http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017905.ece

It is not possible to say whether the Information Commissioner’s opinion is correct or not, no detail of the facts on which he relies has been disclosed. The Commissioner, of course, is not a prosecuting authority. Presumably he simply refers, what he considers prima facie cases, to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider prosecution. We do not know whether this has been done or what advice was received from the CPS if it was. If this has not been done it should be done.

More generally, given the systematic approach to non-disclosure agreed between the academic staff and the UAE FOI officers, which amounts to a joint enterprise, it is difficult to believe that all the information improperly blocked or concealed as a result this joint enterprise has been unblocked or revealed not less than 6 months ago. That would require a detailed factual examination. There may be prosecutions in respect of the non disclosures in response to requests by others than David Holland.

Careful examination of the Act, however, shows that it says nothing whatever about a time limit. The Commission appears to be trying to confuse this with a provision of the Magistrates Act, that charges for an offence cannot be brought more than six months after it has been drawn to the authorities’ attention – not after it was committed. In this case, the Commission only became aware of the offence two months ago when the emails were leaked – showing that the small group of British and American scientists at the top of the IPCC were discussing with each other and with the university ways to break the law, not least by destroying evidence, an offence in itself.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7113552/Climategate-confusion-over-the-law-in-email-case.html

Testing climate prediction

SIR – Your criticism of the predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Leading article, January 26) raises questions over the reliability of published scientific research.
In reaching its conclusions, the IPCC has to rely on published papers. The hallmark of a good paper is that it has been peer-reviewed and published in a journal with a high academic reputation.
But that does not mean that the results it contains meet the standard of proof required in a legal inquiry. After exhaustive investigations of the Flixborough chemical plant explosion, for example, the Court of Inquiry reached a conclusion about what happened. That involved much searching scrutiny of alternative theories.
Even then, the court’s conclusion was qualified as being only “within the balance of probabilities”.
Arguments and conclusions that can resist detailed cross-examination by a skilled lawyer are much more likely to stand the test of time than conclusions approved by peer review.
That is why I support Lord Lawson’s call for an independent inquiry into global warming predictions. So much depends on those predictions; it is not enough to leave them to the scientific community.
David Newland
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Cambridge University
Ickleton, Essex

Note that the title in the link is highlighting the first letter which is about an matter unrelated to CAGW. The letter of interest is just over half way down the page.
Here is the link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/7104596/A-hole-in-the-evidence-that-puts-the-value-of-the-Chilcot-Inquiry-in-doubt.html

Well within the SOL.

EJ

Yes. My take has been that ‘they’ wanted ‘plausible deniability’. Playing innocent, deleting emails is sop, stalling for time. It’s hard for me to think they didn’t know about server stores but it wasn’t an important consideration.

Perhaps they were thinking more about questions wrt what’s on their workstations and having fuzzy memories. Dr. Jones wasn’t great about keeping data around, anyway.

It could have been a tactic. Delete emails locally and it will be such a hassle for ‘central stores’ to retrieve them that other administrators will feel more comfortable denying the request.