# 25 David Fletcher wants a new passport

Phillip Hammond

Foreign Secretary

Parliamentary House of Commons

London SW1A                                                                                    29^th  October 2014

Dear Mr Hammond

Further to my previous 11 letters regarding Mr Fletcher’s passport. Pro Consul Nigel Eustace’s email to David Fletcher today – forwarded to myself – reads:

Dear Mr Fletcher

Apologies for disturbing you but would it be possible for you to let us know how your appearance at court resulted?

As it is public holiday the Courts and the staff at PJ will not inform us and we have not seen any reports in the local press. Therefore we do not know if it occurred or was postponed and whether the court supplied you with a lawyer and/or translator.

Finally we do urge that in your best interest you endeavour to engage a lawyer to assist you in your case.

Regards, Nigel

Nigel did not avail himself of the opportunity to visit Mr Fletcher  on 27^th, when he knew him to be at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court. Nor did the Phnom Penh British embassy provide Mr Fletcher with a letter explaining the FCO’s ‘accidental destruction of Mr Fletcher’s passport. I trust that such a letter is being prepared by you roffice?

Nigel is well aware of the visiting hours at the jail and could visit Mr Fletcher rather than send him emails which, as Nigel knows, Mr Fletcher only has occasional access to.

A very brief account of what took place in court is to be found at:

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com/2014/10/24-david-fletchers-court-hearing.html

In a nutshell:

I believe that Mr Fletcher is now well on the way to receiving a fair trial. If I am right in this supposition there is only one verdict that the court can possibly arrive at – namely ‘not guilty’. Hymens simply do not grow back!

If Mr Fletcher is released from prison he will require a valid British passport. Given that the FCO admits that it ‘accidentally destroyed’ Mr Fletcher’s passport a new passport must clearly be provided to him at no cost to himself. Could you please let Mr Fletcher know, through myself, what Mr Fletcher must do, by way of filling out paperwork, to begin the process whereby he is issued with a valid British passport.

best wishes

James Ricketson

# 24 David Fletcher’s court hearing

David Fletcher’s court hearing

In brief:

The court hearing was played by the book.

Three judges presided and the hearing was open to the public.

The Judges informed Mr Fletcher that he cannot defend himself on a felony charge, as he had hoped to do; that he must be represented by a lawyer.

The court will appoint a lawyer for him. This process will take a few weeks – after which the next hearing will take place as soon as possible.

Mr Fletcher had an opportunity to address the judges. He requested the presence of Yang Dany for cross-examination at his next court appearance. He was able to hand up to the judges his two statements to the court – one in Khmer and the other in English. These are now on file.

The correct procedures were followed throughout the hearing and there is every reason to believe that the presiding judges will adjudicate this matter, in due course, in accordance with the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure.

The media was represented by the ‘Cambodia Daily’. LICADHO or ADHOC did not send representatives.

# 23 Misfits, Missionaries and Mercenaries work with Alice in Wonderland FCO bureaucrats on a Micky Mouse plot to 'get Fletcher'?

Phillip Hammond

Foreign Secretary

Parliamentary House of Commons

London SW1A                                                                                   

27^th  October 2014

Dear Mr Hammond

Less than 48 hours before Mr Fletcher’s court hearing this afternoon, Conor Doherty confirmed that Mr Fletcher’s passport “was cancelled and destroyed by the British authorities” and that “we can write to confirm this.”

This morning I wrote the following to Nigel Eustace:

Dear Nigel

I wonder if you will be present at Mr Fletcher’s hearing at the Phnom Penh Municipal court this afternoon?

If so, I trust that you will bring with you a letter addressed to the judges explaining that the Foreign & Commonwealth Office accidentally sent Mr Fletcher’s valid passport to the UK, cancelled and then destroyed it!

As the Foreign & Commonwealth Office was well aware, at the time of this ‘accidental’ cancellation and destruction took place, Mr Fletcher’s contained relevant to his court case.

The proposition that the pages of Mr Fletcher’s passport were not photocopied prior to the series of accidents that led to its disappearance off the face of the planet beggars belief!

best wishes

Mr Eustace did not turn up at court and did not provide a letter for the court. Could you please provide a letter for Mr Fletcher’s next court appearance? Expressed in simple everyday words and not in impenetrable bureaucratese. Signed by yourself, please Mr Hammond.

