Inquisition 21
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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
Inside the British police state
This is another shocking UK story, but, as with other stories like it before, no one has been listening, not the state, the police, the media and certainly not the judiciary or legal profession. Not even a defence lawyer.
Kevin Kirk and his business partner were lecturers at Aberystwyth University when they started Kanda Systems Limited in Aberystwyth in Wales, making and distributing electronics components. Kevin was married and at the time of these events in 2001 his eldest daughter was 19 and two younger children were 11 and 9.
The company quickly grew to 42 staff and won several prestigious awards for small innovative businesses. They acquired a subsidiary in the US. One of the innovative ideas was to solve what could have been an expensive packaging requirement for their shipped products by shipping them out in ordinary plastic video cases.
In 2001, Kevin privately purchased two adult videos from the US, which featured Asian women wearing uniforms. A ‘customs censor’ at Leeds Airport opened the package, saw the uniforms and decided that the models were under the legal age, apparently unaware of either the facts that uniforms are common in Asian countries in just about every sector of the urban working population and that they are very popular in adult erotic and comedy movies. The videos featured Japanese actresses, and anyone who has seen Japanese erotic or non-erotic fantasy knows that women in uniforms in Japanese entertainment is a national characteristic. The women on the videos were all over 21 and the videos had been certified by NEMA, which appears to be equivalent to the BBFC certification, but more relevant is that each of the women had her own website which shows her age plus other details, such as her fan clubs.
This mistaken assumption by one customs officer set off a chain reaction that was to be fatal for Kevin and his business. Next thing apparently, customs or police peered in through the factory windows and lo and behold! They saw the video cases used to ship products!
‘Operation Star Trek’ was launched and its high point was the raiding of the factory and homes of the managing partners – no less than 48 customs and police officers raiding the factory alone. Neither the raiders nor the officers who obtained the warrants had seen the legal adult Asian movie seized at Leeds Airport. The mistake about its contents and the sight of the plastic cases were enough to set off this ridiculous operation. (Which incidentally may have also obtained its name from an FBI farce where one officer saw a Star Trek poster on the wall of a raided house and set off a Star Trek child porn ring scare – that plus his surname of ‘Kirk’.)
The raids happened on the same week as the company won a national exporter of the year award, which was reported in the newspapers, so word of the raids spread quickly. As the raids were taking place, Kevin was in the Ukraine having lunch with that country’s Deputy President. One of his employees called to tell him what was happening and to say that the senior officer involved had suggested that he was in the Ukraine talking to his child porn suppliers. Kevin told this to the Deputy President, who was an ex KGB general, and he laughed and said it must be awful living in a totalitarian country where privacy and freedom of expression were forbidden. At first Kevin assumed that he was joking, but then he remembered that he was the ex Ukrainian Ambassador to London.
The raiders behaved with the usual swaggering arrogance. According to Kevin, they locked the staff up in the boardroom for the whole day and when customers called they were told it was a customs raid in progress and those customers in turn were interrogated over the phone as to why they were phoning. They told all the employees they were investigating the importation of child porn and this news quickly spread to the customers who soon began to understand that they also were being tarred with the same brush. Finally, after spending the day at the factory, they left, taking all the computers which were eventually returned. Over 80% were damaged to varying extents and about 25% never worked again.
It was equally bad at Kevin’s raided home. They lived in a very rural part of Wales and with him away and his wife afraid of stories about a local stalker, she was terrified at seeing a man peer through the windows at 7AM. The officers pushed her aside as they entered and would not let her get dressed, leaving her in her nightgown.
They told her and his neighbours that they were investigating the importation of child porn. His wife became hysterical at this news and even later, when it transpired that only the adult movies had been found, their marriage was irretrievably damaged.
At his business partner’s house, their naked and terrified 15 year old daughter was dragged out of bed and forced to dress in front of the leering customs officers. We are told that the police had left the room in disgust at seeing this treatment. His business partner’s wife was also told they were investigating the importation of child pornography, which was not what it said on the search warrant. They found no child porn at his business partner’s home either but his business partner’s wife has not spoken to him since.
Kevin’s 19 year old daughter was in the factory and confirmed to him that she and the others were kept locked up all day. She also told Kevin that the customs officers made lewd statements to her and that one even asked her out on a date. Kevin reports also that when she told them off, they tried to badger her into saying that he had molested her when she was younger.
