29-Oct-03 - Cullen Inquiry Whitewash - HE WOULD SEEM TO BE A LIAR!

29-Oct-03 - Cullen Inquiry Whitewash - HE WOULD SEEM TO BE A LIAR! However we should not be too surprised in the light of his track record and his senior position in The Spec.

Cullen Inquiry Whitewash

Billy Burns recently petitioned the Scottish Parliament to open up to the public Lord Cullen’s 100-year Closure Order on files in relation to his pseudo-inquiry into the Dunblane massacre. (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/petitions/public/index.htm listed at PE652)

Billy’s own correspondence was included in the order. Burns comments: “Lord Cullen can elicit little sympathy from the public for the way he conducted his inquiry into the Dunblane massacre in 1996.

I (Martin Frost) wrote to him on 27 February 2003 after a prominent Sunday Times journalist brought it to my attention that my correspondence with the ‘Cullen Inquiry’ before, during and after it commenced, had been put on a 100-year closure order, along with 105 other files.

“It was claimed that the reason the ‘gagging order’ was put in place was to protect the names of children who were victims of sex-abuse. Lord Cullen at the time of the Inquiry said there was no evidence of child sex-abuse, but now, seven years after his Inquiry, he has used the fact that there was evidence of child sex-abuse to try to justify his unwarranted 'gagging order’.

"This just did not wash with me. My letters to him did not mention a single name of a child sex-abuse victim - for I did not know any names. My letters dealt strictly with the potential, then actual Masonic cover-up, keeping in mind the many reports at the time that the mass killer, Thomas Hamilton, was a Freemason.

“I asked Lord Cullen to recuse himself if he was a Freemason. He denied he was a Mason following the question posed. I then asked him to instruct every witness to the Inquiry to declare if they were Masons, because too many sinister loopholes were created for Thomas Hamilton over a number of years to enable him to retain his gun licence and continue running boys clubs. Hamilton was given this seal of approval despite many misgivings from worried members of the public, certain police officers and others.

"As it happened, Lord Cullen did not recuse himself, even though, as I have recently discovered, he is numbered 1702 on the membership list of the ‘Speculative Society of Edinburgh’, which is an exclusive off-shoot of Freemasonry. In fact, Masons from Lodge Canongate Kilwinning No 2, founded the “Speculative Society” in Edinburgh in 1764.

"As the inquiry got under way, “Spec” member Lord Cullen did not ask any witnesses whether they were Masons or not, thereby digging a hole deeper and deeper for himself as his Inquiry actually regressed.

"When I learned of the 100-year 'gagging order', I wrote to Lord Cullen, demanded his resignation from the judiciary. He had been promoted to the Lord Presidency for his sins, the top law lord in the country. After receiving my letter, it was reported he was to be moved to the House of Lords. I had no intention of allowing him to take refuge in the Lords so I wrote a letter to him, addressing the envelope to the Judicial Department in the Lords, so that employees in that department were fully aware of the scandal surrounding the Dunblane cover-up. Since sending that letter, his elevation has been shelved to prevent his dirty (white)washing begriming the red benches."

“The only satisfactory way to now appease the relatives and friends of the victims of the massacre and of the child abuse - and, indeed, to appease the entire Scottish people who have all been excluded from the fundamental rights of citizenship as a result of the pseudo-inquiry - is to conduct a brand new inquiry under the auspices of a cross party panel of MSP's and nominated lay members whose lives were touched by the massacre. The same panel must also conduct a full-scale Inquiry into Lord Cullen's status and behaviour before, during and after his risible inquiry, and into his placing of the 100-year 'gagging order' on the evidence.

