In March 1999, I was phoned at home by Det.Sgt.Richards of the computer crime unit at Charing Cross police station. This followed a number of emails I had
sent, using as a return address Chris Tarrant @ Capital Radio, quoting something he'd said in 1994;
"you know this bloke? he says we're trying to kill him.
we should be done for attempted manslaughter!"
I subsequently communicated with DS Richards, and requested he investigate my allegation against Tarrant; which he refused, in quite rude terms.
The following excerpt states;
"What I'm concerned about is you sending illegal emails. Your reasoning is of no interest to me."
The following addendum speaks for itself;
"I have read your various bits on the internet. I'm afraid there is no substance or credence to it. It's an absolute load of rubbish.
I don't investigate rubbish. I can't be more blunt or to the point than that."
In the years 1990-2003 I three times requested the police look into the harassment which MI5 have been carrying out, and each time the police have refused.
I spoke to Clapham police in 1995, at which time I had not figured out who was responsible; the officer at the station was polite, but concerned with
seeing me off quickly. The second request is documented on this page. The third occasion was in April 2000
when the detective from Houses of Parliament police told me to cease faxing Westminster politicians; with similarly negative outcome.
The obvious lesson is that British police do not willingly investigate allegations against the Security Service; and it's a waste of time requesting they do so.
DS Richards' phone call was disclosed on the internet by an anonymous poster, as follows;
From: John West
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: recent spats about how to point out faq info
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 21:06:41 GMT
Organization: Fishy Bits
Lines: 26
Message-ID:
NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.140.72.19
Considering Corley has recently had his collar felt by the boys in blue
following complaints from Capital Radio regarding him forging their e-mail
address in spam e-mails, I don't think he's going to be doing much
spamming.
/\John/\
The newsgroup article would have come either from Police or someone at Capital Radio, since no-one else knew of the conversation; and obviously the
disclosure was improper. However when I complained to the Information Commissioner, both the Police and Capital denied they had sourced the disclosure,
as the following letter shows.
Either the Police or Capital would therefore be lying - how unexpected. Although the disclosure was improper, it does not appear to have been illegal
and its source remains unknown, so the Information Commissioner could not take the matter further.
Charing Cross police continued to deny making any disclosure, other than to the radio station, as shown in the following letter.
My letter had requested the police question Tarrant about his 1994 remarks on "attempted manslaughter" by MI5. Of course, the police refused to
ask Tarrant whether or not he had said that.
The alert reader will note from the following letter that DS Richards later claimed he had not described to me my emails as "illegal", which is
counter to the reality of the first audio segment on this page. It's disappointing to see this sort of behaviour from the police.
However the lesson I really learn from re-reading these notes is that I have been insufficiently assertive of my rights in real life, rather than merely
on the internet. If I had sought to bring a formal complaint against Capital in 1999, the police would have had to question Tarrant; which would have
placed him in the difficult situation of either lying to the police, or telling them the truth. It was my mistake not to force the issue with Richards.
Obviously the police didn't want to question Tarrant because they knew perfectly well that my allegations were valid; to dismiss as "rubbish"
what Richards must have known to be true is despicable.
