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Marcus
Rutherford
D
J Freeman 43
Fetter Lane London
EC4A 1JU. 6
January 2001 Your
ref MWR/PAS/011311999 Dear
Mr Rutherford, Thank
you for your letter of the 4 January
2001. You
state: ‘We refer to your letter dated 27 December 2000 which
we do not intend to answer in any detail, because it is quite clear save in
relation to your demands that our clients file a Statement of Truth, you miss
the point of our previous correspondence. The Civil Procedure Rules 1998 introduced for the
first time in civil proceedings the requirement that certain Court documents
were required to be verified by a Statement of Truth. The classes of documents
are: a)
Statement of Case b)
A response complying with an Order to provide further information c)
A Witness Statement The letter we wrote on 11 August 2000 is none of the
above, and is not subject to the requirements regarding Statements of Truth. The reason why we required you to lodge our letter at the same time as you sought to issue your own proceedings was because, as is evident from the letter itself, we were of the view that the proceedings as drafted were susceptible to strike out under the Court’s Case Management Powers, and the sooner the Court was aware of our position, the better for all concerned.’ I shall deal with this in some detail for it is important that the truth is established. Starting with your: ‘The reason why we required
you to lodge our letter at the same time as you sought to issue your own
proceedings was because, the….’ You will recall that following your (original) demand of the 11 August, that I lodge your opening letter/threats with my opening ‘court proceedings’. I replied thus: ‘Finally,
in order for me to comply with your apparent instruction, to include your letter
with my claim, I require a statement of truth, please forward.
Should the statement be signed by anyone other than a Shell
director/employee please state which Shell person authorised the statement of
truth.’ Following my demand that either yourselves or Shell forward a Statement of Truth, verifying the contents of your said letter are true, a mere week after issuing your original demand, you responded: ‘We did not intend you to include our earlier letter (11 August) as part of your claim,..’! Compare this with your actual demand of the 11 August- ‘We
require* you in any event, to lodge this letter at Court when you attempt to
issue proceedings.’ *Require- To ask as of right; to demand; to have need
for; to find it necessary; I require you to remain silent at all times.
Word family: requirement (noun) something which is required or obligatory. In
any event, I would be most grateful if you would now confirm the present
position. Do you still hold to the
present (?) ‘we are under no legal obligation, to supply a Statement of Truth
(which has only taken you five months to come up with)’.
Therefore, have you now abandoned the 11 August position?
What about the 18 August line? Or
does the 18 August position still stand? Or
is there now a forth position? Please
clarify. Leaving the actual facts aside, for one moment, you’re- ‘we required you to lodge our opening letter of the 11 August 2000 (with my proposed court proceedings) in order to alert the Court, and thereby save time and expense, proposition, is complete ‘baloney’. When issuing proceedings, court personnel do not carefully, and laboriously study each and every document, rule book in hand, in order to see if the court should take it upon itself to strike out a case - what nonsense. No, what would happen (as you are aware), is that the court would issue my claim, forward the said claims to the Defendants, then, in this instance, Freeman’s could contact the court in order for you to seek, as per your threat, to have my claim stuck off/out. I would then be able to offer/file counter arguments. Hence, my filing of your letter would have no direct bearing on the matter. The true reason you (Freeman’s) and Shell demanded that I file your said letter is precisely because it was designed to intimidate - i.e. Shell wanted on the Court’s case files, its threats to sue anybody who might be tempted to publish my allegations. Hence, furthering its policy of covering up of its nuclear dumping crimes. However, even if one were to accept, for the sake of argument, Freeman’s ‘we only acted because it was better for all concerned’ (latest) line, your said letter of the 11 August still requires a Statement of Truth Hopefully, your denial of this truth only arises from a failure to grasp/understand the spirit rules/law relating to Statements of Truth. For starters-Shell’s Legal Head, Richard Wiseman, informs (‘following an exhaustive search’), that Shell’s (Thornton’s) records concerning its nuclear programmes from the 1950/60’s are now, virtually, non-existent. Thus in order for your ‘clients’ to rebuff my allegations, they must be relying on the testimy of former Thornton, and other, directors/employees. Consequently, Shell is reliant on its witnesses. Now for your letter of the 11 August to have any standing, Shell’s ‘rebuttal’ of my allegations can only derive from its witnesses. Accordingly, your letter of the 11 August 2000, required a Statement of Truth in order for it to comply with Civil Procedure Rules for: Part 22.1 (1) c) a witness statement - clearly states that a Statement(s) of Truth must support witness statements. Now, of course, if you are unable, or unwilling, to provide (any) witness statements, well,,, I’m afraid that your selective ‘quoting’ of the Civil Procedure Rules (Part 22- Statements of Truth) has further proved to be of little assistance. For - Part 22.1 (3) If an applicant wishes to rely on matters set out in his application notice as evidence, the application notice must be verified by a statement of truth. -
