# 116 Cambodian British Embassy commits its latest lie about the destruction of David Fletcher's passport to an official document.

Phillip Hammond

Foreign Secretary

Parliamentary House of Commons

London

SW1A                        

6^th May 2015                                                                          

Dear Mr Hammond

re David Fletcher’s passport

One day before an election that may well see you lose your job you will, of course,  be preoccupied with more important matters than the fate of the UK citizen your government has written off as expendable this past five years – Mr David Fletcher.

Yesterday, in prison, I met the Khmer gentleman who works for the British Embassy in Cambodia whom I met on my first visit last year – the man who took deep offence to my use of the ‘f’ word all those months ago. My use of this word led to some huffing and puffing on the part of FCO spin doctors regarding their duty of care to FCO staff. This same duty of care does not, alas, extend to citizens of the United Kingdom accused of crimes that they were physically incapable of committing.

I do not know this gentleman’s name but he seems to be a nice enough chap. He confirmed what has been obvious to Mr Fletcher for five years: the British Embassy will not lift a finger to assist him receive a fair trial – regardless of the cogent evidence the FCO has had in its possession for five years that Mr Fletcher is innocent of the crime of rape. The Embassy will not even send an observer to a trial, should Mr Fletcher be fortunate enough to eventually be granted one. The FCO has washed its hands. Well, almost. This Khmer gentleman from the Embassy also passed on the FCO’s wish to speak with Mr Fletcher’s lawyer! Why, one has to wonder!

The FCO’s decision to wash its hands in Mr Fletcher’s fate comes as no surprise. Indeed, in a way it is a relief to have had the FCO’s total lack of a duty of care for Mr Fletcher finally acknowledged by a member of Embassy staff.

I wonder if citizens of the UK travelling abroad realize that if they get into legal trouble their Embassy would not lift a finger to help them – regardless of the evidence of their innocence.

The purpose of the British Embassy visit today was to give Mr Fletcher a letter from the Embassy in Cambodia. This is a version of the letter that he has been asking for this past 6 months – evidence that the British Embassy willfully and knowingly destroyed evidence that it knew was vital to Mr Fletcher’s defense. Whilst this letter is demonstrably factually untrue, at least we now have in writing, with an official stamp, a document that attests to the blatant FCO lies told in relation to the fate of Mr Fletcher’s passport.

This 5^th May letter seem to be a response to my letter of 27^th. April 2015  which reads:

Dear Mr Hammond

I have managed to sort one tranche of the documents provided to Mr Fletcher by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office last week. Namely, pages 153 – 378.

There should be 225 pages in this tranche but there are 48 pages missing. The missing pages are:

165,166,167, 171,181,182,186,192, 193, 198, 200,203,206,207, 210, 211, 212, 219, 220, 223, 225,  226, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 238, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 247, 251, 253, 254, 257, 258, 260, 300, 338, 351, 364, 365, 366, 368,

The following 12 pages have been effectively 100% redacted

256,272, 277, 285, 287, 292, 294, 304, 306, 315 362, 375

The total of missing or 100% redacted pages is 60 - roughly one quarter of the pages that should have been delivered to Mr Fletcher.

What possible reason could the Foreign & Commonwealth Office have for redacting 25% of correspondence between Mr Fletcher and members of FCO staff?

Could you please ask your staff to either (a) supply the missing pages or (b) explain why they have been omitted or redacted?

Today Mr Fletcher gave me a note that he wants to have passed on to those who have declared that they have evidence of his guilt of ‘grooming young girls’. As you know, it is not ‘grooming’ that Mr Fletcher was charged with but rape. However, these charges of alleged ‘grooming’ have, I believe, played a significant role in painting Mr Fletcher as someone who might have groomed young girls or would be capable of so doing.

Given the proximity of Mr Fletcher’s court appearance on 7^th May he is, yet again, asking Action Pour les Enfants, SISHA, CEOP and Naly Pilorge at LICADHO to present their evidence of his ‘grooming’ to the court.

