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f) A further letter from Mrs Elliott to me
of 1 June
g)
The Attorney-General's comments on a) and b)
h)
i)
A record of a call she paid on me on 21 September
A copy of a paper she left with me on 21 September
3. I do not think the Department need bother with all this paper, but if questions are asked we could quickly refer you to the relevant passages.
4.
Much the most illuminating aspect of her whole exercise was the statement in her first letter, whose accuracy she confirmed when she called, that "the vast majority" of prison inmates she spoke to admitted their guilt. Undoubtedly there is some framing and of course we must do and are doing everything we can to stop it, but as the Chief Justice points out in c) and I confirmed with Jim Crane, allegations of framing or improper behaviour are often all that a guilty party can produce in their defence. The guilt of some of the persons Mrs Elliott claims to have been framed was manifest.
5. In my meeting with her I felt that she was very much living in the past and was little aware of the genuine changes that had occurred over the last three or four years, though she admitted improvement.
6.
Incidentally she has switched her plans and will now receive her CBE here on 5 October.
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