Former SIO Lenny Harper.
Further to our PREVIOUS POSTING and in-depth interview with former Deputy Chief Officer, and Senior Investigating Officer (Operation Rectangle) Lenny Harper. We bring viewers/readers the concluding part of the interview.
Mr. Harper discusses, among much more, The supposed "terminal illness" of Child Abuser Alan Maguire and how it WAS(n't) a factor considered in the refusal to prosecute him for the heinous abuse he inflicted on children at the Blanche Pierre Children's Home. How a document supplied to the ongoing Child Abuse Inquiry apparently supported the view that Mr. maguire's "terminal illness" wasn't a contributing factor in the decision not to prosecute, and how that document actually appeared to prove the opposite.
The debacle that was the questioning of former Deputy Trevor Pitman at the Inquiry (as reported HERE) is also discussed. How, what has been described as, "the most defining report of its era" submitted as evidence to the Inquiry, by the former Deputy, was NOT even mentioned. This Scrutiny Report put pay to a lot of myths spread by the State Media (of the time)/The Establishment, and exposed disgraced former cop Mick Gradwell for leaking confidential police information to an equally disgraced "journalist" with a history of trashing Abuse Victims/Survivors, trashing Child Abuse Investigations and supporting convicted paedophiles. Mr. Gradwell leaked this information while Operation Rectangle was still live. Without the Scrutiny Report we might never have learned about Mr. Gradwell's potential crime.
Former Deputy Trevor Pitman.
The Report has been buried, and recommendations not acted upon, by the Jersey Government. It's been buried by the State Media, and now it looks like it is being buried by the Child Abuse Inquiry. Readers should take the time to read the report which was posted HERE. You will NOT be able to read it as part of the evidence submitted by Trevor Pitman to the Child Abuse Inquiry because that is another scandal involving this Inquiry. Mr. Pitman's evidence has once more disappeared from the Inquiry's website and STILL no explanation given as to why this keeps happening.
One of the most alarming of Mr. Harper's concerns regarding the conduct of this Inquiry is the protection given to suspected paedophiles which is not afforded to him, and more importantly, the Victims and Survivors.
This is something we have reported on previously where apparent upstanding pillars of society can give public evidence under their own name and not answer ANY questions of the multiple allegations made about them concerning their alleged abuse of minors. This "upstanding pillar of society" can insult victims and the Operation Rectangle Team and nobody knows (s)he/they were a priority suspect in the Child Abuse police Investigation.
The very same person can come into the Inquiry the very next day, under a pseudonym, and basically agree with everything that was said the day before regarding the Victims/Survivors/Rectangle Team and the public is unaware it is the same person.
It is a disgraceful state of affairs and readers are encouraged to read THIS BLOG POSTING which explains in a little more detail of the protection offered to suspected paedophiles, and not offered to Victims/Survivors by this Inquiry.
Mr. Harper, who was the ONLY witness to be officially cross-examined while giving evidence, probably kept the best and most poignant points to last.
After paying "a heartfelt tribute" to the Victims and Survivors saying he was "grateful, and moved, by the trust that they placed in him and his team when you consider the way they have been treated by authority figures in the past"
He reminds us, in the interview, that "the focus (of the Inquiry) should be on the Victims who have suffered so much." He told us "it's been my pleasure to do the little that I can do, in this Inquiry, for the Victims and Survivors."
Part 1 of this interview can be viewed HERE.
Another very telling interview. Once again Mr Harper raises some hugely important issues. How the Scrutiny review led by Trevor Pitman did not generate questions from the Inquiry counsel and panel is stsggering in itself.
ReplyDeleteJust when will Mr Pitman's evidence be up and accessible for we plebs? I find the fact that even Mr Pitman himself apparently can't get any answers more than a tad disconcerting. You would think an apology would be in order at the very least.
DeleteI would like to be able to view it officially as being a bit old fashioned I can't help worrying that viewing this on the links put up by one of your other posters I might find myself in trouble if there are documents still on it we are not currently allowed to see?
I would also say thank you for putting up this interview. Mr Harper reminds me of the good old no nonsence police we had when I was a child.
Well said Lenny. The victims are what all of this COI was meant to be about. Not that we would guess this from the reporting by Jersey's disgraced MSM.
ReplyDeleteAs Stuart Syvret would say, you couldn't make this up: http://www.lep.co.uk/columnists/should-long-running-investigations-close-1-7674269
ReplyDeleteCan't get this link to work. Is it correct?
DeleteI believe so, it works for me. It is an opinion-piece in the Lancashire Evening Post by a certain ex-copper. I hope it's OK to copy and paste the text from the LEP. You may need to set your irony filter to "breath-taking" before reading.
Delete"Peter Stelfox, a former senior investigating officer from Greater Manchester Police, has started a debate about how to cut the cost of major investigations.
He even raises the possibility of whether some long-running undetected murder investigations should be closed down.
At present such enquiries always remain ‘open investigations’ and annually large sums of public money are spent pursuing old and new lines of enquiry.
As examples, Lancashire police still remain in the dogged pursuit of the person or people responsible for the 2003 disappearance and murder of 14-year-old Charlene Downes and the Metropolitan Police is still investigating the 2007 disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal. The question being asked is; should the money that is being spent on these investigations be better spent elsewhere, for example on investigating current criminality?
Adding to this debate there are issues being raised about a large team investigating allegations relating to the conduct of British soldiers during the Iraq war. Former Colonel Bob Stewart has highlighted that the government has set aside £57m for investigating 152 allegations and there are fears the inquiry has become a legal ‘witch hunt’ driven by ‘ambulance-chasing’ lawyers.
Some people have chosen to immediately dismiss Mr Stelfox’s comments, but I think they are worthy of more detailed consideration.
I don’t think it’s possible to formally close down an undetected homicide inquiry forever, as any new information must surely be properly investigated.
However, it’s important that any new line of inquiry on an historic case is properly assessed, given an appropriate term of reference and subjected to a strict operational review. They should not become ‘tick box’ investigations, trying something when there is no reasonable prospect of success.
Also, historic high profile cases should not unnecessarily take operational precedence over current crime threats. In relation to the Iraq investigation, it appears to have been set in motion without appropriate planning.
An investigation is needed, but I fear some lower ranking soldiers will be ‘scapegoated’ for what were failings at a higher level.
Nationally too many investigators are focused on historic issues and that should not be happening if it is to the detriment of investigations into current major crimes."
Well done to Tim South for alerting the Lancashire Evening Post with the following comment:
DeleteIt is unbelievable Mr Gradwell who failed so miserably in the Child abuse investigation in Jersey is allowed any commentary in your newspaper let alone on the subject of long running investigations.
Any police man, leaking confidential financial or other information while the investigation is ongoing will be arrested and charged. I take it that is why you have refused to set foot on Jersey Mr Gradwell. Very wise. Just Google the man's name for the truth.
"Nationally too many investigators are focused on historic issues and that should not be happening if it is to the detriment of investigations into current major crimes."
DeleteSays it all, really, doesn't it? Quite clearly Gradwell was brought into the island because he could be relied-upon to undermine and close-down an active criminal investigation into child abuse by government employees, so that he could concentrate on real police work like handing-out speeding tickets or undertaking surveillance operations on a whistleblower working to uncover government corruption.
