8 June (Part 1) - Caught between a rock and a hard place
Exactly six months ago today
I was sitting by the telephone, metaphorically speaking, waiting for the promised call
that was going to tell me if Councillor Cheryl Bacon, former Chief Executive
Will Tuckley and Legal Team Manager, Lynn Tyler were going to be charged with
Misconduct in Public Office for systematically lying about what happened in the
Council Chamber on 19th June 2013.
But nothing happened.
The call eventually came through two weeks later on 18th December and
was from the police in Greenwich. The Crown Prosecution Service would make a
decision early in the New Year, and when that came and went the 5th February
became the new date. And so it has gone on ever since.
The documentary
evidence that said Councillor Cheryl Bacon is a liar was
overwhelming. All the Councillors present at that meeting and who read
her
statement about it or Bexley Council’s Press Statement know she lied. Nine
Councillors wrote to me about it and none supported Cheryl Bacon. Four of them
allowed their statement to go forward to the police as evidence of the lying.
Not a single word uttered by
the former Deputy Leader on BBC TV was truthful. A
DVD of that broadcast was part of the evidence and put together with a fat file
of paper it seemed to satisfy an initially sceptical police investigation team. They sent it to the CPS about nine months
ago, they never did make the date absolutely clear, however it certainly went
there, I have seen a little of the correspondence.
My suspicion is that the CPS doesn’t know how to deal with it. They must know that the
case against Bacon and Tuckley is strong and both could go to prison on
conviction but the political embarrassment would be immense. Will Tuckley was
appointed by Government appointed Commissioners
to run Tower Hamlets Council after the
previous Mayor and his cronies were slung out in disgrace. Can the establishment contemplate a near repeat?
The
CPS could have thrown the case out last Autumn under some pretext or other,
Not in the Public Interest perhaps, but they also know that they would have to
justify their decision to the complainants who would be legally entitled to challenge the decision.
Councillor Bacon was too arrogant to admit that she made a silly but
inconsequential mistake. Instead she lied in the hope of escaping the
consequences which would not have been worse than short term embarrassment. Look
at what she did instead. Three years later the case still rumbles on and we are supposed
to trust these people’s judgment to make decisions that affect us all.
It’s the same with the Masseys. In high dudgeon that a neighbour asked the
police for advice over two noisy parties held in their flat over Easter they
stormed off to the police station to make a complaint about that neighbour. And once again,
look at the repercussions from that.
Cabinet Member Don Massey has been chosen by Leader Teresa O’Neill to make decisions on the borough’s parlous finances but
his judgmental skills are clearly lacking. Used to be a magistrate too so people keep telling me.