a formal statement, nor,  despite my best efforts, met  any  member of Operation Elveden, junior or senior.  That suggests  a decision was made at an early stage to deliberately  exclude me from any participation in Elveden’s consideration of my complaints.  Writing a letter to me saying you will not investigate  for spurious reasons is one thing: telling me to my face that the Morgan letter to the PCC is not grounds for investigation quite another matter.

The paucity of detail in your letter also suggests that no meaningful consideration has been given to the evidence I provided. Indeed, your beginning of two paragraphs with “I understand that” suggests that you have not looked at the evidence. The other telling thing is that you do not give me any detailed reason for refusing the complaints against Morgan, Edwards and Curtis. All you say is that you understand that the complaints were previously investigated. Have you examined my evidence  in detail, including listening to the tape recording of Jeff Curtis and me?

Are you a gambling man, Mr Smith? Well, you are certainly taking a gamble here by refusing to investigate. Your gamble is this: you are betting that the fact that the Met are refusing to investigate the clearest evidence of serious crimes will remain outside the mainstream public domain.  That is a very big wager indeed.  All I need is for one politician or mainstream media outlet to  take up the story…

I suggest you sit down and try to imagine how you would explain to the mainstream media or a mainstream politician  Elveden’s  failure to act when you have in your possession a letter  from Piers Morgan when Mirror editor admitting he had received information illicitly from the Metropolitan Police.   When you have done that,  I hope you will reconsider your refusal to investigate and arrange to meet me to take a formal statement and tell me of the progress of the investigation you have started.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

Piers Morgan’s illegal receipt of information from the police, his perjury and Operation Elveden part III

ELVEDENFriday, 22 March, 2013 10:51

From: “Paulette.Rooke@met.pnn.police.uk” <paulette.rooke@met.pnn.police.uk>Add sender to ContactsTo: anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk

Mr Henderson

I have been asked by my Inspector to ascertain if you have any new evidence with regard to your allegations against those mentioned in your correspondence.

Yours sincerely

Paulette Rooke

ADS PAULETTE ROOKE

JUBILEE HOUSE PUTNEY, 230-232 PUTNEY BRIDGE RD, London SW15 2PD

Internal  58526  External  020 8785 8526

————————————————————————————————————–

To

DC Paulette Rooke

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

CC

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Gerald Howarth MP

Keir Starmer (DPP)

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

24 March  2013

Dear DC Rooke,

You ask in your email of 22 March whether I have any new information relating to the accusations I have made.  The short answer is no. However, having listened  again to the tape recording I made of my interview with Det Supt Jeff Curtis I shall be sending you a copy of that for the reasons given below in paragraph 4.

Happily  you do not need any further information to begin investigations into Piers  Morgan, Jeff Edwards and Det Supt Jeff Curtis. In fact, I think any disinterested third party would be rather surprised that the investigations  have not  already begun, bearing in mind that you have a letter sent to Morgan to the PCC in which he admitted that the Mirror had received information from a police officer in circumstances which can only have been illegal.

The reason the crimes  (apart from the accusations of perjury before Leveson) were not meaningfully investigated when I made my original complaints is beautifully  simple: corrupt practice by the police prompted either by the Blairs’ involvement in the story and/or a known or suspected corrupt relationship between Metropolitan Police officers and the Mirror (and other press and broadcasters).

The corrupt nature of the way my complaints were handled is exemplified  by Jeff Curtis’ failure to interview anyone at the Mirror even though he had the letter from Piers Morgan to the PCC.   Curtis told me this in a phone call and you can verify that this is the truth by looking at the original case notes. The tape recording of my meeting with Jeff Curtis is important because in it he says he will  be going to the Mirror, says the case revolves around Morgan’s admission and says it is a straightforward case.  The recording was made with Curtis’  knowledge and agreement.  The fact that he knew he was being recorded is significant because it removed the possibility from his mind of saying something to me thinking he could deny it later. Clearly something  irregular  happened between him leaving me and starting the investigation. It is reasonable to suspect he was leant on by someone even more senior not to investigate the Mirror.  That the police never interviewed anyone at the Mirror also means that the Mirror accounts and the journalistic records kept by Edwards  and Morgan (and perhaps others) were never scrutinised for evidence of payments to the police.  All in all, this is   a very obvious perversion of the course of justice.

