22 December (Part 1) - Has BiB been harassing the Masseys? It’s an official “No”
On 20th May 2016
two police
officers came to my door, with a third sitting in the car outside, to
threaten me with arrest if I did not agree to being interviewed at Bexleyheath police
station. They said I was accused of harassment by Miss Victoria Massey, daughter of the two
Councillors Massey. Precisely how I still do not know and I hadn’t ever named her but I can only
assume that it was for publishing a photograph that had been posted, along with a dozen or so
others, on a Facebook page which had no privacy protection whatsoever and unlike my version
of it, was not blurred beyond all recognition.
I suspect that reminding readers that Councillor Don Massey and his wife, Councillor Sharon
Massey, no longer lived in Bexley and that
their business in Sidcup was no more
had something to do with it too. Both bits of information were freely
available elsewhere to anyone with access to a web browser.
The
police in their wisdom decided to refer me to their legal advisers and
more than six months later a decision has been reached. It is now official that
I have not been singling out the Masseys for special attention, which will not
come as a surprise to anyone with half a brain cell.
Yesterday a three line email arrived from Inspector Colin Edge of Bexley's
Professional Standards and Leadership Support Unit to confirm the decision but
he warns me that “under current legislation every set of circumstances presented
could mean that laws are broken. Please be mindful of this”. I take it that that
means that anything one might do could be illegal on the whim of any police officer
dependent on the day of the week. Where are we, North Korea?
I can still only guess at what it was that interested the police in
my blog so
I am unable to judge where their movable legal threshold was on the day in question
and can only continue to make judgments based on the same standards I have deemed
appropriate in the past. How can I possibly do anything else without a reference standard?
I shall press Inspector Edge for more information when I reply to his brief email later today and
as things stand at the moment I will not be ruling out a formal complaint against the officer who judged
it appropriate to send the three constables to my address.
All the professional advice says that I got nowhere near to breaking the law and
if the Inspector cannot convince me that the advice is wrong it
will cast doubt on the competence of that police officer. The alternative is
that he submitted to political pressure placed on him by the Masseys as Bexley
police have so often done before. It continues to be a live issue with
two enquiries into it ongoing.
If it cannot be demonstrated that I came close to breaking the law I shall additionally
consider making an allegation of malicious harassment against the Masseys.
For the record, there is no complaint against Inspector Edge whose communications
have always been exactly what one would expect of someone with the words
Professional, Standards and Leadership in his job title.