I trust that the relevant FCO staff are in the process of arranging for a letter that Mr Fletcher can produce in court on 7^th May to the effect that his passport was destroyed by the FCO. For the purposes of this exercise it matters not at all whether or not the passport was destroyed by accident or on purpose.

best wishes

Consider now what I wrote to you on 16^th Jan 2015 in relation to the conflicting stories circulating within the FCO regarding Mr Fletcher’s passport: 

Acting Director of Consular Services Ross Allen plays fast and loose with the truth in relation to the cancellation and destruction of Mr Fletcher’s passport.

This is now beyond dispute, based on documents that Mr Fletcher was provided with by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in December 2014.

Here is Mr  Ross Allen’s account of when and how Mr Fletcher’s passport came into the possession of the British Embassy in Thailand in July 2012:

“When a British passport is found and handed into an Embassy, the policy of Her Majesty’s Passport Office (HMPO) is that the passport will not be returned to the holder because we do not know who has had possession of the passport in the intervening period. During this time the passport may have been tampered with, cloned or otherwise compromised and therefore have become a security risk. Mr Fletcher’s passport was received at the British Embassy with no accompanying explanation. I am therefore satisfied that consular staff acted appropriately in cancelling the passport and returning it to HMPO.”

How can this assertion of Ross Allen’s be reconciled with FCO documents that make it quite clear that Mr Fletcher’s passport was in the British Embassy’s possession on 28^th July 2010 and 23^rd may 2011. Two extracts:

28^th July 2010

“Will take a/n’s passport to the IDC  tomorrow so that he can draw his money from the Western Union. Once we get hold on that amount the deportation will be in place. I am trying to find out about the flight cost and its availability and it is likely to be early next week.”

23^rd May 2011

“I told Mr Fletcher that we were now holding his passport…”

The only way that Ross Allen’s account could be true is if, some time after 23^rd May 2011, Mr Fletcher’s passport left the British Embassy in Thailand, was somehow lost, then “found and handed into” the embassy “with no accompanying explanation” a little over a year later! For this scenario to be credible, the following questions must be asked:

- Why, at some point after 23^rd May 2011, did Mr Fletcher’s passport leave the embassy?

- Where was the passport sent? To whom?

When Mr Fletcher’s passport was “found and handed into” the British Embassy it was known to embassy staff that Mr Fletcher was in a Thai prison, that he was fighting an extradition order from Cambodia and that his passport contained evidence that he was not in Cambodia at the time of the alleged rapes – March 2009. This leads to the question:

- Who issued the order that Mr Fletcher’s passport be cancelled and then destroyed?

I doubt very much that the cancellation and destruction of a passport happens without someone quite senior within the embassy signing off on the process. Who was this person?

I suspect that the destruction of a passport would not happen without the knowledge of the Ambassador to Thailand. Is this so? If so, Ambassador Mark Kent knowingly destroyed evidence that Mr Fletcher required for his defense in court in Cambodia.

Justice demands that precisely what happened to Mr Fletcher’s passport be investigated by a body independent of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I am not familiar enough with the British legal system to know what body should conduct such an investigation but I would have thought, at the very least, that the matter should be referred to the police – the destruction of evidence required by Mr Fletcher in his legal defense.

On reflection, there is one more way in which this strange sequence of events vis a vis Mr Fletcher’s passport could be explained. It is not particularly credible but it is as follows:

Some time after 23^rd May 2011 Mr Fletcher’s passport was stolen from the British Embassy in Thailand. The passport was held by persons unknown until July 2012 when it was handed in to the Embassy by persons unknown.

Given that the FCO, at every level – including Ross Allen and yourself – refuse to account for the whereabouts of Mr Fletcher’s passport between May 2011 and July 2012 the possibility exists that the FCO, embarrassed by the theft of Mr Fletcher’s passport from the British Embassy, has spun a story to account for its disappearance that it has hoped would deflect any further questions. It has not. Through me, acting with Mr Fletcher’s power of attorney, I have continued to ask questions. The FCO’s response has been not only to refuse to recognize this power of attorney but to refuse to communicate with me in any way. The same has applied with the Ombudsman, whose office has also refused to communicate with me until recently. It then said that it would communicate with me if I redacted, on my blog, the names of those who had played a role in the denial to Mr Fletcher of justice and answers to questions.

