5 January - Scraping the Bexley barrel
Oh, whoopee, only another three weeks before Bexley cabinet gets back to
work. Meanwhile what stories are circulating? Not a lot.
Police feet dragging
It doesn’t really compare with
waiting 31 months for a meaningful reply
from the police and no sign of an end to it, but the lady who was
arrested at Heathrow Airport on an assault charge trumped up by Bexley
police has been trying to get hold of a copy of her statement dated 6th June
2014. She is still being ignored.
I am unsure of the rules relating to statements. I am due to be at Plumstead
Police Station on Wednesday to sign the transcript of the recording of
my interview two months ago. I am not expecting to take a copy, I know what
I said and if the transcript looks like what I remember saying that will be good
enough for me, but maybe I will ask what the law says about it.
Streetlife
I only look at
Streetlife when the flow of Bexley council related news dries up.
It was from there that I discovered that the butcher’s shop on Broadway closed
just before Christmas. There were initially comments to the effect that Bexley
council were in some way behind its demise but if they were it was probably only indirectly.
The new road layout will not have helped, neither the additional parking
restrictions, but butcher’s shops are in trouble everywhere. The massive Asda
store opposite cannot have done the Meat Market any good.
There are no butcher’s shops left in Bexleyheath.
I
may not be the best judge of such things as I avoid them as much as possible
but Bexleyheath seems to be overloaded with supermarkets. Two branches of Asda,
an Iceland, a Sainsbury’s, M&S Food Hall, a Lidl coming soon and a huge Tesco -
if it doesn’t get cancelled.
British Meat Markets had been in Bexley for 28 years, the same as I have. Maybe
that’s long enough for anyone.
Children’s Services
References to Bexley council’s Sheila Murphy recruiting social workers in the
Emerald Isle brought forth a comment from someone with first hand experience of
their services. It would appear that my assumption that the Irish social workers may
have more sense than ours is ill founded.
Just an extract from a recent email…
The Irish system’s only advantage is that they do not fast track children for
adoption. However, long-term fostering can be worse for a child as they are
psychologically traumatised every time they are moved between foster carers as
happened with my baby son at just one year old.
In our experience, we certainly didn't find the system to be any less corrupt in
Ireland. Irish social workers were happy to believe the lies they were fed from
the UK. In fact, they built on those lies and presented them in court, hence
committing perjury.
Like many UK cases, our evidence was often ignored in court. My deaf wife was
unable to hear proceedings and she suffered numerous incidences of disability
discrimination. After our son was stolen, the social worker visited once and
then didn't visit again for two years. When we realised that legal aid will not
challenge the corrupt orthodoxy, we got a McKenzie friend organisation involved.
They were not allowed in court.
The McKenzie friend recommended a solicitor who believed in our case and it's
only since the appointment of him and his barrister that things have moved
forward. Although the social workers are still involved, our son is being
returned to us and now they can't do enough to help. However, it's taken two and
a half years to get there.
Irish social workers are trained in a similar mindset to their UK counterparts.
Truth means nothing in child 'protection. In our case, a web of lies and gossip
was spun by one social worker in the UK.
Like a bad case of Chinese whispers, each hand a report passes through tends to
get more negativity added. Parents are considered guilty until they prove themselves
innocent. The word of social workers however unevidenced or unqualified, is taken as truth by courts.
Cabinet member Philip Read is
still busy Tweeting,
this time claiming that Bexley is top dog when it comes to getting young adults
into employment, however he says this will be a problem for the
Labour opposition. Maybe he should remember that not everyone is as mean minded
and spiteful as he is. If it is true that Bexley is doing well in one respect, no one will be unhappy about it.
Taking the Metal Mickey
Everyone
must know by now that Bexley council doesn’t consider itself constrained by the
law of the land; whether it be blocking bridleways without the necessary
permission of the Secretary of State, closing public meetings or refusing FOIs
because knowing the truth might adversely affect debate, they don’t much care.
When Bexley does have the law on its side, such as with fly tipping, it is not
slow to refer to the relevant Act on the relevant signs, so one must wonder if
it has just made up the No Metal Detecting rule on a whim.
If Bexley council was serious about protecting their monument they would have
done more to protect it. People trample all over the stonework all day and at
night it is a teenager’s playground. Bexley council were so concerned about it
they cancelled the Ward Security contract.
For the record in all my 28 years wandering around Lesnes Abbey park and woods I
have never seen anyone with a metal detector. Scraping around for sharks’ teeth
yes, but treasure trove, never.
A postscript…
A helpful reader has
referred me to a website
that provides information about metal detecting. Maybe the notice in Lesnes
Abbey park would look less amateurish if it referred to
the appropriate law.
A reader with official links to the abbey ruins has reported that damage
running to thousands of pounds has been caused recently.
The Harrow Inn site
The Abbey
Wood eyesore continues into its sixth year with no sign of any improvement following intervention by Lesnes Abbey ward
councillors and their Conservative predecessors.
What passes for a fence is slowly falling down again and Bexley council never
has seen fit to repair the gaping hole in the footpath just behind the road
sign. Imagine that existing for years elsewhere in the borough, and the Tories
claim not to be south-centric.
Pictures taken three weeks apart.
This website
I noticed rather belatedly that the old ‘Photo gallery’ pages which fell into disuse
about two years ago when it was replaced by the ‘Click to enlarge’ facility on images, were
incompatible with changes introduced to the banner display code. This was fixed
over the weekend and at the same time were made Mobile mode compatible.
Progressive changes to default image sizes is making things very complicated.
Perhaps Wordpress bloggers have the right idea.