Bonkers was not always primarily a daily blog. Whilst blogs were published almost daily from 2011 the website was formatted more like a newspaper with an occasionally updated Front Page and Editorial, the blog itself was buried within the site. This is an example of an Editorial page written long before Smart Phones were a consideration. Many of them will be difficult to read on a mobile phone and links may no longer work and references to site banners will be invalid.
It remains here for historical purposes only.

Bexley police

Worst in London and some excuses. Theirs and mine

The Bonkers’ Homepage used to provide a brief description of what makes Bexley council tick but when a number of journalists requested a quick summary of Bexley council’s crookery relating to the dishonest prosecution of the blogger known as Olly Cromwell it became a useful and reasonably prominent place in which to park a step by step account.

When I (Malcolm Knight) was impersonated and obscenities posted to the web and a certain Bexley councillor was implicated it similarly became the receptacle for an account of the police’s failure to find the evidence which was lurking under their nose.

Now that the latter issue is fading - though not yet dead, three strands are still ongoing and a fourth will be opened quite soon - it may be possible to restore the Home page to its originally intended use. This website is named ‘Bexley council is Bonkers’, not Bexley police are corrupt from top to bottom, even though by my definition of the ‘c’ word I believe they are.

The Home page has not been ‘normal’ since 21st April last year and by its first anniversary maybe it will be again.

Meanwhile it will relate a few items gleaned from Bexley police over the past few months which do not impact directly on ongoing matters and may allow you to form your own impression about their honesty, integrity and competence.

After their first investigation into the obscene blog was pronounced a failure on 23rd August 2011 I asked if they could tell me the dates on which they had made their claimed enquiries. The police refused to tell me because they claimed that revealing the date on which they supposedly did something would not be in the public interest. I asked the recently departed Borough Commander if he could think of any reason why knowledge of a date might be contrary to the public interest. He could not.

The same Commander confirmed that the name Peter Craske had gone to the Crown Prosecution Service, he couldn’t find the precise date in the file so we agreed it was “before Christmas 2011” and as is well known Peter Craske did not have his collar felt until 21st June 2012. When asked why it took so long to impound the councillor’s computers the Commander said it was because he had to investigate whether Elwyn Bryant or I had set him up by sitting in a car outside his home and hacking into his wi-fi. I kid you not!

Six months to investigate the very unlikely during which time none of the four victims of the obscene blog were interviewed by any police officer.

No answer was forthcoming over whether or not applying to a Bexley magistrate for a search warrant in late May 2012 was tantamount to giving a tip off to their suspect that he should get rid of his computer pronto.

When I complained to the Metropolitan Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards about what I saw as a deliberate attempt to sabotage the enquiry they said it was not sabotage but the unfortunate result of Bexley police supplying their forensics department with the wrong date for the offensive blog. The recently departed Commander thumbed his file but could not find any evidence for that claim.

He admitted that there had been several bad officers in Bexley and was more than a little pleased with himself that he had had them transferred to other boroughs. All of those involved in the obscene blog have gone but he refused to entertain the idea they may have deliberately engineered the initial failures which doomed his own subsequent enquiries.

When I met the Commander on 1st March 2013, his last day in post at Bexley, I was shocked by his attitude to the two victims of a crime present in his office. As already noted he referred to councillor Craske as the victim and made it clear that he regarded me as the aggressor due to the very existence of this blog. He said that people in his position have to put up with blogs and media intrusion but he thought Bonkers was racist among other things. Several times he raised his voice several decibels above what most people would deem polite.

He did not like my Thomas the Tank Engine references even though the FC epithet fell into disuse more than a year ago and I was warned about references to councillors’ addresses. Neither subjects were relevant to the matter in hand but once again we have indications that the protection of Bexley council is never far from police minds. The addresses are there only because Bexley council insists on illegally publishing residents’ addresses and to be fair both police officers present were unaware of that and were suitably taken aback by Bexley council’s cavalier attitude towards public safety.

I put to the Commander my theory that the undenied “political pressure” put upon his obscene blog enquiries might have been what I termed the Teresa O’Neill Boris Johnson loop and the Commander once again went into loud and aggressive mode. He said that every police officer has sworn allegiance to the Queen and no politician can ever override that. Police officers are totally immune from such a possibility, they are beyond politics. The naivety was almost touching.

My definition of a corrupt policeman was formulated years ago when I was beaten up by a rogue policeman at my own front door. A WPC pulled him off and later returned to apologise for his behaviour. When the Commander put him on a disciplinary charge the WPC changed her tune and supported the rogue officer. The whole episode had been caught on CCTV and the Commander had seen the tape. However he was powerless to impose any sanctions when the WPC was prepared to lie in support of her colleague. Almost needless to say the tape disappeared from a secure room before the disciplinary hearing.

Since then my definition of a corrupt policeman has always been one who will not shop another he knows to be bent. It’s an uncompromising definition and the recently departed Commander told me he didn’t like it but I see no reason to change either it or my opinion of Bexley’s police.

The panel shows how good at crime solving Bexley police are compared to the rest of London. Sweeping crime under the carpet doesn’t seem to be the best thing for their statistics.

This is an archived copy of the Site’s Home page placed here on 23rd March 2013. For the current Home page please use the menu above.