Better Late Than Never? Home Office Waits Half a Year to Comply With Records Request
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ODAY I begin a series which I was eager to start a long time ago but did not because there was a pending case. I decided to split it into many parts so as to highlight many different ordeals and mistreatments.
What heralds the beginning of this series is the document head shown above. It was sent to us only days ago, more than 6 months after we had requested information as per the law permits us (British law is generally fairly good when it comes to information disclosures in the public sector).
There is a stamp at the very top, stating August. That was 6 months ago.
In this post we wish to highlight the following points:
- The papers, which weigh at 166 pages, were necessary in order for us to make our case
- These papers were sent to us half a year (or more) after the request was made
- The page above (click to zoom) serves to show that the papers could probably be sent about a month after the request had been made
- The papers which we needed were sent to us about 4 months after the case was very much over (as we had won it, proving that were the subject of injustice)
What we can deduce, politely and cautiously, is that Home Office was perhaps not interested in providing us with material evidence that would support our case. This is just the tip of the iceberg as in future parts we shall show a lot more.
It is not entirely impossible that our solicitors, whom we paid a lot of money, just ‘sat’ on these documents for 5 months or so, but based on what was told to us, that’s definitely not the case. We were told this explicitly.
There are far more serious procedural lapses and supposed ‘oopsies’ (never in our favour), as future parts shall reveal.
