26 June - And all because one councillor couldn’t stop lying
This blog has been edited after its initial posting. The alterations relate only to the final image. Mr. Barnbrook requested that his 1997 letter from Robert Ayling should be made available in full - click the extract - to better illustrate that the issue at the time was the complaint made by Stephen Lawrence’s mother Doreen against the Metropolitan Police and that there was no complaint against Robert Ayling, Kent Constabulary or former Inspector Michael Barnbrook who was stationed at Greenwich police station with responsibility for Eltham at the time of the murder.
If
only councillor Cheryl Bacon had said sorry, or even done nothing at
all, after wrongly excluding six members of the public, one now an elected councillor, from
her meeting on 19th June 2013,
this would be another no news day on Bonkers; but no, being an idiot and a Bexley Conservative councillor with
close ties to the leadership, Cheryl Bacon had to lie. Her story is that all but one person present at her Public
Realm meeting was shouting, waving papers in the air and according to one of the latest variants on the theme,
everyone was trying to record the meeting, not just Nicholas Dowling.
She has the support of senior council officials such as Lynn Tyler, Nick Hollier,
Akin Alabi and Will Tuckley none of whom was present so cannot speak with any
authority and on the other hand ten people who were there and saw everything have made statements
to the effect that no disturbance took place. No shouting, no waving of papers,
no running amok and no recording beyond Nick Dowling’s broken Dictaphone and
that Nick was always polite and never aggressive. Will
Tuckley is pointedly ignoring all the evidence, refusing to conduct an
investigation into whether or not Cheryl Bacon has comprehensively lied to cover
up what was arguably no more than a minor offence against the Local Government Act 1972.
However
instead of putting their hands up and laying the matter to rest, someone had the brilliant idea of getting the police on side and now PCs
Shaun Kelly and Peter Arthurs, backed by the council doorman Mal Chivers are all
allegedly confirming Bexley council’s rather obvious falsehoods. In the police’s own words
only a few days ago, “The call for Police came from Mr. Mal Chivers and requested police attendance as 5-6
males had been recording a public meeting, had been asked to stop and leave, but
were refusing to do so.”
Mal Chivers told me face to face that he had only asked for assistance in respect of Nick Dowling. All the
statements made a year ago, to the press, in reminders from officials to councillors on
what to do in the event of a repeat, answers to complaints etc.,
all refer to only one
person. The police are mistaken when they refer to more than one person but it
is a statement that helps to get Bexley’s corrupt council off the hook, just
as they have done so many times before, Bexley police do whatever the council asks them to do.
Mick Barnbrook is taking the lead role in pursuing this latest example of the corruption
that infests Arnsberg Way and Watling Street. One advantage of letting a retired
police officer take up this complaint is that he will insist on all the correct
procedures being followed. As a result the statements made by the two constables
and the doorman are in a format that can result in a prison sentence if they are
found to be false.
Bexley’s Chief Executive, Will Tuckley has been stonewalling Mick for months preferring that
the doorman places himself in the firing line and Borough Police Commander Peter Ayling has
remained similarly silent. Mick has given up on further correspondence with them and his
complaints and allegations are now being directed elsewhere. Chief
Superintendent Ayling is the first beneficiary with Will Tuckley, Cheryl Bacon,
Mal Chivers and a string of others next on his list, but Bexley police got in first. They’ve
already notified their Directorate of Professional Standards of impending trouble.
In his ‘PDF police biography’,
Chief Superintendent Peter Ayling refers to himself as being the
son of a policeman and the importance of communication skills, which is ironic
when I have been present at three public meetings where the complaint from councillors
and public alike has been that he just doesn’t respond to enquiries.
And was this Portsmouth born, only just 37 years old Chief Superintendent really the
son of a policeman? Yes but not any old policeman, Robert Ayling was Chief
Constable of Kent when he retired in 2004. Ironically he knew of Mick Barnbrook
and wrote to him in 1997.
Mick Barnbrook was the appointed mentor to Stephen Lawrence and his brother until 1993.
Index to related blogs and documents.