Close your eyes and say "historic" three times and the crimes magically become unimportant, irrelevant and distant. Because "historic" gives the perception that it all happened in the middle ages rather than - say - within the last couple of decades. All those silly abuse survivors should just get on with their lives and stop wasting police time with their trivial complaints, and let all those poor paedophiles and coverers-up collect their final salary States pensions in peace.
I hope the COI is given a copy of this article so that they can understand the mentality of this shameful excuse of a police officer, and the likes of Frank Walker and Bill Ogley who would have hired him and Warcup specifically to shut-down an active police investigation.
Even if I wasn't aware of Lenny Harper and all he did for the victims and in the hope of shining a torch on Jersey's corrupt judiciary I would come away from watching this interview thinking here is a man who oozes integrity and compassion.
ReplyDeleteHow revealing of how our island is run that good people like Lenny and former Deputy Pitman who he mentions have been so badly treated by the powers that be. In contrast to our 'leaders' such people along with the Syvrets, Powers, Hills and you brave bloggers have done my island proud.
A very good interview from a very good man. Thank you Mr Harper for trying to bring some decency and good, honest 'copper-ing' back to Jersey.
ReplyDeleteBritain is going through a long and painful process of confronting a culture of high-level cover-ups. Not only child-abuse, also other scandals like Hillsborough to name but one. From where we are now as a society and the path we're on (slowly getting at the truth of these things) no-one could be taking part in cover-ups today, and be expecting to get away with it? Or, I suppose, more seriously, no-one could be a participant in a cover-up today, and then in a couple of years time, given where the momentum of society and accountability is taking us, expect to get the same kind of 'understanding' let-off we've seen being given to many in the past? For example, those many police officers who signed altered witness statements, gave false testimony, and fabricated evidence against the victims and innocent bystanders at Hillsborough?
ReplyDeleteLet's be honest, for a long time there was a kind of 'we were only obeying orders' approach being adopted towards many of those officers, and even their leaders, for what has inevitably emerged as a disgusting betrayal of public trust and breakdown in law. But even though that unlawful perversion of the truth and of justice was back in 1989, over 25 years ago, it's far from clear that the culture of unaccountable public authority has got away with not prosecuting those officers. In fact, it's not at all clear that that old-fashioned British brew-up of convenient and easy falsehoods by a bureaucracy, against powerless members of the public, has succeeded in evading criminal sanction and consequenc. We may well yet see any number of prosecutions for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and of misconduct in a public office.
How many of those ‘foot-soldiers’, when they were being asked or told to do wrong things, to lie, to give false testimony, to cover-up the truth, 25 years ago, imagined they’d would be laying awake now, in 2016, facing the very real prospect of prosecution, conviction and imprisonment for perverting justice or misconduct? Back in those days, 1989, those police officers, just like all of the bureaucrats, dishonest journalists and corrupt lawyers who joined in with them, never imagined a day would come when the power structure they were obedient to, would have no choice other than to turn upon them in the name of the law.
It is very hard to imagine any credible ‘mitigation’ plea which could be made on behalf of those who corruptly went along with the Hillsborough scandal. There was no excuse, even back then, for the obvious criminality of hiding crime and perverting justice. The only, very thin, excuse could be, ‘well, that’s how things were back then, the truth was covered-up by authorities back in 1989’. But that excuse is very unlikely to keep people from jail.
So what can be going through the minds of those people who participate in the cover-up of serious crimes these days? In the 21st century? Those who become components in the engineering of cover-up of unlawful conduct by public authorities these days have no excuse at all. This thought came strongly into my mind when thinking about the seriousness of the criticisms made of the behaviour of the Jersey child abuse public inquiry by the former Deputy Police Chief. What are the members of this public inquiry and the staff who are running it thinking? This isn’t 1989. There is simply no hiding place at all in the 21st century. Not even for low grade ‘foot-soldiers’. The solicitors in the engine-room of this failing public inquiry don’t even have the fig-leaf of ‘we were only obeying orders’ to hide behind. Any ‘dubious’ conduct was always going to come home to roost. I don’t think it was by accident Stuart Syvret titled his first blog-posting after release from his most recent internment as a political prisoner ‘The Public’s Inquiry – Into The Public Inquiry – Starts Here’.
http://freespeechoffshore.nl/stuartsyvretblog/the-publics-inquiry-into-the-public-inquiry-starts-here/
I thought we'd have to wait for the final report from the COI to know if it was just a complete whitewash, but nope. It's obvious by their questions - and lack thereof - which direction they're taking. They aren't even going to know what needs inclusion in their costly findings because they apparently don't wish to find out. Sad.
ReplyDeleteThe Inquiry system simply cannot work when the Bailhache Bros have the means to influence it all via Eversheds.
All is not lost, though. Given enough time, excellent evidence based reporting like this blog's, will easily replace all the official versions of the Jersey child abuse saga that have been bought and paid for by the old self-deluded feudalists. Are they still so isolated within their echo-chamber bubbles that they don't realize truth can't be overcome, no matter what funds they throw back at it?
Elle
@Elle "...they don't realize truth can't be overcome, no matter what funds [stolen from taxpayers] they throw back at it"
DeleteHas anyone else noticed that with all the focus on the Bailhaches appearing at the COI Michael Birt is being allowed to fly under the radar?
DeleteOur former Attorney General and Bailiff surely has a lot of questions that the COI should be asking? Something I would imagine former Senator Syvret could confirm if he should read this?
In answer to the question at 13:27, yes Michael Birt is amongst the most profoundly conflicted public officials in the Jersey child-abuse disaster.
DeleteIn Michael Birt we have yet another "traditional" Jersey Attorney General with a deeply evidenced track-record of the concealment of serious crimes.
There should have been many more prosecutions arising out of the Victoria College child-abuse cover-up (conspiracy & misconduct) but Michael Birt, as the then Attorney General failed to have such charges brought.
Michael Birt was also the Attorney General who corruptly abandoned the then prosecution of Jane and Alan Maguire. As Lenny Harper correctly points out, the clearly faked "terminal illness" was being considered as an excuse by Birt's office.
But people must not let themselves be diverted by that one - though important - issue of the purported "terminal illness".
We can set aside entirely the shocking and ultra vires failure of Jersey's Attorney General to verify "health" claims which were influencing the decisions of his department in respect of the abandonment of a prosecution.
The Office of Attorney General - the sole prosecutory authority in Jersey - and Michael Birt as an individual - are wholly damned - no hiding place - from the evidenced lie told to the court by then Attorney General Michael Birt.
This is what the court record says concerning the November 1998 Criminal proceedings against the Maguires: -
“Her Majesty’s Attorney General declared that he abandoned the prosecution against Alan William Maguire and Jane Marie Maguire on the ground that there was insufficient evidence to support it."
..."insufficient evidence to support it".
There is no hiding-place from that lie.
In the course of these years it's been shown time and time again that there was, in fact, sufficient evidence to support the prosecution - sufficient evidence even AT THAT TIME – 1998. There was sufficient evidence in the hands of the authorities - even then - to support the prosecution.
And as the victims of the Maguires and those of us with civilised values have become ever more painfully aware of over more recent years - there was even more evidence available.
