FOI Act request about meetings between staff of Operation Grange and BBC Crimewatch - REFUSED

voluminous correspondence with the Operation Grange team all regarding this single investigation.

Yes, too right. When you make enquiries to or of OG, TB, why are they always about this single investigation? Why can't you ask OG about the weather or street crime in Essex or the price of chips today or fly tipping on the Algarve? Why the obsession on this case when you talk to OG? I was at the dentist only today, and (thinking they must get bored with teeth) I asked her how to perform a colonoscopy and she was so obliging and very happy to explain and appreciated the variety of question. I went on to enquire about my taxes.

And another thing, TB. It's not as though there aren't other places you can go to enquire about the MET investigation into the case of MBM. Why don't you try.... errr. And... Oh, then there's. Have you tried crimewatch or 101 or your local police station?

Just stop asking appropriate questions of the right organisation about legitimate queries you are entitled to ask about - O.K.?! Clear enough? Good. Goodbye!

Well yes I agree it's not a suitable reply to a request. Or that the reply is correct in toto. We should be allowed to ask what we like as it's our money.

Perhaps it should called something other than Freedom Of Information.

Something like QUANGO.

I think the reply to TB was intended to intimidate. 
"You have been warned previously about the vexatious nature of these
requests."
I would call that a vexatious response.
It is totally inappropriate and unprofessional of them.

roy rovers wrote:'You have been warned previously' - what totally inappropriate language for a public servant to use to a member of the public making a legitimate request as allowed by the law. This investigation is a joke. The people running it and those at FOI are THICK!

I totally agree with you, roy rovers. Add the unprofessionalism of Jim Gamble to this sad little lot, and one has to ask, WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE PUT IN POSITIONS OF AUTHORITY?? What a shower! "You have been warned" What next???

dantezebu wrote:I think the reply to TB was intended to intimidate. 
"You have been warned previously about the vexatious nature of these
requests."
I would call that a vexatious response.
It is totally inappropriate and unprofessional of them.

I agree 
I sent them a picture once of the last photo by the pool but without MBM in it and 
they replied in capitals asking where I got it!

I know 'warned' what a high handed reply and use of language

noddy100 wrote:I know 'warned' what a high handed reply and use of language

shocking, but not surprising

noddy100 wrote:

dantezebu wrote:I think the reply to TB was intended to intimidate. 
"You have been warned previously about the vexatious nature of these
requests."
I would call that a vexatious response.
It is totally inappropriate and unprofessional of them.

I agree 
I sent them a picture once of the last photo by the pool but without MBM in it and 
they replied in capitals asking where I got it!

Did you, by chance, ask them by return in 'capitals' how they got the last photo by the pool with MBM in it ?

noddy100 wrote:I know 'warned' what a high handed reply and use of language

Beyond high handed, menacing in fact.

"The Information Commissioner recognises that dealing with unreasonable
requests can place a strain on resources and get in the way of delivering
mainstream services or answering legitimate requests. Furthermore, these
requests can also damage the reputation of the legislation itself."

What!???   

As far as I am know TB has made one request for specific information. There is no limit on the number of FOI requests that can be made. Who ever responded to this request is clutching at straws. If anything they're damaging the reputation of the legislation.

3rd time of asking.....was this response by email or letter ?

The reason I ask is because you must be the only one in the UK to get their post so early to be able to write it word for word online.....let's say your postman must deliver pre 6am ?

aiyoyo wrote:

noddy100 wrote:I know 'warned' what a high handed reply and use of language

Beyond high handed, menacing in fact.

One good thing is that in this day and age it is all here, on the www, and everyone is aware. TB still wiser to avoid dark alley-ways, but at least We All Know - so he is safer.

Solicitor..(s)
Solicitation..(NSY)
Solidify..

Sorry, just thinking out loud..... :cheers: 

High five ?    

In plain sight....
  

HelenMeg wrote:

Section 14(1) can only be

applied to the request itself, and not the individual who submits

it. An authority cannot, therefore, refuse a request

on the

grounds that the requester himself is vexatious. Similarly, an

authority cannot

simply

refuse a new request solely on the

basis that it has classified previous requests from the same

individual as vexatious.

HelenMeg, I am most grateful to you. I am not familiiar with all the workings of the Freedom of Information Act and simply wasn't aware of Section 14(1).

The FoI Act can be misused, but I have clearly not done so. Just for the record, I have received no previous warning either from Operation Grange or the Met's FoI Act section about either 'voluminous correspondence or 'vexatious requests'.

The FoI Act was one of the better achievements of Blair's term in office; I think it should have gone further, but Blair later said that it had been too generous and that he wanted to cut back people's right to information.

I think it has been said that "information = knowledge = power", and I remember a slogan from the 1970s: "If you don't know what your rights are, you haven't got them".

