by Robert Green
Despite significant media interest surrounding our public meetings, the West Mercia Police had made no comment. However, a Sunday Express journalist reported to us that they suggested I should apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to review the case, or ask the police to re-examine the forensic evidence. We took this advice, sending books to both. The CCRC replied that ‘only the convicted person or his legal representatives can apply to the Commission for a review’, effectively closing off this avenue.
The initial police response was that, while they remained ‘open-minded’, without any new evidence they would not revisit the case. I wrote back, pointing out that ‘crucial evidence, known to the police, prosecution and defence, was not raised at the trial of Andrew George’. I therefore requested a meeting in July after Kate’s final UN Board meeting, to discuss this and sensitive new evidence in person.
On returning home in April, TVNZ’s primetime current affairs programme Close Up featured our ongoing harassment and mail interference. Once again, Kate had posted her heavy UN papers home from London. As she had previously lost the contents of several similar packages, she asked MP Jeremy Corbyn in his London constituency office to sign as the sender of the large padded envelope. She took the extra precaution of addressing it to a colleague, and spent £25 mailing it from Corbyn’s local post office. It arrived – but inside a clear plastic bag sealed with NZ Post tape and stamped ‘Received in damaged condition, International Mail Centre Auckland’. One end had been clearly cut across; an opposite corner had been torn open, then roughly sellotaped – but the papers seemed intact. We had dismantled our cellphones for the meeting with Corbyn, so in order to intercept this package we must have been under close surveillance.
When we met the chief security officer of NZ Post in Wellington, it became our latest exhibit from examples of criminal interference with our mail stretching back 20 years. This resulted in our mail being placed under special monitoring. Despite (or because of?) this, overseas mail still occasionally arrived damaged as if to check the contents. Two padded envelopes containing UN documents from Geneva were cut on an angle, and a large package from Germany had had half one side steamed open. I then found our PO Box latch in the locked position, but open with mail sitting inside. The NZ Post sorters were dumbfounded.
We also had evidence that some letters were not arriving. When the UK Director of ‘Justice on Appeal’ emailed discussing the case, we suggested he avoid email as too insecure, and instead write via our postal box. Three weeks later he received a letter with a Royal Mail sticker on it enclosing his letter to us, which had been ripped open. Our address had been ‘scored out in biro pen’. He sent another letter the next day, which also never arrived.
Mansfield’s high profile support convinced the TVNZ Close Up team to run with our story. On their programme he said:
This was not a murder carried out by a young man aged at that time 16, on his own – absolutely impossible … I don’t think anybody on earth would think that it was not possible for the British Government to dirty their hands with something when they think that it is in the interests of the Government of the day to acquire more information … What governments want is for people to back off so they can in fact hope that everybody has gone to sleep over it, and they can shove it under the carpet. Well, that’s not going to happen.
After the broadcast, we obtained meetings with a Privacy Commissioner, Human Rights Commissioner, and a further one with the Director of the Security Intelligence Service, Dr Warren Tucker. Still perplexed by this ‘organised criminality’, he cynically suggested Kate should ‘get a new cellphone’. He advised us to register a formal complaint with the Christchurch police, ask them to check the ‘dropped’ calls, and sweep the house for bugs.
Having watched the Close Up programme, a neighbour told us he now suspected we were the targets of his former strange neighbours’ spying. A retired NZ Army officer with 25 years’ military experience, he said he could always recognise anyone who was ex-police, military or from the secret services. He wrote the following statement:
Eight to ten years ago, the two-storey flat next to where I live just around the corner from you became vacant and was occupied by an English man and woman … for about two years. It is about 200 metres in line of sight from your home … The woman seemed to stay inside for most of the period and I hardly ever saw them together. The man was an ex-military type… in his mid to late fifties, about 5ft 10 inches, trim in appearance, silver grey hair always well combed and cut short, he had a pencil line moustache and … blue eyes. He was quite well spoken and he smoked. As far as I know, [both] did not work throughout [their] stay … I do not remember them ever having visitors. On one occasion, he approached me in the [shared] driveway and asked if I would have any objection to him raising the height of the fence between my property and his flat … he raised the [6ft] fence by about another foot. It struck me at the time as being slightly odd, particularly for a tenant to do this. After they left the landlord had the extension removed. One day I realised they had left … I did see him once since then … perhaps two years ago … at the nearby Mall … when I think back now it was all rather odd or mysterious even. I once said in jest to a neighbour that I thought the Brit fellow may be a spy.
Eight to ten years ago was when the British detectives and the defence lawyer had visited us during and after the cold case review when we were discussing sensitive issues including confidential police files. A local police officer had warned that surveillance of all our electronics could be temporarily achieved with equipment in any private vehicle, and this could be sustained from a safe house located within 200 metres of ours.
