The Secret Special Branch Ledgers

[lynn cates]

good luck

Hello Trevor. Thanks for that. I appreciate all your hard work and dedication to this cause, and I recognise the great personal expense--in both time and money--entailed by it.

Best of luck.

Cheers.
LC

[Phil Carter]

Hello Trevor,

Indeed, thank-you and the best of luck to you. Let us hope that you are rewarded for all your sterling efforts in trying to obtain the release of this documentation.

best wishes

Phil

[ChrisGeorge]

Having read the various postings in the past few days, I feel it is right and proper for me to issue a statement clarifying my position in this and a number of issues raised by casebook members....

I am happy for this statement to be posted on JTR Forums if anyone cares to do so.

Thanks, Trevor, as per your request, your statement has been posted by me at JtR Forums. Good luck with your quest, Trevor.

Chris

[mariab]

The best of lucks for your endeavour, Mr. Marriott!

[Chris]

If the ledgers were simply to disappear how would anyone be able to prove they had been destroyed?

Funnily enough, the Met has just discovered that a report on the Clive Ponting case requested by the BBC doesn't exist. Strangely, this happened only when the Information Commissioner asked for a copy of it, after the Met had carried out a "thorough review" of whether it could be released!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13430012

[Phil H]

These things happen - really.

I remember a case where, in good faith, we advised that a copy of a report (some decade or so old) was available and would be provided to an MP. We sincerely believed that it did. But after checking with everyone likely to have a copy - including departmental libraries - we had to conclude that with the passage of time every copy had either been destroyed or was buried so deeply in archive as to be irretrievable without excess and unjustifiable costs.

Staff had changed, all those involved in the report or in post at the time it was written and relevant had moved on or retired, so there was no continuity and the report was not relevant to current adminsitration or policy, so there was no need for current staff to be aware of it.

The ****-up theory in Government is always more likely than conspiracy (however interpreted).

Phil

[Chris]

Phil

You miss the point, which is that they claimed to have carried out a "thorough review" of whether the file could be released. Without even looking at it, evidently!

[Phil H]

I didn't miss the point at all, Chris.

The issues around release may not relate to the specific contents at all. Discussion may have centred on the nature of the files and whether a report on a "class" of documents - reports on individuals can/should be released. the thorough discussion may, in its initial stages, have focused on principles - does the Data Protection Act rather than FOI apply for instance. Only then may they have turned to the documenht and found it gone!

True, I cannot speak for this case nor know the exact circumstances. I cited and example from my personal experience which appears similar, to show that mistakes can happen for genuine reasons.

I may, of course, be wrong.

But a mix-up, or confusion, sounds likely to me.

Phil

[Chris]

The issues around release may not relate to the specific contents at all.

Well, exactly. The "issues around release" were that they didn't want to release it, regardless of what it contained.

The "thorough review" didn't involve any consideration at all of what information was actually in the document. It just involved coming up with a list of reasons why it couldn't be released.

That will sound very familiar to anyone who has read the documentation relating to the FOI requests for access to these Special Branch records.

[Phil H]

Chris, have you forgotten how to READ?

[BWell, exactly. The "issues around release" were that they didn't want to release it, regardless of what it contained. [/B]

As I made CLEAR in my previous post: The issues around release may not relate to the specific contents at all.

Discussion may have centred on the nature of the files and whether a report on a "class" of documents - reports on individuals can/should be released.

If I have to spell it out, you might know the arguments in advance about release of an individual's NHS or criminal records - that they would only be available to the individual him or herself. So you might well rehearse those arguments while assuming that the record in question remains in the filing system. You would not NEED to look at it. Only at a later stage might you want to consider whether the contents of the file needed consideration. But they would NOT have been the main consideration in the initial discussion.

It just involved coming up with a list of reasons why it couldn't be released.

Not "coming up with" I venture. Those would be well established. I assume the Ponting file by definition relates to th prosecution back in the 80s, so it would almost certainly, in principle, be one you would think about carefully. Not only in regard to that particular file, but because of the implications for all similar ones, mostly I would think related to much less well known people.

That will sound very familiar to anyone who has read the documentation relating to the FOI requests for access to these Special Branch records.

You give the impression that you WANT a conspiracy by Government, that your starting point is duplicity.

In fact, most (if not all) civil servants work hard to act in the public interest. In the case of FOI etc, teams like mine are there to challenge, encourage and counter any colleagues who have not yet entered into the culture change - usually because such things are not their main role. But we also have to listen to valid arguments for confidentiality and sometimes those have to be acceded to - because of the arguments.

There are other explanations than cover-up or deliberate withholding of information.

But you probably don't want to hear that.

Phil

[Chris]

Chris, have you forgotten how to READ?

It's a shame that you are - apparently - incapable of participating in a discussion without resorting to personal insults.

If you yourself had bothered to read the article I'd linked to, you'd have seen exactly what the Information Commissioner thought of the peculiar notion that the request could have been "thoroughly reviewed" without anyone even looking at the document, and you'd have seen that the person responsible was subsequently "moved to other duties."

Rudeness and bluster are really no substitute for a basic acquaintance with the facts of the matter under discussion.

[Phil H]

Nuff said, Chris. I will voluntarily avoid responding to you ever again. My apologies for crossing your path and causing you the inconvenience of having to put me in my place.

As the great Duke once wrote: "I remain, sir, your humble and obedient servant (which you know d***ed well I am not)".

[Chris]

I think the following entry from the Home Office register of incoming correspondence for 1888 (HO 46/93) probably refers to the entry in the Chief Constable's Register that appears to read "[?]Kelleyey Thomas petition from Wormwood Scrubs". That would be consistent with indications that neighbouring entries relate to late 1888 or early 1889 (and also with the supposition that the arrangement of the entries is essentially chronological).

[Nemo]

It looks like Killeley to me Chris

[Chris]

It looks like Killeley to me Chris

Yes - that's how I read it. But I think it's probably the same person referred to in the Special Branch register.