23 March (Part 4) - Ear we go again
We
have reason to be very grateful to Say More Seymour and Busy Body Bauer. Without
the false statements based on wild imaginations rather than fact that they eagerly
signed for Bexleyheath police - Olly Cromwell’s prosecutor could find no evidence to support
the statements - we would have to be careful when labelling Bexley council corrupt.
Thanks to what Seymour and Bauer caused to leak out we now know they are. The Information
Commissioner and the Independent Police Complaints Commission helped us along the way
but it is this pair that set the ball rolling.
When councillor Philip Read tried his luck at following in their footsteps and
had his claims thrown out by the District Judge too, website hits went through the
roof as Twitterers across the country - and further afield - took to their keyboards.
Many have returned each day and consequently news can travel very fast.
A new reader who works for Action for Hearing Loss (the RNID as it used to be) has said she is “livid” at
what
happened in Bexley on Wednesday evening. It looks as though Bexley council will be on the
receiving end of a few more complaints and yet more embarrassment.
I’m
no expert on hearing aids, I sometimes joke that my ears are the last thing
I have that are working properly; (maybe it’s not a joke) but my guess is
if the microphone system in the council chamber has an associated loop system it
can only work if a microphone is switched on. How else could electrons flow from
mouths to inductor or whatever it is? When councillor Craske ignored the request
to switch on his microphone and when councillor Downing backed his decision not to,
they in effect switched off the induction loop - if there is one.
It seems that to do that as a deliberate act rather than in error or through temporary fault,
must be an offence against the Disabilities Act. Could ex-policeman councillor
Alan Downing, chairman of the meeting seen jabbing his pen in the face of a
hearing impaired man because of his deafness be a criminal? I hope his victim is not the sort to take
things lying down.
The story has found its way to Woking
in Surrey. Their version is not quite correct but close enough.
Councillor Craske gets the blame, but he may have been momentarily stupid, he
isn’t the real villain - did I really say that? It’s Downing who should be for
the high jump.