Briefing Note Number 5 Revisited.

Below is one of a series of "Briefing Notes" issued by the Former States of Jersey Chief Police Officer Mr. Graham Power QPM to the local State Media (although the State Media didn't get this one) and VFC. Although the only place these briefing notes saw the light of day was on the Team Voice Blogs.


We published this particular Briefing note back in August 2010. Naturally a lot has happened since then, not least the "Road Show" that our re-elected Home Affairs Minister Senator Ian Le Marquand DID, as predicted, go ahead. The Home Affairs Minister held a Press Conference (for State Media only) gave one-one interviews (to State Media only) and gave a presentation to Jersey's Parliament. All to parade the "prosecution case" against the Former Chief Police Officer AFTER the Home Affairs Minister had abandoned any disciplinary hearing. He did not, and still has not, published one single word of the Former Police Chief's 62,000 word defence case. The same 62,000 words that BBC Jersey have had for the best part of two months and, just like the Home Affairs Minister, BBC Jersey have not published a single word of it either.


Mr. Power's own words sums up the crux of all that has been able to go on unchecked and un-challegened (except by Bloggers) and they are.


"And if, reader, you consider this all very amusing and distant from your own concerns, then remember what has been said by many from the very beginning of this saga. If they can do this to a Chief Police Officer and get away with it...............think what they could do to you. Then it might not be so funny."


This all coincides with an Early Days Motion (EDM) submitted by Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming which reads.

"That this House notes the imprisonment of Stuart Syvret; believes that the public authorities of the island of Jersey do not operate in a manner compliant with the requirements of the European Commission of Human Rights (ECHR), there being overt and significant overlaps and contaminations between the legislature, executive and judiciary; further notes that Her Majesty's subjects in Jersey are not protected by effective checks and balances, and that there has been the political repression of former Chief Police Officer, Graham Power and former Senator Stuart Syvret; further notes that, notwithstanding the responsibility the Secretary of State for Justice has for good governance and Convention Rights in Jersey, the island's authorities are permitted to repress opposition activists, and that the Secretary of State for Justice and Jersey's Lieutenant Governor have failed to act; further notes that successive governments of the United Kingdom have committed this nation to securing real democratic freedoms and the rule of law in other jurisdictions, yet in the British enclave of Jersey on the United Kingdom's very doorstep, ordinary powerless people are oppressed by an entrenched oligarchy; and calls on the Secretary of State for Justice to appoint an independent Commission similar to that which investigated corruption in the Turks and Caicos Islands, to investigate the conduct of Jersey's public administration and to urgently bring the protections of the ECHR to Her Majesty's subjects in the island."


There is also an e petition that supports mr Hemming's EDM and we encourage our readers from the Channel Islands and Britain to sign it. Although it might well be that we don't have a corrupt Government, Administration and Judicial System, and if this is the case then there is nothing to fear an enquiry that will prove it. On the other hand if we do have this amount of corruption then it is time to rid Jersey of it. Either scenario gives good reason to sign this e-petition which can be done easily HERE

Briefing note 5.
The following note has been prepared by Graham Power and is intended to assist Editors in reporting issues arising from the announcement by the Minister for Home Affairs, Senator Ian Le Marquand, that he is abandoning all disciplinary proceedings.

Topic:

So what happened to Justice?

It has been said that a Fascist is a Liberal who has just been mugged. I am inclined to wonder whether an autocrat is a Magistrate who has been appointed Minister for Home Affairs.

There are two principles of Justice which most people know and respect. One is that a person who is not proved guilty is presumed innocent. Another is that judgement should not be reached until both sides of the case have been heard. As the Island’s Magistrate, Ian le Marquand was generally respected for upholding both principles. So what happened to him once he was “anointed” as the Minister for Home Affairs?

If his own claims on live radio are to be believed then he is shortly about to engage in a public diatribe in which he will denounce the actions of the writer who is still, at the time of writing, Chief Officer of the States Police. I am of course the same person who has been subject to a suspension and disciplinary investigation lasting 21 months and costing Jersey taxpayers, of which I am one, an admitted sum of well over one million pounds, and a suspected real sum of considerably more. All proceedings are now abandoned and there will be no charges and no hearing. By anyone’s fair reckoning that is an acquittal. It can be nothing else. All proceedings are abandoned. I am convicted of nothing and therefore innocent of everything. Everyone understands that. Everyone that is apart from the Minister for Home Affairs (the person charged with promoting justice in the island no less.) He apparently thinks that his abandonment of the case (and a lot of our money as well) now entitles him to put on a road-show intended to demonstrate that I was guilty all along, it was just that he was not clever enough or fast enough to do anything about it (should he be admitting that??) 

But it does not stop there. According to his own reported comments his presentation will entertain no nonsense about any defence case in respect of the allegations. We will hear the case for the prosecution, but anything of value to the defence will be edited out or banned. It is also claimed that the Minister will express his confidence that had the matter gone to a disciplinary hearing then I would have been found guilty on all counts. In that respect I have to confess that he is probably right. I say this because according to my latest information the Minister intended to appoint himself as both prosecutor and judge in the case. While such an arrangement (or something very similar) is not entirely unknown in the Jersey context, it might not accord with what the man or woman in the street considers fair, although it must be doubted whether the Minister would consider that important.

And if, reader, you consider this all very amusing and distant from your own concerns, then remember what has been said by many from the very beginning of this saga. If they can do this to a Chief Police Officer and get away with it...............think what they could do to you. Then it might not be so funny.