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News and Comment January 2014

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12 January - Metropolitan Police. Institutionally corrupt?

Batman CraskeThe mysterious case of the obscene blog refuses to lie down. There were if you remember two investigations into who at Bexley council set up an obscene homophobic blog in my name in May 2011. The first was handled in former borough commander Dave Stringer’s time and was abandoned on 23 August 2011 citing no evidence. This as we later learned was untrue and the probability is that the political leadership at Bexley council called in some of the favours owed by Bexley police. Free lunches and the like are on the record.

The complaint about Stringer’s short lived investigation went to Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe who forwarded it to his Department of Professional Standards (DPS), from there to Bexley police to investigate themselves, then back to the DPS after protests only to have them produce a bucket of whitewash six months later. Finally it went to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) which after nearly a year announced that the DPS’s rejection of the complaint was indeed a bucket of whitewash. The DPS have been told to take my complaint seriously this time around and I note with interest that the case has been allocated to a Police Constable when it has never sunk below the level of Detective Sergeant before.

The second complaint was based on the information provided by Chief Superintendent Victor Olisa on 1st March last year. viz. that his predecessor had identified a suspect many months before Olisa applied for a search warrant for councillor Peter Craske’s address. Victor Olisa excused the delay by saying he spent a lot of time (possibly eight months) following up a suspicion that I had hacked into councillor Peter Craske’s internet connection to frame him. Funny that no evidence of that investigation has been forthcoming.

With the help of my MP a promise was obtained from the police to fill me in on the truth of how Olisa’s investigation went so badly off the rails but that promise is now nearly eight months old and not fulfilled. Had it been it may have rendered the second complaint unnecessary.

This week the Metropolitan Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards said in an unsigned letter (how professional is that?) that the case is too old for them to accept a complaint. Apparently if the police make a mistake or as seems more likely, allow themselves to be corrupted by the stated “political interference”, and take between ten and sixteen months (it depends on where you count from) and then waste another six months stringing you along promising more information that may prove themselves innocent but never producing it, the DPS is entitled to rule the police’s own procrastination is a reason to reject any complaint.

The complaint is within time if referenced to when the police let slip they had made what I consider to be a grave error but the DPS wants to reference my complaint to the time of the alleged mistake which of course I could not be aware of at that time. Police corruption can take many forms; naturally police constable Kuki Urwin’s ruling will be challenged and writing the letter has wasted most of today.

But look on the bright side. If the DPS accepts the complaint it will take another six months to produce another bucket of whitewash and only then would the procedures allow me to go to the IPCC; if they don’t I can go to them right away.

At every stage, from pretending their was no evidence in 2011, using the ‘not in public interest’ excuse when asked for evidence of their claim to have checked suspect computers - it transpired the claim was untruthful, their failure to take action for months after discovering it was councillor Craske’s phone line that had been abused, to concocting a whitewash when I complained (the IPCC agreed the DPS had done an inadequate job) to their refusal to respond to my Subject Access Request - now nearly six months overdue, the police have done everything possible to protect themselves from the consequences of dancing to Bexley council’s criminal string. Is it any wonder that half the population believes the Metropolitan Police to be institutionally corrupt?

 

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