10 September (Part 3) - News Shopper says Peter Craske “at the centre of a police probe”
As
the web analytics reveal, people are searching for news on councillor Peter
Craske. The screen grab shown was taken around 8 a.m. this morning, long before the
latest News Shopper report went on line. Behind that entry at No. 3 there were
seven more similarly worded Craske searches.
I don’t know where the News Shopper got its information from, it wasn’t
from me but they are presumably very sure of their facts. I think it is likely that
they communicate with the Met’s Press Office and I imagine that readers will be
linking the Shopper’s report with what has been said here about Bexleyheath police’s 15 month
old investigation into Bexley council’s obscene blog. I must point out in my usual pedantic
way that there is no proven link between the Shopper’s report and my own.
Whilst the Shopper may communicate with the police Press Office, the investigation team
appears not to know the meaning of the word. They get in touch with Elwyn Bryant and myself
approximately monthly and tell us almost precisely nothing. We were both officially informed that
someone was arrested on 21st June but have not been told the sex of that
individual, an address, an age, the date bail ran to. Nothing. Not even the official
reason for arrest. The nearest we came to that is when Elwyn was told the
arrest was related to the obscene blog. I think we could have guessed that.
Since then the only advance has been that I have been informed that the
individual concerned is now on bail until October 2012. They won’t even say which
day. There has been a reference to more than one suspect but that could have
been a slip of the tongue or an attempt to confuse the issue. Basically the
police are keeping everything to themselves. They have their reasons and it is very
frustrating to be almost totally in the dark but for the time being one must
respect the police’s need for restraint. At least there is no sign of them
giving up as the previous investigation team did.
So as you can see, Elwyn and I know almost nothing about ‘our’ case; the
Shopper seems to know rather more about ‘theirs’.
Are there any known links between the two cases that the limited information
provided will confirm? Only one that I can see; the Shopper’s man and our
’individual’ were both arrested on 21st June. You may assume that is too
big a coincidence to be overlooked but it is I believe the only link between
what Elwyn and I have been told and the News Shopper has reported.
I apologise for the pedantry but Bonkers always attempts to be absolutely
precise. Someone asked me a few days ago if I made up stories about the content of
email messages or what I have heard people say. Absolutely not. How can one campaign
about Bexley council’s liars if there is the slightest chance of being tarred
with the same brush? If something appears within quotation marks it is because they are
quotations which at worst will vary from the original by no more than a word or two
- and then only because my shorthand scribbling falls behind a councillor’s
garrulousness at a meeting.
The
Obscene blog Timeline has been updated.