29 January - Bexley’s police attract another serious complaint
Four years ago Bexley’s council Leader, the thoroughly disreputable Teresa
O’Neill, asked Bexley police to do something about the criticism levelled at
her council on this blog. The ‘crime’ was that I had quoted
Arthur Pewty’s metaphore
about pitchforks and flaming torches. It made me a violent arsonist.
When Bexley police refused to withdraw
the threat of arrest the Independent Police
Complaints Commission ruled that quoting Shelley is not a crime and my
Harassment Letter was formally withdrawn on their instructions.
What may not be so well known is that Bexley police ignored every procedural
rule referring to Harassment Warnings in order to satisfy their mistress, Teresa O’Neill. One might
have hoped that Bexley police would have learned lessons from their numerous
mistakes but bending the rules is a handy procedure whenever there is
a friend in need of protection. A case briefly
mentioned
six weeks ago shows every sign of falling into that category. It has been bubbling away largely out of sight
for the best part of two years but has the makings of being ‘the best’ so far.
I believe there are honest police officers out in the community but if
there are any in Arnsberg Way they must keep their heads well down.
Three days ago an
extract of a letter from the head of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and
Crime was published here to illustrate how MOPAC does take complaints on board
if they are serious enough - in contrast to their refusal to help speed up my
32
month old complaint to Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe - and this
‘Heathrow’ one most definitely is. Several Bexley police officers stand accused of perjury and conspiracy.
In brief, a marital split involving a female police volunteer resulted in the
wronged wife being arrested on a common assault charge at Heathrow while coming home from the USA - as a
favour to the police volunteer is part of the allegation.
The case against the wife was thrown out at Bromley Magistrates Court because the evidence, such as it was,
was easily disproved. Any competent police officer could have worked that out for themselves.
This is becoming something of a pattern with Bexley police. They had no evidence
that I was intent on burning down the old Civic Centre, there was no evidence,
other than a false statement by a councillor, that John Kerlen had encouraged
putting dog excrement through a letter box, there was no evidence that a
schoolboy picked a fight with someone with police friends, and with evidence
that collapsed on cursory examination, they had an innocent woman thrown in a
cell by armed officers and kept there overnight - for fun is one interpretation.
You might think that Chief Superintendent Peter Ayling would want to put a stop
to this nonsense, but your thought would be misguided. He failed to respond to
the correspondence. Twice.
A complaint to the IPCC was referred back to Bexley for investigation and
adjudication by the police officer who made the arrest decision in the first place.
The same technique adopted by Bexley council when asked to investigate
the
Cheryl Bacon affair. Will Tuckley, pretending to look for evidence, referred
only to the liar’s own statement. The police did something similar and came out with the answer you
would expect, that everyone was innocent of wrong doing. The same as what their Professional Standards
Directorate told me in connection with
the Peter Craske business, though in that
case the IPCC disagreed.
When asked to review their decision another Bexley police officer went around the same loop and
came to the same conclusion. They ignored the subsequent IPCC intervention.
Perhaps MOPAC will do something about it now that their
Chief Operating Officer has decided that the allegation is a serious matter -
which it quite obviously is. Ms. Bailey’s short letter
may be read here and with the permission of the sender,
the original complaint to MOPAC is available too. It’s a data heavy page, nearly 400 kilobytes.
The IPCC is still involved so this is unlikely to be the last you hear of this case. Can there be another London police district that
gets itself into trouble more often than Bexley? Since when was it appropriate
to have armed officers arrest someone heading for home in a routine common
assault case? When there is a personal axe to grind presumably.