9 May (Part 2) - Five long years
Five years ago Bexley Council was in the midst of its battle to quell all criticism. They failed to make
their harassment charge against me stick so they turned their fire on another blogger.
The result was that on this day in 2012 I was in Bromley Magistrates court to hear CPS lawyer Denise
Johnson spout a load of nonsense which was sucked in hook line and sinker by
Judge Julia Newton. The lie began with Councillor Melvin Seymour (Conservative, Crayford)
who told Bexley police that his neighbour John Kerlen had encouraged his
Twitter followers to put dog faeces through Seymour’s letter box. He hadn’t
actually seen the Tweet, it was only tittle tattle from another Councillor.
The police knew the allegation was untrue because they had a copy of the original Tweet but they went along with it
anyway. The original didn’t mention dog faeces and it didn’t identify anyone, let alone a Bexley
Councillor - but it did casually throw in the C word.
I have no doubt that the police were under instructions from Bexley Council
as they have been on three occasions involving BiB.
Cabinet Member Philip Read went to the police tittle tattling too but his
allegation was very quickly judged in Court to be mistaken. I would have judged it malicious.
The police were so confused by Bexley Council’s request that my name was included in the papers that
went to the CPS and as a result Bexley-is-Bonkers made minor headlines as far away as Northern Ireland.
The
second part of this cutting from the Independent newspaper was totally and absolutely
untrue. John Kerlen never did make a second Tweet, that was a fabrication by Bexley police.
Unfortunately the lies ensured that John Kerlen was found guilty of making a malicious communication and
he was given Community Service and a five year Restraining Order. He was prevented from
saying anything about Councillor Seymour. The Judge had totally swallowed the inaccurate prosecution story.
John had done most of his Community Service before a more competent barrister was able to get another
judge to see sense and find him Not Guilty, but even in Woolwich Crown Court there were references to me.
The incompetence of the Crown Prosecution Service really was beyond belief.
Now that the five years has passed I imagine that John Kerlen will have a few
four letter words lined up for Members of Bexley Council. Dolt, fool, prat, scum, jerk, twit, dork, goon
to name but a few.