House of Commons Hansard Debates for 10 Dec 1993

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conducted by the State Attorney in the Judicial Court of Portima o I will have no more than incomplete answers to Mr. Paul Kenney's family.

Besides the Court, this case is dealt with by other departments of the Portuguese Administration, mainly the Ministries of Health and Home Affairs.

The conclusions of the enquiry carried out by the Ministry for Home Affairs are not yet available."

I remind the House that the letter is dated 3 December and that the accident--if it was an accident--and the death occurred on 17 July, some six months before.

"I can inform you I have just received a report from the Health Minister's office concerning the events I am sending herewith a tentative translation" --

whatever that may mean--

"of the above-mentioned report and a copy of the annexed, untranslated, document sent by the Health Ministry."

I have not read the untranslated document. My Spanish is excellent but my Portuguese, I am pleased to say, does not exist. The document that I read to the House is clearly that document.

The ambassador then refers to the seven questions originally asked by Mrs. Kenney about how the death happened, of which I now remind the House :

"Why was there no record of Paul ever entering the hospital? Was he alive at any time in the hospital? Why did the hospital not inform the police that they had Paul's body with his wallet containing seven Portima o phone numbers? As the police arrived on the beach after the ambulance 115 had taken Paul to the hospital, why did they not follow it? Why do the hospital insist Paul had no clothes on when he entered the hospital, when the witness found him on the beach fully clothed on 17 July 1993? Why did four weeks elapse without the hospital, the Special Police or the Maritime Police contracting me about my son's death? Why did the police interview the witness one week after finding Paul on the beach."

Those are the mother's perfectly reasonable questions. Here is the ambassador's answer :

"I think you will agree ; that some of them"

--the questions--

"have already been answered, namely by the report from the Hospital."

I do not agree, none of them had been answered.

"There was no record of Mr. Paul Kenney ever entering the hospital because the corpse afterwards identified by Mrs. Kenney was registered as unidentified'".

She had asked the staff whether they had had anyone in of that description. Paul had the tattoo on his arm ; he had the wallet with him ; he had his identification on him.

The answer continues :

"the fact was forwarded to the local services of the State Attorney, as demanded by the practice in similar circumstances. The registry staff did not find elements which allowed identification of the body."

This man has not bothered to read the correspondence. He does not know anything. He has not taken the care and trouble to look. "The unidentified person arrived at the hospital already dead". Did he? Who said so? One of the reports that I have just read to the House said that he was treated at the hospital. That answers another of Mrs. Carla Kenney's concerns.

"As to the questions involving the members of Police forces, I am afraid the respective answers will not be obtained before the completion of the inquiry by the State Attorney."

Will we be alive to see that, Mr. Deputy Speaker? I hope so. "As I have had the occasion to tell you before, I am well aware of the distress caused to Mrs. Carla Kenney, and I sincerely hope that her concerns will be fully answered."

Once again there is no word of kindness, sympathy or understanding.

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"Your letter dated 29th November was received during the typing of the translation of the report I deeply regret the impression you have about the way the Portuguese authorities are handling this case.

The Embassy will continue to pursue its utmost efforts to help your constituent and yourself in this unfortunate matter."

If those are its utmost efforts, what are the rest like? I have never before seen a letter like that.

I have prepared a batch of further questions, which I will place before the House. I invite the Government to ask the Portuguese ambassador and Portuguese Government to inquire into the issues raised by my questions, as I will.

There is no mention of the previous correspondence with me or the questions that I asked. I asked a great series--a fax in late September and letters on the 22 September, 29 November and 22 November. The ambassador asked for a complete report from Mrs. Carla Kenney for the first time. Why did he not ask for it before if they needed it? Why does he not ask Mrs. Kenney herself? She has been living in Portimao since Paul's death. She has only come to this country today to listen to the debate about her son. The police have never visited Mrs. Kenney to ask for a report.