And then - of course - we move on to consider the later involvements and actions of Michael Birt - who - just as with Philip Bailhache and William Bailhache - failed to declare those direct, personal conflicts of interest – and those career-destroying, fatally contaminating involvements in past child-abuse cover-ups - when acting as Deputy Bailiff and Bailiff and making decisions from July 2007 to - in one way or another - do all they could to maintain the cover-ups, denigrate survivors, and intimidate whistle-blowers.
When I – in July 2007 - made public my discovery of endemic and systemic child-protection failures, and the fact I was seeking to establish an independent external investigation, it became unlawful for any public official with a personal history of involvement in such failures to participate in decisions and actions which were obstructive towards me.
The instant it was a known public fact – as it became in July 2007 – that I was investigating wide-ranging and multiple examples of child-protection failure, no “public authority” was able to then make decisions concerning me, if that public authority was contaminated by the presence of a personally conflicted employee or office-holder.
Any person who is personally conflicted in the child-protection controversies had to entirely recuse from any exercise of or administration of, that public authority’s powers concerning me. Any failure to do so rendered the resultant acts or omissions of the public authority in question clearly ultra vires.
So why did Bailhache, Birt and Bailhache (& frankly other conflicted public officials) fail to declare their conflicts of interest? And why did they fail to recuse?
Stuart Syvret
Excellent interview with a true Jersey hero.
ReplyDeleteI hope Lenny Harper's disclosure regarding the bogus terminal illness in the Maguire case will be looked at by the Inquiry?
ReplyDeleteWhat time is Philip Bailhache on the stand tomorrow?
ReplyDeleteJEP shy away from telling their dwindling readership what is clear after Andrew Lewis' pathetic press release. Lewis misled the States in seeking Graham Power's suspension telling Members he had seen a 'damnlng' Met Interim report. Which he had not. And which was not. Tell the truth worm. You just went on what Warcup who wanted Power's job said. Which was just what Walker and the Bailhache's wanted to hear. Am I right or am I right?
ReplyDeletePredictable. To borrow the title from the recent David Bowie greatest hits collection "Nothing has changed".
DeleteJEP dwindling is right. 30% decline in sales in the last 10 years. Daily circulation now 15% as a proportion of the island's population compared to 20% for the Guernsey Evening Post. I wonder when the penny will drop that publishing evidence exposing corruption sells more copies than "nothing to see here, move along... ooh look, nice fete"?
DeleteAh well, the future's bright - the circulation of digital copies was a whopping 246 copies last count.
You are certainly right about the decline but if you are going to toss figures around at least use the right ones. According to the last audit JEP print sales are down -6% year on year with just under 50% of adults now reading the paper daily. Digital sales of the on-line edition are 1,791 subscribers and unique users of the JEP website average around 8,000 per day (which is +17.6% compared to last year) and 3.3m pages were served in 2015. And the final correction - it's the Guernsey Press. 5 minutes research before typing might have avoided your embarrassment.
DeleteThe figures quoted in the post at 16:14 on 25th Jan are based on the latest published Audit Bureau of Circulation certificate, which is for the period ended June 2015. This certificate shows average daily sales of digital copies as 284, and not 1,791 as quoted by the poster at 8:04. The latest published ABC Certificate shows the most recently available year-on-year decline (June 2014-June 2015) in average paper copy sales as -3.9%, not a -6% decline as quoted by the poster at 8:04.
DeleteSo how are these figures "not the right ones"?
JEP Deputy Lewis appears to suggest that the interim Met report had been a factor in the decision. Did he appear to suggest that?
ReplyDeleteIt's an absolute mystery as to what Andrew Lewis appears to suggest. It seems to depend on what day you get him on. He told the States that he saw the Met Interim Report and that it was damming both appear to be untrue. He has told others (Napier/Wiltshire) that he hadn't seen the Met Interim Report so it couldn't have played a part in his (possibly illegal) suspension of the former Police Chief Graham Power.
DeleteSo if you believe what he told the States to be true then what he told Wilts and Napier can't be true. If you believe what he said to Napier and Wilts to be true then what he told the States can't be true.
Claiming that the Met Interim Report was "damming" is not supported by the Met Police themselves.
DeleteQuote from MET;
Para. 4.36 "In the Heads of Complaint made by Mr Harper he states that the review criticised a number of areas of the investigation. The review does not criticise the investigation. The Review does not criticise any individual involved in Operation Rectangle."
This is from "Operation Tuma" which can be read HERE.
The barefaced liars will get away with it if they are not contradicted again and again and again.
DeleteKeep up the good work.
Andrew Lewis did not appear to suggest anything. He saw the report and was astounded. How much clearer could he have been?
DeleteAs far as the accusation you raise about the Metropolitan Police, when I saw the preliminary report I was astounded. So much so that my actions, I believe, are fully justified. If the preliminary report is that damning, Lord knows what the main report will reveal. So my successor will have an interesting time. The report that I was shown gave me no doubt at all………………
I HAVE READ AN ALARMING REPORT FROM THE METROPOLITAN POLICE which led me to this decision in the first place. I can do no more……….
I find myself in a unique position! I actually think the JEP Editorial as opposed to the brief online description, puts Andrew Lewis smack in the spotlight 'It will raise serious questions about his political future'.
ReplyDeleteWhat he must not be allowed to get away with is an 'inconsistency', that being the latest Ministerial device to blame ringbinders, or questions by that scary Stuart Syret etc. The Minister can only speak the truth , remember that the position is a 'corporate sole' .So as a politician he can be inconsistent but as Minister for Home Affairs what he says in the States is true ..end of!
The information has been out there for 6 years
DeleteI wonder if this is a new survival strategy by the JEPaedo?
Print a bit of the truth on the transient (tomorrow's chip wrapper) paper edition
but leave only the sanitised webpage for posterity.
Reference a clever but true comment above about how the JEPs reporting of Andrew Lewis' lamentable wriggling over what he told members about the 'damning' Met Interim Report (ie the Bowie reference of 'nothing has changed') if anyone wants proof of the Filthy Rag's continued establishment entrenchment just consider that the public are inexplicably not allowed to comment on the story on line.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Lewis always knew what he was doing, in the course of all events. He knew why Kinnard had been harassed out of office as Home Affairs Minister. He knew why the last weeks of his then involvement in politics were to be as Home Affairs Minister. He knew his mission statement was to re-capture the policing function in Jersey and get it back under the syndicate families' control, after briefly it becoming a real policing function for the first time in 800 years. He knew he had been chosen to 'get his hands messy' and then walk away from the political environment for a few years. He knew that in exchange for doing this he'd get a cast-iron guarantee of protection forever more, and a 'Jersey Way' "election" back into the puppet theatre once the dust had settled.
ReplyDeleteSure, the man's an obvious dope. He wouldn't know what an 'ideology' is, but the rest of the M.I.C.E acronym (Money, Ideology, Compromised, Ego) will have worked just as perfectly to pull his strings as that technique has worked so marvellously on all the others from the seemingly boundless supply of Useful Idiots to be found on Jersey.
But the Bosses are not fools (well, not the real Bosses) and they know that the whole thing, 'our way', survives on loyalty. When 'soldiers' have 'made their first bones' and have entered that sacred pact of becoming 'made men', in exchange for them being 'Compromised' (to use the M.I.C.E word) the Bosses owe fealty to their soldiers. If the firm doesn't reward its soldiers with total protection, then 'our way' (you guys call it 'The Jersey Way') would fall apart in no time.