“As a consequence of my letter to Lord Cullen, asking him to resign, my name and address were summarily airbrushed from the already inaccurate description of the file held by the National Archives of Scotland. After I wrote a letter of complaint to them, it was changed again and now has the following more accurate description:

'1996 Apr-Jul Additional Productions
Correspondence between William Burns, South Queensferry, and Lord Cullen and the Clerk to the Inquiry concerning possible connections with Freemasonry of Thomas Hamilton, Lord Cullen himself, witnesses to the Inquiry and civil servants; also extracts from inquiry transcript relating to possible links with Freemasonry, and letters to and from Thomas Hamilton concerning running of boys clubs, rebuttals of allegations made against him and his claims against Central Regional Council and Central Scotland Police (R77).'

"I lodged a Petition with the Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament and sent copies to every MSP, exposing the flagrant cover-up. At the hearing on 29 November 2003, I made the following oral submission to the PPC: "I don’t think there is anyone in Scotland who now believes that the Cullen Inquiry into the Dunblane Massacre was anything other than a Masonic whitewash. The 100-year 'Gagging Order on my correspondence with the Cullen Inquiry confirms that. This Committee was provided with copies of my documents so cannot ignore the existence of this solid evidence.

"At the time of the Inquiry, Lord Cullen claimed there was no evidence of child sex-abuse in relation to Thomas Hamilton and his connections, but seven years later he uses the fact that there was evidence of child sex-abuse to put a “Gagging Order” on the files, claiming it was imposed to protect the names of victims, even though most of the files buried do not mention any names of victims.

"My own files are in that category. It must be clear to the Committee that the only reason the content of my letters to Cullen were 'gagged' was precisely to keep the Masonic implication out of the equation; therefore out of the public eye.

"'There is no statutory basis for the closure of orders created by Scottish public bodies.' These are the words of the Lord Advocate, not mine. They were produced in a publication on 18 March 2003 by the Scottish Executive - News Online, under the heading: 'Dunblane police reports released.'

“That disclosure alone makes a mockery of the Clerk to the Committee, Steve Farrell’s 'view' that it is not within the competence of the Parliament to overturn or interfere with the terms of such an order. The Scottish Parliament is the ONLY with the power to create a framework for imposing closure orders; but it must do so in the public interest, not in the interest of collaborators in secret societies.

"The Lord Advocate goes on to say: 'The Public Records (Scotland) Act 1937 makes provision for the preservation, care and custody of the public records of Scotland. The terms of the legislation are permissive [i.e., lenient, tolerant or liberal, reflecting a belief that there should be as few restraints as possible].'
'Preservation, custody and care of records' does not mean the exact opposite; the 'smotheration, stash and snare' of public records.

"The report continues: 'By contrast, in England and Wales the Public Records Act 1958 (as amended by the Public Records Act 1967) sets a statutory "closure period" of 30 years, after which records must, with limited exceptions, be made available to the public. The 1937 [Scottish] Act DOES NOT impose similar obligations on Executive departments, but IN PRACTICE those procedures are followed in Scotland.'

"'In practice' means nothing and could well be replaced with 'convenience', "habit", 'obsession', 'fixation', 'weakness', and a number of other meaningless slogans. Even tradition has no authority in law. Just because something is widespread 'practice, it does not create a power that Parliament has denied or has not legislated for.

"Since there is no framework for closure orders in Scotland, I am calling on Parliament to enact unequivocal legislation to prevent people with a vested interest from burying evidence and diverting the onus onto everyone from judges to procurators fiscal to the police to clerks and to every Tom, Dick and Harry chosen for the purpose, so that the real culprits can distance themselves from their illicit undertakings.

"This closure order was enforced not to protect the names of children, who are adults now, but to protect the names of very high-profile Masons and paedophiles."

On being questioned by members of the PPC, I brought to their attention the fact that, in the Cullen Inquiry transcript, three people giving evidence referred to Thomas Hamilton's connection with the Queen Victoria School in Dunblane. At page 286, Grace Jones Ogilvie, a neighbour of Thomas Hamilton, said Hamilton used to get a van from Central Region for camps at Loch Lomondside and Queen Victoria School. At page 1,803, Ian Steven Boal, who was a teacher and a friend of Hamilton's, told how he was helped by Thomas Hamilton to get a job at Queen Victoria School. At page 2,267, Robert Mark Ure, an ex-husband of a friend of Thomas Hamilton, evidenced that his estranged wife had been to the rifle range at Queen Victoria School with Thomas Hamilton.