They found no evidence of either the importation or manufacture and distribution of child porn whatsoever at either the factory or the homes. The seized Asian adult videos did not feature either in his arrest or in the search warrant which was for ‘Production and distribution of pornography contrary to the Obscene Publications Act’, not for the importation of child porn.
Kevin claims that they took $500 from his workshop during the raid. He complained and provided evidence that it was there before the raid, but one can see from the responses in the letter from Customs that they deny this.
The police issued a letter to the company on the day of the raid, saying they could find no evidence of anything illegal.
One week later Kevin went voluntarily to Aberystwyth Police station to meet with Customs with what he describes as his ‘incredibly supine lawyer’, and despite their having found nothing illegal he was arrested for the production and distribution of obscene material.
The police then informed the child protection team of Social Services and they began an investigation to see was he abusing his children, which included asking all his friends and some neighbours if they suspected him of being a paedophile. They even arrested his wife in the street because she would not say that he had molested the children. Eventually, in 2003 two policewomen came to his house and said that they had concluded their investigation and found no evidence of him being a paedophile, but, threateningly, that the suspicion 'would remain on file'.
There is a sinister reason for this apparently inexplicable act of arrest for possible child abuse. Having destroyed his business (for it was now about to collapse), the act of investigating and arresting him placed him on a ‘soft intelligence’ police register, which ensured that he would not be able to take up teaching again. He was thus blacklisted. When the UK or US police fail to destroy you legally, they have other means of getting you. They do not forgive those they fail to falsely accuse.
Their reasoning proved correct, because after the factory closed with the loss of the 42 jobs, Kevin could not get work as a teacher or college lecturer, as each time he applied the ‘offenders database’ threw up this arrest and the subsequent investigation of suspected child abuse.
On top of the smear campaign, for months after the raids, the company’s goods were impounded for weeks at a time while they were checked. They were still found to be only plain printed circuit boards, but this caused them to lose contracts in an industry where time to market is paramount.
No charges were ever brought, but as Kevin says, “Mud sticks!”. The company went under a year later because the best staff left, so 42 people lost their jobs and the country lost a bright new export earning company. When Customs were challenged they said they said they'd done nothing wrong but had ‘a duty to protect the public’.
Kevin has not been charged with anything. Most of the raiding officers were from out of town and stayed during the raid in local hotels, probably on overtime. We have heard one estimate of £100,000 as the cost of Operation Star Trek, that is apart from the loss of the valuable export company.
The attached letter from Customs reveals a blatant attempt to cover up and refuse to accept responsibility. The magistrate’s court in Aberystwyth must have a copy of the original search warrants and the police computer should contain the details of the arrest. His ex-employees could confirm the events that day.
Kevin made a complaint to the Customs Ombudsman but says: “They just passed it on to Customs to be investigated by the very people I made a complaint about. Needless to say they denied everything. I am attaching the letter from Customs with their 'conclusions'.” His response to them is below.
Finally Kevin says, “I would really like to publicize this case to stop others going through the same nightmare that I went through. I am an innocent man and have lost my livelihood, my friends and any hope of getting a job, and my marriage fell apart. And all Customs could say was: "We have a duty to protect the public.”
His letter to the Customs Ombudsman
(His address removed here)
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Dear Sir
I have been told that you look into complaints with regards to HM Customs and Excise and I would beg that you investigate my case. I believe that I am the victim of ongoing intimidation and victimization by Customs and Excise which has cost me my livelihood and my marriage and forced me to move home.
It started in March 2000. At the time I was the founder and Chairman of a very successful electronics company based in Aberystwyth called Kanda Systems Limited. We manufactured and exported products throughout the world with our primary market being Silicon Valley in California, in other words our cutting edge technology was much sought after. We were the recipients of numerous awards including Exporter of the Year as we exported over 95% of our products. We also provided over 40 well paid high technology and research jobs in a rural part of Wales. I was also an advisor to the Welsh Assembly on small business, a board member of Business Connect and was being considered for a position on the board of the Welsh Development Agency.
In January of that year, believing that the newly enacted Human Rights Act eased the restrictions, I sent off for 2 adult videos from the USA. In order that they would not fall into the hands of my children, particularly as I was away a lot as I travelled abroad a great deal winning new business, I arranged for them to be shipped to my company name but with my house as the address - if my wife saw something addressed to the company she never opened it but left it for me; all other correspondence she opened and dealt with while I was away on my frequent business trips.. They were not a priority in my life and I didn’t think anything of it when they never arrived.