Your Bosses are heavily reliant on 'useful idiots', too heavily, in truth. So many men and women in Jersey initially roped in with the 'Money' and the 'Ego'(flattery, social-climbing) parts of the M.I.C.E method, that the next step, doing a little bit of rule bending for the their new, wealthy, impressed, dinner-partying and vanity-stroking friends, comes, well, just so easily. The thing which wakes them up from the ego-trance is that little 'snick' of the 'golden handcuff' on their wrist and the understanding wink from their new owners. The 'little bit' of rule bending is usually just that, something slight, to begin with. But the 'asks' soon grow, and men and women who unwittingly 'made their first bones' by doing the odd small time bureaucratic favour for their exciting and glamorous new friends find themselves gone from here, to there, from that to this, from a little 'harmless' back-scratching, to facing a 15 stretch for gross corruptions and perverting justice if a part of the syndicate cracks.
That's why Andrew Lewis will always be protected. Sure, like a 'family' 'soldier', he might be expected to take a 'beating' in the metaphorical sense, take a bit of hit for the 'firm' (which means taking some very heavy written and media criticisms in the Jersey context) but he will be protected from anything serious (like the law). The Bosses owe that debt of fealty to their 'made-men' (and women).
Someone else nailed the score on this a while back by quoting MacBeth, 'All causes shall give way. I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er.'
And that's the big obvious problem for the Jersey syndicates right now. Too much use of the M.I.C.E play. Too many 'made men' (& women). Too much easy money, and just too much ‘easy’. Too many frightened 'soldiers' calling on that fealty. Too much 'overreach'. And it gets worse pretty much by the week. We can sniff the fear pouring out of Jersey even from up here.
If only you had a Boss of Bosses. He’d bring the necessary discipline to fix this the only way it can be fixed, by making some of the overreaching playas take the rap.
"He knew his mission statement was to re-capture the policing function in Jersey and get it back under the syndicate families' control, after briefly it becoming a real policing function for the first time in 800 years. He knew he had been chosen to 'get his hands messy' and then walk away from the political environment for a few years. He knew that in exchange for doing this he'd get a cast-iron guarantee of protection forever more, and a 'Jersey Way' "election" back into the puppet theatre once the dust had settled."
ReplyDeleteMe thinks you doth credit him with more intelligence than he possess.
Did someone lean on him down the lodge though????
Topic: Police Chief Suspended (Read 99634 times):
ReplyDeletehttp://planetjersey.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1483.msg60650#msg60650
LINK.
DeleteToday Phillip Baillhache finds himself in the witness box, what can we expect? My money is on him presenting himself as the all knowing protector of everything Jersey. He will patronise and pontificate and there will probably be some hand wringing and insincere comments of sympathy towards the victims and survivors. How many times will he use the lawyers get out phrase "I don't recall". All in all it will be a nauseating performance the only hope being that he will trip up and be caught out in a lie. Let us see whether Sir PB can really walk on water.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Jersey water is left that thick with untreated sewerage, and so crusted over he can probably drive a JCB over it!
DeletePhillip Baillhache knows he is utterly exposed and he is a man who cracks under pressure.
DeleteCast your minds back to his toe curling performance when begging the States to scrap the CoI after it has spent it's first £6 million.
During the first half of his speech Baillhache sounded like a frightened schoolboy.
I was going to link to the audio of that speech on http://thejerseyway.blogspot.co.uk/
but ALL the audios seem to have disappeared from that site. What is going on there?
I understand that the marvellous "TJW" has joined team voice. Can you get the audios back up?
Well done Anonymous at 8:52. There were lots of "I don't recall." and use of the passive voice, "In retrospect it was a pity the decision was made." Not, "I regret that *I* made that decision." The passive voice is always the choice when you want to distance yourself from your own actions and pretend that they were done by some abstract other. Did we hear the non-apology apology: "I am sorry if anyone was offended by my..."? Politicians use that one when they are absolutely forced to apologise so they make it seem as if the person who was offended by their actions is the one responsible for all the fuss.
ReplyDeleteOh, what a surprise, he used the non-apology apology as well, with regard to the Liberation Day speech: "If I had known that my words were going to be dissected in the way they have been and are being at the moment I probably would have reconstructed the speech..." That's it, it's the listeners' fault for actually listening to his words. Not "I am sorry for saying what I meant."
ReplyDeleteSo is that a full bingo card of political exculpation clichés? The only one we haven't had yet is when his superior tells us he has full confidence in him. Does he have a superior?
So in today's evidence questioned about police officer Cornelissen's highlighting of Vic College Deputy Head Jurat John Le Breton bullying abused pupils into silence. Being obstructive to the Inquiry. And having a clear lack of integrity (this guy even refused to look at and consider evidence of child abuse when asked in the Sharp Inquiry remember!) Sir Philip Bailhache shrugs it all off just claiming officer Cornelissen 'got it wrong'. Le Breton was according to our disgraced former Bailiff 'a very careful' and 'good' Jurat. Let's stop kidding ourselves. You could see better questioning displayed in the Youth Assembly. At least you could if Bailhache junior hadn't banned them from the States.
ReplyDeleteSir Philip Bailhache said this at the COI today:
ReplyDelete"What Holland did was put his hands up a girls top. She suffered from learning difficulties. Across the range of sexual offences one might say it was at the lower end of the scale"
Obviously we'll have to wait for the transcripts to become available (which will probably take months) but he also said words to the effect that Roger Holland would have probably been sworn in as a Constable's Officer even if the Royal Court did know about his conviction for paedophilia.
DeleteSwearing in a convicted paedophile, as a Constable's Officer, probably tells you all you need to know about the Jersey Royal Court and it's "JUSTICE" SYSTEM.
Especially when viewed alongside allowing a teacher who bullied a school boy victim of Jervis-Dykes into silence being allowed by Bailhache and his successors to preside in the Royal Court as a Jurat! What price Gary Glitter for the next Chief Judge? #doingallrightwiththeboys
DeleteSir Philip Bailhache said this at the COI today:
Delete"What Holland did was put his hands up a girls top. She suffered from learning difficulties. Across the range of sexual offences one might say it was at the lower end of the scale"
but he also said words to the effect that Roger Holland would have probably been sworn in as a Constable's Officer even if the Royal Court did know about his conviction for paedophilia.
SHOCKED.
Yeah only in Jersey. And a man who silenced an abused and no doubt terrified college pupil was a "very careful" lay judge! Couldn't make it up could you. This man Le Breton should be facing charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
DeleteWasn't there a witness statement alleging the ex Bayleaf was present when someone was abusing a youngster in his law premises?
ReplyDeleteYes I believe that was a new revelation that allegedly Philip Bailhache was accused of being present when Paedophile by the name of Thorne abused someone. Again I can't be sure of that until the transcripts/documents become available (which will probably take months).
DeleteThe scary thing is that this man is Jersey's representative abroad. What must the modern world make of this dinosaur with his offensive attitudes and poor memory, is he fit to be in office, any office?
ReplyDeleteOne must be aware that Philip Bailhache is no spring chicken and his ability to hold office could be compromised because of his failing memory. The stenographers "I don't recall/remember" button took one hell of a bashing today during Mr. Bailhache's evidence.
