31 January (Part 2) - Police update
BiB is not a blog about police corruption, if it wasn’t for Bexley Council
pressurising the local police force into offering protection from the
consequences of their various wrong doings I doubt the police would ever get a
mention here. But unfortunately the police and Council act as one when either of
them is caught out. Usually it is Bexley Council which is caught out.
My default position on the police is that every single one of them is corrupt
which probably sounds over the top but as Jeff Boothe, the recently departed
Borough Commander, said at his last appearance in the Council Chamber, his
is a disciplined service and he goes where he is told to and he follows every
instruction he is given.
Former Bexley police Inspector Mick Barnbrook has related quite enough anecdotes
of how an honest police officer has no alternative but to obey the instructions
of a bent senior officer if he wishes to avoid transfer to some far flung
outpost of the Met. Police, has aspirations of promotion or even of retaining his job.
In 2011 Bexley Council asked the police to have me arrested for “criticising
Councillors on a personal level” and Bexley police immediately jumped at their
command. Police documents released subsequently suggest that the request was made by Tyrant O’Neill.
When, a month later, someone abused Councillor Craske’s internet connection
the police said they could not investigate it because
there was no evidence. We now
know there was plenty of evidence - the IPCC intervened.
Only last week the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) wrote to tell me they were
following up yet another new lead, though a bit of me suspects that a succession
of new leads is a delaying tactic. They really don’t want to find two senior
officers guilty of perverting the course of justice.
In the Bacon/Tuckley case
two police constables stand accused of making false statements at the request of Bexley Council a year after the event.
Statements which contradicted what was said originally. Although there were eight signed
witness statements relating to that event the DPS decided not to look at them
and assumed instead that the belated police reports were all the evidence required.
The IPCC disagreed and ordered a proper investigation. Almost incredibly the
current DPS position is to refuse the instruction. There is still no advice from
the Crown Prosecution Service on whether or not Councillor Cheryl Bacon and Will
Tuckley will be charged, although it is fairly obvious they won’t be. But the
CPS is apparently still unable to confirm it and we must rely on leaked information.
In May last year I was
again threatened with arrest at the request of Bexley
Council or to be more precise, by Councillor Don Massey who alleged harassment by
my blog of 4th May 2016.
Professional advice was that what I wrote got nowhere near to being harassment
but the police left me in limbo for seven months while they
came to the same conclusion.
I asked Bexley police five weeks ago
if sending officers to my door was the result of incompetence or political pressure. Councillor Massey was allowed
access to Sidcup police station which is no longer open to the public, not at the time he attended anyway.
Bexley police has no answer to my question so Commissioner Bernard-Howe now has
another formal allegation of Gross Misconduct on his desk.
I feel sorry for the police officers who were put under pressure by Councillor
Massey but they have to be made to understand that if they do Bexley Council
favours which stray outside the letter of the law and impinge unfairly on residents there will always be consequences.
Note: It is exactly 1,700 days since a complaint went to Sir Bernard
Hogan-Howe about the failure of Bexley police to properly investigate the Craske case. No answers yet.