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News and Comment May 2014

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6 May (Part 1) - None of them wants to face the truth

I am wondering whether I can call this blog entry an update when all it really does is say that nothing much is happening, but on the other hand it reveals a little more detail for dedicated scholars of lying and perhaps more importantly, be useful to let new readers know before they vote, how crooked Bexley council can be.

It concerns councillor Cheryl Bacon standing in Cray Meadows ward and who, on the evidence produced by Bexley's legal team, is a great big liar. The legal people insist that she put a public meeting into ‘Closed Session’ because every single member of the public present was misbehaving. Not one witness has been prepared to back that version of events but every member of the public present has been prepared to confirm the lies and some councillors have provided written evidence of it too.

Various overpaid executives right up to Will Tuckley himself, none of whom were at the meeting, have refused to carry out an investigation into Cheryl Bacon’s lies, rather foolishly they have all supported her based only on her own statement. If you need to go over all that old ground it is both comprehensively documented and summarised. Today I am bringing things completely up to date.


Bexley TimesThree weeks ago Mick Barnbrook provided Bexley council’s Chief Executive Will Tuckley with the names of the councillors who have made written statements confirming that no one misbehaved at Cheryl Bacon’s meeting and that Nicholas Dowling was calm and polite throughout and most certainly did not shove a microphone under her nose as councillor Colin Campbell said on BBC TV.

The council’s first press release referred to only one member of the public, it was only after taking advice on the legality of a Closed Session meeting, the term they used when announcing it, that the decision was taken to blacken the name of every member of the public present rather than own up to a procedural error. Only disruptive people can be legally excluded from a public meeting.

After three weeks of silence it would appear that Will Tuckley is still not prepared to conduct a proper investigation into the Cheryl Bacon lies which his senior officers blindly supported and after keeping Mick’s letter under wraps while he considered it I feel it is not too unreasonable to let you see it too.

It is long but I think it makes a number of very good points, among them that the leaked internal papers refer to ‘an individual’ and that the police were called to eject Nicholas Dowling, no one else.

This brings me to how the police are rallying round trying to protect their friends in the council. Why they are prepared to jeopardise their careers to protect bent council officials I have no idea, it was the same with councillor Craske and the obscene blog and for that the IPCC is still pushing for an answer.


ChamberWhen two police constables eventually showed up at the council meeting on 19th June 2013 they were far from being officious. I described them the next day as “jovial bobbies”. You can imagine what I would have had to say about them if they had threatened arrest or forcibly ejected us, but the tissue of lies built by Bexley council’s Head of Legal Services has become so shaky that it demands the support of the police to say that is exactly what happened.

True to form the police confirmed Bexley council’s story that I and others were prepared to risk arrest by refusing to leave an empty council chamber. Why would anyone do that when it was just me and a bunch of Bexley Action Group members sitting there alone, the councillors having long since departed?


News ShopperMr. Barnbrook asked for a copy of the two constables’ statements only to discover there weren’t any. However a helpful Chief Inspector, probably not knowing what he was getting himself into, offered to put that right. A week or so later he emailed that the written statements were now in his possession and that they confirmed Bexley council’s assertion, viz. that I and others refused to leave the chamber and had to be ejected. This does not of course accord with what the police told the News Shopper before the need to lie became apparent. (See associated image.)

Mick Barnbrook and his fellow BAG members do not give up easily as Bexley council and the police ought to know by now; Mick wrote to Chief Superintendent Peter Ayling under FOI asking for copies of the two statements. He has been denied them, so statements which were obtained solely for Mick Barnbrook’s benefit are secret and he cannot see them. Perverse is it not? Perhaps the constables are not prepared to support the council’s lies after all.

Both of CS Peter Ayling’s predecessors are under investigation for Misconduct in Public Office after they succumbed to “political interference” by Bexley council. Mr. Ayling has been formally advised that he is going to be next on that list if he continues to support Bexley council’s obvious lies.

Click third image for News Shopper report.

 

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