In March myself and my business partner were invited to the Polytechnic University of Lviv in the Ukraine by the Ukrainian Minister of Technology and Deputy President (who was previously the Ukrainian Ambassador in London) to discuss a technology transfer deal whereby we would assist them in bringing their technology to the western world. This was endorsed by the British Ambassador in the Ukraine who we met while we were there and by DFID, who were concerned about lack of prosperity in the Ukraine after Poland joined the EU. We were also invited to and attended the conference organized by the UK government to address this issue.
It was while I was having lunch with the dean of the university and the Minister that I received a phone call that my factory and both mine and my business partner’s homes had been raided at dawn by customs officers accompanied by the police. The customs officers had obtained a search warrant from the local magistrate by telling him that they had proof that we were involved in the production and export of pornographic material. The only ‘evidence’ was those videos I had injudiciously purchased. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that we were involved in the production and/or export of pornographic material. In other words the officers lied in order to obtain the warrants.
My wife was alone in my very remote house with my two young children, one of which is profoundly mentally handicapped. She was still in her nightclothes. We had been warned that there was a stalker in the area and to be on the look out. So imagine her fear when she saw a man peering in through the window at 7 in the morning. Then the door was forced open and a large number of men burst into the room. The kids were absolutely terrified, especially when they proceeded to tear the house apart. My daughter, who is profoundly autistic, relapsed that day and wet the bed for months afterwards. My wife was made to sit in her nightdress and not allowed to get dressed until the customs officers had searched the house. She is a shy modest woman and this caused her considerable embarrassment.
A female customs officer sat at my kitchen table with my wife and told her that they were investigating the importation of child pornography, which was a total lie. (Personal material about his wife’s nervous condition has been removed here.) She subsequently suffered a nervous breakdown and was in therapy for months afterwards. We can supply you with the therapist’s name and address.
I had a separate workshop with its own locked door for which I had the only key in which I kept anything I didn’t want my children to have access to. This door was smashed down and all my videos, business paperwork and computer equipment was taken. They also took some money (about 500 pounds worth). This workshop was completely trashed.
At my business partner’s house his naked and terrified 15 year old daughter was dragged out of bed and forced to dress in front of the leering customs officers (the Police had left the room in disgust). My business partner’s wife was also told they were investigating the importation of child pornography, which incidentally is not what it said on the search warrant.
Another contingent of Customs Officers and Police were waiting at the factory and as the workforce arrived they were locked into the boardroom where they were to remain all day not being allowed to contact anybody. It was only grudgingly that they were allowed out, under supervision, to go to the toilet. As it happens my teenaged daughter was one of the first in the factory when the customs officers burst in and she said that they made a beeline for some of our products awaiting dispatch, tore them open and one of them said, “What the fuck is this shit!” when all it revealed was electronics parts.
After the first few minutes it was obvious that the factory was perfectly legitimate and the police walked out in disgust: indeed they sent us a letter of apology. However the customs officers stayed on all day, even answering the phone. They told any callers that we were the subject of a VAT raid, another lie. The Electronics industry is surprisingly small and close knit and this spread around the industry like wildfire.
My daughter was allowed out of the board room after some hours to make the staff some tea and she was asked by the customs officers whether I’d molested her. When she vehemently denied this, they started making inappropriate sexual comments to her and one of them even asked her out on a date.
One of my staff had a mobile phone and he called me in the Ukraine to tell me what was going on. Naturally I was worried about my wife and I called home to find her hysterical. The phone was then snatched from her hand by the customs officer in charge who demanded to know where I was. When I told him I was in the Ukraine he said, “I suppose you are talking to your porn supplier?” The minister, who was an ex KGB General and a personal friend of Tony Blair, fortunately saw the funny side and told me that it was like “living in a Stalinist State.” It transpired that Customs had the factory under surveillance for weeks and had waited until both myself and my partner were out of the country before they staged their raid.
The customs officers eventually left the factory after being there all day, taking with them most of the computers which contained our ongoing projects. This action alone cost us two orders. There was a lot of highly sensitive commercial material on those computers. We were trusted with intimate details of all the forthcoming semiconductor devices information of which would be worth a fortune to our customer’s business rivals. The fact that we had lost control of it did not do our reputation any good whatsoever.
Meanwhile an urgent consignment of printed circuits boards en route to the factory from our supplier in Hong Kong was stopped and seized at Felixstowe which meant that the urgent order needed for a show in the US was delayed so much it was cancelled. We lost that customer and the 1.2 million pound contract for good.
