Dear Mr. Moore,
You will be aware that at a Public Realm meeting on 19th June 2013, the chairman
councillor Cheryl Bacon, excluded every member of the public because one of the
six present said he would audio record the meeting after the Department for
Communities and Local Government encouraged residents to do so.
Three or four of those members of the public complained and were told that a
group of people including me were excluded for shouting, waving papers, and
remonstrating when the facts are that four members of the public said nothing
and the fifth spoke only during the adjournments.
Your Legal Officer, Mrs. Tyler, distributed material under FOI including notes
of statements in which councillor Bacon described the disruption in some detail,
little of which was true. Three other witness statements failed to mention any
disruption beyond that caused by one member of the public and his recording device.
Mrs. Tyler should have noticed many discrepancies in the witness statements but
instead sent out unredacted copies of the allegations against me and other
innocent parties. I complained to Mr. Tuckley about her actions and asked that a
councillor other than Cheryl Bacon be interviewed to introduce a modicum of
balance. Some of that 'balance' had already been supplied to me directly.
Mr. Hollier replied a month later but had only looked at councillor Bacon's
statement and found it supported Mrs. Tyler's version of events. He failed to
interview any other person as requested which is why I am seeking a review of my
complaint. Viz. that Mrs. Tyler failed to properly analyse the four statements
included in her FOI response to a member of the public and that her letters to
that person and others included untruthful references to my bad behaviour, some
by name. The review should include the originally requested interviews with councillors.
I think it is only fair to inform you that further developments have resulted in
email correspondence from both political parties supporting my position and the
council appears to have just one statement by the guilty party supported by
Mrs. Tyler and Mr. Hollier, neither of whom witnessed anything.
You will probably know that I have separately complained about Mr. Hollier for
accusing me of "hostile, abusive, offensive" and "unreasonable" behaviour for
one use of the word lying in a complaint about lying. I have placed on record
the fact that I will report him and others to the police for Misconduct in
Public Office if there is a continued refusal to properly investigate my
unjustifiable exclusion from a public meeting.
I hope that you will be able to take a wider view than Mr. Hollier and interview
members of both parties who will I am sure confirm that I did not make any
sound, stand or wave papers at any time while councillor Bacon was in the
chamber and her decision to exclude me was therefore illegal.
If you compel me to go to the police I shall supply them with the
correspondence from councillors who do not support councillor Bacon's version
of events and inevitably have to add your name to the list of those officers
engaged in Bexley council's perversion of the course of justice.
I shall look forward to your unbiased and thorough investigation of the facts.
Yours sincerely,
Malcolm Knight
31 October 2013