Bonkers was not always primarily a daily blog. Whilst blogs
were published almost daily from 2011 the website was formatted more like a
newspaper with an occasionally updated Front Page and Editorial,
the blog itself was buried within the site.
This is an example of an Editorial page written long before Smart Phones were a
consideration. Many of them will be difficult to read on a mobile phone and links may no longer work
and references to site banners will be invalid.
It remains here for historical purposes only.
The
old adage, ‘innocent until proven guilty’ doesn’t count for much in Bexley
but being subject to legal sanctions after being found innocent appears to be
a new trick. The incredibly unjust situation is one that the local blogger who goes by
the name Olly Cromwell finds himself in and all because he irked Bexley council by
filming their meeting just as Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Local Government,
said he should.
He was critical of a few councillors, as well he might be, and for that they called the police.
A charge of harassment was trumped up for which no evidence could be found (the things he was
accused of doing were done by others) and he was found not guilty.
After that fiasco he was charged with typing the ‘c’ word, not directed at a generally
identifiable person, just part of a rhetorical question to his followers on Twitter. To
make a silly comment sound like a crime councillors Melvin Seymour and Sandra Bauer cobbled
together a story for the police which at best was an exaggeration based on a
misunderstanding but more likely is a lie carefully constructed to pervert the
course of justice. Fundamentally Olly is due in court for a fourth time because Bexley council doesn’t like
being criticised and councillor Melvin Seymour told the police that Olly was encouraging
the posting of dog faeces through his letter box and revealed his address to facilitate
that activity. He did neither. Melvin Seymour must know that by now yet he remains silent
about it. It is practically certain that Sandra Bauer does. In the circumstances
you would be forgiven if the words perjury and liar came to mind.
Olly’s trial at Bexley Magistrates’ Court, currently set for 10:00 on
Friday 13th April 2012 is beginning to take shape on paper. One item is
outrageous. “Please find attached a draft Restraining Order which the Crown
intend to apply for be it a guilty or not guilty finding”.
Its intention is made clear. “Protecting the persons listed in the Schedule from harassment”.
Olly has already been found not guilty of harassment, how come he is to be
formally banned from something he has never been guilty of? And worse, why does the proposed
Restraining Order compel him to remove alleged harassment from his website retrospectively
when he is legally innocent of putting any there in the first place?
Another aspect of the order is that he cannot contact anyone listed on the Schedule
which will effectively disenfranchise him from the democratic process, a step some way
beyond banning him from council premises for enthusiastically embracing government policy on transparency and open government.
The names are on the Schedule number 63 and bear a remarkable similarity to
those
listed here. Presumably a Restraining Order will expire when that shower of
self-serving dictators and money grabbing charlatans are voted out of office.
This is an archived copy of the Site’s Editorial page originally posted on 7th March 2012.