24 November (Part 1) - Bexley police lie too. Every police officer will lie when so ordered
Detective Sergeant Paul Mackintosh (Bexley police) sent me ten emails between the beginning of July and
the beginning of September 2012 nearly all of them insisting that he could not
tell me who was suspected of creating the website malcomknight.blogspot and
posting obscenities to it. His excuse was that I would be called as a witness to the expected prosecution
and must be protected from implied manipulation.
Elwyn Bryant and I were sure the suspect was Craske because the obscenities
referred to several events, sometimes less than 24 hours after they took place,
and there was only one person who was likely to have the appropriate knowledge.
As if that wasn’t enough, the News Shopper had reported Craske’s arrest and his
resignation from the Cabinet. It had to be him but no one would confirm it.
In October 2012 Detective Inspector Underwood decided the case against Craske
should be closed despite an incomplete forensics report still being in the laboratory
and it was passed to DS Jacqueline Bishop to wrap up.
She too decided that despite two obscene blogs being found on Councillor
Craske’s devices, one published the other probably not, “there was no evidence
to suggest that Mr. Craske had posted the offensive blog”. Not even a suggestion he did it!
Elwyn and I met Jacqueline Bishop in January 2013 and the name passed her lips
almost immediately. Elwyn and I both jumped to attention at the mention of
Craske’s name and we explained that it was the first time any officer had ever mentioned
it. DS Bishop was visibly shocked and went on the say that his file was
the biggest she had ever had to handle. It had, she said, been “crippled by political interference”.
I emailed Bishop to thank her for her honesty and copied it to Chief
Superintendent Victor Olissa the Borough Commander. One hour and nineteen
minutes later DS Bishop replied denying everything she had told Elwyn and me at
the meeting the previous day.
It would appear that I had unwittingly dropped Bishop in the mire by
congratulating her on her honesty and copying it to the Chief Superintendent.
One hour and four minutes after sending that email Bishop sent another.
Dear Mr Knight and Mr Bryant,
In relation to the above investigation, please
note that my involvement in this has now concluded as the investigation is
closed. In light of this, I cannot and will not be responding to any further
emails from yourselves.
Regards
DS Bishop
Petulant or what?
The following day Chief Superintendent Victor Olisa sent me a wholly
professional letter with no hint of any criticism of anything I had written to Bishop.
Elwyn and I continued to believe, right through to this week, that DS Jaqueline
Bishop was the only honest police officer to be found in Arnsberg Way and I had
unwittingly got her into trouble with her disreputable bosses.
How wrong we were. The DPS report received last Tuesday reveals that
she can lie along with the best of them.
It records that DC Yvonne Weeden of the DPS spoke to DS Bishop by telephone on
19th January 2012, a date which has to be wrong because the complaint did not
reach Weeden’s department until January 2014 and she wrote to me on 18th
February 2014 to introduce herself as new to the case. She wrote again on 8th
July 2014 to apologise for not making any progress but hoped to start her investigation “soon”.
However the real point is that DS Bishop admitted to the DPS that she did tell
Elwyn and me that the case had been crippled by political interference. However
in the eighteen months or whatever since the meeting in Bexleyheath she had been
able to think of a good excuse. This little beauty.
Teresa Pearce MP had been guilty of the political interference Bishop said, not
the other Teresa and her partner in skullduggery Will Tuckley, (Bexley’s Chief
Executive at the time) as everyone else had supposed.
There is written evidence that Bexley Council interfered in the justice process
despite everyone agreeing that the crime was committed by Craske or his wife in a private capacity.
So what had the MP for Erith & Thamesmead done to interfere in the course of justice?
Way back in August 2011,
Bexley police
wrote to Elwyn and me to say that their investigation had been abandoned for
lack of evidence. It is only too obvious now that that was a lie but it was
fairly obvious that it was a lie on the day I first read it too. It
claimed the blog was no longer on the server which was only half true. The blog
content had gone but its template continued to occupy malcolmknight.blogspot.
Ms. Pearce reported that fact to Chief Superintendent Dave Stringer at one of
her regular meetings and asked him to look at the case again.
My MP has accompanied me to four meetings with the police as a good MP might be
expected to do - James Brokenshire refused to help Elwyn - but the police seem
to think that supporting a constituent is close to being criminal.
DS Bishop asked the DPS to believe that a meeting between my MP and the Borough
Commander in September 2011 (which she called political interference) was one of only three
things worth telling Elwyn and me in January 2013. The others being Craske’s name and it being a big file.
No one else would believe such a story but the DPS did.
Teresa Pearce did not cripple the investigation, she was wholly responsible for
putting it back on the rails - unless of course Bishop meant that Teresa crippled the cover up.
Everyone knows who interfered to get the culprit off the hook and
written evidence is available, however the DPS did not mention that evidence in their report at all. To
include it might have caused their whole report to unravel. Perhaps they should ask DS Jacqueline
Bishop to dream up a silly excuse for its existence.
The DPS report confirms that they did not bother to interview any of the named
individuals who are known to be responsible for the conspiracy to “resolve
Councillor Craske’s situation” and whilst I have not yet done the count, it
looks as though around half of the police officers involved in this case could
not be interviewed because they are off on long term sick leave. How very convenient.
Note: The significance of the Batman picture is that
I was not only the subject of homophobic abuse in the form of a blog bearing my name, I was
also in receipt of abusive emails which were signed by Robin with an address in
Gotham City. My ISP traced them to an office closely associated with Craske but Bexley police
chose to do nothing about them.