When I started this blog Bexley Council was crammed solid with the dodgiest
of people. Deputy Leader
Colin Campbell mentioned yesterday was by no means the worst of them. Ian Clement, the Council Leader had
abused his Council credit card and his expenses to the tune of £2,200 and
got away with it because his successor, one Teresa O’Neill, refused to do
anything about it. He was caught out when he pulled the same trick, but only for
£227, when he became Deputy Mayor at the GLA. He was sentenced to three months, suspended.
Another bad one was Chief Executive Nick Johnson.
In a one to one deal with Clement
he arranged for his retirement on grounds of ill health and received a
reported £300,000 pay off and a £50,000 annual pension for life all at Bexley
taxpayers’ expense. Then he went off and got
much
the same sort of job with Hammersmith Council his dodgy ticker having
miraculously cured itself.
Dropping down to Director and Deputy Director level found much the same.
Mike Frizoni ran a draconian parking regime
criticised by the Local Government Ombudsman at a time when Bexley Council
had two parking contracts, one for public consumption and another which broke
the law. Their own auditor condemned it as maladministration - 13 times.
Mark Charters who had been Director of Children’s Services in Bexley
at a time when
OFSTED was awarding the borough the worst ratings possible went to wreak
the
same havoc on the Isle of Man. Less than a year later he had to leave and
when last heard of was seeking refuge on the island of St. Helena as their
Director of Safeguarding.
His
deputy was Sheila Murphy who did nothing to prevent the death of Rhys Lawrie.
His mother reported herself as being likely to do him a mischief, the doctors
and teachers did the same but Bexley Council failed to react - not until he was dead that is.
The whole story is
indexed here and eventually his mother’s
boyfriend was imprisoned for manslaughter. His grandfather does not believe a
word of it because the boyfriend could not have been in the house at the time and paramedics
who could have confirmed it were not allowed to be witnesses in Court.
The grandfather believes that Bexley Council and the police connived to cover
the Council’s neglect and successfully shifted the blame from mother to
boyfriend because the case was close to being another Baby P (Connolly) in Haringey. He
uncovered a great deal of evidence and Sheila Murphy did not come out of it well at all but
the Serious Case
Review glossed over her involvement. The review was conveniently authored by her former boss Rory Patterson.
Mick Barnbrook queried that association in a Public Question at a Full Council meeting in
November 2014 but Cabinet Member Philip Read refused to answer the question
on the grounds that Mick was trying to smear Ms. Murphy and that he was not
obliged to answer questions from former members of the BNP.
Despite Read’s denial of any close cooperation the conclusion was drawn that Sheila
Murphy and Rory Patterson were indeed mates who helped each other. Five years
later an anonymous email reminds me of just how close that association might be. Not
only did they work together in Bexley but they are still doing so; this time in Thurrock.
“Mr. Patterson appointed Mr. Archibald.” Same old tricks.
Much more worrying is the allegation that children have again died while in
their care and allegedly The Thurrock Independent newspaper has been gagged. A
News Shopper reporter once told me that Bexley Council tried that on too.
Thurrock Council seems to make a habit of it.
Perhaps because of the gagging, little news is available on the subject beyond
the initial allegation; maybe my anonymous correspondent could provide a bit more evidence?
Meanwhile all we know is that Cabinet Member Philip Read’s assertion that asking a former Bexley Director to report on his subordinate in the case of a child
death that had already aroused grave suspicions looks even more like part of the
cover up by Bexley Council into Rhys Lawrie’s death than it did five years ago.
We should be grateful that all of the charlatans mentioned above are no longer in Bexley.