Documentary evidence to substantiate the following report is available by fax to serious enquirers.

The British Secretary of State at the Department of Health, The Rt Hon Alan Millburn MP, has failed repeatedly to respond to legitimate enquiries raised in writing by the Member of Parliament who represents one of the victims of a secret government psychological experiment involving the use of newly developed information technology that is capable of monitoring the victims' thoughts. The victims of the secret experiment need information in order to start legal actions, including making a judicial review application that would challenge the legality of the multi-disciplinary experiment, which uses the services of staff from more than one government department, including the Health Department.

Details of the secret operation, in relation to which the numerous enquiries have failed to elicit any response whatosever from the Health Secretary, were published on 9 September this year at the UK Independent Media Center website (UK.IndyMedia.org) under the headline: 'Thought. Police' victims denied information.

See:  http://uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=40396&group=webcast

A series of letters has been sent by Phil Willis MP (Harrogate and Knaresborough, Lib Dem) to Mr Millburn and to the Home Secretary, David Blunkett. The first letter from Mr Willis to Mr Millburn was dated 18 July 2002. The most recent letter from Mr Willis to Mr Millburn was sent on 1 Novermber 2002. Although the Home Office did send a brief reply to one letter, albeit this reply failed to address the specific issues of concern, Mr Millburn has not responded at all to any of the numerous letters, emails or telephone messages that he has been sent on the subject of the secret experiment.

The experiment concerning which Mr Millburn is "stonewalling" uses advanced information technology the very existence of which is classified under the Official Secrets Act. The reason given deniably by government sources for the technology used and also for the experiment itself both being classified as official secrets is that the technology also has potential military applications. However, Mr Willis's constituent believes that the real reasons for the continuing secrecy are to spare the blushes of politicians who are rightly embarrassed at the fiasco into which the Thought Police experiment quickly deteriorated, and because of doubts in hindsight concerning the legality of the operation, leading to the use of official secrecy to deny access to a legal remedy for the victims.

The abuse of the Official Secrets Acts to deny a legal remedy to those whose human rights have been violated by those "acting in an official capacity" places the UK in flagrant breach of its international treaty obligations by virtue of Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

With one of the letters to Mr Millburn was enclosed a list of twenty-three separate legal and ethical objections to the Thought Police experiment, including the objection based upon ECHR Article 13. Also enclosed were excepts from the House of Lords judgments given in the landmark case Attorney-General v DeKeyers' Royal Hotel [1920], which established that it is illegal for ministers to try to do differently using the Royal Prerogative anything that statute law expressly enables to be done only in a specific manner. The DeKeyser case provides the foundation of another of the twenty-three legal and ethical objections that cannot be raised in a judicial application until information is released to the victims of the experiment.

Mr Millburn has been sent a copy of the earlier IndyMedia report at his Private Office and has been asked specifically and directly either to admit or to deny that the report is true. He has failed completely to respond to all enquiries, even when challenged directly to deny the earlier report (if he can). Mr Millburn has also been invited, in writing, to sue the author of the earlier report for libel, if he denies that the account given is factual. Although the earlier article does not name Mr Millburn personally, the early report clearly implies extremely reprehensible misconduct on the part of the Health Secretary.

© copyright John Allman 2002