We were in the Ukraine for a few more days, during which time the customs computer forensic team dissected (literally) our computers looking for evidence of pornography. I had told the officer in charge what flight we were due back into Heathrow on and when we arrived we noticed the immigration officers nod to waiting customs officers. We were then taken to a back room for a ‘random’ search. The officers assured us that we weren’t specifically being targeted but had been picked at random. They then tore our bags apart. We had both been given a crystal glass bell that had been especially commissioned to mark our visit (it is a custom in that university that all distinguished visitors drink a vodka toast from these bells), mine was smashed by the officer who said, “Oops” then laughed. He said he didn’t like “perverts.”
Because of the assertion that I was involved in the importation of child pornography the Social Services began an enquiry into me and my family. And my wife, fearful of losing our children, threw me out. After two enquiries (one by social services and one by the police) I was given a clean bill of health. No doubt this is still on my record.
We called the Milford Haven/Pembroke Dock Customs Office that had arranged the raid (codenamed operation Star Trek, presumably because of my name) and they said they would meet us at the local Police Station a few days hence. We arrived with our lawyers and for some unknown reason we were arrested by the customs officers for the production and exportation of pornographic material, even though by this time they had ample time to ascertain that this was definitely not the case. The police custody sergeant was reluctant to process the arrest but the customs officers insisted so I gained a criminal record.
I asked the customs officer why they had told everybody that I was involved in the importation of child pornography and he said they hadn’t actually seen the videos but had assumed it was child pornography. It transpired that no-one, apart from a lone customs officer at Leeds Airport had actually seen the videos. I pointed out that I had obtained the ages of the actresses in the movies from the custodian of records that stated that they were all over the age of 18 and he said they weren’t investigating child pornography at all but the production and export of pornography. They had already told my wife, my curious neighbours (they’d blocked all the roads leading to my house during the raid – this was a big raid with, I am told, over 40 officers involved), my staff and my business partner’s wife that I was importing child pornography and that it was causing me considerable problems in the community but that didn’t seem to matter to him.
We were eventually released without charge and our badly damaged computers (two were beyond economical repair) and my videos and paperwork were released to me some weeks later. I also received in the post the original videos; they came in an unmarked envelope. I still have them.
I complained to the senior customs officer about my missing money and he came to my house with a defective camera to photograph the place where the money was taken from. Originally he said I had no proof that I ever had the money, but I had withdrawn it a few days before as I was about to go on a business trip to the US and I had a receipt from the bank as I had withdrawn it in US dollars. When he came to my house he told me that if I persisted with my claim then every shipment we made in or out of the UK would be held up and I would be stopped and strip searched every time I came through customs. Naturally in the face of these threats I withdrew my claim; however there should still be a record on file as I faxed the original claim to them.
The staff at our factory, a lot of whom were highly skilled and sought after engineers were disgusted at their treatment and the ‘fact’ that I was a child pornographer and they left en masse. In addition the rumours of the ‘tax’ raid reached the ears of our customers in the US and, as they all supplied a lot of products to the UK government they started cancelling orders. They didn’t want to be seen to be doing business with tax evaders.
Just prior to the raid my shareholding in the company was valued at a little over one million pounds. We were expanding and we were, within weeks of the raid featured in a major article by the main newspapers in Wales as being a shining light company after we had been awarded the Welsh Exporter of the Year Award. We also, that same week, picked up the Mail on Sunday Enterprise 2000 award in the Savoy on London. I was praised by the Secretary of State for Wales Alun Michael as an example to Welsh Industry.
The company was basically destroyed that day. We lost our engineers and a lot of customers. The board decided not to publicize it or try to claim compensation as they thought it might make matters worse, and the threats to hold up all our shipments was still hanging over our heads, but instead they asked me to go to the US and run our operation there, which I decided to do in light of the sour looks I was getting from people in my village. I was the innovator and main order generator in the company and without my input the company had no new products. I had been totally traumatized and had a minor nervous breakdown myself. I couldn’t keep work for months afterwards and my faith in British justice was destroyed. My marriage was in serious trouble, my company was on the rocks, my wife was too fearful of living in such an out of the way place after such a terrifying experience and so I had to sell the house I’d built with my own hands. I basically lost everything.
