# 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