This is another shocking UK story, but, as with other stories like it
before, no one has been listening, not the state, the police, the media and
certainly not the judiciary or legal profession. Not even a defence lawyer.
Kevin Kirk and his business partner were lecturers at Aberystwyth University
when they started Kanda Systems Limited in Aberystwyth in Wales, making and
distributing electronics components. Kevin was married and at the time of
these events in 2001 his eldest daughter was 19 and two younger children
were 11 and 9.
The company quickly grew to 42 staff and won several prestigious awards for
small innovative businesses. They acquired a subsidiary in the US. One of
the innovative ideas was to solve what could have been an expensive
packaging requirement for their shipped products by shipping them out in
ordinary plastic video cases.
In 2001, Kevin privately purchased two adult videos from the US, which
featured Asian women wearing uniforms. A ‘customs censor’ at Leeds Airport
opened the package, saw the uniforms and decided that the models were under
the legal age, apparently unaware of either the facts that uniforms are
common in Asian countries in just about every sector of the urban working
population and that they are very popular in adult erotic and comedy movies.
The videos featured Japanese actresses, and anyone who has seen Japanese
erotic or non-erotic fantasy knows that women in uniforms in Japanese
entertainment is a national characteristic. The women on the videos were all
over 21 and the videos had been certified by NEMA, which appears to be
equivalent to the BBFC certification, but more relevant is that each of the
women had her own website which shows her age plus other details, such as
her fan clubs.
This mistaken assumption by one customs officer set off a chain reaction
that was to be fatal for Kevin and his business. Next thing apparently,
customs or police peered in through the factory windows and lo and behold!
They saw the video cases used to ship products!
‘Operation Star Trek’ was launched and its high point was the raiding of the
factory and homes of the managing partners – no less than 48 customs and
police officers raiding the factory alone. Neither the raiders nor the
officers who obtained the warrants had seen the legal adult Asian movie
seized at Leeds Airport. The mistake about its contents and the sight of the
plastic cases were enough to set off this ridiculous operation. (Which
incidentally may have also obtained its name from an FBI farce where one
officer saw a Star Trek poster on the wall of a raided house and set off a
Star Trek child porn ring scare – that plus his surname of ‘Kirk’.)
The raids happened on the same week as the company won a national exporter
of the year award, which was reported in the newspapers, so word of the
raids spread quickly. As the raids were taking place, Kevin was in the
Ukraine having lunch with that country’s Deputy President. One of his
employees called to tell him what was happening and to say that the senior
officer involved had suggested that he was in the Ukraine talking to his
child porn suppliers. Kevin told this to the Deputy President, who was an ex
KGB general, and he laughed and said it must be awful living in a
totalitarian country where privacy and freedom of expression were forbidden.
At first Kevin assumed that he was joking, but then he remembered that he
was the ex Ukrainian Ambassador to London.
The raiders behaved with the usual swaggering arrogance. According to Kevin,
they locked the staff up in the boardroom for the whole day and when
customers called they were told it was a customs raid in progress and those
customers in turn were interrogated over the phone as to why they were
phoning. They told all the employees they were investigating the importation
of child porn and this news quickly spread to the customers who soon began
to understand that they also were being tarred with the same brush. Finally,
after spending the day at the factory, they left, taking all the computers
which were eventually returned. Over 80% were damaged to varying extents and
about 25% never worked again.
It was equally bad at Kevin’s raided home. They lived in a very rural part
of Wales and with him away and his wife afraid of stories about a local
stalker, she was terrified at seeing a man peer through the windows at 7AM.
The officers pushed her aside as they entered and would not let her get
dressed, leaving her in her nightgown.
They told her and his neighbours that they were investigating the
importation of child porn. His wife became hysterical at this news and even
later, when it transpired that only the adult movies had been found, their
marriage was irretrievably damaged.