I would like to approach the disappearance of Mr Fletcher’s passport from a different angle in order to illustrate why it is that I do not believe for one moment that Mr Fletcher’s passport was destroyed by mistake. Imagine the following:

It transpires that Mr Fletcher is, in fact, a pedophile who has been traipsing around the world leaving a trail of young victims in his wake. One of these young victims happens upon a story about Mr Fletcher and tells the police in his country: “That is the man who raped me in on Sept 16^th 2002.” The police contact the British authorities and ask for any information the FCO may have on Mr Fletcher’s travels in Sept 2002. Would the Foreign & Commonwealth Office respond with: “We are dreadfully sorry but we destroyed Mr Fletcher’s passport by accident and have no knowledge at all of his movements during the decade preceding its destruction. We don’t make photocopies of the travel itineraries of suspected terrorists, pedophiles and other criminals. Sorry.”

No, of course not. Any British citizen who  is suspected of being a terrorist, a pedophile or a criminal of one kind or another is monitored. Nothing they do, nowhere they go, goes unrecorded. We all know this and to pretend otherwise is nonsense.

Let’s bring this even closer to home. Let’s say that the Lao authorities approach the FCO  in Oct 2014 and say that a young girl has come forward who claims Mr Fletcher raped her on 15^th and 22^nd March 2009. These authorities are requesting of the FCO any information it might have of Mr Fletcher’s movements in March 2009. Would you, as Foreign Secretary and the person on whose desk the buck eventually stops, seriously be prepared to inform the Lao authorities that the FCO is unable to respond to their request because Mr Fletcher’s passport was destroyed?

Please, Mr Hammond, will you please handing this matter off to the likes of Sue Bennett, Conor Doherty and Nigel Eustace to deal with.  This requires the attention of someone much higher up the FCO bureaucratic ladder.

I will ask the same questions of you, Mr Hammond, that I asked of Ambassador Mark Kent, in hopes of honest answers:

1. On what date did the British Embassy cancel Mr Fletcher’s passport?

2. Why did the British Embassy cancel Mr Fletcher’s passport?

3. Who made the decision to cancel Mr Fletcher’s passport?

4. Was Mr Fletcher’s cancelled passport then destroyed?

5. If so, why was the passport destroyed?

6. Who was responsible for the destruction of Mr Fletcher’s passport?

7. If both the cancellation of the passport were accidental, why was Mr Fletcher not provided, immediately, with a new passport free of charge?

8. It is the normal custom in the UK, when a passport is cancelled, that the corners and the front page are removed. Why was this procedure not adhered to but, it seems, the entire passport destroyed?

9. Is it legal for any person, including those working within a British Embassy, to destroy the passport of a British citizen?

10. Before the British Embassy decided to destroy Mr Fletcher’s passport, were the pages within it photocopied? The dates of Mr.Fletcher’s travels in and out of both Thailand and Cambodia up to and including the dates of the alleged rapes is relevant to his legal position vis a vis the Phnom Penh Municipal court.

10. Given the seriousness of the charges laid against Mr Fletcher and the relevance of the dates of his travel in and out of both Cambodia and Thailand it is hard to imagine that copies of the pages of his passport were not made prior to its destruction. Will Mr Fletcher be provided with copies of these pages?

When Mr Fletcher is released from prison his first act as a free citizen will be to initiate an investigation into the theft and destruction of his passport in order to find out precisely who gave the ‘destroy’ order. At present this person (or group of people) are being protected by those further up the bureaucratic ladder. Such protection may not be easy to achieve if an independent investigation is conducted.

Let me add here that the fate of Mr Fletcher’s passport is not only important evidence  in relation to his movements in March 2009 vis a vis the alleged rape of Yang Dany. It’s disappearance and the dates upon which various decisions were made about its fate (and by whom) are also relevant to another question to be resolved one day in court:

“Why did the British embassies in Cambodia and Thailand, working with Scott Neeson, a gaggle of investigating NGOs and the Thai authorities, play such a proactive role in the pursuit and prosecution of David Fletcher?

Broadly speaking there are two possible answers:

(1) The FCO had (or believed it had access to) very strong evidence that Mr Fletcher was guilty of ‘grooming’ and rape. If so, it was not the FCO’s job to play prosecutor and judge.

(2) Certain people within the FCO were friends of  Scott Neeson’s and others involved in pursuing Mr Fletcher with scuttlebutt, rumour and innuendo and threw their hat in the ring to ‘get Fletcher’. Petty, vindictive, bully-boy behavior of a kind not uncommon in Cambodia amongst the many misfits, mercenaries and missionaries that gravitate towards this lawless country.

Unfortunately, the narrative that was agreed upon by all involved in nailing Fletcher necessitated that he be in Cambodia in March 2009. Merde! He wasn’t! His passport bears witness to this fact! What to do! “I think an accident is in order,” one can hear Sir Humphrey intoning, trying desperately to maintain narrative coherence.

best wishes

James Ricketson