The fourth section starts with two letters from Tom Minogue to the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd, attempting to evoke a sincere and purposeful response to the question of whether he ever took the oath of Entered Apprentice of Freemasonry. There are two letters to George Robertson, seeking confirmation that he was in fact one of the VIPs seen visiting QVS by the ex--housemaster of the school.  There is a letter to Lindsey Anderson of the Crown Office, induced by Colin Boyd refusing to answer for himself.

Thomas Minogue
94 Victoria Terr
Dunfermline
Fife
KY12 0LU

F.A.O. Colin Boyd
The Lord Advocate [ousted on 04.10.06 ~ ed.LINK]
Crown Office
25 Chambers Street
EDINBURGH
EH1 1LA
Monday 3rd March 03

Dear Sir,

Petition PE306 Calling for a register of membership of organisations such as the Freemasons for members of the judiciary.

I am the petitioner in the above petition and am currently responding to an invitation by the Justice 2 Committee of the Scottish Parliament to provide further information.  Specifically they have invited me to provide examples of instances where a judge’s membership of the Freemasons has caused a problem.

In the course of my research into the Dunblane Inquiry I have heard allegations of abuse of pupils at the Queen Victoria School Dunblane in 1991.  I would be obliged if you could advise me as to whether any of the 108 documents listed in the National Archive Index contain any mention of the Queen Victoria School?  The fact that there is no mention of the school on the document Index is not conclusive proof that the documents do not contain reference to the school.

I believe the descriptions of the documents are misleading.   I say this after obtaining a copy of correspondence from Mr William Burns of South Queensferry who is listed at Document 105/1-2 as having correspondence with: “the Clerk to the Inquiry regarding possible affiliations of Thomas Hamilton with Freemasonry etc.”LINK  The correspondence is in fact between William Burns and Lord Cullen regarding Lord Cullen’s and Police Officers’ and witnesses’ membership of the Freemasons.

The fact that Lord Cullen did not respond to the submissions of Mr Burns and allowed his clerk to phone and then write to Mr Burns does not alter the fact that William Burns made representations to Lord Cullen and the Index description should have reflected this fact.  The terms of his correspondence speak for themselves and are not as stated on the National Archive Index.

I would urge you to treat this matter seriously as it is necessary for me to establish the truth or otherwise of allegations made by a housemaster who taught at Queen Victoria School in 1991. LINK  The allegations include claims that pupils at the school were taken home for weekends by members of a group calling themselves the “Friends of QVS” some of who abused the boys.

If you find that there is anything about your own knowledge of the Dunblane Inquiry or the Queen Victoria School, or if you have ever taken the oath of Entered Apprentice in Freemasonry, or if there is any matter which, if known might preclude you from being perceived as dealing with this matter objectively perhaps a referral to the Solicitor General might be considered?

Yours faithfully,
Thomas Minogue.   Petitioner
Enclosures: 1 Copy of submissions to the Justice 2 Committee.       Return to IndexLINK

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Colin Boyd QC
Lord Advocate
Crown Office
Edinburgh
EH1 1LA
20th March 03

Dear Sir,

I wrote to you on 3rd March to ask you certain questions and have since had a letter from a member of your staff purporting to be a reply on your behalf.  Quite apart from not answering any of the questions that I asked of you it is not acceptable to me that a third party enters into matters that require answers from you personally.

I would therefore repeat my questions to you as follows:

  • Have you ever taken the oath of Entered Apprentice in Freemasonry?
  • Do you have any personal knowledge or association with Queen Victoria School, Dunblane, which might, if known, give rise to concerns regarding your objectivity in this matter?
  • Do you know of any reference to the Queen Victoria School in any of the 100-year closed documents held by the Scottish Record Office?

A prompt response to these questions would be appreciated, as your answers to these questions are required.  Any such response or your failure to respond will form part of a publication in the public interest currently being compiled.