Shortly before we arrived back in Britain in July 2012, Austin Mitchell introduced parliamentary Early Day Motion 314. Acknowledging our concerns in the book, the EDM:
notes Michael Mansfield QC’s view that the book raises serious and substantial doubts about the criminal investigations to date into this controversial murder;
supports Mansfield’s call for a Commission of Inquiry or a reinvestigation by another police force unconnected with any previous inquiries into the case;
notes the overwhelming endorsement of the same at public meetings in Shrewsbury and London in March 2012;
recommends that all the relevant papers should now be published by the Home Office, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Sizewell B Inquiry, the Atomic Energy Authority, the West Mercia Police and the Northumbria Police;
and that all these matters should be examined by the House of Commons Justice Committee.
To generate substantial cross-party support, Mitchell suggested I write a letter updating the situation to all 650 MPs, including the Prime Minister, with a covering note from him. By Christmas 2012, 55 MPs had signed in support, including Tory Sir Peter Bottomley, former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, their deputy leader Simon Hughes, eight more Liberal Democrats, and representatives from the Scottish and Welsh national parties. In addition, we invited other prominent figures to endorse a Committee of Inquiry. Early supporters included Lord and Baroness Kinnock, former Inspector of Prisons General Lord David Ramsbotham, Sue Cook, who had co-presented Crimewatch in 1985, and 16 Members of the Scottish Parliament.
Meanwhile, the West Mercia Police had agreed to my request. The three-hour meeting was refreshingly constructive. It was a relief to hand them copies of our sensitive new evidence, and have our concerns heard. The onus was now on the police and the parliamentary process to investigate them.
On our return home, acting on advice from the NZSIS Director, we lodged a formal complaint with the Christchurch Police about our harassment. Unsurprisingly, ‘due to financial constraints’ all they would do was open a file for any future incidents. A detective informed us they would not take any further action on the blocked cellphone calls. He assured us, unconvincingly, that ‘no NZ security authority was interested in keeping surveillance on us’ and ‘no foreign agency could gain access to Teleco
m NZ phones without the authority of the phone provider’. Regarding cellphone interference in Britain, he said no one could do so without first consulting the provider – but only UK authorities could investigate this. If we wished to have our house swept for surveillance devices, then we would have to cover the considerable cost ourselves.
We were extremely disappointed that, despite keeping two senior police officers informally briefed over many years, they would take no action even on recent incidents. However, one of these officers was concerned enough about our safety to have arranged an undercover policeman to attend the book launch, and deployed another in an unmarked vehicle outside our home that day.
As a last resort, we asked NZSIS Director Warren Tucker to arrange for our house to be ‘swept’ and to investigate the dropped cellphone calls. We argued that, as representatives of the victim’s family, we should not have to pay for this. With responsibility for investigating such criminal activities being deflected back and forth between the NZSIS and the police, we challenged him that only he was in a position to raise our concerns with his counterparts in Britain. We pointed out that ‘such unlawful behaviour is seriously damaging their reputation, and relations between the UK and NZ.’
In November 2012 Tucker sent us this reply:
Since we last met I have given deep consideration to your situation. Nothing has changed my firm and considered view … that no British agency of state is behind these events that have been causing you concern. I am absolutely convinced that no British agency would undertake such activity against New Zealand citizens. Neither would they take any operational action in this country without seeking clearance from the NZSIS – which would not be forthcoming for the type of activities of which you complain. Furthermore, I am sure that an overseas-inspired intelligence operation, especially one so protracted, would not go undetected by the NZSIS.
Tucker noted the ‘categorical assurances’ by British ministers back in 1984-85 that there was no involvement of the British security services in Hilda’s murder. For these reasons, regretfully he was ‘unable to oblige’ with any of our requests:
The use of NZSIS resources to sweep your private premises for surveillance devices is beyond the mandate of the NZSIS. We are willing to put you in contact with a commercial provider of this service, but you would need to meet the cost yourselves.
He then asked some good questions:
What would induce any intelligence agency or interest group to be still conducting an harassment operation, in today’s economic climate, after twenty years? Would their purpose not have been made clear at an early stage? Why persist given the evident failure to achieve their (presumed) objectives?
Unfortunately, he took refuge in the time-worn bolthole of state security authorities:
I believe you are mistaken and an explanation lies elsewhere. A traumatic episode will always have an impact on those closely involved, and it is not uncommon for this to affect the judgement of subsequent events. This can result in occurrences which are innocent being misinterpreted, and the simple explanation being rejected in favour of the complex.
Tucker sent copies of his letter to the Commissioner of Police and CEO of NZ Post – and added he would only reconsider if they provided ‘firm evidence to support your claims’. He hoped we could ‘achieve a resolution of the matters that are troubling you.’
We now knew where we stood. As law-abiding NZ citizens, we could not expect our State security system to protect us from criminal harassment by either a State or other organization.