At his business partner’s house, their naked and terrified 15 year old
daughter was dragged out of bed and forced to dress in front of the leering
customs officers. We are told that the police had left the room in disgust
at seeing this treatment. His business partner’s wife was also told they
were investigating the importation of child pornography, which was not what
it said on the search warrant. They found no child porn at his business
partner’s home either but his business partner’s wife has not spoken to him
since.
Kevin’s 19 year old daughter was in the factory and confirmed to him that
she and the others were kept locked up all day. She also told Kevin that the
customs officers made lewd statements to her and that one even asked her out
on a date. Kevin reports also that when she told them off, they tried to
badger her into saying that he had molested her when she was younger.
They found no evidence of either the importation or manufacture and
distribution of child porn whatsoever at either the factory or the homes.
The seized Asian adult videos did not feature either in his arrest or in the
search warrant which was for ‘Production and distribution of pornography
contrary to the Obscene Publications Act’, not for the importation of child
porn.
Kevin claims that they took $500 from his workshop during the raid. He
complained and provided evidence that it was there before the raid, but one
can see from the responses in the letter from Customs that they deny this.
The police issued a letter to the company on the day of the raid, saying
they could find no evidence of anything illegal.
One week later Kevin went voluntarily to Aberystwyth Police station to meet
with Customs with what he describes as his ‘incredibly supine lawyer’, and
despite their having found nothing illegal he was arrested for the
production and distribution of obscene material.
The police then informed the child protection team of Social Services and
they began an investigation to see was he abusing his children, which
included asking all his friends and some neighbours if they suspected him of
being a paedophile. They even arrested his wife in the street because she
would not say that he had molested the children. Eventually, in 2003 two
policewomen came to his house and said that they had concluded their
investigation and found no evidence of him being a paedophile, but,
threateningly, that the suspicion 'would remain on file'.
There is a sinister reason for this apparently inexplicable act of arrest
for possible child abuse. Having destroyed his business (for it was now
about to collapse), the act of investigating and arresting him placed him on
a ‘soft intelligence’ police register, which ensured that he would not be
able to take up teaching again. He was thus blacklisted. When the UK or US
police fail to destroy you legally, they have other means of getting you.
They do not forgive those they fail to falsely accuse.
Their reasoning proved correct, because after the factory closed with the
loss of the 42 jobs, Kevin could not get work as a teacher or college
lecturer, as each time he applied the ‘offenders database’ threw up this
arrest and the subsequent investigation of suspected child abuse.
On top of the smear campaign, for months after the raids, the company’s
goods were impounded for weeks at a time while they were checked. They were
still found to be only plain printed circuit boards, but this caused them to
lose contracts in an industry where time to market is paramount.
No charges were ever brought, but as Kevin says, “Mud sticks!”. The company
went under a year later because the best staff left, so 42 people lost their
jobs and the country lost a bright new export earning company. When Customs
were challenged they said they said they'd done nothing wrong but had ‘a
duty to protect the public’.
Kevin has not been charged with anything. Most of the raiding officers were
from out of town and stayed during the raid in local hotels, probably on
overtime. We have heard one estimate of £100,000 as the cost of Operation
Star Trek, that is apart from the loss of the valuable export company.
The attached letter from Customs reveals a blatant attempt to cover up and
refuse to accept responsibility. The magistrate’s court in Aberystwyth must
have a copy of the original search warrants and the police computer should
contain the details of the arrest. His ex-employees could confirm the events
that day.
Kevin made a complaint to the Customs Ombudsman but says: “They just passed
it on to Customs to be investigated by the very people I made a complaint
about. Needless to say they denied everything. I am attaching the letter
from Customs with their 'conclusions'.” His response to them is below.
Finally Kevin says, “I would really like to publicize this case to stop
others going through the same nightmare that I went through. I am an
innocent man and have lost my livelihood, my friends and any hope of getting
a job, and my marriage fell apart. And all Customs could say was: "We have a
duty to protect the public.”
|
