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14 September 2009,
Mr Paul James,
Director,
Office of Treaty Settlements,
Wellington.
Dear Paul,
Re: Official Information Act Request
Thank you for your letter dated the 3 September 2009.
The Ombudsman's comment, "nothing to support the allegations of tampering or corrupt use of documents" could only have been made under extreme "political pressure". We have asked the Chief Ombudsman, Beverley Wakem to justify her comment/opinion, we await her response.
The Ombudsman's official investigation under the Ombudsman's Act found,
1. "The Crown's officials perhaps did not consider it appropriate for it to be authenticated as part of the agreement in view of the comments at the end of the document.
For the documents to have been initialled might have suggested agreement with the views you had stated".
2. "Mr Samec did not transmit the memorandum to the Crown Law Office". Mr Samec was instructed and paid by the Crown to "assist" in the matter.
3. "From my Officer's perusal of a substantial number of files held by the Office of Treaty Settlements and by the Crown Law Office, there is no doubt that Mr Titford
had, rightly or wrongly, a sense of grievance about the sale of his farm. He held the view he was pushed into the sale without justification".
Paul, there is no denying you knew there was a problem with the documents when they arrived back from Tasmania. Attached, please find a memo from Helen Aikman to you and Mary-Anne Thompson. (Thompson already found to have tampered with documents and falsifying her qualifications while working at Immigration).
The Deed you sent the One New Zealand Foundation Inc under the Official Information Act on the 1 November 2006 had been tampered with as it was missing the amendment "alleged wahi tapu". This page could not have been substituted without the help of a Crown official. The Sale Agreement also had the attachment, "To Attach to the Liabilities" removed by the Crown's officials after Mr Titford had signed it but before the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Mr Sam Brown was given it to initialled. The Ombudsman's investigation found, "For the document to have been initialled might have suggested agreement with the views you (Titford) had stated". The Crown's officials had no right to remove this attachment from the Sale Agreement without Mr Titford's consent, they knew if it remained, Mr Brown would not have signed it as it would "nullified" the Agreement as it showed Mr Titford was selling his farm "under duress" and "without justification". Paul, you, Helen Aikman and Mary Anne Thompson knew the Crown was acquiring this land from Mr and Mrs Titford "under duress" and for an "alleged" claim but the three of you allowed it to proceed, then somehow the amendment and attachment showing it was an "alleged claim" and was signed "under duress" mysteriously disappeared from the documents held on file. How corrupt was that!
The Chief Ombudsman must have been under extreme "political pressure" to write, "nothing to support the allegations of tampering or corrupt use of documents" when the above is taken into consideration and that's only a small part of the corruption from the paper trail left by those involved at the time.
Thank you for your response to a) and b) of our Official Information Act request. This shows the Deed, Sale Agreement and Discharge of Liabilities that Mr and Mrs Titford signed on the 12 December 1995 were never approved by Parliament or the Minister of Lands.
Your response to our request c). The Office of Treaty Settlements has never released a copy of this document as it does not exist. The documents the OTS and Crown Law Office has on file are not initialled on any page by Mr Titford because either Mr Titford did not agree to them and did not initial them or the Crown Law Office or its agent substituted the pages Mr Titford had amended and initialled with clean pages as they did with the Deed we received from you under the Official Information Act on the 1 November 2006. The photos Mr Titford took of the documents after he signed them shows some pages were initialled.
The OTS cannot continue to hide behind the Chief Ombudsman's opinion, "nothing to support the allegations of tampering or corrupt use of documents". There is no denying the investigation under the Ombudsman's Act found the documents had been "tampered with" by Crown officials and Mr Titford farm was acquired without "justification" for the "alleged" Te Roroa claim.
Paul, we will not give up until the Crown's officials that tampered with the documents are found and bought to justice, so I would like to thank you for continuing to show how far the Crown will go to try and hide the truth. They can run but they can't hide - forever!
Yours sincerely,
Ross Baker.
Researcher, One New Zealand Foundation Inc.
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