DeleteThe morning focused primarily on Philip Bailhache's role as Attorney General in the 1980s and the culture at the time.
DeleteSir Philip was shown a document setting out the role of crown officers of the time, but he did not recall having seen the document before, despite having being sent it prior to his appearance today.
Having reviewed the document today, he told the inquiry:
I made the point in 1981 that if there was a problem with a child it was important the court should have the opportunity to see what was the best thing to do at an earlier stage rather than where it was too late. Children's Services from time to time would be much more concerned with the interests of parents than the interests of a child.
The former Jersey Bailiff has today expressed regret about the wording of his controversial Liberation Day speech of 2008 where, amid international coverage of child abuse allegations, Sir Philip Bailhache said the real scandal was damage to the island's reputation.
ReplyDeleteHe's today giving evidence to the inquiry into historical abuse.
When asked about whether he considered his speech's impact on abuse victims, he said: "I don't think I specifically identified alleged victims as a group of people to be considered."
Did not for forget to use ''alleged'' victim Hmmmmm
Delete"I don't think I specifically identified alleged victims as a group of people to be considered."
DeleteThat pretty much explains the non-prosecutions and the progress that hasn't been made from c1970 to today!
THAT LIBERATION DAY SPEECH. So he regrets it then does he. But in doing so he reveals that the interests of victims never got on the radar. Not even one teeny weeny bit. He regrets it alright. Her regrets it because it damaged HIM. Not because it damaged anyone else.
ReplyDeleteROGER HOLLAND. So he knew then that Holland had previous for a child sex offence. It might need to be clarified but up to now I thought that who knew what and when was a matter of contention. But not so apparently. HM Attorney General for Jersey knew all along about Holland’s past. And he took a generous view of it (generous to paedophiles that is.) He gave Holland the benefit of the doubt saying that he believed that he was a reformed character or cured. So, if that was his decision just where was it recorded as such and have we seen it yet? Just who assessed the risk and with whom was it discussed? Were there any arrangements for monitoring Holland and were there any progress reports? We can I think be confident that the answer is no. Firstly because if anything resembling documented evidence of a trace of interest in the risk Holland posed then we would have heard about it by now. The second reason is that the truth is that neither Bailhache Nor anyone else in the know cared tuppence about child protection.
Under the previous posting I wrote a two-part comment, a part of which said this: -
ReplyDelete“…….Many people who read this blog will be hoping that this "public-inquiry" finally delivers in the case of the Bailhache Brothers, that which it has so clearly failed to deliver hitherto in the case of any of the culpable witnesses – a merciless examination. Many are hoping the CoI subjects Philip Bailhache and William Bailhache to the relentless and microscopic interrogation both men have - for decades - unlawfully evaded in respect of their many case-specific acts and omissions. But on the "performance" of Eversheds so far, there is no likelihood at all that that will happen.
But - even if it did – such a line of questioning would be largely diversionary; mere 'bread-and-circuses' - to appease the plebeians – unless it was secondary to the line of questioning which matters.
So which is the line of questioning which matters?
The fundamental questions which sit in plain sight – which hitherto hide in plain sight in Jersey - are the questions concerning the basic functioning of the rule of law in this British island. Those are the questions we’ve failed to ask so far; those are the questions we’ve been diverted from asking by too much focus on particular cases, and specific individuals.
That is the line of questioning which should be put – given the circumstances - to two such “legal” figures as the Bailhache Brothers......”
I watched from the cramped & resentfully supplied handful of public seats today - which are roped-off from the high-cost VIP plenitude of a seating-area with its desks, screens, computers and luxuriance of orthopaedic chairs occupied exclusively by a phalanx of immensely expensive “professionals” representing the state - and I thought, not for the first time, ‘if only the players in this theatre had as much grasp of their task as the set-designers, the in-house performers wouldn't be stumbling through the fourth-wall and landing on the audience at every matinee.’
I sat there and observed Philip Bailhache, of all the creatures, come and go - through a mere few hours of the most timorous and deferential prompting – and I was haunted by the damaged, wrecked, life - the recent death - of Dannie Jarman, and was, as ever, gripped by the icy lesson, “this is it; this is how it happens; we witness it underway now; some people will do anything for money. Even become lawyers.”
Stuart Syvret
I think that the funniest quote of today from Philip Bailhache that I have read do far is when he is talking about the (well justified) criticism of his liberation day speech in which he criticised the abuse enquiry. When questioned he says....
ReplyDelete“If I had known that my words were going to be dissected in the way they have been and are being at the moment I probably would have reconstructed the speech, to take apart references to the scandal of child abuse from the scandal of the treatment of the island by the national and international media.”
– Sir Philip Bailhache
It rather looks as if having his words dissected is a problem for Sir Philip. Is he by any chance the same Philip Bailhache who used to be Attorney General and then a judge? I would rather have thought that dissecting what people say in order to determine the full meaning is rather what Lawyers and Judges do a lot of the time. They are supposed to be good at it. Or at least at doing it to others. Not so funny when it is done in the other direction it appears. And I bet that he cannot see the irony of it even if he reads this comment.
Philip Bailhache: "I don't think I specifically identified alleged victims as a group of people to be considered."
DeleteAt the COI today they put up on screen the statement Bsilhache made in 2008 about Holland faced with the looming vote of no confidence being brought by the then Deputy Shona (not Trevor) Pitman on account of this failing and his Liberation Day speech. The poor me, what have I done wrong histrionics almost dripped from the text. It really was THAT pathetic. In the vote that followed of course the only two of our proud States representatives who were brave enough to support Shona Pitman were Stuart and - ironically -Geoff Southern. The rest did not give a ****. Eight years later matters haven't improved a jot.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.itv.com/news/channel/2016-01-26/sir-philip-bailhache-defends-keeping-officer-with-sex-crime-conviction-in-office/
ReplyDeletehttp://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2011/10/philip-bailhache-and-roger-holland.html
ReplyDeleteMore of Bailhache's evidence not consistent with the truth
ReplyDeletehttp://tonymusings.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/is-sir-philips-submission-corroborated.html
"It is interesting to note that the change in the law only took place after all the trials relating to Operation Rectangle had finished."
I think that it is unfair that the Bailhache brothers are being made to give evidence on different days. Whenever I see the Chuckle Brothers they always appear together. I do not see why the Bailhache brothers cannot be treated the same."
ReplyDeleteI don’t agree with comment above about the Bailhache and Chuckle brothers. The difference in treatment is entirely justified on the basis that the Chuckle Brothers are a pair of lightweight comedians who attract laughter and mockery. On the other hand the Bailhache brothers are important public figures whose dignity and integrity is respected by all…….. I think I’ve got that the right way round??????
Deletewill we now see Bailjache in the Jersey media putting his side of things across, a ddouble page spread at least?
ReplyDeleteWhy should anyone be surprised by any of this.
ReplyDeleteSir Philip epitomises, not one, but two of the sections of our society most trusted as custodians of the truth.
A lawyer AND a politician.
Yet again we have a non partisan editorial in the JEP even if the main reporting reports the Bailhache view as could be expected .