Yours faithfully,
Thomas Minogue.                                                                         Return to Index LINK

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Thomas Minogue
94 Victoria Terrace
Dunfermline
Fife
KY12 0LU
Tel: 01383 729869
e-mail tomminogue@btinternet.com

Lindsey Anderson
Policy Group
Crown Office
25 Chambers Street
Edinburgh
23rd April 03

Dear Ms Anderson

With reference to your letter of 14th April in response to my letter to the Lord Advocate of 20th March I would comment as follows:

The matters I wrote to the Lord Advocate on were for him to respond to, particularly in relation to his having taken the oath of Entered Apprentice in Freemasonry.  Your understanding of the Lord Advocate’s position on this matter does not satisfy or reassure me.  Your statement that the Lord Advocate not being personally aware of any reference to the Queen Victoria School in any of the 100-year closed records is again less than satisfactory as it comes on the heels of your statement that the Lord Advocate is so busy that he cannot reply to his own correspondence and your inference that the 100-year closed documents are so voluminous that the staff of the National Archives will be kept busy for some time even identifying their content.

I also understand that representations made on my behalf by my legal representatives to allow me to inspect the documents held under the 100-year embargo have been unsuccessful.  Given that the Crown Office have also decided that the names of all schools be obscured from the 100-year closed documents it would seem that there is an unwillingness on their part to assist me in my efforts to establish the veracity or otherwise of the matters relating to that school that have been brought to my attention.

I will complete my submissions to the Lord Justice Clerk without the benefit of the assistance of the Crown Office.

Yours faithfully,
Thomas Minogue.                                                                         Return to Index LINK

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Other Eurorealist sections
Diary Updates Go!
100-Year Embargo
Bet you can't wait that longLINK

HANSARDLINK
House of Lords Official Report Vol. 589 - No. 151 - 12th. May 1998 - WA113 & WA114
Verbatim Transcription:LINK

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Lord George Robertson,
NATO Secretary General,
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation,
Brussels,
BELGIUM
Saturday 5th April 03

Dear Sir,

Queen Victoria School Dunblane 1989-9.

I am presently investigating a complaint made by an ex-housemaster of the above school and to that end have written to the Patron, Commissioners, Brigadier, and Headmaster of the school in an attempt to verify the allegations that have been made by the ex-housemaster.  The nature of my enquiries which I must take seriously centre on three allegations of circumstances pertaining during the above period, which are as follows:

  1. That a group of prominent people with no official connection to the school, who were known as the “Friends of QVS”, visited the school and took boys home for weekends.LINK
  2. That Thomas Hamilton (The Dunblane killer) was known as a “Friend of QVS” and had access to and influence in the Queen Victoria School.LINK
  3. That Bullying and Abuse of some of the pupils took place by fellow pupils and others.LINK

I ask you if you know of any of the above matters due to the fact that the ex-housemaster states that you were a visitor to the Queen Victoria School at the time he was employed there.  I would also state that, of the many Commissioners and others who have been contacted there is little or no corroboration of the allegations to date.

Thanking you in anticipation of your assistance.

Yours faithfully,
Thomas Minogue.                                                                        
Return to IndexLINK

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Lord George Robertson
NATO Secretary General
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
Boulevard Leopold III
Brussels
Belgium

18th April 03

Dear Sir,

With reference to your letter of 14th April 03 I would comment as follows:

My letter of 5th April advised you in polite terms of who I was and what I was enquiring about.LINK The fact that you claim to know of no enquiry is therefore puzzling as I thought that I had stated in polite and concise terms the nature of my enquiry.  However if my letter was too brief then perhaps I owe you an apology for this and would clarify by expanding on the nature of the circumstances leading to my enquires as follows:

Circumstances leading to my investigation of the ex-housemaster’s complaint.

In February 2003 as a petitioner to the Scottish Parliament I was asked by the Justice 2 Committee to provide evidence of specific instances where a Judges-Sheriffs membership of the Freemasons had caused problems.  I am not alone in Scotland in perceiving the Dunblane Inquiry as a case where Masonic membership had played a part in the events leading up to the Inquiry and during the Inquiry and cited this as a case in point.

