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News and Comment October 2016

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21 October - Five on a Friday

The Cheryl Bacon case
A fat file has been with the Crown Prosecution Service since August 2015 and various dates for a decision on whether to charge Councillor Cheryl Bacon with Misconduct in a Public Office or not have come and gone. The last ‘promise’ was made in August and the implication was that there would be an answer at the beginning of September. We are still waiting.

Eight witnesses to the events of 19th June 2013 were interviewed by the police and all of them made statements which confirmed that there was no disturbance on the evening in question beyond Nicholas Dowling calmly clutching an audio recorder. All totally contrary to what Councillor Cheryl Bacon said and at odds with what was written in support of Bacon by various senior Council officers who weren’t at the meeting and knew nothing.

In addition to the eight official police statements two other people wrote supporting statements but were not interviewed by the police.

In total four Bexley Councillors told the police that Cheryl Bacon lied and the only witness statement that supported Cheryl Bacon was written by Cheryl Bacon - if indeed it was not just made up in Bexley’s legal department. It was neither dated or signed.

How the hell is the CPS going to wriggle out of that one? It wasn’t just simple lying, it escalated to being a huge conspiracy by everyone up to Chief Executive level to try to get Bacon off the hook she made for herself.

We know that the CPS intended to refer the case to a barrister for an opinion because they said so. On second thoughts, do I believe them? But if they do my theory is that they will strip out the witness statements first. Then the case would collapse into a his word against hers fiasco.

Whatever the case, something weird is going on. The CPS should not need 15 months to come to a decision, but a whitewash that will stand up to scrutiny is going to be hard to find.

The Peter Craske case
The investigation into the police cover up of what became known as Bexley’s Obscene Blog is still ongoing. Even during this past week new documents have surfaced and more have been promised for next week. I am cautiously optimistic that it will be proved that Bexley police danced to Bexley Council’s tune in 2011/12; Bexley Police already owned up to it in an off the record comment.

If corruption is proved I will make suitable criminal allegations against the Councillor and Council Officer who pulled the police’s string.

Judicial Review reviewed
Mr. John Watson has been told by Bexley Council that they engaged Clive Sheldon QC to fight his Judicial Review application who according to John charges £5,000 an hour for his services.

The always inquisitive Elwyn Bryant asked Bexley Council how much they have so far spent on this case but they refused to tell him citing personal information. They decided they could do that because Elwyn identified the case to them with a reference to John Watson by name. Perhaps he should have simply referred to the current Judicial Review and hope there was only one.

John Watson has provided a written consent for Elwyn’s information request and he has sent it in again. Let’s see what their excuse is this time.

Sharon Massey’s family album
Councillor Massey’s concern for her daughter at last Tuesday’s People Scrutiny Committee meeting was very strange, She, or her husband Don or her daughter Victoria (accounts vary) asked the police to arrest me for harassment. The police issued threats but did nothing and I never did find out what I was supposed to have done. I can only suppose it was something to do with publishing Natasha Briggs’ report on noisy parties held at the Massey’s address.


DoorI was under the impression that when Councillor Massey accused a Labour Councillor of being in possession of a photograph it must have been a picture of her daughter. For it to be anything less would surely be a total non-event. The complaint was reported here but it would seem I was wrong about the photograph. According to those involved, the picture at the centre of this furore was the one shown here and reported on 21st May. North End Labour had posted it on their Twitter feed.

It is a picture of an anonymous front door captioned ‘Who lives here?’ Few could answer the question but it was at the time the Massey’s front door. Sensitive souls aren’t they?

At the Scrutiny meeting Councillor Sharon Massey went on at length about adults passing pictures of her daughter to other adults via social media and creating false stories based on them. She made unreasonable demands on Borough Commander Jeff Boothe and sought his protection against unspecified people in possession of pictures of her daughter. She went further and forgot for a moment who was the politician and who was the copper and asked him to make lying a criminal offence!

What a pity that Sharon Massey fails to make any effort to protect her brood from social media’s downside.

I Googled ‘Sharon Massey Facebook’ and was rewarded with a score of new pictures of the Masseys. Nice, happy family photos the like of which most parents would be proud to show to friends. But if they don’t want those who are not friends to see and maybe circulate them, why can they be freely downloaded from an unprotected Facebook page? And why do they expect the Borough Police Commander to harass innocent residents who take a look, and maybe take copies?

Power crazy idiots.

Charting a course to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
Long term readers will know about Mark Charters. He was in charge of Education Services in Bexley when it managed to get the worst OFSTED report in London. Absolutely zero schools were rated Outstanding.


LiesMark Charters also supposedly looked after Children in Care. OFSTED said that service was Inadequate in Bexley but all was well because Leader Teresa O’Neill said so in the Bexley Magazine and she carried on paying him the best part of two hundred grand a year.

Two years later in June 2014 Mark Charters resigned his position and took a government job on the Isle of Man. Chief Executive at the Department of Health.

it didn’t last, he managed to upset too many people and he was out on his ear a year later.

Mark Charters seems to like islands, preferably remote ones where he may not be well known. Few islands are more remote than St. Helena. He landed a top job there too. Director of Safeguarding, a role pretty much the same as the one for which he was criticised by OFSTED in Bexley four years ago,

St. Helena
That didn’t last long either. May to October 2016 according to Linked In and the Isle of Man discussion forums.
Linked In
I bet Mark Charters wishes he had stayed in Bexley where he was able to carry on for two years after the services collapsed all around him.

 

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