Under these circumstances Mr Fletcher has little option but, through me with his power of attorney, to ask the UK police to commence an investigation into how his passport was stolen from the British Embassy.

On my return to Australia I will make contact with the relevant UK police and ask them to investigate impartially.

I hope, in the next few days, that the United Kingdom acquires a Foreign Secretary committed to transparency, accountability and the provision of a duty of care to UK citizens who find themselves in a legal quandary in a country in which there is little or no commitment to the rule of law.

best wishes

James Ricketson

# 115 Some questions Heather Graham might like to ask Scott Neeson

Dear Heather Graham

The banner headline reads:

'The girls are known as my Cambodian daughters':

Australia's richest person Gina Rinehart reveals she has NINE adopted children

Gina Rinehart has been supporting nine orphaned girls from Cambodia

The 61-year-old said she sent them to prestigious Asian universities

The nine girls are often treated to overseas trips and black tie events

The article written by  Sally Lee for Australia’s Daily Mail, was published on 25^th April 2015

Lucie Morris Marr wrote a similar article 5 days later, 30^th April, for the Herald Sun with the banner headline:

“Gina Rinehart opens up on ‘Cambodian daughters’ saved from life of extreme poverty.”

In it Morris Marr makes reference to the:

 “special bond” she (Rinehart) shares with nine Cambodian “daughters”, all orphans she rescued in 2007 from the sordid backstreets of Phnom Penh.”

There is a problem with both articles. Gina Rinehart’s ‘Cambodian Daughters’ are not orphans.

Is this merely sensational tabloid journalism? Or have Gina Rinehart and Scott Neeson deliberately mislead the journalists who wrote the stories?

How did these clever but materially poor students come to be re-branded as :

“orhpans rescued in 2007 from the sordid backstreets of Phnom Penh?”

It is impossible to know the answer since the journalists, Neeson and Rinehart refuse to comment.

In the absence of clarification this ‘orphan story’ will become ‘the truth’.  Future potential donors and sponsors to the Cambodian Children’s Fund will be able, through Google search, to learn of Neeson and Rinehart’s heroic rescue of these ‘orphan’ girls, just as they will be able to find the following story about Scott Neeson’s “1500 orphaned and disadvantaged children.”

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/kevin-tutt-prince-alfred-college-headmaster-quits-for-cambodian-childrens-fund-teaching-position/story-fni6uo1m-1226752191389

I have written to you before, Heather, with information that would, I hoped, induce you to ask a few questions of Scott Neeson before you lend your name any more to his money raising activities.

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com/2015/02/96-message-for-heather-graham-re.html

Here are two more questions to add to the list:

“Are any of Gina Rinehart’s 9 ‘Cambodian Daughters’ orphans?”

and

“How many of the Cambodian Children’s Fund “1500 orphaned and disadvantaged children” are orphans? Five? Ten? Fifty?”

Given that Neeson is obliged, in accordance with Cambodian law, to enter into contractual agreements with the parents of the children in institutional care at CCF the answers to these questions should be but a phone call away.

As you know, Scott Neeson was a marketing person in Hollywood.

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com/2014/11/28-former-hollywood-mogul-finds.html

Scott knows that rescuing orphans from the ‘sordid back streets of Phnom Penh’ is a much more compelling story, and more likely to assist in his money-raising activities, than is the story of CCF and Gina Rinehart simply assisting clever students from materially poor families?

It is not merely a lie to refer to these young women as orphans. To do so in a country in which 75% of ‘orphans’ in ‘orphanages’ are not orphans feeds into the myth, perpetrated by unscrupulous NGOs, that Cambodian families are incapable of taking care of their own children.