The governemnt set up a review which has cost £7.6 million so far into the disappearance of a 3-year-old British girl in a foreign country. It has produced (so far as we know) no result in over three years. The team of 40-odd detectives on what is now a 're-investigation' had made many statements about its work on the public record. Whilst confidential details about a live investigation are nearly always protected from disclosure, some matters are not.

Grange have spoken about how big their squad is, how many trips they've made abroad, how many ILORs they've submitted and so on. If they've publicly spoken about these issues, normally we can ask questions about them.

My recent FoI Act question about the cost of the helicopter and the dig is an example. We can see that these have happened or are about to happen. It is admitted on the record that the British taxpayer is picking up the tab for all this. We are surely entitled to ask how much; all their expenditure, right down to DCI Redwood's allowances for breakfast, lunch and dinner in Portugal, must be recorded.  

By the way, I submit all my FoI Act requests on the 'WhatDoTheyKnow' site. On this site, you can check what questions people have asked and what the responses are. It's a very friendly, easy-to-negotiate site and I'd recommend anyone with a few minutes to spare to check it out.

And so to answer the impatient 'Improper Conduct' (how apt!), my questions and any answers are sent to me online via the WhatDoTheyKnow site, which notifies me of responses from the Met and other authorities by e-mail. 

Thanks again to 'loopzdaloop' on this forum who first told me about the site

Didn't you think of calling Shrimpton for aid ?
Legalities I mean....
Just wondering Tone

Improper Conduct wrote:Didn't you think of calling Shrimpton for aid ?
Legalities I mean....
Just wondering Tone

OK, you are yet another arrival here who has zero interest in us finding out what really happened to Madeleine McCann, and I trust appropriate action will follow. I wonder why so many people come on here to distract from our search for the truth rather than to give active help?

But while on the subject of Michael Shrimpton, my strong opposition to his absurd purported information on what happened to Madeleine McCann is known, as is my comment that his fantastic theories, especially about a German spy network controlling the world, may be safely ignored.

But, well, talk of the devil, here he is on a criminal charge (last month, Southwark Crown Court) for supplying false information to the police about a German submarine trying to blow up the Millennium Dome (something like that anyway):

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

...and here he is in a speech last week to the right-wing Swinton Circle on his favourite subject: German spies:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

He has a brilliant mind on the British Constitution and on British weights and measures legislation and, if you accept him as comedy act, he can be very entertaining. The vid's worth a watch (for entertainment value) if you've an idle 10 minutes.

I'm not sure how accurate his book: 'Spyhunter' (just published) will turn out to be though

Tony Bennett wrote:
The governemnt set up a review which has cost £7.6 million so far into the disappearance of a 3-year-old British girl in a foreign country. It has produced (so far as we know) no result in over three years. The team of 40-odd detectives on what is now a 're-investigation' had made many statements about its work on the public record. Whilst confidential details about a live investigation are nearly always protected from disclosure, some matters are not.

Conservatively, that's three hundred man hours a day that they've potentially got to throw at this.

WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

Clay Regazzoni wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:
The governemnt set up a review which has cost £7.6 million so far into the disappearance of a 3-year-old British girl in a foreign country. It has produced (so far as we know) no result in over three years. The team of 40-odd detectives on what is now a 're-investigation' had made many statements about its work on the public record. Whilst confidential details about a live investigation are nearly always protected from disclosure, some matters are not.

Conservatively, that's three hundred man hours a day that they've potentially got to throw at this.

WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

Collecting tens or hundreds of thousands of pages of documents.

Reading the ones in English.

Sending the ones in Portuguese (PJ docs) and Spanish (Metodo 3 docs) for translation.

Reading the translations when they come back.

Deciding what box file each of them will go into.

Making an index of them.

Checking the index.

Writing labels on the boxes.

Buying more shelves and boxes.

Reading more documents.

Expanding the index.

Writing more labels.

Booking flights to and from Portugal.

Filling in expense claims.

Preparing numerous bland soundbites for TV.

Sitting down with the producers of CrimeWatch and preparing a really good script for the programme.  

More work on the index.

More labelling of the box files.

The visible proof of all this is the floor-to-ceiling wall of shelves of box files, visible when Redwood and Matthew Amroliwala swept in to the cavernous Grange incident room on the CrimeWatch Special

Tony Bennett wrote:

Improper Conduct wrote:Didn't you think of calling Shrimpton for aid ?
Legalities I mean....
Just wondering Tone

OK, you are yet another arrival here who has zero interest in us finding out what really happened to Madeleine McCann, and I trust appropriate action will follow. I wonder why so many people come on here to distract from our search for the truth rather than to give active help?

But while on the subject of Michael Shrimpton, my strong opposition to his absurd purported information on what happened to Madeleine McCann is known, as is my comment that his fantastic theories, especially about a German spy network controlling the world, may be safely ignored.