The events to which the these crimes relate are 15 years old,   but that is irrelevant to whether they should be investigated now, both because of the serious nature  of the crimes and the fact that those I allege against Morgan and Edwards  were not investigated meaningfully when they were first reported. Nor is there any problem with a lack of compelling  evidence  because of the time which has elapsed. In the case of Morgan and Edwards you have  Morgan’s letter to the PCC and the Mirror story, while  Curtis’ perversion of the course of justice speaks for itself. Moreover, although it is 15 years since the events, the age of fully computerised accounts had arrived  before 1997 and   it is probable that a copy of the Mirror accounts  for the period is still held in digital form. The same could  apply to journalistic records held by Morgan and Edwards or other Mirror employees or freelances.  I know from my use of the  Data Protection Act soon after the Mirror published the story that the paper was holding information about me  which they refused to release under the journalistic purposes provision of the DPA. They may well be still holding it.

As for the perjury accusations against Morgan and Edwards, these are very recent complaints about crimes recently committed which have never been previously investigated.   You have the information you need to investigate the perjury because I have supplied you with the Morgan letter to the PCC, the Mirror story about me and the transcripts of the relevant passages in the evidence given by Morgan and Edwards before Leveson.

Apart from the killer fact of Curtis’ failure  to interview anyone at the Mirror and a consequent failure to investigate the Mirror’s records, the circumstances of that failed investigation and of other complaints I made at the same time provide very  strong circumstantial evidence that my original complaints against Morgan and Edwards were not  treated  normally.  For example, why was a Det Supt from Scotland Yard  investigating crimes  which would normally be investigated by a Det Sergeant or just possibly a Det Inspector?  To that you can add the array of senior police officers  (the details of which I  sent to you in my email of 29^th January) who became involved in my various complaints at one time or another,  despite the crimes being of a nature which would normally have been investigated by  policemen of lesser rank.   The only reasonable explanation for their involvement is the political circumstances surrounding my complaints.

There are two scenarios which fit the receipt of information by the Mirror from the police.  The first is straightforward: a police officer, possibly of senior rank because of the Blairs’ involvement, has sold the information to the Mirror for mere personal gain.

The second scenario is more complex. It involves  a senior police officer engaging in a conspiracy with Tony and Cherry Blair  assisted by Alastair Campbell to feed misinformation to the Mirror.   This is more than a little plausible because the Mirror story was a farrago of grotesque  lies such as the claim that I had bombarded the Blairs with letters  or that the letters were “full of graphic racist filth”. There was also  a completely fabricated  quote “if he gets elected he’ll let in all the blacks and Asians”.  Ask yourself why the Mirror would have printed such things if they had read my letters after   they were given them by a police officer simply out to make money with no political axe to grind. It would not make sense. If, on the other hand, this was all part of a conspiracy between the Blairs, a senior police officer and Alastair Campbell  it would make perfect sense,  because then it transmutes from a political story  into an exercise in political propaganda to nullify me by smearing.  The story would then be whatever they wanted it to be with the content of the letters an irrelevance.

It is noteworthy that Morgan in his  letter to the PCC admits that the Mirror did not have copies of my letters and that he had not seen them.  That could mean one of four things: the Mirror did not have copies, the Mirror had copies but did not wish to admit it because they knew the letters would not substantiate their printed story about me, Edwards had seen the letters but  realised they were innocuous and not the basis for a smear story  or  no one at the Mirror had ever seen my  letters but had written their story simply from false information given to them by the police informant. The last possibility fits in most neatly with the conspiracy theory.

