Mr Phillip
Hammond
Foreign
Secretary
Parliamentary House of Commons
London SW1A
8th Dec. 2014
Dear Foreign Secretary
I have no doubt that receiving yet
another letter from me is about as much fun for
you as writing it is for me. It needs to be done, however, as this is my
‘paper trail’.
The odds are stacked against Mr
Fletcher being in receipt of any assistance from the Foreign & Commonwealth
Office in his quest for justice but, on the off chance that he does eventually
appear before a ‘real’ court in the UK, my 26 letters to you so far will speak
eloquently of your commitment (or lack thereof) to protecting the legal and
human rights of UK citizens caught up in a corrupt legal system such as the one
that prevails in Cambodia.
I have, this past week, been
inundated with new information relating to the David Fletcher case. And others
such as that of Matt Harland. I now have much too much material to work with and
too little time to piece it together in such a way as to create a coherent
narrative that accounts for how Mr Fletcher found himself jailed for 10 years
in the absence of any evidence of his guilt. I am getting close, however, as
more and more pieces of the jig-saw puzzle arrive in my INBOX. The FCO may have
no commitment to truth, justice, facts, evidence, transparency and
accountability but, fortunately, there are individuals within the FCO who do.
And I thank them.
I wish that there was a competent,
reliable and trustworthy body I could give all this information to but, alas,
there is not – either within Cambodia or within the UK. The FCO has no more
interest in facts, evidence or truth than the Phnom Penh Municipal Court. Nor
do you, Mr Hammond. That is clear.
I will quote here, in full, a press
release that I became aware of only today, issued by SISHA on 28th
June 2010. I will have a few comments to make about it a little later but
please note, as you read it, that as of 28th June 2010, SISHA, APLE,
CEOPS and the British Embassy in Cambodia had not, despite their intensive
investigations spread across two years, found any evidence at all that David
Fletcher was sexually abusing children. All they had was scuttlebutt spread by
Peter Hogan, on Khmer440, and Scott
Neeson in his observations made to journalist Andrew Drummond.
If there had been any hard evidence of
wrong-doing on David Fletcher’s part (like raping Yang Dany!) you can be sure
that action would have been taken by the Cambodian authorities before 28th
June.
Press Release from SISHA dated 28th
June 2010
For
the past two years, the British Police Child Exploitation and Online Protection
team (CEOP), in cooperation with the Cambodia National Police and NGO’s South
East Asia Investigations into Social and Humanitarian Activities (SISHA) and
APLE have been investigating British national Mr. David Fletcher for alleged
sexual abuse of children in Cambodia.
On
Wednesday the 23rd of June 2010, media articles were published in Cambodia and
other countries which alleged that Mr. David Fletcher, a British national
living in Phnom Penh, was running a not-for-profit organisation which provided
food and medical services to children living in the Stung Meancheay dump site
in Phnom Penh. The media articles further alleged that Fletcher was sexually
abusing young children living at the dump site.
On
Friday 25th of June 2010, as a result of media articles published, Fletcher
fled Cambodia and travelled across land into Thailand.
The
British Police Child Exploitation and Online Protection team (CEOP), in
cooperation with the Royal Thai Police and NGO - South East Asia Investigations
into Social and Humanitarian Activities (SISHA), acting on information provided
by concerned citizens living in Cambodia, located Fletcher at a guest house in
Bangkok
.
On
Sunday 27th of June, Fletcher was arrested at the guest house by Royal Thai
Police for immigration offences, specifically failing to notify the Thai
immigration authorities of his previous criminal convictions in the UK.
Fletcher is currently in a Thai immigration detention centre awaiting a
decision from the Thai authorities regarding deportation.
Call
to the Public
South East Asia Investigations into Social
and Humanitarian Activities (SISHA), is continuing its investigation into the
allegations against Fletcher and asks that members of the community who have
information regarding Fletcher and his alleged criminal activity or have been
potential victims of his abuse, to please contact SISHA on email
investigations[at]sisha.org or by telephone 017 382 877.
There are many observations that
could (and need to) be made about this press release:
- SISHA has no evidence, as of 28th
June 2010, of wrongdoing on the part of David Fletcher but is, nonetheless,
defaming him as an abuser of children – using the word ‘allegations’ in a
slippery way such that the NGO can be seen not to be pre-judging David
Fletcher.
- No evidence has ever been presented
in support of the proposition that David Fletcher was sexually abusing young
girls. In Dec 2014 all there is is scuttlebutt.
- It provides confirmation, from
another source, that CEOP and APLE were
working in conjunction with the Royal Thai Police to have David Fletcher
arrested – despite the lack of evidence of any wrongdoing on his part.
That David Fletcher ‘fled’ to
Thailand is very easily disproved. The sequence of events leading to David
Fletcher’s decision to leave Cambodia is pertinent, and requires amplification,
but now is not the time to do so.
I hope, Mr Hammond, that someone
within your office (other than a spin doctor) is placing this press release in
a time line and asking the same questions I do:
“How is it that as of 28th June 2010, SISHA, APLE and
CEOPS have no evidence of wrongdoing on
the part of Mr Fletcher and yet, 9 days later, Yang Dany’s mother is accusing
Mr Fletcher of raping her daughter and asking for $30,000 in compensation?”
I will leave you, Mr Hammond, along
with your senior advisors and spin doctors, to ponder this question. I am sure
that between you you can join the dots as well as I can and as well as a
properly constituted court within the UK will be able to do if this matter ever
reaches such a court. I hope that it does, and that Mr Fletcher stays alive to
see his tormentors (of which you have become one) being grilled, under oath, in
the dock by a competent Barrister, with a full Press Gallery taking notes.
best wishes
James Ricketson
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