31 October (Part 2) - Plod. Still protecting their friends
A
lot has happened since Bexley council put this website on the map by reporting
me to the police for harassment. The police didn't bother to date the letter (or
sign it for that matter) and it is more than six months since the postman
knocked on my door. I asked Bexleyheath police how I was harassing Bexley council and
who in particular but they declined to answer.
Bexley council were asked under Freedom of Information legislation who made the complaint
but once again they preferred to break the law and not answer. The Information
Commissioner eventually leant on them hard enough for it to be revealed that
Chief Executive Will Tuckley did it.
Long before that I discovered that the policeman who issued the letter was
Detective Inspector Keith Marshall and it was he who was refusing to provide any
information to assist me in deciding whether I should change tack or not; so I
complained about him to the Director of Professional Standards (DPS). On 20th
April I wrote “My complaint against DI Keith Marshall is that he has clearly not
researched what is on my blog and gives the strong impression he has
merely taken the word of one of his friends on the council. He is refusing to
say who made the complaint or (except via my MP) give any clue as to what my
offence may be. Without that information I can do nothing to modify my web
activities but he threatens me with arrest if I do not do so”.
Following that I heard nothing. I phoned the DPS twice to enquire about the lack
of progress but on both occasions received an apology that Bexleyheath police
were refusing to reply to their emails. After a while I forgot all about it.
Meanwhile I was shown some correspondence which said I had been threatened with
arrest because I had “written something that amounts to a threat to an individual’s
personal safety”. I knew I hadn’t and if DI Marshall believed I had it must be
because Will Tuckley misinformed him or someone in the police was desperate to find
a good excuse. Certainly the police could not have read the the blog.
And now the postman has knocked again; the DPS has replied to my complaint.
They’ve dismissed it of course, but their excuse is risible. The complaint
is dismissed because although “I do not doubt what you told us, there is no
independent witness”. So it was my word against a DI? No contest then, policemen
are never wrong. But no it wasn’t that at all; believe it or not the DPS in the
sixth months they’ve been dealing with my complaint “have been unable to contact
DI Keith Marshall”. My complaint has been “referenced” only against the original
“allegation of crime” by Will Tuckley, which I’m told, but do not know for sure,
was based on untrue stories of violent behaviour. So yet another example of Bexley council
and the police being pretty much one and the same organisation with a common
agenda based on corruption, dishonesty and incompetence.