4 October (Part 3) - Cheryl Bacon is alone in referring to shouting. No other witness does so. Strange that!
It’s time to hear from councillor Cheryl Bacon again
to see what other false statements The Legal Team Manager has attributed to her to justify the
illegally held Closed Session meeting. I’ll start with this…
No one called out and several Councillors have confirmed that was so. Councillor Borella confirmed he did not speak to Mr. Barnbrook.
There she goes again, “more shouting from the gallery”. Whether Tyler or Bacon someone cannot stop herself.
Non stop lying. The only thing that approached shouting came from Cheryl Bacon’s husband
Gareth who isn’t even a member of the Public Realm Scrutiny meeting. Twice he called
out something to the effect that if Nicholas recorded the meeting he would be “ejected”.
Mr. Barnbrook is accused of speaking to councillor Borella. That implies he went
over to speak to him as the reverse certainly didn’t happen. Councillor Borella does not mention that in
his report,
neither does he ever use the word “shouting”. The worst he can come up with is “running commentary”.
There is a good reason for councillor Stefano Borella not mentioning a
conversation with Mick Barnbrook. No such conversation took place. I have been
able to ascertain that Elwyn Bryant exchanged a few words with councillor
Borella. Both he and I were speaking to councillor Brenda Langstead during an adjournment
and apparently Elwyn went on to speak to Stefano. I did not see that. As it was
during the Adjournment Councillor Bacon could not have seen it either.
The
important part of the extract above is that Cheryl Bacon (CB) is persisting
with a lie that a group would not stop shouting. She uses that word or similar
ones 19 times in her statement yet nowhere in the other three reports I have to
hand does anyone refer to anyone making a loud noise at all. Councillor Borella’s reference to “running commentary” is neither qualified nor criticised.
Stefano Borella said
that there was no aggression and councillor
John
Adams never refers to shouting either. Let me be very clear on this
point. Cheryl Bacon was either in such a panic at the time, her voice had risen
to the level of a squealing piglet, that her memory of
the moment is hopelessly confused, or she - or Tyler on her behalf - is an outrageous liar.
It is a matter of some concern that when Mr. Barnbrook made his first complaint
against councillor Bacon, the council’s legal officer Lynn Tyler,
replied
exonerating Bacon of all wrong doing because she only excluded disruptive members of
the public. Tyler’s response quite deliberately ignored the evidence and takes
into account only what Bacon said to protect herself - or Tyler made up. Some might
consider that to be a clear case of Misconduct in Public Office by Lynn Tyler. Many of us know
Mr. Barnbrook well enough by now to confidently predict his next move.
“Closed Session” means only one thing. The public is not allowed in, and they weren’t. I
appreciate it places him in an embarrassing position and I am sorry about that but I phoned Danny Hackett
to see if anyone made any attempt to contact him and invite him to the
reconvened meeting. He confirmed that no one did so and that he was not hiding
away. I have irrefutable evidence that he remained in the Council Chamber until
just before the police arrived. He may have wandered outside to the water dispenser
or the veranda but both are only a handful of yards from the chamber door.
Cheryl Bacon conveniently couldn’t see him. Only Danny and myself absolutely
certainly made neither a sound or a gesture during the meeting. Why was Danny
given supposedly favourable treatment over me? The answer is that he wasn’t
given favourable treatment and that was illegal.
I was watching Mick intently during this period and I can tell you that Mick was right up alongside Cheryl Bacon.
He did not shout and why should he? His head was barely a foot from hers. He was
calm and didn't even speak loudly.
More ‘group’ nonsense in a further attempt to lessen Cheryl’s law breaking. “No
members of the public attempted to enter the room.” Common sense dictates that would be because Cheryl
made it very clear that no one was allowed in.
The Hallkeeper’s statement will be analysed next week. Finally more ‘group’ nonsense…
The council’s note of what councillor Cheryl Bacon is alleged to have said is
available in full here.
If only she had said “I overreacted, I made a mistake, it won’t happen again”
she would have come out of it with reputation unscathed. Now we know her true
character and it is not pretty.