Dear Commander Stringer,
Your Assistant Commander Williams wrote to me on 16th September and his letter
suggested that investigation into the above numbered crime was not concluded.
However another letter at about the same time told me that the investigation is
at an end.
Would you or he please now confirm that the investigation is at an end - or not
- as I think it is time for the police failure to be escalated to the IPCC. I
shall be content with a simple yes or no email response.
My apologies for not going directly to Assistant Borough Commander Williams, his
letter did not reveal an email address.
Yours sincerely,
Dear Mr Knight,
I will find out and respond to you early next week.
Regards,
Dave Stringer
Bexley Borough Commander
Dear Chief Superintendent Stringer,
In the six months since this crime was reported I have been told in writing that
the investigation is at an end, that it is continuing and a month ago that you
didn't know. Since then I heard you say at the BCPEG meeting on
21 November that it is 'on' again. That being the case I think I should let you
know what I find disturbing about this case in the hope that you can address my
concerns and we eventually reach a conclusion that we can both be happy with. I
would much rather not spend my time criticizing the Metropolitan Police.
In one of your letters you (that is the Met. Police) said it was necessary to
employ a data specialist. If I may say so he could not have been a competent one
because he told me that the URL bearing my name was no longer available and so
couldn't be traced. That was never the case, it remains available to this day.
A proper investigation would have approached Google who run the 'blogspot'
facility to ask if the blogger had left any obvious clues. If he had not the
owner (some sort of user name would have been provided) of the blog bearing my
name should be compared with the user name of any similar blog run by any
councillor or likely council staff. (Short list on request.) If a matching owner
(Google user name) was not found the IP addresses which Google collects should
be compared. Only when those enquiries are complete could any investigation
possibly be said to have reached a conclusion.
The arrest and charging of the blogger known as Olly Cromwell threw up some
interesting examples of how muddled the police enquiry has been and how
dismissive you have been of the crime committed against Elwyn Bryant and myself
by one of Bexley council's associates. Throughout Mr. Cromwell's court hearing
all references to a blog were of mine not his and the file his defence lawyer
was given show that the police had given up on the crime against Elwyn and me by
the beginning of July 2011. It had been dismissed as a "counter-allegation"
and by implication of no importance.
Never had I seen it as counter anything at all, it was simply a hate crime and
if similar recent reported cases are anything to go by, one that would warrant a
jail sentence. To dismiss it so lightly does not give any confidence in your
investigation and it should not be forgotten that Elwyn Bryant had nothing to be
"counter" about. He was a totally innocent bystander singled out for attack for
no reason whatever.
The correspondence claims that Bexley council's computers were examined and
showed nothing. No serious investigation would have stopped there. There is no
indication that you spoke in suitable terms to either Ms. Teresa O'Neill or Mr.
Will Tuckley who responded positively to complaints about the obscene blog; it
was removed as soon as they learned of it. If they have not been questioned it
would be a serious omission.
It was also very disturbing to find that the case files had been marked, I am
led to believe, RESTRICTED and confirmed as being not in the public interest to
disclose anything about the investigation. From that it is far too easy to
conclude that the police in Bexleyheath are Bexley council puppets. I hope you
will in due course be able to do enough to demonstrate that that is not the
case.
Yours sincerely,
Malcolm Knight
Dear Mr Knight,
I have asked Det. Supt. Williams to respond to you.
Regards,
Dave Stringer
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