During this exchange of letters, the Kim Dotcom saga became a serious embarrassment to the New Zealand Government. In January 2012, the German-born internet tycoon was arrested by police in an armed raid on his Auckland home. The US government had demanded his extradition on charges of online piracy and copyright infringement. A High Court judge later ruled that the arrest warrants were unlawful. Prime Minister John Key was then forced to reveal that, at the request of the police, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) – equivalent to Britain’s Government Communications HQ – had spied on Dotcom. Spying on permanent residents is illegal. Accusations were levelled of uncritical compliance with US demands at a time when the New Zealand government was reviving US military ties.
Potentially, these revelations raised some intriguing implications for our situation. GCSB is the NZ node of a global US signals intelligence network, with other branches in Britain, Canada and Australia. Inevitably, Tucker would consult regularly with GCSB and his British colleagues. Unsurprisingly, he exonerates them. The State security apparatus in both countries requires cooperation from the police, telephone companies, internet providers and postal services, whose staff are bound by the Official Secrets Act and are required to comply if the State decides it is threatened.
If Tucker believes there is no State involvement in our ongoing harassment, then what other organisation has the power, let alone motive, repeatedly to intercept our mail, email and phone communication, and break into our home with impunity? We have provided him and other relevant agencies with plenty of ‘firm evidence’ of these criminal activities. He cannot dismiss our experiences as ‘paranoia’ when we have statements from many witnesses, both in New Zealand and Britain, of similar harassment. What about the threats to Don Arnott, Mr A’s slashed tyres, and harassment of other witnesses?
Both Con Purser and Laurens Otter reported that, shortly before her abduction, Hilda had asked them to hide documents for her. In Otter’s case, she warned he would need a ‘stout bag’. New witnesses have indicated that others know what Hilda knew and that this information, which they want to get to us, could embarrass even the current British government. This would provide the motive for the persistent interference with our communications and occasional harassment. If the police and NZSIS refuse to investigate these criminal activities and take responsibility for our protection, then who will?
Looking back over nearly 30 years, I feel the need to offer some broader, closing observations to help make sense of what we have experienced.
Regarding our engagement with Tucker, I cannot imagine having equivalent access to the Director of MI5 in Britain. He agreed to meet Kate in 2009 to discuss our ongoing harassment after she had corresponded with him about accessing any NZSIS file held on her. His initial response was that there was no file. Soon afterwards, another peace campaigner found a note in her file reporting that Kate had not attended a meeting in 1990! Tucker was then forced to admit that she had indeed been under surveillance. This had probably dated from the mid-1970s, when she opposed US warship visits and later helped build the movement behind the nuclear free policy adopted in 1984.
Our first meeting in Geneva was at the launch of the successful World Court Project attempting to outlaw nuclear deterrence. Potentially, this was a serious threat to Britain’s nuclear weapons, especially after I became chair of the British affiliate of the campaign. Our first correspondence in 1992 was intercepted, arriving slit open in both countries. A year later, Kate sought ex-Prime Minister David Lange’s opinion after several letters were ripped in her letterbox. He confirmed it was not the NZSIS, and said it probably was ‘British, US or French operatives’ whose governments would have felt threatened by our anti-nuclear work. He was concerned enough about her safety that he asked the police to keep an eye on her young family.
Meanwhile I had evidence that I, too, was under surveillance following Hilda’s murder. Various people witnessed cars following me and my intercepted mail, and a neighbour overheard men talking on a phone about my movements. Add to this the harassment of my slashed tyre, the unusual fire at Hilda’s cottage, and the break-in at my father’s home where I was living. As a former Commander turned anti-nuclear campaigner, I was a further threat to State security. Therefore, after Kate and I teamed up it was no real surprise that we became of increasing interest to both the British and NZ authorities. Nonetheless, two former NZ Prime Ministers confirmed that our harassment had never been authorised
by them, and they had received assurances that the NZSIS was not responsible for the criminal incidents we reported to them.
The reality is that, in both countries, the security service has free rein regarding surveillance and any other measures it feels are needed to protect the State – because any parliamentary legislation is currently unenforceable. It is only when agents are caught red-handed, or well-resourced lawyers acting for people like Kim Dotcom uncover damaging evidence from leaks or whistleblowers, that the truth of this is glimpsed.
CHAPTER 15
WILD CARDS AND FACING FACTS
In any criminal investigation, the police decide what evidence is collected, let alone what is used or disclosed to the victim’s family and the public. However, interfering with evidence is liable to be counterproductive. A source, or a dissident within the police, can release it or allege pressure to change it. The police then risk accusations of a cover-up, raising suspicion about their motive. Closely linked to this is whether the conclusions the police are drawing are consistent with the evidence, and if they are ignoring some valid lines of enquiry.