Scraping The Barrel.

In the series of eight “briefing notes” sent by retired Chief Police Officer Graham Power QPM to ALL “accredited” media, not that you would know it judging by the way they have (or haven’t) reported on the Wiltshire Report, while being in possession of these briefing notes. Below is the fifth instalment.

Astute readers will note that these briefing notes were sent before the NINETY PER CENT Redacted Wiltshire Report was made public, with only the “accredited” media being “allowed” an embargoed copy, and at least one States Member was REFUSED a copy! Team Voice were leaked a copy of this NINETY PER CENT REDACTED Report and even under extreme provocation we adhered to the "accredited" media embargo.

We hope that after reading this instalment that readers will be that little more informed and have a better understanding of the “tactics” employed by the Home Affairs Minister in what is increasingly looking like a barrel scraping expedition.

Briefing note 9.

This briefing note has been issued by Graham Power in order to assist editors in reporting issues arising from the decision by the Minister for Home Affairs to abandon all disciplinary proceedings.

Topic:

A story about some emails.

From time to time I take a look at the “Voice” website. This is because it is sometimes interesting and also so that I can find out what is going on given that the Jersey Government are not telling me anything.

I see that the “Voice” now have a copy of the version of the Wiltshire Report which has gone to the media. Lucky them. No doubt I will find out more about it in time.

What they seem to have discovered is that the Minister has apparently circulated some copies of alleged emails. This is an interesting development which merits some quick comment.

From the details I have it looks as if the emails were given to the Minister around November 2009. I received copies of them a few weeks later along with other papers. While I do not wish to bore anyone with legalistic details about process (but there again the Minister is a lawyer so he should be capable of getting the process right every time) there is something decidedly irregular about the way that this has been handled. To begin with the emails have never been investigated under the Disciplinary Code. They are obviously not part of the original terms of reference and we are asked to believe that they just “turned up” as an aside to other issues. When he received the copies the Minister had a choice. He could appoint an Investigating Officer to make enquiries (asking me if I knew anything about the emails would have been a start) or he could simply do nothing. Up to today it looked as if he did the latter. Nobody was appointed to investigate the emails, no notices were served relating to them, no questions were asked, and no statement from me was requested. (Under the Disciplinary Code the Chief Officer must be asked for a statement regarding any allegation.) So it all just went away. Until now.

Perhaps by the time he had the copies the Minister was growing in confidence. Having apparently decided that he was not going to need the inconvenience of a disciplinary hearing with a bothersome defence team putting forward evidence, he also appears to have decided that he could do without a bothersome investigation which would give me a chance to answer questions and perhaps ask a few of my own. Until of course the whole disciplinary investigation collapsed around him, and barrels had to be scraped in order to justify the unjustifiable. Then the emails were brought out of their box.

Just for the record, during a working day I send large numbers of emails and forgot most of them soon afterwards. The copies I have look genuine but without more information I cannot assist further. I have however managed to speak to one of the alleged recipients, who told me that he has no recollection of the message in question. Without a proper investigation and a chance to ask some questions, that it about as far as the matter can be taken. So far, on the information available, I have made no admissions whatsoever regarding the authorship of any emails.

What is however a good deal more interesting is what this episode reveals about the type of investigation which has been commissioned by the Minister. Like everyone else I have my sources of information, and the tale of the emails confirms what I have been told. Namely that the Minister has paid investigators to search through years of my computer activity looking for something, anything, which could be made to stick. But it does not end there. UK sources tell me that investigators have also been tasked to search the UK for former colleagues, including people I worked with up to 20 years ago, and have given them the opportunity to “dish some dirt” relating to my past working life should they be so inclined. So far as I know nobody has taken up this invitation.

Some people might think that this is commendable. It demonstrates a collective resolve to leave no stone unturned (and no expense unclaimed) in the pursuit of.............. well, in the pursuit of what actually? How did something which started off as an attempt by the Police to deliver justice to people who said that they had been systematically abused in the care of the States turn into a licence for the Minister to spend money on barrel-scraping witch-hunt against the Chief Officer of the Force? Who is setting priorities here and what is their real agenda?Sometimes it pays to step back from the noise and look at the bigger picture. Editors are encouraged to do so.

11th July 2010.

Submitted by VFC.