100-Year Closure Order - Cullen Inquiry

[Ed. ~ This is the edited version rearranged drastically on orders of the duly elected legal bouncer in the Scottish Parliament, often referred to as the Clerk to the Public Petitions Committee (PPC)LINK.  Read the original, pre-suppression petition LINK - which I was assured would still be put at the disposal of all the Committee members. LINK.]

I, the undersigned, declare that the decision to impose a 100-year closure order on the Petitioner’s correspondence with the Cullen Inquiry into the Dunblane massacre, filed at COM21/4/105/1-2 with the National Archives of Scotland, was indefensible, an impediment to natural justice, and contrary to the public interest, and which, according to the Crown Office itself, “has no statutory basis for such closure orders in Scotland” (see addenda evidence).

Brief Synopsis

1.   It was brought to my notice by a number of people, as well as sections of the press, including prominent journalists with the Sunday Times, Sunday Herald and Sunday Telegraph, that Lord Cullen put a 100-year closure order on documents in relation to his pseudo-inquiry into the Dunblane massacre.  It was claimed that this embargo was put in place to protect the names of children who suffered sexual abuse from Thomas Hamilton and others.  My five letters to him - which I sent to the Inquiry between 11 April and 16 August 1996 inclusive, along with the responses thereto – were put on closure for 100 years, yet not one of them mentioned one, single, solitary name of a child who was abused? LINK

2.   The reference number by the National Archives of Scotland has my correspondence at COM21/4/105/1-2; that is, number 105 of the 106 files put on the closure list. The National Archives of Scotland claims copyright of my correspondence, but only the writer of a letter can claim copyright; which is why I have provided the Committee with copies of all my correspondence with the Cullen Inquiry.

3.   On learning of the “gagging order” put on 106 files, particularly my own at COM21/4/105/1-2, I wrote to Lord Cullen on 27 February 2003 to express my disgust. I also called for his resignation from the judiciary.  A sinister phenomenon then transpired when my name and address were mysteriously erased from File COM21/4/105/1-2, for which a well-known Sunday Times journalist referred to as “admittedly a bizarre situation”.  The two contrasting descriptions of the Official Scottish Records Index to the 106 embargoed documents held in secret for 100-years by the National Archives of Scotland, lists File COM21/4/105/1-2 as follows, with the earlier one first:

1996 Apr-Jul Additional Productions
Correspondence between Clerk to the Inquiry and William Burns, South Queensferry, West Lothian, regarding possible affiliations of Thomas Hamilton with Freemasonry, and relevant extracts from Inquiry transcript, and copy letters from Thomas Hamilton (R77)

1996 Apr-Jul Additional Productions
Correspondence regarding possible affiliations of Thomas Hamilton with Freemasonry, and relevant extracts from Inquiry transcript, and copy letters from Thomas Hamilton (R77)

4.   It appeared as though the attempt to rewrite the history of the Dunblane Inquiry had begun.  The fact that I wrote 4 of my 5 letters to Lord Cullen (by name) and not to the clerk, as stated in the first edition of the Index, it seems that the true description of the content of my letters was meant to be lost to researchers.  After writing to the Lord Advocate to express my concern (two letters, one reply – copies appended) and to the National Archives of Scotland (two letters, two replies – copies appended), it was agreed that the description of the index was incorrect and I was reassured that the description of COM21/4/105/1-2 had been rectified to the more accurate form below:

1996 Apr-Jul Additional Productions
Correspondence between William Burns, South Queensferry, and Lord Cullen and the Clerk to the Inquiry concerning possible connections with Freemasonry of Thomas Hamilton, Lord Cullen himself, witnesses to the Inquiry and civil servants; also extracts from inquiry transcript relating to possible links with Freemasonry, and letters to and from Thomas Hamilton concerning running of boys clubs, rebuttals of allegations made against him and his claims against Central Regional Council and Central Scotland Police (R77)

The mere fact that the description was incorrect to begin with, was amended to an even more obscure format, before being altered to its present more accurate format.  However, for fear of the editors (or censors) of the 100-year embargoed documents altering the content of my letters, I have included copies of them in the addenda.

