23 February - Rare praise for the police. Not Bexley’s obviously
It was an interesting day and I don’t just mean the hour and a quarter on a
Barnehurst train which crawled around the loop the wrong way to Abbey Wood
because of a fallen tree at Charlton.
Today was the day that Elwyn Bryant and I were to meet in my MP’s (Teresa Pearce) Westminster
office to hear whether or not the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards
(DPS) is inclined to believe our allegation that Bexley Council and Bexleyheath police conspired to ensure that Councillor
Peter Craske’s [arrest] situation was resolved. The words used in
one of the dubious letters that went between the police and Bexley Council.
The current phase of the investigation into possibly criminal collusion has been
going on for ten months and has reached a critical stage. I think
all I can safely say without prejudicing the next stage of the operation, is that there is to
be one. Our concerns have not been dismissed.
The police have come to view the relationship between Bexley
Council and their local police friends with the same suspicion as Elwyn and I do. They
made it amply clear that there are questions to be answered but that is a long
way from proving corruption. The accused must be allowed their say.
Police suspicions about other police officers follow slightly different procedures to those
applied to the public but in terms of the latter the next stage involves the
equivalent of people (police officers) being arrested and
interviewed under caution with legal representation. That phase has already begun.
As you will know, when a criminal investigation is in progress the news media will go quiet for
fear of prejudicing the court proceedings that could follow. The same applies
here and no more can be said for, probably several months.
I was impressed by the depth of knowledge of the case displayed by the two
investigating officers. Elwyn had lined up a catalogue of awkward questions to
fire at them and they had a reasonable answer for them all. I was always more
optimistic than him about what today would bring but even Elwyn conceded it went pretty well.
I specifically asked if there could be a prosecution of any Councillor or
Council officer if the next stage of the DPS investigation caused them to move from a
belief that there might have been criminal interference in a police
investigation to something more substantial. It was confirmed that if that
bridge is crossed Crown Prosecution Service advice will be sought. Those readers
looking forward to Council Leader Teresa O’Neill being arrested should not give
up hope yet although confidence in the CPS must be at a low ebb following
the Bacon/Tuckley fiasco.
That is as far as I can go at present without incurring the wrath of the
Directorate of Professional Standards - and don’t expect any more in the
immediate future, but so far so good.