Why would the Blairs wish to engage in such a conspiracy?  The most plausible answer lies in the fact that they did not go to the police when I wrote to them, but only later after I had sent copies of my letters to the Blairs and the non-replies I was receiving from their offices to every mainstream media outlet at the beginning of the 1997 General Election campaign.  That can only mean the Blairs  wanted to  silence me during the election campaign.   Why? Only they can tell you that for sure. What is certain is that the Blairs  must have been very seriously worried about the media taking up the story told in my letters and their non-replies to get involved with a criminal investigation during the most important weeks of Blair’s life, namely, the General Election campaign.  Having miserably failed in the attempt to have me prosecuted it would have made perfect sense from their point of view to try to neutralise me by getting a friendly media outlet to print a false and hideously libellous story about me to dissuade anyone in the media from taking up the story told in my letters to the Blairs and their non-replies to me.

Here is something for you and your superiors to think upon. If the Met refuses to  properly  investigate my complaints (including questioning Morgan and Edwards) it will look  like yet another cover-up to go along with the persistent failure  by the Met to investigate phone-hacking until political pressure forced them  to  re-investigate cases which had previously been deemed to provide insufficient evidence for a prosecution or even a sustained investigation. The re-investigation of these supposedly hopeless cases has  resulted in dozens of arrests and quite a few charges, a fact which tells its own tale.

I repeat my previous requests for an interview with you and a senior officer within  Operation Elveden, preferably Steve Kavanagh . Apart from anything else you should be taking a formal statement from me based on the very strong evidence I have provided.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

See also

https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/piers-morgans-illegal-receipt-of-information-from-the-police-his-perjury-and-operation-elveden/

https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/piers-morgans-illegal-receipt-of-information-from-the-police-his-perjury-and-operation-elveden-part-ii/

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Flag this message

Tape recording of my interview with Jeff Curtis has been sent to you

Tuesday, 26 March, 2013 7:05

From:

“robert henderson” <anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk>

View contact details

To:

“Paulette Rooke” <Paulette.Rooke@met.pnn.police.uk>

To DC Paulette Rooke Operation Eleveden Metropolitan Police New Scotland Yard 8/10 The Broadway London  SW1H OBG  26 3 2013 Dear DC Rooke, I have posted a copy of the tape recording of my interview on 8 April 1999 with Det Supt Jeff Curtis to you by recorded delivery. I have sent the tape to JUBILEE HOUSE PUTNEY, 230-232 PUTNEY BRIDGE RD, London SW15 2PD which is where you appear to be physically stationed. Only one side of the tape has been used. You will need to listen to the entire tape, but Jeff Cutris’ comments about going to the Mirror, it being a straightforward case and so on are towards the end of the meeting with around 5/6ths of the tape played. Yours sincerely, Robert Henderson

Piers Morgan’s illegal receipt of information from the police, his perjury and Operation Elveden part II

To

DC Paulette Rooke

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

(Tel: 0208  )

29 January 2013

CC Gerald Howarth MP

Keir Starmer (DPP)

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

Dear DC Rooke,

As we have not been able speak as yet I will try to expedite matters by ensuring that you have the basic details and by describing what I would like to happen.

The crimes committed

The evidence I have supplied leaves  Piers Morgan and Jeff Edwards  with no wriggle room. There is the letter from  Morgan to the PCC admitting that he received information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal;  Edwards as the writer of the Mirror article must have been the recipient of the information and both Morgan and Edwards objectively committed perjury by denying receiving information from the police illegally whilst under oath before the Leveson Inquiry. Det Supt Curtis is condemned by his wilful refusal to interview Morgan, Edwards or anyone else at the Mirror after my initial complaint.  (I have him on tape promising to interview Morgan et al during my initial meeting with him).