hence, if one accepts your ‘lodge the letter’ proposition (that is your 11
August 2000 version/demand), it is self-evident that you were attempting to use
the letter as an (effective) application notice; in order to have my claim
struck off/out. Consequently, I am
correct in requiring a Statement of Truth in support of your said letter of the
11 August 2000. However, as the
letter contains a number of known lies, I again record, as a matter of fact, that neither you, the Chairman of
Shell Transport & Trading nor Shell’s Legal Head, were/are willing to sign
a Statement of Truth in support of the said letter. There is also the little matter of history, i.e. Shell’s
ability to construct the most shameless and outrageous sets of lies, at senior
director and other level, as per its fraudulent, sham Narrative, of the 7
February 1994, along with the Group’s truly repugnant, fabricated allegations
that I and the television programmes producer ‘harassed elderly Shell
pensioners’-you people truthfully have no depths to which you will not
descend. Now
reverting to the issue you are forever keen to avoid-Shell’s nuclear dumping
crimes. ‘As you are aware, Thornton’s current Managing Director, Graeme Sweeney, undertook, (following our meeting of the 12 January 1999), to ‘check’ a number of supplied facts that would enable Shell to establish the truth of its nuclear dumpings. After waiting for over a year, for the promised ‘enquiry findings, I wrote to Graeme Sweeney, on the 5 May 2000, only to discover that he had, apparently, lost the ability to respond. Instead, Shell’s legal head, Richard Wiseman, wrote to inform, on the 8 June 2000, that Mr Sweeney would not be ‘responding’ i.e. Shell refused to disclose it’s ‘enquiry’ findings, in contradiction of its agreement(s) of the 12 January 1999. Having been a party to dishonouring the said agreement(s), the same Graeme Sweeney is currently misinforming Shell Thornton’s staff that I have refused to call in the ‘Health & Safety’ authority! My last letter requested that this misinformation (lie) be corrected, you (Shell) have chosen in your reply to completely ignore the issue.’ You
refuse either offer a correction, rebuttal, answer, or reply! I directly requested that Freeman’s state - Precisely, which ‘clients’ (you claim) ‘continue to deny the truth of the allegations’ The outright refusal to identify these particular clients is instructive. I requested that you state whether they (your ‘clients) include Shell Research Limited? Royal Dutch Shell? Shell Transport & Trading? I further requested that you detail/state the precise names of all the ‘clients’ Freeman’s represent in this matter. Consequent to your outright refusal to supply (any) answers as to whom your clients are, any denials you forward, or have forwarded, are worthless. I further requested that the Royal Dutch/Shell Group directly affirm that it stands by the Group’s Narrative’s declarations that: ‘(a)
Shell Thornton were not involved in "atomic research" (page 1).’
Yes or NO. ‘(b)
Thornton did not house a "nuclear facility"…. Thornton did not and never has housed a pile or reactor.
(page 2).’
Yes or No. ‘(c) We do not understand what you mean by
"atomic research for military purposes". We have already explained that Thornton was not involved in
any atomic research (page 2).’ Yes or No?
Specifically, does the Royal
Dutch/Shell Group deny they and/or Thornton/Stanlow had/housed/utilised a
nuclear reactor/testing cell at its Thornton Research Centre/Stanlow site in the
1960’s, as set out in my Statement of Claim?
Yes or No? Again, does the Royal Dutch/Shell Group deny that
it and/or its employees/agents carried out the military, and other, nuclear
research programmes-as set out in paragraphs 51-79 of my draft Statement of
Claim? Yes or No?
The silence is deafening (and shameful). Finally, your closing assumption that ‘I have chosen not to issue proceedings’ is mistaken. As is your assertion that I have chosen ‘to conduct a campaign against your clients (whoever they are)’. Having spent the last two years endeavouring to get the Royal Dutch/Shell Group (your clients?) to face up to the consequences of its nuclear dumpings, without success, I am left with no alternative, other than to ‘go public’. There is no question of my having an ‘anti-Shell’ agenda, that is quite wrong. However, be under no illusion, as to my resolve to bring Shell to book, for the continuing heath effects are too serious to allow your clients tactics to succeed. Yours sincerely, John Dyer. |