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Mr Male
PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts
MP'S LETTER:
1.
MR ALAN ELLIS
Sir Anthony Royle MP wrote to Lord Goronwy-Roberts on 10 July enclosing a further letter from his constituent, Mr Alan Ellis. Following Mr March's submission of 23 July, Lord Goronwy-Roberts replied on 24 July. I forwarded Mr Ellis's letter to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, who have now sent their comments (Mr Prendergast's letter of 20 August).
2.
Mr Prendergast has not explicitly referred to Mr Ellis's complaint that the Independent Commission failed to establish who was his room servant in October 1962. However, it seems to me unreasonable to expect the Commission, which needs all its resources to investigate much more serious allegations of more recent corruption, to pursue Mr Ellis's case further when he has patently failed to provide evidence on which to proceed. Indeed, his efforts to identify the alleged briber in 1962 clearly pointed. to the wrong person and wasted the Commission's valuable time. It is of course not surprising after 13 years that Mr Ellis should make such a mistake; but this illustrates the difficulty of pursuing his allegations after this lapse of time. I am personally doubtful, even if Mr Ellis went to Hong Kong and managed to identify his servant, whether a case could ever be made to stand up in court. I thus see no alternative to accepting the judgment of the Commission's Operations Target Committee that every reasonable effort has been made to investigate Mr Ellis's allegations. Mr Ellis threatens recourse to legal remedies. every right to seek such remedies but I am doubtful whether, even if pursued, they will give him much satisfaction.
3.
He has, of course,
Mr Ellis is likely to persist with counter arguments against anything which Lord Goronwy-Roberts writes to Sir Anthony
No see Subminen
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/Royle