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News and Comment January 2015

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9 January - Bexley council still hoping to suppress the truth

Cheryl BaconThe latest news about the police investigation into councillor Cheryl Bacon, her lies and the conspiracy orchestrated within Bexley council to support them, is that there is not a lot of new news.

However what news there is serves to confirm the culture of dishonesty and internal back stabbing for which leader Teresa O’Neill’s administration is renowned.

After Greenwich police had interviewed the four complainants and Nicholas Dowling who took an old Dictaphone into the council chamber their next step was to call in councillors who witnessed the events and four council officials who didn’t; but made up stories instead.

The Legal Department boss responded with a bundle of papers which were mainly not new to the police investigating officer. As he agreed, Bexley council was not likely to put their hands up, continuing with their accusations of ‘a riot’ was always on the cards.

No one will be surprised that senior Bexley council staff continue to lie, it is after all what they do for a living. That they do not want to be interviewed was equally predictable.

More surprising is that two councillors who provided fulsome written rebuttals of Cheryl Bacon’s lies who were invited to interview are also reluctant. “It could prove to be very awkward for us.” That's understandable, the only councillor who dissented from the Tory party line in the past four years is no longer a councillor.

My interpretation is that leader Teresa O’Neill will not allow her councillors to pass their recollection of events to the police, which is tantamount to an admission that she too knows that Cheryl Bacon is a liar. If she believed otherwise surely she would encourage her witnesses to take up the police’s invitation?


Will TuckleyPossibly councillor coyness doesn’t matter a great deal. Four have already made it absolutely clear in writing that there was no disturbance on that fateful evening and when asked, another five refused to support Cheryl Bacon.

I am absolutely convinced that the investigating officers know from the evidence they have already seen, that Cheryl Bacon’s account was in every significant respect, a lie from beginning to end. As I said to one of the police officers, “if you ever get Cheryl Bacon to sit in that chair, you as an experienced officer, will instantly know who the liar is”. I won’t repeat what he said.

I do not know what the police will do now that both Labour and Conservative councillors appear to be playing hard to get, however I am pretty certain that if the case gets to the stage when it is ready for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service, there will be political interference from on high. Just as there was in the Craske case.

The maximum penalty for Misconduct in Public Office is life imprisonment. A guilty verdict on Will Tuckley would be thoroughly deserved but government routinely covers up far bigger scandals so it is not very likely.

 

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