Foreign Office FOI reply re Clarence Mitchell's private Foreign Office briefings

By Tony Bennett - September 2011

From: Anthony Bennett

Saturday 23 July 2011

Foreign Secretary

Att. Freedom of information Section
King Charles Street
LONDON
SW1A 2AH

Dear Sir/Madam

re: Freedom of Information Act 2000 Request: Foreign Office briefings to Clarence Mitchell re the McCanns in 2007

On 31 January 2008, the Daily Mail reported as follows:

QUOTE

“British police and child protection officers do not suspect Madeleine McCann's parents of involvement in her disappearance, the couple's spokesman said.

Clarence Mitchell said officials had assured him in private briefings that they were treating the case as one of ‘rare stranger abduction’.

He was speaking last night as he launched an outspoken attack on the "appalling" standards of some media coverage of the disappearance of Kate and Gerry McCann's daughter in Portugal in May”.

UNQUOTE

The report followed his speech at a meeting titled: ‘The McCanns and the Media’ at the London School of Economics the previous day (30 January 2008).

These ‘private briefings’ appear to have been provided by, inter alia, staff of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, hence my addressing my Freedom of Information Act request to yourself.

In response to my FoI Act request of December 2007 [ FOI 0010-08 (CONS 03/2008) ]on related matters, you replied: “Clarence Mitchell was seconded by the Central Office of Information, where he was the Director of the Media Monitoring Unit, to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on 21 May 2007”.

At the time Madeleine McCann disappeared, Clarence Mitchell was working as the Head of the Media Monitoring Unit at the Central Office Information, and based I understand in the Cabinet Office.

My questions are:

(1) How many ‘private briefings’ of Clarence Mitchell were held either by Foreign and Commonwealth Office staff, or which were attended by Foreign and Commonwealth Office staff?

(2) On what dates?

(3) Who else attended those briefings?

(4) Who gave the briefings? - please name all Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials who gave those briefings

(5) Did the officials brief that this was a case of ‘rare stranger abduction’ only, or did they brief about other possibilities?

I await hearing from you.

Yours faithfully

Anthony Bennett


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The gist of their reply was this:

"I apologise for the delay in answering your request but it was important that we conducted the necessary searches for information you requested. However, after extensive searches, I can confirm that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office does not hold any information relating to 'private briefings' attended by Clarence Mitchell".

And that's it!
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Original post can be found here: https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t3532-foreign-office-foi-reply-re-clarence-mitchell-s-private-foreign-office-briefings#76824