A letter to Howard Choppin at the Home Office

by **Tony Bennett** 29.03.10 11:27

To: RT. HON. ALAN JOHNSON MP, HOME SECRETARY

29 March 2010

Dear Mr Johnson (Attn. Mr Howard Choppin)

Today I telephoned the Home Office to enquire why your staff member P T Crane had sent my letter to you dated 12 March 2010, and its enclosures, to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), when it was plain that all matters in my letter concerned the Home Office and its responsibilities.

During my telephone call to your office this morning, which lasted from 9.24pm to 9.48pm, your Mr Howard Choppin eventually disclosed the following:

1. My letter was being dealt with under two separate references, T4652/10 amd T4653/10

2. I would eventually receive a reply from the Home Office under reference T4652/10

3. Reference T4652/10 was being dealt with by the PPPU of the Home Office (the Police Powers and Procedures Unit

4. The sending of my letter and all its enclosures to the FCO was a clear error

5. The letter and enclosures had been sent to the Direct Communications Unit of the FCO but your staff didn't know who was dealing with it there

6. Your Mr Choppin undertook to contact the FCO without delay and retrieve my letter and its enclosures and notify me as soon as these had been located and returned to the Home Office

7. Your Mr Choppin conceded that you and your staff would be unable to reply under reference T4552/10 without having the original letter and enclosures to hand

8. Your Mr Choppin believed that the PPPU might currently have a scanned copy of my original letter but NOT the enclosures. Any reply would therefore be delayed until you had recovered the letter and enclosures from the Foreign Office.

Given that on 19 March 2010 I was told by your Direct Communications Unit that the PPPU was dealing with my letter and that a response was being prepared it is very hard to see how the Direct Communications Unit could have made an accidental decision to pass the papers to a wholly different government department. I should be grateful if you could please investigate how this error arose.

Finally, for your information, below is a message I put out on the internet yesterday about the Home Office's obvious error in this matter.

[YESTERDAY'S STATEMENT APPENDED HERE]

Yours sincerely

Tony Bennett
Secretary
The Madeleine Foundation
01279 635789