22 December - Treading carefully through the legal minefield
It’s a difficult time of the year for blogging. News generally dries up and
half the readers disappear although a comparison with last year shows that
Christmas week readers are a good 25% above 2014.
This year it’s not so much difficult as frustrating. A couple of stories about
which little has been said so far are coming along quite nicely but it would be
best if they reached as many people as possible, which means waiting until
January. There are some legal constraints too, so for the time being I can do little more than
indulge in the gentle tweaking of Bexley council’s tail.
Before
that, something I entirely forgot to mention when the news broke, or to be more
precise, when someone in the know tipped me off.
I have been informed that the Harrow Inn site in Abbey Wood, notorious over the
years for its unsightly fences, vermin and failed planning applications, has been
acquired by Peabody Housing Association. Presumably we will eventually see some much needed social
housing on the site. Over retail establishments would be good.
The grapevine has been busy since
the public was excluded from the Code of
Conduct Sub-Committee meeting last week. From a
variety of sources I now have a pretty good idea of who did what to whom. I
could report it but the two and two I have might add up to four and a half so I will
reluctantly wait until the official report comes out and see how it compares to the information
already to hand.
What I don’t understand is why the complainant went to Bexley council and not
the police. The information I’ve managed to extract suggests a fraud
but if so surely it would be a police matter not for a few Councillors to mull
over. There has also been a very long
unexplained delay in getting the case to the Code of Conduct stage. There will
be crookery and cover up somewhere. It wouldn’t be Bexley council otherwise.
On a couple of occasions during the year I have mentioned, without making much of
an issue of it, that I objected to Bexley council’s 2013/14 accounts. I am afraid
it will land council tax payers with an extra bill but the fact is that there
has been dishonesty on a massive scale. Bexley’s legal department and their own
internal auditor call it Maladministration. David Hogan, Head of Internal
Audit and Risk, used the word 13 times in his report.
Apart from the report writer’s name and the number thirteen all of that has been
said before but generally shrouded in mystery. The fact that it concerned Bexley’s use of bailiffs
slipped out
last July but with very little detail of exactly what they were doing.
However I think I can safely reveal that when a sample of the bailiff’s bills was analysed every
single one of them showed that the charges were fraudulently inflated. Typically by a couple of hundred pounds
but sometimes running well into four figures. This money was effectively stolen from
Bexley’s debtors. The figures are absolutely clear and absolutely damning. Levying charges twice
on one occasion might be a mistake, but almost every time?
It must be emphasised that when Mr. Hogan became aware of the dishonesty it stopped
immediately but for some years before that debtors, except for the handful who
spotted what was going on, were defrauded wholesale. I doubt any councillor
other than the cabinet member knew anything about it. Obviously Bexley council
doesn’t want to pay back the money it got following dishonest bailiff activity,
nor has it changed its bailiff partner or the staff who turned a blind eye.