22 July (Part 1) - Not a shred of evidence?
New readers who have come here because of the Splash Park and Old Farm
Avenue issues may not fully appreciate how dishonest Bexley council can be although those who attended
last night’s cabinet meeting will likely have a
pretty good idea.
At the present time Will Tuckley (Chief Executive), Lynn Tyler (Legal Team
Manager), councillor Cheryl Bacon and a doorman of all people are all under
police investigation for Misconduct in Public Office.
For protecting them from the consequences of various misdeeds three successive
borough police commanders are also under investigation for the same offence.
They are CS Dave Stringer, CS Victor Olisa, and CS Peter Ayling plus two
police constables serving under him. One of them is now retired.
The oldest of the investigations is now more than three years old and all
those involving police officers have been bundled together by the police under the same
Department of Professional Standards (DPS) officer.
That officer has not always been very serious about the investigation which is
admittedly complex. However there cannot be much excuse for trying to conduct an
investigation using my redacted copy of a police report and not bothering to get
a copy of the real thing. It took more than a year to overcome that hurdle.
Only within the past month or so has any police officer been interviewed by the DPS and now
the investigating officer has changed, the original one has in some way disappeared.
It’s almost inevitable after three plus years.
The new man is keen enough and introduced himself while asking a few questions by
email. His response to the answers was one of puzzlement and he failed to
understand several references. To cut a complex story short, certain vital and
incriminating documents have simply disappeared from his file. Fortunately copies exist
in the files of several Bexley residents so all may not be lost.
The Bexley council officers are subject to a separate investigation by Greenwich
police. It has been going for a year now but has yet to hit the buffers known as
‘political interference’ as was that into cabinet member Peter Craske in 2011/12.