The truth is that tens of thousands of Cambodian families are so poor that it is difficult (often impossible) to feed and educate their children. The answer is not to remove the children from their homes and put them in institutions but to help these materially poor families and their communities fed, clothe and educate their own kids.

Regardless of the obvious humanitarian reasons for not extracting children from their families to become pawns in NGO money raising initiatives, it is not a cost effective way of solving the problems associated with extreme poverty. It costs between 5 and 9 times as much money to support a child in an institutional setting as it does to assist that child in a family and community context.

Please start asking questions, Heather, and take Scott Neeson’s public relations spin with a grain of salt.

# 114 Scott Neeson, Gina Rinehart's 'orphans' are not orphans. Please explain.

Dear Scott

It is clear from the article below that at least some of Gina Rinehart’s 9 Cambodian orphans have families.

Is it you who is responsible for misrepresenting these girls as ‘orphans’ or is it the journalist who wrote the article?

Given that 75% of ‘orphans’ in Cambodian ‘orphanages’ are not orphans, and given the role that the concept of ‘orphan’ plays in the marketing strategies of so many NGOs, could you please clarify your position here.

Those who advocate on your behalf on this blog will insist that you are too busy to waste your time reading it so I am sending this to you as an email and copying it to others in the media, including the journalist who wrote it,  Lucie Morris Marr, who also have an interest in just how it is that a scholarship program to assist promising young Cambodian students became a rescue mission of orphans.

Given that you do not answer questions from the media as a matter of principle, I can only conjecture as to what has happened her. It seems that Gina Rinehart and Steve Morrish have had only the very best of intentions in setting up the Hope scholarship program but that when you became involved the program was too good an opportunity for you to pass up as a propaganda tool. If you could convince the world that these girls were ‘orphans’ your reputation as someone who ‘rescues’ impoverished children and improved their lot in life could be enhanced.

On the other hand, it could be that Lucie Morris Marr could not resist the temptation to spice her article up a bit by re-branding promising students as ‘orphans’.

I trust that either you or Lucie will clarify just why it is that Gina Rinehart’s 9 ‘Cambodian daughters’ are now referred to as ‘orphans’ when they are not?

Or, if any of the girls are orphans, how many?

                                                    ***

SISHA launches new Hope Scholarship Award Program and sends 3 girls to university.

October 12, 2010 at 4:41pm

 · 

SISHA extends a huge thank you to Gina Rinehart who generously donated the funds for our new Hope Scholarship Program. Thanks to these funds and Gina's commitment to the organisation, SISHA was able to select three girls to study for a Law degree. 

SISHA received the go-ahead last week from Mrs Rinehart and acted fast to select 3 of our top students from the Youth Legal Rights Course, just in time to enroll at the Royal University of Law and Economics in Phnom Penh this week. All the girls are from the Phnom Penh area and until last week, had no chance of going to study at university. The Hope Scholarship offers a chance of a lifetime for these girls and their families. 

Two of the girls were able to enroll straight away and begin this week. They have chosen to major in Law and will study for 4 years. The third girl selected will begin her degree course next year, and will spend this year gaining the appropriate qualifications to enter university with the help and crucial support of SISHA. 

The Hope Scholarship pledges full support to the new students for the entire 4 years of their degrees, covering tuition and all other costs related to their studies. SISHA also offers the computers, facilities and guidance available at our office to the three recipients and will continuously encourage and support the girls in becoming outstanding citizens and role models for their peers and society. In addition, once the girls complete their studies they will be offered up to 6 months of work and practical experience here at SISHA's headquarters, where they can pick up the skills necessary for a successful career. 

All the girls and their families were absolutely delighted at the news of the scholarship and are launching into their new lives and new hope for the future this week. SISHA's hope is that by providing the youth of Cambodia with an education through the Youth Legal Rights Course and offering the most outstanding students the chance of a university degree, we can create a generation of responsible citizens who are aware of their rights and can use their knowledge to create a better society. 

The Youth Legal Rights Course will continue to reach more young people in 2011, and SISHA hopes to extend the Hope Scholarship to more of our top students each year.