I was aware that many newspaper stories and Internet articles have dealt with the supposed Masonic influence of Thomas Hamilton having allowed him to obtain firearms against police advice.LINK  A commonly broadcast theory is that Hamilton’s connections to prominent figures in public life had allowed him access to Queen Victoria School, DunblaneLINK, and that these facts had been instrumental in Lord Cullen (a Mason) imposing an illegal 100-year ban on documents relating to Hamilton’s activities prior to the shootings.LINK

I decided to research these assertions.  I contacted an ex-housemaster at QVS who was reported to have made numerous complaints about bullying and abuse of pupils at QVS between 1989 and 1992.LINK  A website carried a letter from the housemaster which alleged that one regular and apparently influential visitor to the school between 1989 and 1992 was Thomas Hamilton the Dunblane killer.  After a lengthy correspond-ence I visited the ex-housemaster who amongst other things claimed that the MOD (HM Commissioners), Scottish Office, Procurator Fiscal, and Stirling Council would not act on his numerous complaints.

The ex-housemaster also believed that Freemasonry had been a factor in the unreported abuse of pupils at QVS and also had adversely influenced the investigation of his complaints.

I have been attempting to independently corroborate some of the main allegations made by the ex-housemaster.  It was as part of this process of corroborating or otherwise what the ex-housemaster had claimed that I wrote to you.  I wrote to ask if you were a visitor to the school as he had stated that this was the case.  No other claim or inference on your presence at Queen Victoria School was claimed by the ex-housemaster or inferred by me.

You were simply one of a number of VIP’s noticed by the ex-housemaster at the school.  If you were familiar with the school I hoped that you could confirm or otherwise your knowledge of the matters detailed in the three questions I asked you.LINK  I have asked similar questions of many other people who were associated with the school and the many responses received will form the basis of a report of my findings.   I will be making my findings known to a Commissioner of the school, Lord Gill shortly.

As a concerned citizen looking into the truth of allegations that have been made to me I find your remark that I am impertinent to be offensive, ill advised, and warranting an apology.  The claims I have sought to verify are serious and require that I am satisfied or otherwise with their content before making them known to the relevant authorities. The only way I know of doing this is to ask those involved.  To date your reaction to my questions is unique in its aggressive tone.

I have no objection to you sending my letter to whomever you see fit and I will not be slow to act in a like manner but I fail to see why you would wish to send my letter to the police, far less the Chief Constable of Central Region.  If I did understand why you would consider it appropriate to send my letter to the police I would have thought that you would have sent my letter to Fife Constabulary, as that is the police district in which I live.

I hope that my explanation of the background to my enquiry will reassure you of my sincerity in this matter and perhaps you might retract your police complaint.  I would also ask that you reconsider your decision not to assist me in what is, after all, a matter of public interest.  I would however respect your decision to decline my request and that is your prerogative.

Yours faithfully,

Thomas Minogue

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Copyright 2016 © William Burns. All rights reserved.
Colin Boys Lord Advocate
Tom Minogue
Lord Colin Boyd QC
Lord George Robertson
George Robertson
Compulsive Liars
Dunblane Whitewash
Dunblane City Sign
Scotland Map

CROWN OFFICE EDINBURGH

Dunblane Public Inquiry
Dunblane Massacre
Read the full list in the Dunblane Whitewash catalogue. LINK
Dunblane Angels
St Blane's Church Dunblane
The stained glass window in St Blane's Church, Dunblane, which commemorates the victims of the 1996 massacre.
List of the victims of the Dunblane massacre
Victoria Clydesdale
Mhairi MacBeath
Charlotte Dunn
Melissa Currie
Emma Crozier
Kevin Hassell
Ross Irvine
David Kerr
Gwen Hodson/Mayor - schoolteacher
John Petrie
Hanna Scott
Joanna Ross
Sophie North
Emily Morton
Maegan Turner
Brett McKinnon
Abigail McLennan
We know who killed the above victims, but, although we may not care, we do not know for sure who killed Thomas Hamilton, and why that person was carrying a revolver at the time!
Why did Lord Cullen try to bury William Burns' letters to him for 100 years? LINK