The ambassador says that he sends a "tentative" translation. What is that? Mr. and Mrs. Kenney question much of what is contained in the translated hospital report. Why has it taken almost five months to get a report from the hospital? The excuse for there being no record of a body was that the corpse was unidentified. That is obviously unacceptable. Do hospitals in Portugal not keep records of unidentified bodies that arrive at the hospitals? Mrs. Kenney specifically asked whether any bodies had been brought in and was told that none had been. Why were the police not informed that there was an unidentified corpse at the hospital? Why is a police investigation being carried out now, five months later?

Why would the typing of the translations prevent the ambassador from writing to me for a week? Why did he not use the telephone? The ambassador calls this an unfortunate matter. That is the understatement of the century. As for the hospital report that he saw fit to send, the body was not brought to the hospital by a voluntary fire brigade vehicle ; witnesses saw it being taken from the beach by a 115 Portuguese ambulance.

As for the allegation that there was no identification on the body, Portuguese bank numbers and local telephone numbers cannot amount to no identification. Why were the personal belongings kept separate from the body? Why did officials not connect the unidentified personal belongings with the unidentified body? Is it not true that the papers on the body would have enabled identification? Why did the police not go down the road to the bank and check the bank numbers or telephone the Portimao numbers?

If the situation was conveyed to the judiciary court of Portimao on 19 July, why did the police not investigate? Why do we have no result? Why do the parents still not know how their son died? The ambassador blames the confusion on the fact that the morgue is used jointly by the forensic and pathology departments. Why should that be a problem?

I have handled many difficult cases for my constituents in my time, but this is certainly the worst. It could be pure, blatant negligence on the part of the authorities in Portimao, in which case I would have expected the ambassador to have said, "I have gone into this. I am

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terribly sorry, there has been a mistake." That is what decent people would do. They certainly would not try to justify the treatment that my constituents have been given.

I wish to pay tribute to the courage of the Kenney family. I saw Mr. Kenney before we went public, and I asked him again, "Are you sure that you want to raise this matter in the House of Commons and publicly? It opens up wounds and keeps them open. Would you not prefer--as many of my constituents do when hit by tragedy--to say that you have done your best, to close it and to try to live with the memory of your son without knowing what happened to him?" He said no for two reasons. First, he said that the family had to know what had happened to their lad. Secondly, they did not want the same thing to happen to anyone else's family or anyone else's son. I am proud to be of service to them. I think that they are great people and I wish that the circumstances were not such a tragedy.

I would not go to Portugal until this matter is cleared up. If that is the way the Portuguese treat people, the further we keep away from them the better. I would advise the Portuguese authorities not to spend millions of pounds on advertising their holidays, but to spend just a little time trying to clear up the tragedy that has struck a British citizen. Instead of sending anodyne letters--I do not know to whom they thought they were sending them if they thought that I would sit back and just take them--they should investigate properly. I suggest that British people should express their disgust at this awful treatment.

Although the case involves one person and one family, it has a symbolism about it. It is right that we should have the opportunity, as Back Benchers, to raise matters concerning even one citizen and one family, and I am so grateful for that opportunity.

I hope that the Minister will be kind enough to say what the Government of this country will do to try to get put right what the Government of an allegedly friendly country have deliberately, I think, failed to do. I hope that the Government will try to clear up some of the mystery, which makes the family believe that their son did not die a natural death.

1.30 pm

Mr. Geoffrey Dickens (Littleborough and Saddleworth) : I wonder whether I may make a brief contribution. May I say, as a Conservative politician to a Labour politician, that today is the first time in my 15 years in the House that I have heard a constituency case put so well. The House can tell that I feel emotional having heard all the details.

The thing that struck me most was the lack of compassion, tenderness, understanding in any of the communique s to the Kenney family. That is an absolute disgrace and I hope that somehow the Foreign Office can get to the bottom of it on behalf of the constituent of the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner). I give the hon. and learned Gentleman full marks, because I do not not think that a constituency case could have been presented better.

