Monday, October 20, 2014

# 9 FCO determined not to answer any questions at all in relation to the 'accidental destruction' of David Fletcher's passport!


Dear Sue Bennett
Acting Team Leader
Africa/Middle East Country Casework Team
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London SW1A 2AH

Dear Sue

David Fletcher has forwarded to me your letter to him dated 17th Oct 2014. In the interests of transparency I will quote from it in full:

Dear Mr Fletcher,

As explained to you in my previous email I am delayed in completing your subject access request due to a high caseload and limited resource. I do hope to be able to complete within the next 20 working days and will update you nearer that time if this is not possible. I am very sorry to keep you waiting on this.

In respect of your outstanding question about your passport this will be addressed by my colleagues in assistance as a business as usual matter. As you know you raised this as a follow up question to Joanna Roper, Director Consular Services, after her response to your complaint but as Joanna had already written to you signposting you to the next stage of the complaints process the matter was referred to the assistance desk. You may still further your complaint but you must write to your MP beforehand.

You mention that I am not providing Mr Ricketson with the information requested – I cannot discuss my communication with him to you as this would be a breach of the Data Protection Act. Likewise we will not release your personal information to Mr Ricketson for the reasons he is aware of.

Best wishes,

Sue

Your communication style, Sue, lifted directly from “Yes Prime Minister, would be amusing were it not for the dire consequences that could follow for Mr Fletcher from your obfuscation and stonewalling. At age 70 his 10 year jail sentence could well be a death sentence.

Mr Fletcher needs to be able to prove to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court next week that he was not in Cambodia at the time of the alleged rapes in 2009. This evidence is vital to his defense. And you are deliberately withholding it!

On 6th October you wrote the following to me, in relation to my own Freedom of Information request, under the heading “Outcome of Search”:

“I am writing to confirm that the FCO does have information relevant to your request. However, we are withholding this information for the reasons set out below.”

Your letter makes it clear that since 6th October (2 weeks from today) you have had answers to the questions Mr Fletcher has been asking for two years now; questions identical to the ones I asked in my Freedom of Information request.

Despite your knowing that Mr Fletcher requires responses from FCO before 27th October, (his court hearing) you inform him, on 17th Oct, that you will answer his questions within the next 20 working days, or one month.  You are informing Mr Fletcher that he can expect to receive questions relating to his passport up to three weeks after the court hearing in which we needs the answers that you have sitting in a file in front of you!

Your excuse for not answering Mr Fletcher’s questions, on 17th Oct 2014, is:

“…due to a high case load and limited resource.”

This is demonstrable nonsense, Sue. Mr Fletcher has been asking the FCO how it was that his passport was ‘accidentally destroyed’ for two years now and you have had the answers since 6th Oct!

I hope one day that this letter will be read out in a properly constituted court of law, in the United Kingdom. I hope that you will be asked, under oath,  why, given that you had answers to Mr Fletcher’s questions on 6th Oct, you deliberately withheld them, knowing full well how important these answers were to his defense?

Are you withholding key evidence of your own volition or have you been instructed, by someone higher up in the FCO hierarchy, to be as obstructive as you possibly can be in Mr Fletcher’s bid to present evidence in his own defense to he Phnom Penh Municipal Court next week?

The information you have sitting in a folder on your desk may be vital to Mr Fletcher’s court hearing next week. If indeed it confirms that he was not in Cambodia on either 15th or 22nd March 2009 he should walk from the court a free man. If he is unable to produce evidence that he was not in Cambodia on these dates he may spend the rest of his life in jail.

best wishes

James Ricketson

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