Banner
any day today rss X

News and Comment July 2014

Index: 2009201020112012201320142015201620172018201920202021202220232024

17 July (Part 3) - Cunning coppers?

When Cheryl Bacon began to circulate nonsense about me shouting, waving papers and creating mayhem in the council chamber in order to justify my unlawful exclusion from her meeting I thought about complaining to the Local Government Ombudsman but it soon became apparent that any submitted file of papers would be horrendously complicated and take far too long to put together. In any case the LGO is not genuinely interested in controlling the excesses of wayward councils.

With that in mind I am not surprised that Mick Barnbrook has been working on his allegation of criminal conduct against both Will Tuckley and Bacon for more than a month. When we met before the Cabinet meeting he showed me what I believe is the final draft of his letters (one against each) but he is still working on the bundle of evidence which currently stands at 94 pages. And then there’s the index.

You may remember that Mick has also made criminal allegations against Chief Superintendent Ayling and Constables Sean Kelly and Peter Arthurs for the part they took in support of untrue statements from Bexley council. The letter didn’t actually go until 3rd July so Mick was a little surprised to (apparently) get a response as early as the 8th. He was not however best pleased to hear that Hogan-Howe had sent the papers back to one of Ayling’s men to investigate, he thought, his boss.

When he got a moment he called the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) to protest but he discovered only more underhand practices by a force renowned for its corruption.

While Mick Barnbrook was trying to pin down the slippery cops in Bexleyheath he was in correspondence with Chief Inspector Ian Broadbridge who Mick believed was doing as good a job as was possible in the circumstances. Mick probably got it wrong.

By 16th June CI Broadbridge had realised that Mick was going to make a formal complaint and reported his own officers to the DPS.
Email
It was to that report by Broadbridge that the DPS were responding on 8th July, not Mick’s letter of the 3rd which included all the evidence.

Without the evidence, the simple uncalled for complaint sent in by Broadbridge on Mick’s behalf has been judged by the DPS to be misconduct and not a criminal offence as Mick’s file of evidence attempted to demonstrate. The DPS say that their own rules now prohibit acceptance of Mick’s allegation of criminal conduct, how very convenient, because he has already made a complaint of simple misconduct, which of course he hasn’t.

That may have been a very clever move by CI Ian Broadbridge which would make it look like he is no better than the other coppers involved in this sorry tale. Mick however is still firmly of the opinion that the Chief Inspector is merely the unfortunate middle man who has no option but to do what he has been told.

The DPS insists that common sense must not prevail and the only way forward is to await the probable whitewash from Bexleyheath police and then send the papers to the IPCC for review along with all the evidence of dishonesty. That’ll push the outcome a further six months down the line.

Meanwhile the moral of the story can only be…


• Never trust any policeman, least of all one from the Met.
• Do not reveal to them more than you have to.
• Always assume a policeman will lie and double cross.


Note: Although Mick complained about the Chief Superintendent and the two constables, at the same time but separately I think, it now appears that the DPS may have only sent the latter complaint back to Bexleyheath. Latest info is that the DPS cannot find the complaint against CS Ayling at all. I see no evidence that Ian Broadbridge’s premature complaint mentioned Peter Ayling so maybe eventual clarification will show that the above tale applies only to the constables and the way is still open for the allegation against the borough commander.

 

Return to the top of this page
Bonkers is a cookie free zone. Not a single one