22 April (Part 1) - Meeting scheduled. Will the Chairman show her face?
Let’s see if I can get this show back on the road. Currently time is being soaked up by attending to three people in need of help, two failing computers, both nearly new, and don’t even ask about the domestic chores.
Fortunately
Mick Barnbrook has taken on pursuing Bexley council for the lies written to both
of us by various senior officers in defence of the source of their
predicament, the hopelessly confused councillor Cheryl Bacon and
the Closed Session affair.
She is the only person reported to have said that the public were shouting and waving papers and generally disrupting
her
Public Realm meeting of 19th June last year to the extent that she had to take it into Closed
Session. Not one of the witnesses subsequently produced supported that version of events but
Will Tuckley, Akin Alabi and Nick Hollier all refused to interview councillors who were prepared to tell the truth.
Mick’s analysis of the papers has thrown up even more discrepancies in Bexley
council’s story and he decided to write to Chief Executive Will Tuckley one last time before
taking the Misconduct in Public Office route. For the first time, Bexley council has been formally advised that
we have written confirmation from councillors
present at Bacon’s meeting councillors that no disturbance took place.
Separately
Mick Barnbrook has been corresponding with Chief Superintendent Peter
Ayling about Police Constables Shaun Kelly and Peter Arthurs who attended the
meeting of 19th June and behaved very reasonably towards the members of the public still present.
The blog the following day reflected that fact but now, according to emails from their Chief Inspector,
they are backing the lies told
by Bexley council including the ‘fact’ that I and others refused to leave the
building when asked. Why weren’t we arrested and why didn’t the police’s report
to the press give any indication of troublemaking?
One can only assume they, like Chief Superintendents Stringer and Olissa before them
- both currently under investigation for Misconduct in Public Office - came
under political pressure. Once again Mr. Barnbrook has found discrepancies in the
correspondence as is to be expected when so many officials make up stories.
If Cheryl Bacon had simply said sorry the next day her mistake would have been long
forgotten. By following the line that it is never wrong Bexley council has allowed the
reputations of Will Tuckley (Chief Executive), Akin Alabi (Head of Legal
Services), Lynn Tyler (Legal Team Manager), Nick Hollier (Human Resources
Manager) and Rebecca Sandhu (Independent Person appointed under the Localism
Act) to be further trashed. All of them must know by now that Cheryl Bacon’s
account as written by Bexley council’s legal team is a
comprehensive lie. What took place was poor chairmanship but none will
stray from the party line despite the evidence that it is wholly wrong. Instead,
as has been seen too often in the past, they drag their police friends down the same dishonest path.
Cheryl Bacon is paid £8,800 a year for chairing four meetings a year but
has not shown up to chair one since photography was allowed in the chamber.
She is due to perform at the Civic Centre at 19:30 this evening and unless
she takes leave of her senses again, anyone can show up and see what someone who
allows lies to circulate looks like.