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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