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.
Councillor
Cheryl Bacon is a liar. I know she is because I saw what happened after Nicholas
Dowling asked her if he could audio record the Public Realm
Scrutiny Committee meeting on 19th June 2013 and I have compared those events with
Bacon’s written
account which describes widespread disorder in the public gallery.
I also know that Bexley council has been unable to produce any witnesses to support
Bacon’s description of the public disorder. The council
managed to find four people who were said to support Bacon but an analysis of
their words show they have done no such thing. One has since said that
he was not aware he had made a statement and another has written
that the words attributed to him were ‘doctored’ in the council’s legal department.
The attempt to audio record the meeting was spurred by the Secretary for Communities and Local
Government, Eric Pickles, who had decreed just a few days earlier that residents should be free
to report on and record council meetings but Bexley council had set its face against it. Its
deputy leader Colin Campbell has been on BBC 1 television proclaiming that anyone can make
a recording so long as permission is sought beforehand but the council has admitted that
permission has never been granted. (†)
On the evening of the 19th June, Cheryl Bacon’s mistake was not
her decision to hold a public meeting in ‘Closed Session’ (her words) - which
was unlawful - but to decide that her get out of jail free card was to lie about
and libel five members of the public by asserting that they
were disrupting her meeting in a variety of ways.
The fateful meeting was attended by six members of the public, Michael
Barnbrook, Elwyn Bryant, Nicholas Dowling, Peter Gussman, Danny Hackett and
Malcolm Knight. All of them regular attendees at council meetings, Danny being
the Labour party’s candidate for the 2014 council election in Bexley’s Lesnes Abbey ward.
Nicholas Dowling’s request to audio record the meeting was immediately refused by chairman
Cheryl Bacon. Her husband councillor Gareth Bacon, the cabinet member who Mrs. Bacon
is paid £8,800 a year to scrutinise, called out that if Nicholas attempted to record the
meeting he would be ejected.
Nicholas resumed his seat in the public gallery clutching his recorder in one
hand and Eric Pickles’ guidance in the other. Believing Nicholas was recording
the meeting, councillor Cheryl Bacon adjourned the meeting. It is a pity that
no recording was being made, its existence may have persuaded Bacon that
embarking on the course she chose was unwise.
The first 20 minutes of the meeting was a quiet stand off. Cheryl Bacon repeated
her position several times, on one occasion approaching Nicholas to make it more
forcibly and Nicholas quoted from the government guidance paper. No member of
the public joined in, nor - apart from husband Gareth - did any councillor say anything of note.
At about 19:50 the doorman was asked to call the police and he reported back
that it could be up to an hour before they showed up. Cheryl Bacon adjourned the
meeting until 20:15 and when the situation had not been resolved by then
announced that the meeting was to be taken into Closed Session in another
room. Despite requests from the public present, none were allowed in. This is an
offence against the Local Government Act 1972.
About
ten minutes later two police officers arrived to find five members of the
public still sitting in the public chamber both amused and a little bemused.
They asked what the five planned to do - Danny Hackett had left the chamber a
minute or two earlier - and Malcolm Knight said everyone was going to go home
and that is what happened. The police were very friendly and later confirmed to
the press that no offence had been committed.
No councillor or council officer accompanied the police. One
female council officer had remained in the chamber clearing papers etc. for a few
minutes after the Closed Session began but she left before the police arrived.
Excluding members of the public from a public council meeting is nearly always against the law.
Arguably councillor Cheryl Bacon might have been able to exclude Nicholas
Dowling but not those who had merely watched the events unfold.
Messrs. Bryant, Barnbrook and Gussman put in complaints over the following days. Malcolm Knight
did so only after discovering that the council was accusing him of misbehaviour in
the council chamber and Mr. Hackett wrote directly to the council’s Head of
Legal, Mr. Alabi. Nearly six months later none of those complaints have been
properly investigated provoking only a torrent of lies from Bexley council.
According to councillor Cheryl Bacon, or more pedantically the note written by
Bexley’s Legal Department after interviewing Bacon, Malcolm Knight was sitting with a
group alongside Mr. Dowling, Mr. Barnbrook, Mr. Bryant and another person.
This is untrue. Malcolm Knight was sitting alone at a table away from the
others. The council officer John Adams
confirmed it in his statement.
“Several members of the public were shouting out” according to Bacon. This is
another of her lies, no other witness whether from the council or the public
confirms Bacon’s assertion. “There was a lot of commotion” is totally untrue as
is “Mr. Dowling, Mr. Barnbrook, Mr. Bryant, Mr. Knight and another person
continued to call out and waving (sic) papers”.
Councillor Bacon goes on to say that she addressed the entire group which is an
essential part of her defence against illegally excluding the public from her
meeting. She did no such thing. She spoke to Mr. Dowling who was seeking
permission to record the meeting but to no one else. Once again, no witness has
come forward to confirm Bacon’s version of events. “The group was not prepared
to sit quietly”, is another of Bacon’s lies when in reality at least four
members of the public present (out of six) said absolutely nothing at all.
After a 30 minute adjournment “there was more shouting from the gallery. The
group were (sic) not going to stop calling out”. All untrue and not supported by
any witness.
Mr. Barnbrook is singled out for special attention. He “shouted to Cheryl
Bacon”. He did not. He calmly and politely asked to be allowed into the
reconvened meeting. Bacon on her own admission ignored him.
Almost six months after councillor Cheryl Bacon’s illegal closure of her meeting
no one’s complaint has reached a conclusion. Perhaps that is not surprising.
Several councillor witnesses to the events, appalled by Bacon’s lies have come forward
offering support and written statements confirming that very little of Cheryl
Bacon’s statement is truthful. Bexley council must know that councillor Bacon has been
exposed as a liar devoid of common sense. If she had simply admitted an error of
judgment, an over-reaction on the night, there would be little cause for
complaint, certainly nothing much could have been done about it.
Instead Bacon decided to lie her way out of the situation which is what Bexley’s
Conservative councillors must be instructed to do. Now she will be facing an
allegation of Misconduct in Public Office for conspiring with others, notably
Mrs. Lynn Tyler and Mr. Nick Hollier, who will be accused of attempting to pervert the course of
justice. viz. they refused requests to carry out a proper investigation. At present no one at Bexley council has
been prepared to do anything but accept the word of one councillor Cheryl Bacon in
defence of herself. No one else, within the council or without, has bee prepared
to confirm the shouting and remonstrating which she has invented.
Councillor Cheryl Bacon
has shown herself to be a liar interested only in preserving her own skin.
Index to other references to this shameful episode.
† This policy was relaxed on 6th November 2013.
This is an archived copy of the Site’s Editorial page originally posted on 5th March 2014.