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is the 'new'? information that Mr Nicolas Griffins is to give evidence on his investigation regarding eight child abuse cases to determine if there was political interference. Who requested this? Which eight cases were they and why were they chosen? Is the outcome known and therefore useful to 'some' current witnesses? What was his ToR? Who knows the answers before he appears as witness? Can any reader help on this or have I missed this aspect while I was asleep?
Colin.
DeleteYou are asking the right questions. There must have been dozens of cases that weren't prosecuted. Who chose these eight cases? What was the criteria for choosing the cases? Who chose, and why was Nicholas Griffin chosen, to review these cases? Was the contract put out to tender/advertised, if so where? If not why not?
Will Nicholas Griffin be cross-examined when he appears before the COI or will he be there just to report his findings? Hopefully the COI will be able to answer these questions at some point?
More detail from Bailiwick News.
ReplyDeleteThe Jersey Care Inquiry is to publish a new report, written by a top QC, on whether suspects escaped justice in eight cases of alleged abuse of children in States care.
Inquiry Chair Frances Oldham promised to release the report in a statement given at the beginning of proceedings on Tuesday. She said: “The inquiry has instructed a QC from England to review a selection of decisions about whether to prosecute individuals alleged to commit criminal offences against children in the care of the States of Jersey.
“Nicholas Griffin QC has completed a report into eight selected cases. This has been released to interested parties and will be made available to the public in due course.
“He is due to give oral evidence to the enquiry in February. I want to make it clear that this report is only part of the inquiry's work in pursuing Term of Reference 13. Other prosecution files will be put to relevant witnesses and examined by the inquiry in the preparation of its final report.”
Term of Reference 13 refers to the Inquiry’s job to see if past decisions on prosecutions were taken professionally, and without political interference.
The Jersey Care Inquiry is to publish a new report, written by a top QC, on whether suspects escaped justice in eight cases of alleged abuse of children in States care.
ReplyDelete“Nicholas Griffin QC has completed a report into eight selected cases. This has been released to interested parties and will be made available to the public in due course.
Bailiwick Express.
Released to interested parties who are holding big black marker pens.
Some transparency " eh my luv "
fwiw A quick google reveals:
DeleteNicholas Griffin QC has worked on major public inquiries over the last 15 years, including the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. He has prosecuted and defended in sexual abuse cases and practises at 5 Paper Buildings (www.5pb.co.uk) [can't currently find on 5PB staff list though]
Nicholas Griffin has written the following on the UK abuse inquiry
www.newlawjournal.co.uk/nlj/content/safe-hands
A fairly mundane read but a few things leapt out:
-It may have been penned before many of the criticisms of the Goddard Inquiry emerged, but he mentioned that survivors will NOT be represented on the inquiry panel. Nicholas Griffin does not raise this as a problem and appears to wax lyrical on the positive.
-Jersey was mentioned in passing.
- there was a bit of sales spin: "Curbing the role of lawyers may be at the expense of the credibility of the inquiry, as lawyers’ expertise may positively assist it to reach the truth."
Nick continues:
-"A lawyer acting on behalf of an individual or an institution will be able to crystallise the issues and suggest constructive approaches in a way that those without appropriately experienced representation cannot—to the mutual benefit of the inquiry and the client alike."
Well the Goddard Inquiry is hardly pleasing survivors and it has "lawyered up2 most impressively, but to pick up on Nick's last phrase "inquiry and the client alike": Who is his client? the CoI or the Establishment?
.....and is there any difference?
Perhaps "Mr.K" will be a challenge for the old silver tongue:
http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/jersey-child-abuse-inquiry-and-william.html
Three questions the public of Jersey need to ask:
ReplyDelete1/Who's paying for Nicholas Griffin QC?
2/How much will he cost?
3/Where's the money to pay him coming from?
That's easy:
Delete1/Us
2/A lot
3/Us
I don't mind IF Nicholas Griffin QC does a good, honest and fair job
DeleteI can't believe Nick Griffin has fallen so far since being kicked out of the BNP.
DeleteBNP .......fallen so far .....funny
DeleteI don't think it is this Nicholas Griffin either:
http://theukdatabase.com/2012/04/23/nicholas-griffin-llangollen/
Although Cambridge graduate fascist Griffin HAS got a law degree! Yes, I was shocked too.
DeleteDay 1325 Feb 2016
ReplyDelete09:00 Public witness
13:00 Public witness
Timothy Le Cocq
Evidence relating to working within Children's Services
Yes
Day 1314 Feb 2016
10:00 Public witness
14:00 Public witness
Sir Michael Birt
Evidence relating to working within Children's Services
Yes
Day 1302 Feb 2016
10:00 Public witness
Deputy Michael Higgins
Yes
Day 1291 Feb 2016
14:00 Public witness
William Ogley
Yes
I:ll believe this Care Inquiry has some integrity when Trevor Pitman is re-called to give full and proper evidence under questioning.
ReplyDeleteThe answers to those questions are already plain: -
ReplyDelete1/Who's paying for Nicholas Griffin QC?
You are. That is, the Jersey public.
2/How much will he cost?
A huge amount of money. But you'll struggle to find out the actual sum - because amongst all the absurd and ultra vires - invalid - "protocols" this "public inquiry" secretly manufactured so as to hide its inner-workings - was a decision of theirs to exempt themselves from freedom-of-information if they choose.
3/Where's the money to pay him coming from?
Out of the budget of this "public-inquiry". That is, your pockets.
However - those three questions - whilst interesting - are not the "questions the public of Jersey need to ask". At least not in a priority sense.
Other - far more important - questions are obvious.
For example: -
"What was the full brief - the full commissioning - written - and oral - instruction to Nicholas Griffin QC?"
And: -
"What were the 'parameters' of his instruction? What 'Terms-of-Reference' was he given?"
And: -
"What "interpretation" of the Terms-of-Reference of the CoI itself - were conveyed to Mr Griffin by the CoI and Eversheds?" A crucial question - very crucial - in that we've repeatedly witnessed the CoI and Eversheds lying - simply lying - about reach of their own ToRs. For example, asserting that the Victoria College child abuse episode does not fall within those ToR's - when it so clearly does (see ToR's 2 & 4, just for exmaple).
And: -
"How were the cases reviewed by Mr Griffin selected by the CoI & Evershed?"
And - and these events are as good an occasion as any for the public to start waking-up and recognising when they're being "suckered" - taken for "marks" - in an elaborate "long-con": -
"Why have the CoI and Eversheds "abdicated" a core function which is expressly placed upon them by their "legislative-purpose" - namely that of bringing the processes and methods of a "public inquiry" to bear on such questions as the validity of the prosecution decisions - to a private-sector, secret, commercial process?"
We've just been witness to the CoI and Eversheds attempting to pull-a-fast-one on us all. The approach they've adopted - simply by handing all of that evidence, those files, those questions - over to a private lawyer, and saying, "in secret, and out-side of, and away from, our processes and constraints as a public inquiry - give us a report on this stuff" - has just "defeated" the actual purpose of being a "public inquiry".
Think about it.
All of the many - many - controversial issues - and many different important questions - and many, no-doubt, differing perspective and views on all of the issues concerning the Jersey prosecution function and its handling of the child-abuse prosecutions - are required to be inquired into by this "public inquiry". Inquired into with all the attendant powers, resources, transparency of processes, and public operation so as the public can see what the evidence is, what the legal arguments are, whet the debates are, what questions have been asked, what questions have been not asked - and in a way in which all those with a stake in the issues - either as individuals, or as members of society - can challenge or contribute, can agree or dispute.
