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News and Comment November 2011

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10 November (Part 4) - In this climate only a comeuppance will do

Daily Telegraph reportYou know what’s the hardest part about writing this blog? Making up snappy headlines, so for this one I have unashamedly pinched it from this morning’s Daily Telegraph. You can read a short extract from the article here but in future I will expect you to go out and buy your own copy. £1 from any newsagent (£1.20 from next week!!!). Don’t stop on a yellow line in Bexley for 30 seconds, the price goes to over eighty quid.

This afternoon I aim to fill you in with some of the recent and rather interesting developments with the so called Bexley council obscene blog. James Brokenshire MP has been as good as his word and written to Borough Commander Stringer “regarding the investigation into the defamation from an online blog”. James was visibly shocked when he first saw the content of that blog, not that he saw it all. Only those who viewed the original on line will know its full extent, I censored the version that was posted here on 1st June and that is all James has seen.

James is a good and no doubt ambitious MP who finds himself in a difficult position. It can’t be much fun to be a Minister at the Ministry for Justice and discover the police on your own patch may be engaged in a cover-up for the people with the power to deselect you before the next election. But are the police covering things up?

Well the RESTRICTED marking on the file, the insistence that releasing the date of their enquiries is not in the public interest and Will Tuckley’s statement (under FOI) that he is unaware of any investigation would all suggest as much. Borough Commander Stringer’s reply to an enquiry on 2nd November, (slightly shortened) “Would you please now confirm that the investigation is at an end - a simple yes or no will do” didn’t help. He said “I will find out and respond to you early next week”. It is now late next week and no response. How long does it take to say, “Hey, Darren. Have you finished with the Bexley blog case yet?”

It all looks slightly fishy.

But what if Stringer’s silence is because he needs to protect someone else? What if Tuckley’s FOI response that dropped Stringer deep in doo-doo was a fabrication? What if Commander Stringer had sent a crack team into the Civic Centre to interview Mr. Tuckley? Would you be surprised to know that he did? Then prepare to be surprised.

I have been looking at a signed document that says a Detective Constable accompanied by his DCI went to see Will Tuckley in his office on 7th July 2011. No point in making either police officers’ names public for only doing their job, but I have both along with confirmation that four unnamed officers were also engaged in the enquiry into the crime against Elwyn and myself. Statements were taken, one person (of seven possible) was linked with the obscene blog allegation but the decision was taken there and then not to proceed. So why did Stringer write to me on 10th August to string me along? Yes I do know it was because my MP, Teresa Pearce (and James Brokenshire) had pushed him into saying something, but why did his answer evade the point? And why does he still profess to be ignorant of the decision made on 7th July? When a report goes to the IPCC it will be very long and complicated, but the job will have to be done.

And what of Will Tuckley, the good value for money quarter million pound a year amnesiac? What about his statement under FOI that he is unaware of any police investigation into the Bexley blog? Who would you believe, Bexley’s Chief Executive or a police officer who signs his own name on the dotted line? Difficult choice I know but I feel a complaint to the Information Commissioner about someone making false statements under FOI coming on. What’s the penalty for that? Same as for Harassment. What a coincidence!

Note: I suppose I should say for the sake of anyone left who finds it hard to believe this tale of corruption and wrong-doing in high places, that I could if necessary produce every document from which the above is culled within a couple of minutes. And for any copper who thinks he could put paid to that by seizing my computer, everything is copied onto a large nameless secure server far far away. Paranoid? Not me.

 

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