I came back to the UK after my visa expired to find the business was defunct. Luckily my wife had found out the truth and we had a partial reconciliation. However when I tried to get a job in my profession, I am a qualified teacher, I found that I couldn’t even get an interview once the police checks came back. Apparently no-one was going to employ a teacher that had been arrested for the production of pornography. I can argue in vain that it wasn’t true. Ironically I can buy the same videos in a local sex shop if I so choose.
Meanwhile Customs and Excise must have decided that they’d do everything they could to make my life a misery. Every time I arrive in the UK I am stopped and searched and every package I get sent to me is routinely stopped, opened and held up, for months in some cases. I no longer feel safe going abroad or ordering goods from Europe via the internet.
Unable to get a job in my profession and being too, quite frankly, frightened to get a job travelling overseas as an international business development manager I have been unemployed since arriving back in the UK.
Could you please investigate this ongoing harassment against me and put a stop to it? In particular I would like my arrest to be reviewed as it still causing me enormous problems and is stopping me from gaining lawful employment. The law states, I believe, that the correct form of action by Customs and Excise would have been to apply for a destruction order in front of a local magistrate which I could contest if I wished. Therefore their actions on that day and subsequently are way out of proportion and, in my mind illegal.
My wife and my daughter are both prepared to give sworn statements to the veracity of the above account. In addition I could supply you with the name and address of my ex business partner if you so require.
Thank you for your time.
Yours Sincerely
Kevin Kirk
Editor – What did the Customs Ombudsman do with the above? Of course, sent it to Customs!
His correspondence with Customs
Letter from Customs Part 1
The letter from Customs shown in images on these pages
The letter from Customs mentions an ‘arrestable offence’, but this is weasel language as there was no arrestable offence. A stupid customs official thought there was an arrestable offence. It seems that we have gone on from being guilty thorough accusation to being guilty because some one mistakenly believes we are guilty. This is one of the rewards of empowering ignorant customs officials and police to make moral judgements.
The letter also mentions CEMA but Kevin was arrested under the OPA for the production and distribution of obscene material not under CEMA and the only 'evidence' was the large number of video cases they had in the factory. And the search warrants also said production and distribution of pornography under OPA not CEMA. CEMA is brought up for the first time in the Customs and smacks of damage limitation.
His letter in reply to the response from Customs Complaints
Letter from Customs -Part 2
(His address has been removed here)
4/10/2005
Dear Mr Perrin
Ref: W157/05
Thank you for your letter which I received yesterday and your apologies are noted. My first impression was disappointment, not from the conclusion you reached but the way you reached it. You belong to what has been described as Britain’s foremost criminal investigation organization yet your investigation consisted purely of talking to (and believing implicitly) the people who perpetrated this badly researched and farcical raid. You have not bothered to talk to any of the victims. This is hardly the sort of investigative technique that the public would expect from an ‘independent’ investigator. With these sorts of slipshod investigatory practices it is hardly surprising that the press has dubbed you (diplomatically) “A deeply troubled Service”.
I will now answer the points you raised in your letter:
1) The warrant said that is was in connection with the Production and Distribution of Pornography – not the importation. I take it you contacted the magistrates in Aberystwyth and obtained a copy of the search warrant? If you have you’ll know what it really said. The importation of (alleged) obscene material results in a seizure notice not a full scale raid of three separate premises, certainly where there is absolutely no evidence of any commercial quantities (We are talking of 2 movies here – which incidentally arrived in the post a few weeks after the raid, I still have them). Let’s face it - your officers lied to obtain that warrant as they told the magistrate that they had evidence that we were involved in the production and distribution of pornography when they had, in fact, no evidence whatsoever – because it wasn’t true.
2) My wife and children were alone in the house which was in a very rural part of Wales and were frightened to see someone peering in through the window. When she went to the door she was confronted by the officer who pushed past her saying that they had a right to enter and there was nothing she could do about it. That, I say, is forcing an entry. Needless to say they were terrified and what made it worse was that she wasn’t allowed to get dressed until her room had been searched leaving her half naked in a room full of men. Of course in the course of your ‘thorough’ investigation you didn’t make the slightest effort to contact her or to take a statement.
3) Regarding the disparaging remarks – they were made alright. The female customs officer sat at my dining table and told my wife that I was involved in the importation of child pornography. Which wasn’t true but she hadn’t bothered to check her facts even though it was her whose name was on the warrants. And they told my business partner’s wife that I was importing Child Pornography and one of my neighbors. You did talk to them didn’t you?
