CONFIDENTIAL
2.
His report of 31st March 1965 is an interesting document and sheds some light on Mr. Ellis and his modus operandi and on his superiors' views of him, and was found convincing by the then Government in Whitehall1. According to Mr. Tyrer, who as you know was a highly competent staff officer, Ellis's allegations amounted to a mixture of truth, half-truth and mis-statement, against a background in which the Police could not prosecute everyone all the time who broke the law, and had to choose their targets at any given time. All Police Forces have to confront this problem to some extent. It calls for judgement and at any time views on the correctness of judgement can differ. Of course judgement can be and no doubt sometimes is influenced by corruption. Mr. Ellis's representations appear to have been largely intended to show the superiority of his own judgement to that of his superiors and their unfairness to him, and allegations of corrupt motives on the part of his superiors figure only slightly in the representations he made at that time.
6.
The question now is whether these representations should be referred to the new Commission against Corruption. The latter has a mammoth task in cleaning up corruption in this Asian city. Its resources are limited, and, at any rate at first, its main objective will be to tackle corruption in comparatively high places. It cannot waste time in following scents ten years old as its task is with the present.
The only circumstances in which Mr. Ellis could be of any assistance, would be if he was able to produce new and conclusive evidence, not just allegations. Speaking personally it seems to me rather unlikely that he could now do this. On the other hand, if he can, and has something new and definite to show, the Commission against Corruption would gladly act on it to the best of its ability.
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CONFIDENTIAL
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