strict custody. Of these documents"--

that is, _all_ documents relating to the Antarctic flights--the sentence
continues:

"all those which were not directly relevant were to be destroyed.
They were to be put forthwith through the company's shredder."

Then in paragraph 54 the actual instruction is taken into a further
dimension where it is described as "this direction on the part of the
chief executive for the destruction of 'irrelevant documents'". And one
serious complaint made by the applicants about the Royal Commission
Report is that what could be an understandable direction for the
_retention_ of one copy on a master file _of all relevant documents_ has
become an unacceptable instruction that _irrelevant documents_ (related
to the Antarctic flights nonetheless) _should be destroyed_. We think
the complaint is justified.

At the same early stage of the Report the Commissioner gave his
attention to the question as to what if anything was done about the
suppression of documentary evidence. He said in paragraph 52:

"As will be explained later, there was at least one group of
documents which certainly were in the possession of the airline as
from the day following the disaster, and which have never been seen
since. I am referring here to the flight briefing documents of
First Officer Cassin.... (He) had left his briefing documents at
home. They were recovered from his home on the day after the
disaster by an employee of the airline. As I say, they have never
been seen since."