21 October (Part 1) - Cheats never prosper
On
19th June councillor
Cheryl Bacon
was advised to exclude six members of the public from a
Public Realm Scrutiny Committee meeting. Five of those exclusions were illegal
and everyone affected made formal complaints about Bacon. Six weeks later those complaints are either
unanswered at the initial stage or unanswered at the appeal stage. Bexley
council cancelled last Wednesday’s Members’ Code of Conduct Committee meeting; was that pure coincidence?
After Bacon locked out members of the public from her “Closed Session’ meeting the
council felt it necessary to remind all councillors of
the recommended procedure should someone
again try to record a meeting. What the council should also have done was
apologise for the mistakes made on that evening but instead they decided that in
the time honoured way of Bexley council they should lie, lie, lie.
As a result we now know without a shadow of doubt that Queen Cheryl
(if indeed she wrote the statement and it is not a forgery in her name) has in the
face of strong competition taken the crown from King Craske for being Bexley
council’ biggest purveyor of falsehoods.
Her
unsigned statement on the subject referred to a group of
people, shouting, waving, remonstrating etc. nearly 20 times but none of the
other carefully chosen witnesses said anything about that at all. For the simple
reason it didn’t happen. Three, possibly four of the excluded persons said
nothing at all during Cheryl’s meeting.
Not only has the incident dragged Bacon into the gutter but she has brought the
council’s legal officer down to the same level. Mrs. Lynn Tyler stands accused
of implicating a Labour party local election candidate by making his name public
in a Freedom of Information response and distributing unsigned, undated notes
of her alleged interviews with witnesses without spotting the contradictions and
inconsistencies contained therein. Sheer incompetence. One witness (two if an
unconfirmed report is true) deny all or some of what has been attributed to them.
My own formal complaint
about councillor Cheryl Bacon illegally excluding me from a meeting was sent on 6th September
and as yet the council has been unable to provide an answer. For the record…
Dear Mr. Tuckley,
It is now more than six weeks since I registered a formal complaint against
Councillor Cheryl Bacon for illegally excluding me from a public council meeting
and your council’s complaints procedure requires you to answer within five days
or give a reason for not doing so.
Since I first wrote to you on 6th September a number of documents relating to
the incident have come to light and analysis of them clearly shows
inconsistencies from which it becomes obvious that Councillor Bacon invented her
story about me and others. Her statement about a group of people (including
myself) constantly shouting is simply a lie and not supported by any other witness.
I understand that two of your carefully selected witnesses deny some of what was written in their names and others have come forward to support my
contention that during the relevant meeting I said absolutely nothing. My
exclusion was illegal. When are you going to answer my complaint and bring
Councillor Bacon to account?
Yours sincerely,
Index to relevant blogs and documents.