CaRT gives false evidence

THE Canal & River Trust (CaRT) have admitted to providing false evidence to a court in the Tony Dunkley case (CaRT's cruising climbdown), writes Allan Richards. The admission follows a request for information made by Mr Dunkley almost a month ago.

Sales report

The evidence was in the form of a sales report which purported to show that Mr Dunkley had declared on 19 occasions, over a period of 12 years, that he had a ‘home mooring' in Barton in Fabis.

Taken with other written evidence which claimed that the boater had failed to produce any evidence that he did have a ‘home mooring', there is little doubt that CaRT would have been granted permission by the court to seize his boat thus making him homeless.

Request

Mr Dunkley's request read:

‘The document, which consists of column headers and 19 rows of data was extracted from your database. However, it does not accurately record my financial transactions with the Trust (and its predecessor British Waterways). Neither, does it accurately record declarations of home moorings made in order satisfy you regarding the British Waterways Act 1995 Section 17 (3)(c)(i).'

It went on to ask for various technical information regarding how the report was produced.

Admission

Whilst not providing all the information that Mr Dunkley asked for, the Trust has admitted that almost half the records provided to the court did not even relate to him.

Furthermore it has confirmed that all 19 records purporting to show declarations of home moorings at the time of a sale (e.g. the sale of a licence) are incorrect as its database only holds the most recent declaration and is thus incapable of providing this information.

The position of the case remains as previously reported. Tony Dunkley's licence has been returned to him but CaRT have still not issued a notice of discontinuance.