1.31 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd) : I think that we were all impressed by the

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hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) and the way in which he represented his constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Kenney, and brought this important case to the attention of the House. I should like to outline the action taken by the British Government on behalf of the family since Paul Kenney's death. I will outline separately the action taken by the honorary consul in Portimao, in whose consular district the death occurred and the consul in Lisbon, who later became involved when matters were taken to a higher level. Before I do that, I would, of course, like to express my sincere condolences to the Kenney family during what must still be a distressing and deeply traumatic time. Before I come to the history of events, I should add that I shall write to the Portuguese ambassador on Monday, as soon as Hansard is available, to give him a copy of the debate at the earliest possible opportunity. On 16 August 1993, Mrs. Carla Kenney, the co-owner with her husband, Mr. John Raymond Kenney, of a bar in Portimao, contacted the British consulate in Portimao for the first time about her son's death. The honorary consul asked her to come into the consulate to speak to him about it immediately. She told him that her son's body had been in the hospital mortuary in Portimao for one month without anyone informing her.

Mrs. Kenney told the honorary consul in Portimao that her son had left home on 16 July to go to a local bar. When he did not return she made inquiries. She reported his disappearance to the local authorities on 23 and 26 July and again on 5 August. She gave a full description of her son and identifying marks. It was not until 13 August that she was telephoned by the local police and asked to go to the hospital in Portimao to identify her son's body, at the mortuary, which she did. Mrs. Kenney did not contact the consulate during this time.

From her inquiries, Mrs. Kenney found out that Paul Kenney left the bar at about 11.30 pm on 16 July. A local Portuguese lady told her that she had found the body on the beach at Praia da Rocha, called the maritime police from a local restaurant and that the body was taken to the mortuary.

At a meeting on 16 August, the honorary consul in Portimao advised the family to appoint a lawyer immediately to look into the matter. He gave Mr. and Mrs. Kenney a list of lawyers. Mrs. Kenney knew one of them and our honorary consul telephoned his office. In the lawyer's absence, he left a message, asking him to contact Mr. and Mrs. Kenney as soon as possible.

Mr. and Mrs. Kenney visited the consulate again on 20 August. They said that they had established that Portimao hospital had had their son's documents all along, but had not informed the police. His wallet had apparently contained a bank statement and other documents which could have helped to identify him.

As soon as our honorary consul in Portimao heard from Mrs. Kenney what had happened, he spoke to the port captain in Portimao on 20 August. He followed up that conversation with an official written request to the naval authorities and the local court, asking for a report of events. The port captain replied formally on 25 August, saying that he had been informed of the accident on 17 July, but, as his authorities had been unable to identify the body, they had passed the matter to the local court to deal with. The court was in recess at the time so the consul wrote again to them,

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asking for a report. At the request of the consul in Lisbon, the honorary consul wrote formally to the court on 16 September to request the reports.

The honorary consul in Portimao also contacted the local public prosecutor informally to try to find out what had happened. The public prosecutor said that he had received an official request for information from the Ministry of Justice acting on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The case was sub judice and he could not release the reports. The deputy public prosecutor confirmed that in a letter on 29 September. He was told that the Ministry of Health had also requested a report from the local hospital.

Our honorary consul in Portimao wrote to the court again on 4 October and was told on 8 October that the matter was still sub judice. Our consulate in Lisbon was similary told that, for the same reason, it could not have copies of the reports. The honorary consul called the deputy public prosecutor again on 3 December and was told the same thing. The consul was told that the local police were due to give the public prosecutor's office a report on the inquest soon. The report would also indicate a response from the local health authorities.

I am satisfied that the honorary consul in Portimao did everything that could reasonably be expected of him as soon as Mrs. Kenney alerted him to the problem. He was in touch throughout with Her Majesty's consul in Lisbon, to whom he is answerable. Our consulate in Lisbon in turn informed and consulted the consular department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The action taken by the consul in Lisbon was also appropriate and timely ; that is, he reinforced the advice that the family consult a lawyer and, now being aware of the problem of delay in notification, took that up with the Portuguese authorities.

