The Case against Malcolm Brinded CBE
Email Dated 4 March 2015 from Mr Bill Campbell, Retired HSE Group Auditor, Shell International, to Mr Billy Gordon, a senior officer of Police Scotland
The Case against Malcolm Brinded CBE:
Dear Mr Gordon
Firstly, I would like to thank you for your continual support especially over the period when the Fiscal Anne Currie was carrying out her investigation into the conduct of Shell and HSE officials (2009 – 2011), Appendix C of the attached refers. If you check your files you will bring to mind that early in 2012, I sent a joint communication copied to you and the Royal Dutch Chairman (RDS) Jorma Ollila and his Legal Counsel Michiel Brandjes. We discussed in some detail the contents of a conversation that took place shortly after Shell had issued a press release (Appendix A) with a complete denial of the claims made both on BBC Scotland TV and the oil and gas industry trade Magazine Upstream. As a result of this communication, and by April 2012 ,Malcolm Brinded was released from the employ of RDS, his release initiated by his employer. For the record, as you are aware I was not allowed to come to Aberdeen to make a statement or to convey the many pages of evidence in what is a complex business. Acting to the instruction of the Fiscal Anne Currie the evidence was passed by Grampian police to her.
I would thus formally ask you, or Police Scotland generally, to accept the following article as a sworn statement similar to what I would have given to Grampian police way back in 2008. I believe that a short investigation including an interview under caution with Macolm Brinded will verify beyond reasonable doubt (gross negligence manslaughter) that his actions in 1999 contributed to the deaths on Brent Bravo four years later. You may be surprised to read that in 2005 that was the conclusion at the time by RDS’s top lawyer. No Shell person, including the RDS Chairman or his legal Counsel will perjure themselves by other than agreeing to the corroboration they could provide as witnesses, refer to Appendix E.
In 1999 Malcolm Brinded as MD of the then Shell Expro was the rising star, bound for the very top of the slippery pole. He was a man of considerable ability but also egocentric in that all he cared about was getting to the top of the Shell organisation and to do so meant that his ‘report card’ to corporate headquarters in The Hague had to be ticked in every box with VG. Apart as explained, him hiding the true results of the 1999 Audit and its findings, he was cooking the books by failing to include in the returns to The Hague financial defalcation. This is documented and has never been denied. It is not relevant to the Health and Safety issues, but paints a picture of the character of the man, to get where he wanted in the organisation he needed a perfect scorecard, and heaven help anyone or anything that stood in his way. A few journalists bravely did, and their demise is noted in the article.
As you can observe, and a point that will not be missed by the STUC and other worker representatives, Shell would steep itself in the gutter to protect its reputation. Influenced by Brinded, the initial report from Shell into the fatalities in 2003 was that the deceased were in part responsible for their own deaths. This was despite the fact known about and accepted both by Shell and the HSE that in 2003 violation of the permit to work system was in the words of the Shell internal post fatalities technical review custom and practice across the oilfield, this coincidentally was also a verified finding in the 1999 Audit.. The deceased in entering the enclosed space under instruction from the Shell supervisors did so because not to raise a permit had become normalised behaviour. They had been subjected for many years by bullying and harassment from an Asset Manager who was from his own medical data supplied to the investigators in 2005 acting with diminished responsibility at the time. Shell had to quickly withdraw and apologise for the article because of the rebellious groundswell from offshore from the hundreds of workers who like the deceased had worked in this hostile environment. I wrote to the HSE CEO Geoffrey Podger about this and other lies and described the HSE’s inaction in these matters as morally repugnant. He did not reply, and I am glad to report that he is no longer CEO but banished it appears to New Zealand, God help them!
As the Crown officials in Scotland including the Lord Advocates Boyd, Angolini and Mulholland were unwilling it appears to investigate fully the actions of Shell, supported by a complicit HSE, because it is not it appears in their vested self interests to do so, I am confident that the Scottish Government copied on this will give every support to the police and perhaps since health and safety at the workplace is not a devolved issue these matters should be taken up by the Attorney General.
Baroness Liddell is copied on this correspondence and was contacted about a month ago along with the leader of the labour pary in Scotland but no reply, no denial. I would have reasonably expected such a formidable politician to have reacted strongly and quickly to the allegations made about her by her close friend Malcolm Brinded. As I pointed out, in a note also sent to my MSP Tricia Marwick, that Liddell may be completely innocent of the charges, it is not incredible that Brinded may have used her name in vain.
Note to Editors and journalists about in the public domain
The evidence related to the misconduct of the Offshore Safety Division (OSD) officials in Aberdeen and the HSE CEO is in the public domain and published with no objections from the HSE in the Commons select committee report session 2007/8 with reference number HC 246-11
Appendix C attached, is an open letter to the Commons and the Lords in March 2011, this is self explanatory, and is also in the public domain
The three articles attached include data taken from and converted into more understandable form from the Audit findings in 1999 and Shell’s post fatalities review in November 2003, and the contents are accurate and not contested as such by RDS. the original data in the form of power point presentations and supporting Shell internal correspondence, is held on file in several bundles of evidence by Grampian police.
My assumption is prior to publication of any of the contents of the attached, if that is your intention, Baroness Liddell will be given right to reply, Mr Brinded’s reply can be taken as Appendix A of the main article. My understanding, I cannot verify because the Honours cabinet secretary at the Commons deems it confidential, is that Helen Liddell supported, nominated, whatever the nomenclature, the CBE award to Brinded in 2002 for his services to the UK oil and gas industry, that also needs to be verified by the Baroness, or Brinded, for that matter.
To the BBC, as can be observed in the article the BBC suffered the vindictiveness of Malcolm Brinded in 2006 and as your previous employees are mentioned in the article you should raise this with your legal counsel and management.
DCS Gordon is a senior police officer with Grampian police
Bill Campbell
March 4th, 2015
ATTACHMENT DOCUMENTS
The Case against Malcolm Brinded: February 2015 (INCLUDES APPENDIX A, B, C, D & E)
The TRUTH will set you FREE.
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