Director General of MI5 refuses to release any data on whistleblower John Francis Smith for another 30 years!

Just over three-years since whistleblower John Francis Smith died in a filthy NHS hospital, the Director General of MI5 has told his family that no data can be released relating to his Government Service because of the 'dependants at risk' rule that prevents such disclosure.

In a letter to the ediitor of News Alliance, Jonathan Evans explained that files relating to former MI5 employees cannot be released until at least 50 years after the employee's employment ended. In the case of J F Smith who was forced to resign in 1976 in the midst of the fallout from the Wilson Plot, MI5 cannot tell his family anything about his 'employment' until January 2027.

And MI5 will not confirm or deny any past connection between its H-Branch and J F Smith in the 1970s. MI5's H-Branch deals with staff resignations and attempts to persuade them to stay in the Service or 'helps' them to leave the Service depending on the nature of a particular resignation.

In his letter of 17 July 2008 to the editor of News Alliance, Jonathan Evans explained: 'The Security Service does not generally disclose the identities of those it has employed as members of staff in the past 50 years. This is in order to protect our current and former members of staff, their families and people who may have worked with them. It is therefore the consistent policy of the Service neither to confirm nor deny whether a particular individual is, or has been, a member of the Service's staff during this more recent period.'

Many people will take the view that if J F Smith was not employed by MI5 then this should be admitted as there could be no possible risk to the Service and its past and present employees and their dependants. But clearly MI5 does not want to play ball and intends to keep the mystery spinning for as long as is necessary in a failed attempt to thwart our investigation into J F Smith's Government Service.

Mr Evans further explained: 'In cases where the period of employment was more than 50 years ago, and the risk to the person, their family or colleagues may therefore be lower, we consider all circumstances of the case and what information may be released. In certain circumstances we are prepared to confirm that a particular individual either was or was not a member of the Service's staff [as the case may be] beyond this 50-year cut-off.'

We accept that MI5 has to protect its members of staff and rightly so given the nature of the Service's 'work' but Mr Evans did not confirm or deny that J F Smith's family may be at risk. Therefore, if the family are not at risk, there can be no barrier to disclosure but MI5 have persistently attempted to block the investigation into J F Smith.

And the Director General's statement comes as something of a surprise after months of silence and slammed doors but does shed some revealing light on the nature of what the Service was analysing prior to the statement's release.

Perhaps 'P-120' will help to shed further light on this increasingly bizarre matter and help the public understand why such total secrecy is necessary if J F Smith did not work for MI5.

MI5's obsession with secrecy perhaps goes too far at times in the eyes of the public but there are genuine national security issues at stake which have to be protected. But is this really the case now regarding J F Smith or is there, as we suspect, a great deal more to uncover...?

Whatever the case, MI5 intends to wait until all of J F Smith's family are long dead before any data is released on him from the Registry, by which time, will anyone remember or even care. Isn't that just the point and this point should be rammed home to anyone considering employment with MI5 or any branch of The Executive!

MI5 also tried to prevent disclosure of this information with its usual restrictions on Freedom of Information by stating: 'This information is supplied in confidence and may not be disclosed other than to the agreed readership, without prior reference to the Security Service. Within the UK, this material is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Acts and may be subject to exemption under the Environmental Information Regualtions and the Data Protection Act 1998.'

This latest development is made all the more illogical on the same day that the editor of News Alliance received concrete news about the death of his great-grandfather at the third battle of Ypres. Pte William Meller of 10 Battalion, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry was Killed in Action on 04 October 1917 in support of a determined British Infantry attack on German trenches in and around the area of Joist Farm.

Did Pte William Meller and hundreds of thousands of other Britons sacrifice their lives to protect a system of absolute secrecy reminiscent of the Soviet Union or did they die in defence of a 'democracy'...?