I shall outline what the consul did. He wrote to Mr. and Mrs. Kenney at their address in Portugal on 31 August to explain what action the consul in Portimao had taken on their behalf. He again suggested that they take the matter up through a lawyer to try to obtain further information from the court and about gaining access to some money left in a bank by Paul Kenney. The consul also told them how they could lodge an official complaint with the Portugese Ministry of Health.

On 14 September, in the absence of any satisfactory response to the inquiries made by our consul in Portimao, the British Embassy sent an official note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking why the consulate had not been informed of Paul Kenney's death in spite of Portugal's obligations under the Vienna convention on consular relations. That convention requires the host country to notify all deaths of foreigners without delay to the consul of the country concerned if the information is available to it. The embassy asked why the family had not been informed until a month after Paul's death. It asked for a report into the action taken by the Portuguese authorities after Paul Kenney's body was found.

In the absence of a reply to the embassy's note, our consul in Lisbon arranged a meeting with the acting head of consular matters in the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 5 November. She--the official-- undertook to ensure that the consul was given the information we sought as soon as possible by the Portuguese Ministry of Justice and Procurator General.

On 6 December, the ambassador in Lisbon spoke in similar terms to the senior responsible official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our consul again raised the

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matter with the acting head of the Foreign Ministry's consular department. Both undertook to ensure that the embassy received a reply to the note of 14 September as soon as possible. The following day, however, the Ministry called the consulate to say that it had received a letter from the Attorney-General's office saying that it could not provide the police and autopsy reports at that stage. I have described in some detail the action taken so far by the consuls in Portima o and Lisbon to try to establish why Mr. and Mrs. Kenney were not told straight away of their son's death when means of identification were available. We in the Foreign Office also need to know why our consul was not similarly informed in accordance with the Vienna convention.

It will be clear to the House from my account and from that of the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West that no satisfactory explanation for these matters has so far been given. I fully appreciate and share the hon. and learned Gentleman's concern about the case. He has tried to obtain answers from the Portuguese authorities, but has been unable to do so.

All of us sympathise with the anger of Mr. and Mrs. Kenney. It is most distressing for the family not to know what happened. The time that it is taking to conclude the inquiry in Portugal is beyond our control. Although we cannot influence the legal process, we will press the Portuguese to reach a conclusion as soon as possible so that the family will know what happened.

However, it is extremely unsatisfactory that the Portuguese authorities have not answered the two main points that we have made about the delay in informing the next of kin for nearly a month and not telling our consul of the death of a British national. I am aware that Paul Kenney's family believes that there has been a cover up. I can well understand their concern, but I cannot express my final opinion on the conduct of the case at present. However, I can assure Paul Kenney's family that, beyond what I have said, we have been given no further information as to why it took the hospital nearly a month to contact the next of kin.

I can say two further things. First, I assure the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West--and he will take this point to his constituents--that we will continue to press for an explanation of why they were not told of their son's death. Secondly, we will give the record of this debate to the Portuguese authorities so that they will appreciate not just the anger, but the anguish of Paul Kenney's parents and the need for a swift answer after so much unreasonable delay.

Mr. Janner : I thank the Minister for what he has said and for giving way. Is it not a matter of grave concern that now that so much time has passed, no one will ever know what has happened, because the evidence will have become stale?

Will the Minister ask his two questions and also follow up the questions that I asked the ambassador and which I set out in my speech and will provide to him? In that way, we will try to obtain much more detailed replies and not the kind of response, which I expect will eventually be sent, of, "So sorry we did not let you or them know because something went wrong." If it is possible, we want to find out, even at this stage, what happened to this young man.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd : In the letter that I have said that I will write to the Portuguese authorities, I will draw

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attention to the particular questions that the hon. and learned Gentleman has raised. We shall, of course, keep the hon. and learned Gentleman and his constituents fully informed as we continue to press the Portuguese authorities for an explanation. They are fully aware of the hon. and learned Gentleman's efforts so far to bring this matter to the attention of the public. I hope that they will take note of all the publicity caused this week and acknowledge that cases like this have a negative impact on Portugal's image in the United Kingdom.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes to Two o'clock.

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