It is amazing how the global warming faithful can continue to defend these false prophets of doom even when they are proven law breakers:

rofessor Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit.

Norwich’s flagship university was at the centre of a new row today after it emerged it broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny in the climate change row over stolen emails.

The reputation of the University of East Anglia’s world renowned climatic research unit (CRU)was shaken to the core last year after emails posted on the internet from researchers including its director Prof Phil Jones appeared to suggest ways of avoiding freedom of information requests together with a “trick” to explain away an apparent fall in global temperatures…

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided the UEA failed in its duties under the (freedom of information) act but said it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late….

The complaint to the ICO was made by David Holland, a retired engineer from Northampton. He had been seeking information to support his theory the unit broke the IPCC’s rules to discredit sceptic scientists.

In a statement, Graham Smith, Deputy Commissioner at the ICO, said: “The emails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information.”  [Evening News 24]

Here is an email from Phil Jones uncovered from the ClimateGate scandal that shows how Phil Jones was intentionally trying to destroy and hide data from Freedom of Information requests:

At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:

Mike, I presume congratulations are in order – so congrats etc !

Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it !

You can read more of the ClimateGate emails from Phil Jones over at Andrew Bolt.