27 January (Part 3) - How the other half spends
Ideally
the Maxine Fothergill situation
should be drip fed as it unfolds but time pressures make that difficult. I am behind with
everything and not yet answered three letters from old school and work friends
received over Christmas. They will be thinking I have snuffed it.
So, playing catch up, here’s a second taster of the sort of sums Councillors
shuffle around while crying crocodile tears over throttling the life out of the borough.
The box loads of Fothergill material is quite hard to follow even
for those intimately involved. Tens of thousands of pounds get shifted around and I cannot always see
to what use the money was put. This is the biggest cheque I have come across so far -
from a rather poor photocopy supplied by the Bexleyheath branch of Barclays.
It’s the Management Committee at Mariners Walk in Erith sending off some money
to be spent on maintenance to their then Managing Agent, Amax Estates and
Property Services owned by Bexley Councillor Maxine Fothergill.
The tenants claim that they didn’t see much for their money and reported it to the
police who have done nothing about it, allegedly because Kent police, like its
counterparts in Bexleyheath, would rather believe a Councillor than an ordinary member of the public.
Well that's what they say, I recorded the conversation.
Other things in the box of goodies is correspondence record that MF has at
times been short of cash with dozens of houses under mortgage but somehow manages to
massively extend her business premises. They are puzzled about where the money
came from, so am I.
Accounting for everything is difficult because, according to the correspondence,
burglars broke in and nicked all the accounts books. Nothing else, just the
financial records. It may have been a thief with an accountancy obsession
but some have other ideas.
The current Directors of Mariners Walk want to get everything to the
police ASAP and make them look at it properly. It’s too complex for a layman but
interesting the police is easier said than done. I’ll let Mick Barnbrook take
that on and I’ll go back to hunting the 94 year old deaf lady who may have fallen
foul of Bexley Council and the persuasive limo rides.
Surely there must be an honest Conservative Councillor somewhere?
Is every last one of them intent on hiding the facts for fear of incriminating
themselves while gently slapping Maxine’s wrist?