10 October (Part 1) - Shifting the legal goalposts
Mr. Watson has asked me not to report on his Judicial Review
application which seeks to declare Bexley Council’s decision to ban him from
asking questions unlawful. His email account is blocked, however the
following information reveals nothing that is not already in the public domain so I should be safe!
The current saga began when John Watson asked probing questions about
the Maxine Fothergill affair
and discovered that among other irregularities including the
conduct of the disciplinary hearing there was not actually a written complaint
against Councillor Fothergill as required by law. What the Code of Conduct
Committee had was a statement written by a member of the Committee who was
sitting in judgment on Maxine. Accuser, judge and jury.
The Independent Person representing you and me did not think there was any case
to answer. Nevertheless a punishment was dished out which may or may not have
been revenge for Councillor Fothergill
reporting one of Teresa O’Neill’s
favourites to the police for theft.
John Watson would have taken Bexley’s failure to observe the letter of the law
to Judicial Review had he been legally able to do so, but he isn’t. Instead his
case is confined to Chief Executive Gill Steward’s decision to cut him off from further
contact with Bexley Council and does not refer to the Fothergill case at all.
Bexley Council, either because it seeks only to fight a battle which it would win on a point of law,
or because it is incompetent, refuses to recognise John’s court action for what it is. A statement on Bexley’s
website says that it is the Fothergill affair which is the subject of a Judicial Review. Totally wrong.
