Reason for return to Home Office of open documents from National Archives
Dear Home Office,
I am seeking information regarding the reason for the return to the Home Office in 2006 of documents which had been available for public inspection at the National Archives since 1995. The documents in question are contained within the file piece HO 45/25408, which has subsequently been formally listed as 'mislaid' or 'lost' and remains missing to this day.
This is despite the strenuous efforts made by Mr Geoff Baxter, of National Archives' Document Services Department, to discover its whereabouts.If it was ever returned to Kew (and the Home Office assured me in 2007 that it had been), it has not resurfaced there.
As a professional writer I have spent many years researching for publication the story of Dorothy Pamela O'Grady (the subject of the missing file), a process aided in 2007 by my successful request under the Freedom of In formation Act for the release by the Home Office of her (redacted) prison record and related documents contained in a second file – PCOM 9/1497.
The 'loss' of HO 45/25408, however, has obviously left an important omission in the research process as it contains, among other vital information, the evidence – written and pictorial – used to convict O'Grady of treachery in 1940. As things stand, it looks as though the nature of its disappearance will have to be treated as part of an already extraordinary story.
However, in referring to this, I am anxious to present a factual account of the circumstances and not resort (as some have) to speculation or sensationalism if neither are justified by the facts. This aim would be markedly helped if I could obtain from the Home Office the reason for seeking the temporary return / loan of HO 45/25408 from National Archives in 2006.
This, I suggest, would seem a reasonable request to make as – to reiterate – it relates to a set of documents that had been part of the accessible public record for more than a decade.
An informal request for information on the reason for the file's return to the Home Office (made by email of 12 August 2010 to Gareth Wyn Hazzelby, HO Information Policy Team, failed to elicit a response, hence this application under the Freedom of Information Act.
For further information, I refer you to earlier email correspondence with Mr Hazzelby in March and April 2007.
Yours faithfully,
Adrian Searle
Dear Mr Searle,
Please see attached a response to your Freedom of Information request.
Thanks
John Gomes
Information Management Service | Shared Services Directorate
Financial & Commercial Group
LG Floor | Seacole Building | Home Office | 2 Marsham Street | London SW1P
4DF
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