But, well, talk of the devil, here he is on a criminal charge (last month, Southwark Crown Court) for supplying false information to the police about a German submarine trying to blow up the Millennium Dome (something like that anyway):

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

...and here he is in a speech last week to the right-wing Swinton Circle on his favourite subject: German spies:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

He has a brilliant mind on the British Constitution and on British weights and measures legislation and, if you accept him as comedy act, he can be very entertaining. The vid's worth a watch (for entertainment value) if you've an idle 10 minutes.

I'm not sure how accurate his book: 'Spyhunter' (just published) will turn out to be though

Yes....Its a funny old circular world. He had your back.....

Clay Regazzoni wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:
The governemnt set up a review which has cost £7.6 million so far into the disappearance of a 3-year-old British girl in a foreign country. It has produced (so far as we know) no result in over three years. The team of 40-odd detectives on what is now a 're-investigation' had made many statements about its work on the public record. Whilst confidential details about a live investigation are nearly always protected from disclosure, some matters are not.

Conservatively, that's three hundred man hours a day that they've potentially got to throw at this.

WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

very puzzling...

Tony, with all due respect, I do not see why you would have the Met spend yet more time and money on explaining how much money they spent on a helicopter, travel expenses, etc. ... Let them do their job, I suggest. And, if and and when, they come up with zero results, is IMO the time to start asking questions.

Châtelaine wrote:Tony, with all due respect, I do not see why you would have the Met spend yet more time and money on explaining how much money they spent on a helicopter, travel expenses, etc... Let them do their job, I suggest. And, if and and when, they come up with zero results, is IMO the time to start asking questions.

Really, Chatelaine, I despair of you sometimes.

Every single public agency we have in this country who is subject to the FoI Act could say exactly the same as you've just done.

For goodness sake, the very remit of Operation Grange was only prised out of them by people asking FoIAct questions.

You clearly have no idea how much scandal, waste of money, bad decisions, cost overruns and all sorts of other inconvenient information has been wrung from reluctant government and local authorities over the years.

We are an over-governed country and the FoI Act is a people's piece of legislation, enabling us to keep them in check.

Would you rather we didn't know that Grange had already cost £7.6 million and was costing well over £6,000 more every day of the year?

But we know that Tony.
You calculated they cost GBP 6,000 per day and we buy that.
That doesn't make my remark, as a foreigner, less valid.
An educated guess, however, would be that such amount is spent daily on any other important crime.
And a crime it is.
The expense is a drop on a hot plate of general GBP and expenditure.
Let them finish [both of them, PJ and NSY] and then ask the questions, if the result is not satisfactorily.

ETA I despair of you occasionally too   

Agree with every word of this

   An educated guess, however, would be that such amount is spent daily on any other important crime.
And a crime it is.
The expense is a drop on a hot plate of general GBP and expenditure.
Let them finish [both of them, PJ and NSY] and then ask the questions, if the result is not satisfactorily.

Châtelaine wrote:Let them finish [both of them, PJ and NSY]

To date, they've had 7 years and 27 days. How much longer do they need?

Grange may have cost less tfhan £8 million so far.

But don't forget about....

* millions spent by the PJ, and

* millions spent by Metodo 3, Kevin Halligen, Dave Edgar and the rest of the private eyes, and

* £500,000-plus by Leicestershire Police, and

* how much by police forces all over the world checking thousands of false sightings of Madeleine?  

Every single person on the planet was asked to 'Look for Madeleine'.

By now, we're entitled to ask questions about the continuing cost of this search

russiandoll wrote:Agree with every word of this

   An educated guess, however, would be that such amount is spent daily on any other important crime.
And a crime it is.
The expense is a drop on a hot plate of general GBP and expenditure.
Let them finish [both of them, PJ and NSY] and then ask the questions, if the result is not satisfactorily.

Fortunately neither you nor Chateleine have to suffer the indignity of living in the thoroughly corrupt secretive cesspit that is the UK these days. (If you doubt what I say, I would  remind you that there is a former Conservative cabinet minister who is accused of child abuse and rape from numerous people yet still hasn't even been interviewed, let alone arrested [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. This is the reality of Britain today)

I share TB's concerns and don't understand why we aren't allowed to ask the sort of question that he asked. SY long ago lost the right to be given the benefit of the doubt and surely in any democracy those that rule should accept the right of their citizens down-trodden, fore-lock tugging, deferential subjects to challenge those in authority?

As far as the spend is concerned, it is massively exceptional for any UK police force to spend that sort of money on an investigation. I've been the victim of two crimes and the police haven't spent a penny investigating either of them so for the sort of money that the Met have spent where they don't even have jurisdiction is incredible. That it is the endemically corrupt and institutionally racist SY that is spending the colossal sums just gives more cause for concern

@ Tony
The Americans needed far more time than that for the Ramsey case and I haven't heard of a conclusion. Neither of the costs of the investigation. Nor of someone asking about that. No offense meant, Tony. Let the detectives take their course. I believe the major part of them do want to nail criminals and especially if a young girl is involved. With all due respect. And you know that.