Firstly, ACPO is the statutory consultee for the British Government coordinating national police operations and major investigations. My concern, shared by many others, is that despite the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) affirming that crimes had been committed, no charges were being brought under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) because the statutory time limit had expired.

But this was a disingenuous under-reporting of the facts because criminal charges could still be brought against Professor Phil Jones, chief climate scientist at the Climatic Research Unit (CRO) at the University of East Anglia (UEA), because he confessed to destroying crucial climate data and the leaked emails appear to suggest a conspiracy among a clique of climate scientists to commit data fraud.

As I have shown in an earlier article, criminal charges may still be brought against Jones and his alleged co-conspirators because under the Fraud Act (2006), conspiracy to commit fraud is not subject to such a statutory time limit.

Question: is it true or false that ACPO, a private limited company with no obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, has investments in carbon trading stocks and thus has a personal conflict of interest in investigating ‘Climategate’ thoroughly – a scandal involving alleged global climate data fraud that concomitantly would impact the value of such stocks?

Answer: Firstly, I can confirm that the Association of Chief Police Officers does not have any investment or financial interest of any kind in the trade of carbon stocks.

On a more general point, ACPO became a company limited by guarantee in 1997. This was a pragmatic step taken to maintain independence from Government while enabling the Association to fulfill its functions, including employ staff, enter into contracts for accommodation and allow for transparency in publishing accounts. All funds to ACPO are employed in the public interest.

As a company limited by guarantee, you correctly point out ACPO has no obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. However you may be interested to know that the Ministry of Justice has said it intends that ACPO will be added to the list of bodies subject to the Act, an intention which we welcome.

Question: Can you confirm or deny that officers under your sway are following up the recent Information Commissioner’s (ICO) admission that government officials working at the University of East Anglia did, indeed, unlawfully break the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), such offences not being subject to any statute of limitations (see below) so that you are now centering your investigations, not solely on ‘hacking’ of emails, but the illegal conduct and possible data fraud of international climate scientists involving many millions in taxpayer grants?

Answer: On your second request, Norfolk Constabulary has confirmed it is investigating a data breach at the UEA and how the circulation of private e-mails became public, with the assistance of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which is providing advice on Data Protection and FOI. This investigation is led by Norfolk Constabulary and the National Domestic Extremism Team has provided assistance. NDET’s role is to assist police forces: it does not have a remit to carry out investigations independently.

Question: Would you care to comment why the NDET, a non-specialist fraud unit are investigating what some legal commentators are saying is likely to be the greatest science racketeering fraud of all time, a matter more properly dealt with by the Serious Fraud Office?

Answer: NDET has provided assistance as a national police unit with relevant expertise and good background knowledge of the groups involved in climate change issues. Computer forensic expertise is one aspect of that assistance. The Serious Fraud Office has clear case criteria which are a matter for that body.

Question: Would you please relay to us your interpretation of the fraud laws so that our readership may be in no doubt that you recognise that while there may exist a continuum of fraudulent data manipulation, such crimes cannot yet be time barred under the rules of ‘compounded offences’ so that charges may still be lain under the Fraud Act (2006) and ‘conspiracy to corrupt,’ contrary to section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977.

Answer: It would be for Norfolk Constabulary to make any comment, if appropriate, on potential outcomes to this investigation. Under legislation, charging decisions are made by the Crown Prosecution Service.

To be frank, no one can reasonably accuse ACPO of foot dragging on this issue. It is simply the duty of ACPO to advise the government that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) as per the recommendations of the Roskill Report (1988) ought to be conducting this case, not Norfolk Police nor NDET.

The SFO is under the sway of that political appointee, the Attorney-General who in turn is accountable to Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. The British Government knows only too well that since the Criminal Justice Act 1987, the Serious Fraud Office is mandated responsibility for the investigation and prosecution of suspected cases of serious or complex fraud where £1 million or more is involved or in cases of multi-national jurisdiction (i.e. the Climategate scandal).

Prime Minister Brown knows the buck stops with him on this but he is so far having an easy ride and not being exposed for his own complicity in this scam. While the mainstream media is yet to pick up on this it is left to the blogosphere to pursue the matter. I will now be writing to the Attorney General, the Director of the SFO and the Chief Constable of Norfolk Police and I urge other British taxpayers who also feel ripped off to help keep the pressure up.

We must ensure that self-serving politicians like Gordon Brown cannot bury Climategate by, as I suspect, unjustly under-employing the powers of the police merely because we are in the run up to a general election this Spring.

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Acknowledgment: Gareth Bowden of ACPO