Phil Jones unwilling to testify under oath

An excellent article at Bishop Hill here describing a clean sweep for Don Keiller in court (with David Holland as a “Mackenzie friend”) against the University of East Anglia and its solicitors.

The article reports on Keiller’s appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal (Case No. EA/2011/0152) in the General Regulatory Chamber – Information Rights. The appeal related to the second part of Keiller’s original FOI – instructions sent by CRU to Georgia Tech on their use of CRUTEM. CRU had argued that they didn’t have the information because Jones had deleted the email and they did not have access to the server in police possession. All arguments by the university were dismissed, with the judge being more than somewhat acid in some of his comments.

The University of East Anglia’s argument was hampered by their failure to present direct evidence from Phil Jones. (Assertions by Jones were presented by what Don Keiller described as “third-hand hearsay” – a conversation between Jones and David Palmer, passed on to Jonathan COlam-French, passed on to the UEA solicitor. Keiller and Montford observe:

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With the Appeals Panel having decided in Keiller’s favour the appeal was then considered by the “First-Tier Tribunal (Information Rights)”. Normally such appeals are dealt with by an exchange of written correspondence, but UEA decided that they wanted to call a witness, necessitating a full court hearing. This was no small step, since judges and barristers are involved and in the event of an unsuccessful appeal it is possible, in theory at least, to end up with a large bill for costs.

This was not the only obstacle placed in the way of the appeal. Parties are required to agree on an “open bundle” of documents to be provided as evidence for the Tribunal to consider. Here Dr. Keiller asked for sections of the Muir Russell Report and the minutes of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which examined emails “leaked” from CRU. He also asked to include the letter to UEA from the Deputy Commissioner of the ICO which famously stated “The prima facie evidence from the published emails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information.”

All these publicly available documents were objected to by solicitors acting for UEA, on the grounds that they were “prejudical”. In the end Keiller had to write directly to the Tribunal to get them admitted as evidence. This evidence proved crucial.

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It appears that UEA were keen that Jones should not appear on the witness stand, where he would be required to give evidence under oath. In fact it is noteworthy that, despite all the official “investigations”, Jones has never been required to answer questions under oath or provide a signed declaration.