The moment a very major section - in some ways what could be said is THE MAJOR section - of the task of the CoI is taken out of the arena, processes, and functions of the CoI itself - and is instead given over to some covert process which will just - as-if-by-magic - produce a finished report which will then just be dovetailed in amongst the other parts of the CoI's tasks – what we’re witnessing is no longer a “public inquiry”.
Think about it.
Whatever this CoI and Eversheds are doing – it is no longer a “public” – inquiry.
Stuart Syvret
Like Stuart said 'these events are as good an occasion as any for the public to start waking-up and recognising when they're being "suckered" - taken for "marks" - in an elaborate "long-con":' That seems like good advice to me. This COI are taking us for fools. If its ok for them to subcontract out a main part of their contract from the States to some private sector guy they chose then why stop there? What's to stop them from doing the same with loads of the rest of their contract for being a public inquiry? This is like me having to sit my A levels and having to show my working out and stuff, but instead of that, being able to pay some guy to write it all for me and just be able to hand it over to the invigilators.
DeleteA lot of us have gone along with the COI even though we've had doubt so far, but I think this nonsenses they trying to pull on us is the excuse a lot of people needed to bail out from this. This is just taking the p*ss.
As the days and weeks have gone by any person with half a brain will realize that (EX) Senator Stuart Syvret has (on record)been spot on with regards to what he asserted so many years ago. I have ALWAYS had faith in Stuart as I believe he is as about as honest a person as can be. However his honesty has come at a very heavy cost to him and I feel that if all the pygmies (read establishment collectives) in this beloved Island of mine were to pull their collective heads out of their posteriors and simply accept the fact that Stuart was and has been 'bang on the money'. I think it would not be out of order to give this gentleman a FULL public apology for the disgraceful way he has been vilified and incarcerated by the corrupt system and the equally pliable Data Protection. Of course this 'apology' will never be forthcoming from the 'elite' so as a true Jersey born person I would like to say on behalf of myself and any other like minded Jersey folk a truly massive apology to Stuart and to thank him and all those who have stepped up to the plate to give the many victims the right to be heard. Let us truly hope that this COI will once and for all set the truth out for all to see, if this is not done, than apart from the cost, this would be a tragic and damming insult to the victims and survivors.
ReplyDeleteI've no interest in apologies.
DeleteAs I've said - often enough - for many years now - I have only one interest - one objective.
Securing the rule of law in Jersey.
Only that.
If Jersey's accretion of spivs thought I'd be deflected from that objective - that objective which axiomatically brings the shutter down on their intergenerational gangster racketeering-matrix - by an apology, they would have delivered one. In triplicate. Gift-rapped. With copies nailed to every lamp-post on the island. A long time ago.
No. They know the futility of apologies.
They know this is 'total-war'. And it only ends one way.
Stuart Syvret
They would sell their own children to escape justice (but they'd sell ours first of course)
DeleteIt doesn't hurt for individuals to add their own apologies to the health minister who blew the whistle.
There were a few months when I thought Mr. Syvret had gone too far and lost touch with reality, but when I took the time to read the information on his blog and the evidence to back it up (Sharp report into Vic.College abuse etc.), then I understood Mr. Syvret's position completely.
Some criticise (and fixate even) on Mr. Syvret's abrasive style in order that their minds can avoid facing the decades of entrenched evil he was fighting against.
The evil that imprisoned him twice.
The evil that this half baked CoI is peeling just the top couple of layers off.
The heart of this evil visited upon islanders and upon it's most vulnerable children is that the island's lay function is EFFECTIVELY IN PRIVATE HANDS.
This CoI seems to be charged with maintaining that status quo. That inherently dangerous and abusive status quo.
The CoI has been useful merely in that it has allowed people like Mr. Pitman to release reams of information under privilege. (the reams which keeps disappearing)
Islanders can now no longer plead ignorance if they continue to support the feudal system which harboured such misery and will do so again if the rotten heart is left in place.
Or to correct my typo
Delete"....evil visited upon islanders and upon it's most vulnerable children is that the island's LAW function is effectively in private hands".
Bailhache shoots himself in the foot!!!
ReplyDeleteIn the JEP today, PB is quoted as saying "the man in the street" would have made the same decision as himself in not dismissing Roger Holland as an Honorary Police Officer.
While "the man in the street" is not expected to have in-depth knowledge of child abuse , the Bailiff is! He is not "the man in the street" but the head of the judiciary and should have had that knowledge including the law relating to offenders and used it in making his decision. It is just not good enough to say there was not the knowledge and understanding of child sexual abuse at the time ,which can be shown not to be the case, what he really is saying I did not have the knowledge and what's more I did not take the trouble to find out more on the subject.
Phillip Baillhache knows he is utterly exposed and he is a man who cracks under pressure
DeleteAnd to shoot himself in the other foot the other day he said: "I don't think I specifically identified alleged victims as a group of people to be considered."
Phillip Baillhache is utterly exposed and he is a man who cracks under pressure. This thing will run and run. It has more legs than a centipede.
Is this why the BBC's telephone system 'failed' to work one morning during the election when it was his turn to be interviewd by the public? ...
DeleteThe Beano is not the Rag
Baillhache is too important to be questioned by mere members of the public.
DeleteThe CoI did not put on any pressure but Sir Philip still couldn't sound like a 21st century human, never mind a credible statesman.
It is worth (re)viewing a couple of video clips from the 2011 elections hustings (VFC links please)
ReplyDeletewww.youtube.com/watch?v=NJo9JbZ3z-o
Phillip Baillhache: ''If people are not truthful they suffer the consequences... If a Minister lied to another Minister, so far as I am concerned, that would be pretty well the end of a Ministerial career...''
There were no consequences when he lied about reading the (illicitly obtained?) HG abuse evidence in public on the plane!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUc03Q0wBT4
This was pre-Savile and pre-UK-abuse-mentdown and Stuart Syvret did not know that "London" was also balls deep in this abuse and corruption
The solution is for Jersey and UK campaigners to work together
www.exaronews.com/articles/5735/jersey-s-former-deputy-police-chief-slams-island-s-abuse-inquiry
Philip Bailhache LIES.
DeleteStuart Syvret CORRUPTION.
Lenny Harper EXARO.
What is your name?
ReplyDeleteerr, Philip....I think.....you were the Bailiff....err yes....I think
When you were AG you swore in a known paedophile,
err....I am not sure, I was told I swore in a Dutchman, some people were worried about him, but I thought I would give him a second chance.....'like a lot of others'.
A Dutchman? do you mean Holland?
...err...I can't remember, but if his name was Holland I suppose I thought he was a Dutchman.
Do you know Frank Walker?
err....To be honest yes, but I wish I didn't.
Ah, you memory is improving,
err...sorry I can't remember.
Do you think your judgment over the years was 'fair and just'?
Definitely yes, I never made a mistake, err....well not one I can remember.
Philip, we wish you to attend this inquiry to morrow morning, do you think you'll remember?
I never forget...well sometimes, you see I had a very demanding job....I think, I must have as I receive a massive pension, so I must have been good....I think, oh! my memory!