4) The door on my workshop was damaged (in fact it still is - why not go and have a look for yourself!). At least one of the computers inside was trashed beyond economic repair, I believe I might still have the damaged parts. This was caused by (a) the fact they were tossed into the boot of car and allowed to crash around unprotected and (b) by the heavy handedness of your forensic investigation team when they removed the hard disks.
5) Ah so you admit that $500 was ‘lost’. I was ‘advised’ to drop the complaint and it wasn’t due to lack of evidence. I supplied the evidence in the form of a receipt from the bank plus airline tickets etc. Your officer turned up to take photos (with a camera that he couldn’t operate) of the scene and then told me it was in my best interests to drop the complaint. He made sure this was said out of earshot, why else would I have dropped it? That represented nearly 400 pounds at the exchange rate at that time. And how could I have absolute proof when the Senior Officer on the raid forbad my wife from overseeing the search of my workshop where the money was?
6) My wife was totally hysterical after being told her husband was involved in Child Pornography, especially after her (personal material removed here). Of course you wouldn’t know that because you didn’t bother to talk to her, did you? And yes your officer said exactly what I said he did, he asked where I was, I told him I was in the Ukraine and he said he suspected I was seeing my porn supplier whereas I was in reality having lunch with the Deputy President of the Ukraine and the Chancellor of the second Largest University. Luckily they laughed it off. Do you want their names and addresses so you can check?
7) Regarding your officers waiting until I was out of the country – I have four reasons for making that claim (a) Your officer told my wife that they knew I was out of the country (b) at least one of your people was carrying out surveillance on the factory prior to the raid (c) because when he spoke to me on the phone he told me that he already knew I was out of the country and (d) because another one of your Officers told my daughter that they knew I was out of the country and it was the reason the raid was taking place then.
8) Regarding the staff being locked in the boardroom and you saying there was no evidence. Did you actually ask any of them if it took place? Do you honestly think I’d make this up when it was so easy for you to check?
9) Did you know the police sent a letter to the company the day of the raid apologizing and saying that they found no evidence whatsoever of wrongdoing? And they left very quickly (within the hour) yet your officers sat around until 3PM before they eventually let my staff get back to work from their illegal imprisonment - moreover they answered the phones, my staff weren’t allowed to, and yes they told our customers and suppliers it was a VAT raid. By the way my daughter is willing to make a statement regarding the remarks made to her but of course you never asked her did you?
10) The consignment of Circuit Boards from Hong Kong really did get held up and we did complain. As it happens they were being imported by a company called Delta Impact on our behalf (they had our name on them) and of course you contacted them to verify this didn’t you? And why were they held up for so long when it was obvious that they were just unpopulated printed circuit boards?
11) It wasn’t the fact that were searched but the fact that your officers told us that we had been targeted randomly at Heathrow when in fact the immigration officer had tipped them the wink (literally) as to who we were. And yes the bell was smashed and yes the officer did make disparaging remarks. But he’s hardly likely to admit it is he? That is, of course, if you bothered to talk to him at all. And it was also proof that I had not, and was not intending to, commit a crime, if I had I would hardly have told your officer on the phone exactly what flight I was going to be on now would I?
12) The Child Protection Unit are a department of the Social Services, it wasn’t the police’s child protection team that were contacted because, as I said before the police found no evidence of any wrongdoing. In fact we knew nothing about it until the Social Services contacted us. But of course you know that because you’ve spoken to them haven’t you? And for your information my adult material was kept under lock and key in my workshop and no-one else had the key (which is why they broke in during the raid). And it is only the opinion of a single officer who hadn’t actually seen the material at that point as to whether it was explicit. So your team had absolutely no right to contact the Child Protection Unit. A couple of movies featuring heterosexual adults copulating does not an incestuous paedophile make. On the contrary as your senior officer admitted, I took every precaution in ensuring my children had no access to my adult material. It’s totally outrageous to suggest to Social Services that my children were in potential danger without the slightest scrap of evidence except for two movies that are legally available in just about every country in Europe and are only illegal here because bureaucrats at the Customs Intelligence Research Unit at Customs and Excise HQ said so. There is no actual act or judgment that says it is illegal to own adult material of this type that doesn’t feature acts forbidden under the Sexual Offences Act. They are only deemed illegal for importation because Customs and Excise badgered the terminally weak Jack Straw into harassing the BBFC by posing the not altogether unreasonable question as to how Customs and Excise can keep seizing adult material if the BBFC kept wanting to give it a classification and effectively legalize it. He even went as far as to fire the BBFC’s chairman. In other words Customs and Excise are effectively acting as both legislators and litigators in this matter. As you probably gather your bland assurances aren’t cutting much ice here.