The political dimension

The complaints I have submitted to Elveden are part of a larger scandal which has deep political ramifications. The general scope of these can be seen from  the Early Day Motion put down on my behalf by Sir Richard Body on 10 November 1999:

CONDUCT OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR SEDGEFIELD 10:11:99

Sir Richard Body

That this House regrets that the Right honourable Member for Sedgefield [Tony Blair] attempted to persuade the Metropolitan Police to bring criminal charges against Robert Henderson, concerning the Right honourable Member’s complaints to the police of an offence against the person, malicious letters and racial insult arising from letters Robert Henderson had written to the Right honourable Member complaining about various instances of publicly-reported racism involving the Labour Party; and that, after the Crown Prosecution Service rejected the complaints of the Right honourable Member and the Right honourable Member failed to take any civil action against Robert Henderson, Special Branch were employed to spy upon Robert Henderson, notwithstanding that Robert Henderson had been officially cleared of any illegal action.

This motion is now part of the official House of Commons record – see  http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=16305&SESSION=702

I bring this to your attention because it was the political dimension which prevented me from  getting any redress for complaints I made to the police  following the publication of the Mirror story. My experience from 1997 to 2007 when Blair retired was of being in  a Kafkaesque world in which,  despite being subjected to harassment which ranged from death threats and an internet campaign which incited violence against me by posting my address on social media sites  to regular interference with my post, I was unable to get the police to investigate meaningfully any of the complaints which arose from the Mirror’s involvement and the  harassment which followed.  You have a classic example in the failure of Jeff Curtis to investigate the Mirror despite having Morgan’s letter admitting to receiving police information.

That my complaints caused  considerable concern to the police because of their political nature can be seen from the number of senior officers who got involved in complaints of crimes,  most of which  would normally be investigated by a Det Sergeant or a Detective Inspector at most.   At various times I dealt with the following:

Det Chief Supt Tony Dawson – The Met’s Internal Investigations Command

Dept Supt Jeff Curtis

Chief Supt John Yates

Chief Supt Eric Brown

Supt Cliff Hughes

Supt Alex Fish

Chief Inspector Julia Wortley

Chief Inspector Ian West

Det Chief Inspector Stephen Kershaw

Despite their involvement no one was ever  charged, unsurprising as no complaint was meaningfully investigated.  I also met with the same obstruction from the CPS.

Documents passed to Holborn police

The documents I  passed to PC G James 423EK and PC L Scully 471EK  from Holborn police station were:

1.Piers Morgan’s Letter to the PCC date 16 October 1997  in which he admits receiving information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal.

2. A copy of the Daily Mirror  story about me dated 25 March 1997 which produced the complaint to the PCC  which caused  Morgan to write the letter in which he admitted receiving information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal.

3. Copies of the then director of Presswise Mike Jempson’s correspondence on my behalf with the PCC relating to the Mirror story dated 23 December 1997, 9 January 1998, 20 January 1998, 18 February 1998, 2 March 1998.

4. My evidence to the Leveson Inquiry of  Morgan ’s perjury dated 23 December 2011

5. My evidence to  the Leveson Inquiry of Edwards’ perjury dated 25 March 2012

6. My original submission to the Leveson Inquiry dated 25 November  2011

7. Sir Richard Body’s Early Day Motion 10th November 1999 which dealt with the general context of the events surrounding the Mirror story  with the role of the Blairs at its heart.

8. A copy of my Wisden Cricket Article Is it in the Blood? (from the July 1995 edition). It was my gross mistreatment by the mainstream British media after the publication of the article that led me ultimately to write to the Blairs asking for their assistance after all other available avenues of redress had failed me .

9. A copy of my final letter to  Det Supt Curtis dated 2 December 1999, Det Supt A Bamber’s reply to that letter 13 December 1999 and the PCA’s letter dated November 1999  refusing  to investigate further

10. A letter addressed to the new head of Operation Elveden Deputy Assistant Commissioner  Steve Kavanagh dated 21 January 2013.  A copy of this is below.

