24^th January 1999

Dear Mrs Mitchell

 Re: Bermuda Formal complaint - Oppressive Conduct etc.

I refer to my previous correspondence.

I have submitted a formal complaint to the Police Complaints Authority, Bermuda, the address of whom you were kind enough to supply.

I also wrote to you requesting details of the party to whom, within the FCO, I should complain regarding the actions of the Governor(s) and Deputy Governor(s) associated with my complaint. I have yet to receive a reply and trust this information will be forthcoming in the near future.

I have also taken the time to locate copies of correspondence associated with my leaving Bermuda, specifically, my Exit Form. Your letter of 4^th December 1998, was correct about the reasons I gave for leaving, specifically:

"You commented in your exit form that you chose to resign because of
petty rules and regulations, poor relationships with colleagues,not enough responsibility, nor prospects, poor communications with higher ranks and
no opportunity to use your initiative"

The above is exactly what I indicated on my Exit Form. Clearly you received sight of this, or the content was precisely conveyed to you.

What are lacking however, are the comments I made in the additional three pages that accompanied the official form.

In your letter (04.12.98) you immediately followed the above sentence with:

"However, you allege that an offence of Oppressive Conduct was committed, and feel your complaints should be the subject of an investigation

Yours sincerely"

Whilst not wishing to become involved in semantics, the above should read that I alleged that an offence of Oppressive Conduct had been committed; past tense.

This is not a new allegation.

My current concern, expressed on my web site (see www.bermuda.org.uk, specifically ‘progress’ and ‘Exit Form’), is that either:

1. The FCO have not been provided the information contained in the additional 3 pages and have innocently misrepresented the situation
   
2. The FCO were provided the information contained in the additional 3 pages and has intentionally misrepresented the situation.

If ‘1’ above is correct, it is the Bermuda service that is again involved in underhand tactics. If ‘2’ above accurately reflects what has transpired then obviously the FCO are implicated also.

There is a further concern; possibly the Bermuda police service did not provide details of my Exit Form. It is possible this was obtained from FCO (Bermuda) records. If so, it may transpire that the misrepresentation or withholding of information dates from 1990.

You will appreciate I possess a copy of my Exit Form, evidenced by it now appearing on my web site.

I have a genuine, substantiated, complaint to pursue. I believe I can support my very straightforward argument and do not wish to become involved in side issues or unnecessarily complicate matters by extending the complaint to your office or whoever fed you the incomplete information.

However, I believe it only reasonable to ascertain who provided the limited information and why. To this end, please could you provide me copies of all correspondence you have received from Bermuda in relation to my approach to you and the complaint, to include the details of the person supplying the Exit Form information. I am specifically interested in the Exit Form and am seeking to ascertain what precisely was supplied, the form in which it was received (document, phone etc.) and from whom.

I do not believe the above could be considered ‘confidential’ and am hopeful that, in clearly stating the need for the information, you will realise my only desire is to ascertain who (an individual or organisation) is seeking to prejudice my complaint.

Clearly, withholding the information would only prevent me from learning the truth.

I trust the above causes no inconvenience and look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Philip Swift