I take considerable exception to your remark that I had committed an offence under Section 50(2) of CEMA and was therefore liable to arrest. The rules regarding the importation of obscene material are at best woolly (I have a copy of them obtained very recently under the FOI Act – before that they were not available to the public, in contravention of ECJ EHRR 245 I might add – so the public, ie me, had no way of knowing whether the material in question was in fact illegal without actually importing it, particularly as I’d never seen them) and their supposed illegality is based on the untrained opinion of a single customs officer. This opinion is then tested in court as to whether they are indeed obscene and an offence had actually been committed, this was not done and so, ipso facto, I haven’t committed an offence. There is plenty of case law out there where the judgments state that an arrestable offence has only been committed when substantial (commercial) quantities of material is seized and is likely to be used to breach Roy Jenkin’s 1959 obscene publications act. Two videos doesn’t fit this criterion, particularly when there is absolutely no evidence of them being copied or sold on. By the time we were arrested the officers had plenty of time to investigate whether there was any truth in their assertions that we were making and selling obscene material, we had turned up of our own volition at the Police Station for the interviews, the customs officers involved confirmed to my solicitor that they didn’t suspect that we were going to run away and, if the case really had been that serious, we’d have been arrested at Heathrow wouldn’t we? And finally we were arrested for breaching OPA not CEMA – you did check the arrest details that are logged in the police computer didn’t you? Why do you think I was never charged? In other words the arrests were unwarranted and illegal.
Lets face it - this was a badly researched and bungled raid that should never have taken place and the officers concerned were guilty of a number of violations of various laws (including the Human Rights Act which of course was then in force) along the way and are hardly likely to admit it. And, with no evidence taken from anybody who could actually corroborate what I’ve said, you believed them. A fact I find astonishing.
You can’t tell me that over 20 officers would raid three separate premises in coordinated raids over the importation of a couple of smutty movies. They were second grade officers in a Customs backwater who thought they’d make a name for themselves by catching Porn’s Mister Big in rural Wales. Except, of course, there wasn’t one. They were so caught up in the excitement of Operation Star Trek that they didn’t put the slightest effort into an intelligent investigation of the company they so effectively destroyed; if they had they’d have seen it (and both myself and my business partner) on the cover of the Western Mail as having been awarded the Exporter of the Year Award at that time and you don’t get that for exporting Porn. And after discovering what a monumental cock up they’d made they tried their very best to hush it up just like the bonded warehouse scandal in London. So they were hardly likely to offer their heads on a platter by giving you the truth now were they? Especially when it was blindingly obvious to them that you weren’t going to bother contacting anyone who could contradict them. And as for your throw away remark about your duties protecting society I would question whether the loss of 40 jobs and an award winning company can be balanced against the importation of two smutty videos that may or may not have been illegal. If your Officers in Milford Haven had made the slightest attempt to investigate the situation properly beforehand, the bungled raid on the Factory need never had happened and Wales would still be benefiting from the jobs and the company.
As I see it your investigation consisted of you saying “Well chaps, did you do these things?” To which they replied “No, of course we didn’t.” My only question is why did it take so long? And since you asked no I’m not satisfied you have thoroughly investigated my claims, far from it. I think your investigation was superficial, totally unprofessional and smacks of a cover up.
When I first heard that the so called ‘independent’ and totally supine adjudicators office had handed the investigation over to the very organization that I had complained about, I knew exactly what the outcome would be. So no I wasn’t disappointed with your conclusion per se. It just proved what sort of organization you are - one that is in desperate need of reform. The press are undertaking a number of lines of research against you and I, for one, hope that the final outcome is a truly independent Customs Complaints Authority. Then we might see proper investigations carried out by competent investigators who are not desperately trying to protect the organization they work for at the expense of natural justice.
Rest assured I will not let this matter rest here.
Yours sincerely
Kevin Kirk
Watch this space!
Letter from Customs - Part 3
This story is just beginning.
United Kingdom
Lynch mob strikes near Manchester
Operation Ore collapses
The crime of Operation Ore – we present the evidence
Inside the British police state
The dirty tricks continue
British MP's litany of untruths
Adding to the climate of fear
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