These referrals to Queen Victoria School were mysteriously ignored in Cullen's Report. Why were questions not asked about who made it possible for Hamilton to have easy access to and influence in QVS. Being a boarding school for children of the military, apparently sten guns were occasionally used on the range.

According to a former school master at QVS, Hamilton had free access to the rifle range. He also disclosed that he had been complaining for years about very high profile people arriving at the school (Friends of QVS they were called), some of whom took children away from the school for weekends to play out their perverted, sordid, sexual fantasies on children. Hamilton was the mediator for this paedophile ring. This schoolmaster was prevented from giving evidence at the Cullen Inquiry and was soon moved away to a remote part of Scotland.

What you had here was a Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Forsyth who, by virtue of office, was on the Board of Directors of QVS, and was also responsible for the appointment of Cullen to conduct the Inquiry. There is Prince Philip, a Freemason, the patron of the Board of Directors of QVS and is an honorary member of the exclusive, secretive and highly suspect Speculative Society of Edinburgh. Then there is Lord (Donald McArthur) Ross, the then Lord Justice-Clerk and Cullen's superior in the judiciary, who was also on the Board of Directors, and is also a "Brother" of Cullen's in the Masonic Speculative Society of Edinburgh, numbered at 1642.

Five weeks after the hearing of my petition, I still had not heard a peep from the Public Petitions Committee so I decided to write to them, stressing my concern about the inordinate delay in replying - notwithstanding the Committee's (inappropriate and unconstitutional) approach to Colin Boyd, the Lord Advocate to ask why the 100-year "Gagging Order" was imposed.

Even forgetting for the minute that the Lord Advocate has no legitimacy in Scottish law whatsoever to agree to the imposition of unlegislated closure orders in Scotland, it would take no time at all for even a primary schoolkid to follow instructions, pick up 106 files, single out the second-last one filed at 105, read the straightforward content, and declare: "I have no idea why these files have been gagged for 100 years?

But we are not depending on schoolchildren here to utter a response. We are depending on politicians and the legal profession. In a reply from the PPC dated 9 December, I was advised:

"As you are aware, at its meeting on Wednesday 29 October 2003, the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee considered the petition that you submitted on 26 June 2003. At that meeting the Committee agreed to write to the Lord Advocate seeking (a) further details of the framework under which a decision to impose a closure order of 100 years can be made, (b) confirmation as to why certain evidence that does not name specific children also appears to be subject to this 100-year closure order, and (c) an indication of the timescales for publication of the full catalogue of Cullen Inquiry material by the National Archives of Scotland and for any subsequent decisions on the release of material and variations of the closure period.

"We are still waiting for a response from the Lord Advocate's Office; once this has been received it will be further considered by the Committee. You will be informed when the petition is considered further and the outcome of that consideration."

After the hearing, the Committee agreed (not with me, but with one another) to approach the Lord Advocate to seek further details. I retaliated: "That could take another 99 years!"

It is now over two months since the PPC approached the Lord Advocate. Rather than elaborate further, I will quote the words of William Shakespeare in 1 Henry VI, iii, 1592: "Defer no time; delays have dangerous ends."

If the above information does not on its own rouse us, the public, into calling for a fresh inquiry into the events leading up to the Dunblane massacre and the ensuing whitewash, we are all guilty of something a lot more serious than complacency; we are all guilt of complicity. To sin by silence when we should protest, makes cowards out of men.

That aside, only time will tell what the outcome will be. In the near future, however, I envisage many clandestine figures in the Judiciary and in Parliament, with something to hide, clumsily tripping over their cloaks and falling on their daggers.