CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
Telephone 01-
166
་
Your reference
G A Harknett Esq
Independent Commission Against
Our reference
Corruption
HONG KONG
Date
HKK 14/1
4 August 1975
Dear Harknett,
MR ALAN ELLIS
1.
LAST
REF.
132
REF.
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Further to Bruce Dinwiddy's letter of 27 June, I enclose copies of Sir A Royle's letters of 3 and 10 July, together with another letter from Mr Ellis, and Lord Goronwy-Roberts's reply.
2.
We might perhaps have avoided this further round of correspondence if we had not forwarded Mr I C Scott's report to Sir A Royle but I should be grateful if you would now consider Mr Ellis's comments, in particular his offer to come to Hong Kong, and let me have your views as soon as possible. You will note that Lord Goronwy-Roberts himself has no wish to question the Commissioner's judgment as to whether any further action should be taken.
3. One can only speculate on the implications of Mr Ellis's threat to have recourse to his "legal remedy". As far as we can judge, he has no grounds for bringing an action in the courts but paragraph 1(b) of his statement of 2 December 1974 forwarded by Stuart to Cater on 16 December suggests that he may believe he could bring some sort of action for wrongful dismissal. He may, of course, appeal to the press. Subject to your views, we should be prepared to take the line, in response to any enquiries, that the Commission's Operations Target Committee were satisfied that every reasonable effort had been made to investigate Mr Ellis's allegations and that these remained unsubstantiated.
noted of
BU I monkt
BD
ev
Yours eu
hauerence
PL O'Keeffe
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Dept.
١٥هـ
6/8
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