16 November (Part 1) - Bexley police see only what they want to see
I suspect that my distrust of the police upsets some readers but probably not as
many as would have been the case 20 years ago. Back then I too believed they were
honest, I had had no contact with them at any time during my life and then suddenly I did.
Beaten up
when I opened my own front door to two Bexleyheath police officers and no end of
apologies from the Chief Superintendent could undo the damage. The lies told at
the police disciplinary hearing, the loss of the incriminating CCTV tape, the
policeman who came back to berate me in my own home and who threatened to arrest me
for a breach of the peace when I told him to go. I still try hard to believe the
police when they claim to be on my side but I know they will try to sweep crime under
the carpet if one of their friends might be in trouble - and I don’t just mean the obscene blog.
At the end of last month
I alluded to a court case
in which Bexleyheath police had, to put it at its mildest, been found wanting. I hoped my
long term correspondent would be persuaded to allow publication of some details
of how he successful sued our police for their failures and their dishonesty. His account follows.
You may wish to read the
background to the case before proceeding.
The
case involved several pieces of false information that Bexley Police sent to
the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority about a child who was the victim of
a violent crime in the borough. The information given by Police initially
resulted in the child being refused compensation for the serious injuries that
he suffered in the attack. Of course, once the Criminal Injuries Compensation
Authority received accurate evidence about the incident, their compensation
decision was changed. However, the Police refused to correct any of their false
records and statements, claiming that the law about keeping accurate records did
not apply to them, and that they were ‘exempt’ from having to be accurate.
When the case was eventually taken to court, the judge ruled that it was “quite
clear” that police statements were not exempt from the law. He considered
evidence about several statements from Police that the child was to blame for
the attack upon himself, that only minor injuries were sustained and that there
was no CCTV footage of the main assault, and found that these statements were
“wholly inaccurate” and “completely wrong”. He concluded that Bexley Police had
“failed to properly consider” the evidence that was available – CCTV footage, a
teacher’s report, a medical report, and the handwritten statements of the
attacker and other parties, and stated that “those documents show quite clearly
a version of events that is different from the conclusions reached by the
officers at the time”.
So could there be many other people or investigations that Bexley Police have
written false information about, but decided not to correct, because they felt
they were exempt from the law requiring it to be accurate? Surely not, as this
could have made them responsible for serious miscarriages of justice, and that
sort of thing would never happen in a respectable borough like Bexley.
In which case, we have to ask ourselves why Bexley Police would “fail to
properly consider” evidence about a serious crime committed against a child in
this particular instance; and why, on finding their records wrong, the Police
would do everything in their power to avoid putting them right. Perhaps posting
more information about how Bexley Police officers conducted themselves in this
case will help readers solve this mystery…
As implied by my correspondent’s final sentence there is more to come. I am
hoping he will feel able to reveal why the police were so keen to bury his case. As
I said last month their motives may not have been a million miles from their
apparent inability to bring Bexley council’s crimes to a rapid conclusion and
will show the extent of the institutional dishonesty which Chief Superintendent Victor Olisa
has inherited and I see no sign that he intends to tackle it.
It is disturbing to learn that the police officer responsible for the malfeasance
recorded above is now in charge of the obscene blog enquiry.
The complete story.