I attach copies of 1,4,5,6 and my final letter to Jeff Curtis (see 9)  in digital form.

What I would like to happen

The first step would be for the two of us to have a long talk about this. Because of the political ramifications I would also  like to meet DAC Steve Kavanagh .

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

———————————————————————————————————

Flag this messageOPERATION ELVEDENMonday, 25 February, 2013 11:10

From: “Paulette.Rooke@met.police.uk” <paulette.rooke@met.police.uk>View contact detailsTo: anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk

Mr Henderson

I write out of courtesy just to let you know that I am still looking into your recent correspondence with this office.

I hope that you will receive a reply in the next couple of weeks.

Yours sincerely

Paulette Rooke

DC PAULETTE ROOKE

JUBILEE HOUSE PUTNEY, 230-232 PUTNEY BRIDGE RD, London SW15 2PD

Internal  58526  External  020 8785 8526

Mobile 07771 553043 (office hours)

————————————————————————————————————————————–

To

DC Paulette Rooke

Operation Eleveden

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

8/10 The Broadway

London  SW1H OBG

CC

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Gerald Howarth MP

Keir Starmer (DPP)

mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

26 February 2013

Dear DC Rooke,

Thank you for your email of 25 February. It is now a month since I passed  my complaints  to Operation Eleveden.  I really do think an early meeting between you,  me and a senior officer from Operation Elveden (preferably Deputy Assistant Commissioner  Steve Kavanagh)  would be fruitful.

I have provided Operation Eleveden with conclusive evidence of  Piers Morgan and  Jeff Edwards’  receipt of information illegally from the police and of their perjury before Leveson.     Consequently, most of the investigatory work needed to bring charges has been completed.  Apart from the admin involved in  getting the cases to court, all that remains to be done is to interview Morgan and Edwards and to inspect the Mirror’s  records and  Morgan and Edwards’ private papers to see if information relating to payments for the information exist.  I really cannot see what obstacle there is to proceeding with an investigation.

Morgan will not be able to deny the offence because to do so would put him in the absurd position of saying he had not written the letter, that he had no knowledge of it being sent and that the whole thing was done by someone else.  That would be ridiculous if it was just a letter sent without any outside stimulation, but this letter is sent in response to a letter from the PCC.  Morgan would have to argue that a correspondence initiated by  the PCC had proceeded without his knowledge even though the Mirror side was made in his name.

Even without the letter it would be clear that the police had illegally  passed information to the Mirror.  Information in the story could only have come from the police. In addition  Jeff Edwards’ story contains this:   ‘A Scotland Yard  source  said: “By sending letters in a very unpleasant tone the writer has committed an assault. ’ Special Branch, who organise protection for MPs have been informed of the situation”.   Just for the record my letters were deemed entirely legal by the CPS within hours of their receipt.  It was a try-on by the Blairs.

I have spoken to Edwards once. That  was on the morning of the publication of the Mirror story. When he discovered who he was speaking to he panicked immediately.  I think there is a good chance that when confronted with the evidence of Morgan’s letter  he will simply come clean.  I have never spoken to Morgan,  but I would draw your attention to the fact that he has behaved recklessly and dishonestly in the past, most notably in his fabrication of a photos of soldiers  when Mirror editor , something which caused his sacking. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/may/14/pressandpublishing.iraqandthemedia). Reckless people tend to be careless and impulsive. Always a plus when an investigation is under way.

My complaint against Det Supt Jeff Curtis is also straightforward. The fact that he did  not interview anyone at the Mirror despite having Morgan’s letter to the PCC can be verified by checking the Met’s case notes.

If the Mirror received  information from the police illegally in my case, it is not unreasonable to suspect that this was a widespread  practice within the Mirror group. Investigate my complaints and you will almost certainly find evidence of other instances.  There is also the advantage for the Met in investigating the Mirror because it shows they are not merely concentrating on the Murdoch papers.

I would greatly welcome a meeting in the near future.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson