24 January (Part 1) - Excuses and lies
Preparing a suitable
reply to Chief Superintendent Victor Olisa has taken so much time that
plans to follow up reader reports have taken a back seat with a consequent
shortage of news. That is the excuse bit over.
The lies come from council statements found in one of Mr. Barnbrook’s inch thick
files. He is still pursuing Bexley council about a letter they claimed to have sent
to government knowing full well they had not but his focus has switched from their confusion
- to give Bexley council the benefit of any doubt - to examining their
justification of various events including evasion of FOI questions.
An enquiry was initiated by Mr. Nick Hollier, Head of Human Resources, and as
already reported, his failure to allow a meeting with Mr. Barnbrook to be recorded
has led to a dispute over who said what.
The detail is as usual rather too complex for a quick blog entry but suffice to say Mr. Hollier
has called in a witness to back his version of events. That witness is a Mrs. Lynn Tyler who has
dutifully provided Mr. Hollier with what he requires. Mr. Barnbrook has no idea if she is a genuine
witness of what took place at
the meeting in July last year
which gave rise to the dispute because the flaws in her statement are several and one stands
out like a sore thumb.
She says that only three members of the public were present at that meeting. Mick Barnbrook,
Elwyn Bryant and John Watson, all members of the Bexley Council Monitoring Group.
Mrs. Tyler’s statement suits Mr. Hollier’s case down to the ground but it is wrong. Elwyn
wasn’t anywhere near the Civic Centre that night, but I was, along with another regular at council meetings.
I was sitting about twelve feet from Mr. Barnbrook earwigging his conversation
with Mr. Akin Alabi, the council’s Monitoring Officer. At the time I knew
exactly what was said though six months later the exact wording is lost to me.
My notes at the time were “Mr. Barnbrook asked what Bexley council would do if
it found itself with a councillor convicted of a criminal offence. Alabi said he
had sought government guidance on that and would get back to Mr. Barnbrook as soon as he could”.
At the time I had no idea that exchange of words would become so important but for me they make
it an open and shut case. Mr. Barnbrook was given bad information then and from that
I conclude that he has been told lies ever since. The witness who has been magically
conjured up to prove Mick wrong cannot even get the basic facts right. The number
is wrong and the names are wrong. I doubt she was there.
Is there no one at Bexley council who ever speaks the truth?