5.   The fact that I wrote first to the Inquiry and thereafter to Lord Cullen himself to ascertain if he was a Mason, and asked that all witnesses to the Inquiry must declare their Masonic status or otherwise, evidently prompted an attempt to make me a victim of the censor’s red pencil as my reasonable requests to Lord Cullen at that all-important time were never answered by him.  This casts doubt on the integrity of the Inquiry.   So to does the fact that those reasonable requests were responded to in the most dismissive and evasive of terms – as will be noted from the submitted correspondence – and an illegal attempt was then made to bury the correspondence for 100 years.

6.   As mentioned hereinbefore, my own correspondence with the Cullen Inquiry related strictly to the Masonic involvement in the whitewash.   Masons covering up for fellow Masons.    In other countries, like Norway, for instance, the judiciary have to declare if they are members of groups like Freemasonry.  If this applied in Scotland, whitewashes like that at Dunblane simply could not happen.  People who were responsible for creating all the loopholes that allowed a crazed paedophile to organise with impunity over many years, for himself and others, sordid practices on children at, for example, Dunblane Primary School and Queen Victoria Boarding School, would know they could not be given clandestine protection, perceived or actual, from high profile “citizens-above-suspicion” in the Freemasons.

7.   As a member of the secretive, exclusive and highly suspect “Speculative Society of Edinburgh", an offshoot of Freemasonry, founded by Lodge Canongate Kilwinning No. 2, LINK  Lord Cullen should have recused himself on the basis of potential or actual bias, prior to the start of the Inquiry.  He was invited to do so, as my first letter to the Clerk of the Inquiry reveals.   He refused to do so and ended up digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself as the Inquiry retrograded.

8.   I assume Lord Cullen is fully aware that, at one time, Freemasonry was comprised entirely of "Operative Masons". During the Middle Ages, these Masons were builders in the literal sense. This was modified to accept "Speculative Masons" after the Reformation, supposedly due to the lack of "Operative Masons”, but more likely because powerful people realised how influential Freemasonry had become, and how beneficial it would be to take control of such a potent clandestine society. In 1764, more than 200 years later, Speculative Masonry became even more exclusive when the "Speculative Society" grew from it.  Lord (William Douglas) Cullen appears in the Speculative Society of Edinburgh’s Roll of Extraordinary Members at number 1702. LINK

9.   Finally, I would like it noted for the record that I have, reluctantly, but considerably abbreviated this petition on instructions from the Clerk to the Public Petitions Committee, who has nevertheless assured me in a letter of 23 June 2003: “The full version of your petition, together with other material that you have supplied will of course be available to members of the Committee as background information when they come to consider the matter.”  In which case, I implore the Committee to consider the entirety of my “original”, indispensable submissions, dated 10 June 2003, as evidence when they determine the merits of this petition.  Copies were provided to every MSP by way of electronic mail to the Scottish Parliament.

The Petitioner, therefore, requests that the Scottish Parliament takes the necessary steps to:

1. open up to the public the Petitioner’s embargoed correspondence with the Cullen Inquiry, filed at COM21/4/105/1-2 by the National Archives of Scotland;

2. open up to the public other documents embargoed under the same order, those that do not reveal the names of any children who were victims of abuse;

3. open up to the public documents embargoed under the same order, those that do reveal names of any children who were victims of abuse, if these children, most of whom are adults now, consent to their names being revealed;

4. enact legislation to enforce members of the judiciary, the legal profession in general, other public bodies and elected politicians, including councillors, to register any association they might have with organisations, such as Freemasonry, the Speculative Society etc.;

5. demand an entirely new public inquiry into the relevant events that went before the Dunblane massacre, the ensuing Cullen Inquiry, the perceived cover-up, and into the reasons given for the 100-year closure order when the majority of the files held by the National Archives of Scotland did not reveal the names of any abused children.; and

6. remove the exemption of Scots judges and sheriffs from being disciplined for "performance" and "behaviour" discrepancies, as proposed at the end of April 2001 by the then Scottish Justice Minister, Jim Wallace.

I, the Petitioner, have already approached Lord Cullen by letter (copy appended LINK), but did not receive a reply, and do not expect to receive one, due to the embarrassing, sensitive and controversial nature of the material involved.  Since I sent him that letter, his Lord Presidency has been shelved and he is now taking refuge in the House of Lords.  [Ed ~ Lord Cullen will assuredly be protected by his Masonic brothers in the House of Lords. LINK]

William Burns
(Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers (SACL))
18 Shore Road
South Queensferry EH30 9SG
Scotland

Signed: _______________________________

Date: 25 June 2003