20 November - It’s pinch of salt time
On 6th November I tried to be both careful and provocative
when referring to what was after all an unsubstantiated allegation. Careful
to not write something that could not be defended and sceptical enough to
maybe provoke the accuser into providing more information.
The latter aim seems to have been successful because another email arrived….
Firstly, police were informed on the day the Hijack was discovered. Their
attitude left a lot to be desired . The phones themselves are the evidence as
the hackware is on them and also the number the first phone examined is
diverting all calls via 0203045xxx which is O’Neill’s office number. Aside
from the fact that putting remote surveillance software on other people’s
equipment is illegal, Bexley council’s servers have been used in this instance
so there is a potential security breach where hooking up the public’s phones to
those servers. So no, it isn’t “tittle tattle” and in view of what OBE has to
say about you, maybe you should have your own (and your colleagues) phones similarly inspected.
You will note that I still haven't been given any evidence so this may be a malicious communication. Having said that
in all the 14 years of BiB I have never received any email of this type which proved not to be genuine.
While remaining sceptical at this stage I am reminding myself of two things.
Bexley’s current Council Leader has never been caught with her fingers in the
till but on the other hand there have been several reports on these pages that
she is happy to condone criminality in others.
A few that come to mind without doing a thorough search of the files is her
refusal to report her predecessor to the police after he abused his Council
credit card, a mistake he repeated after transferring to the GLA which took a less lenient position
resulting in a suspended prison sentence.
When I complained to Leader O’Neill that what could only have been a Council
source had created a blog in my name and filled it with obscenities she knew
exactly who to go to to get the blog removed within two hours of receiving my
letter. After the police traced the source to Councillor Craske she happily
retained him as a Cabinet Member until he resigned in mysterious circumstances earlier this year.
When one of her preferred candidates in the 2014 election received a police
caution for theft reports were that the Leader wished to continue with his
candidacy and only the Chairman of the local Conservative Association was
prepared to stand up to her; but I have nothing more substantial to aim at the Leader
so I await the next installment of ‘hackgate’ with bated breath.
As for tapping my own phone, it wouldn’t be very interesting. I can’t remember
the last time anything BiB related was
discussed on my landline phone and whilst I do speak to Conservative Councillors
very occasionally on the mobile any political comment has been confined to despair
over the national situation. I must have said before that although there have
been a couple of occasions when I have been asked to revise a blog for the sake of
strict accuracy, not a single call has ever provided a news story.