Comment from Rico's new blog
ReplyDeletehttp://ricosorda.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/former-home-affairs-minister-andrew.html
Extract from the [Brian Napier QC] Report -
102. The process of suspension that took place on the 12 November was
unremarkable, save in its brevity. It was over in about half an hour. The
meeting was conducted by the Minister, Deputy Lewis, with the Chief
Executive, Mr Ogley in attendance, taking handwritten notes. Mr Power had
part of the letter headed “Disciplinary Code” read to him and was shown the
letter. He was then offered, but declined, an opportunity of one hour to
“consider his position”.
All the leading actors were given a draft copy of the report for comment. Were it the case that Mr Power had not been given an hour to consider his position, don't you think Lewis and the rest of the cabal would have asked for the wording to be changed?
Incidentally, are all QCs as credulous as Brian "I have no reason to doubt this obvious pack of lies" Napier? Was he paid for every kilo of bullshit he was prepared to swallow rather than the usual hourly rate?
---------------
I do hope that Nicholas Griffin QC is rather more thorough and less gullible.
According to media reports William Bailhache today defended the role of the Law Officers Department in the child abuse investigation and is reported to have said in evidence "I am satisfied that we did it properly."
ReplyDeleteThe Jersey Evening Post of 25th June 2009 reported on the Attorney Generals Annual Review in which William Bailhache is reported to have written "However, some of the faults must have been on the side of the Law Officers, whether of communication or otherwise. Whatever the cause, the result was that the law enforcement agencies did not work together as they should."
I am not sure that these two statements are entirely compatible. Perhaps somebody within the Committee of Inquiry will ask him for clarification.
Just picking up on some of the reported quotes from today. From what I read William Bailhache has not denied that there was a cover-up of child abuse. He is quoted as saying that he SAW NOTHING to suggest DELIBERATE cover-up. He chooses his words carefully.
ReplyDeleteHe has left open the possibility that a cover-up arose because of incompetence and stupidity, possibly combined with an ingrained belief that such things could not happen Jersey. In some cases that will be true.
A deliberate cover-up would be hard to prove and if it is established he will say that he "saw nothing" of it. This might be plausible given that seeing nothing is something the Jersey establishment is good at when it suits them. If the Committee of Inquiry can show what looks like a cover-up he can still say that it was due to the incompetence of others and he "saw nothing" of it anyway.
As I recall his brother took a similar line when attempting to explain why Jersey’s child abuse laws were years behind those of the civilised world. Just "incompetence" he said. For two people who at times have appeared to be in charge of everything they appear to see and hear surprisingly little, or for that matter take personal responsibility when the indefensible occurs.
Still no sign of ex Deputy Trevor Pitman's witness statement. How long does it take to redact this? Not three months that is for sure. Stinks worse than a Bent Bailiff covering up for a Bent Jurat covering up for a Bent paedo Vic College teacher.
ReplyDeleteThe senior establishment stock phrase for this CoI has been
ReplyDelete"I don't recall"
The CoI's evidence is being filtered by staff from the departments under investigation and Mr. Pitman's documentary evidence is STILL disappeared.
Why do we get the feeling that the stock phrase of the CoI is going to be
"we didn't see any evidence of ......."
No shit Sherlock !
Ditto Nicholas Griffin QC ?
Just like Williamson, Napier etc. etc. .....
Have to agree with both of the above. One thing is clear to those I have discussed the Inquiry with even if we can't get our heads around so of the bizarre practices of muvh of Oldham WC and her team. This is that the approaching three month suppression of a key witness' evidence (Trevor Pitman) is clearly for wholly neferious reasons. It should be wholly unacceptable and is But who can we as Jetsey plebs complain to?
DeleteNot serious enough for the Ministry of justice.
Delete41. We note the depth of feeling of some witnesses to this inquiry who have indicated
serious grievances with various aspects of the governance of the Crown Dependencies
and their desire for the UK Government to step in to address their concerns. However,
the Crown Dependencies are democratic, self-governing communities with free media
and open debate. The independence and powers of self-determination of the Crown
Dependencies are, in our view, only to be set aside in the most serious circumstances.
We note that the restrictive formulation of the power of the UK Government to
intervene in insular affairs on the ground of good government is accepted by both the
UK and the Crown Dependency governments: namely, that it should be used only in
the event of a fundamental breakdown in public order or of the rule of law, endemic
corruption in the government or the judiciary or other extreme circumstance, and we
see no reason or constitutional basis for changing that formulation.
Whether or not Nicholas Griffin QC does a stand-up job is irrelevant. I wonder how many readers have reflected on Stuart Syvret's point about just how profoundly subversive it is for the COI to delegate a major part of the inquiry to a private businessman? How can it be a public inquiry if the examination of something as fundamentally important as whether prosecutions were improperly dropped by the AG is carried-out behind closed doors? Why bother even continuing with the charade that this COI is an open, honest and transparent effort to establish the truth?
ReplyDeleteThis is such a typical example of the Jersey Way. A nice shiny veneer of being so scrupulously honest, transparent, and having nothing to hide that we hired the top man to look into this - absolutely top man, diverting attention away from the fact that just hiring the man is a rotten sleight of hand.
And of course, we can all guess what he will find and how it will be phrased. "While with the benefit of hindsight some minor errors may have been made, I have seen no evidence of improper behaviour by the Attorney General's office and am satisfied that decisions were taken on the basis of evidentiary requirements and without undue consideration given to other factors."
So the Public NON-Inquiry flips part of it's script to an outsourced NON-Public Inquiry (or is that more Non-Inquiry?).
DeleteIF Nicholas Griffin QC is given all the information it may be difficult for him to conclude nothing was amiss in the non prosecution of golf partner "Mr. K"
http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/jersey-child-abuse-inquiry-and-william.html
Does the same apply to Mario Lundy?
The establishment has a habit of withholding evidence when they commission an ourchap report.
Anyone taking an overview of the situation and the "intent" would bear in mind the convenient (19 year!) delay in changing the rules on corroboration in child abuse cases:
http://tonymusings.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/is-sir-philips-submission-corroborated.html
"Is Sir Philip's submission corroborated by the facts?"
"The CoI's evidence is being filtered by staff from the departments under investigation"
ReplyDeleteUnderstanding is that vital evidence aswell as being filtered. Filing cabinets full have been conveniently mislaid/lost by these same departments!?
I laughed at the end of today's performance of the so-called "public-inquiry".
ReplyDeleteToday the "live evidence" of the Bailhache Brothers concluded with William - Barking-Bill - Bailhache finishing his lecture to the CoI, much as his brother Philip - Functional-Phil - Bailhache had done some days previously.
What is most remarkable about the testimony of the Bailhache Brothers is not even what they said - but rather the response of the CoI panel and of Eversheds towards them.
Both men "questioned" - if we could use that phrase - by Evershed LLP over a combined period of days - and how many times were the Bailhache Brothers asked about Appleby Global/Bailhache LaBesse?
I don't even need to say it, do I?
The omission was no mere 'elephant-in-the-room' - it was as though someone had cut a wall from the office with hydraulic rock-saws, marched an elephant in full ceremonial regalia through the resultant gap, around everyone's' seats three times showering people with brick-dust, trampling a few desks and trumpeting joyously - and no-one noticing.
When the Eversheds lawyer said "no further questions", I asked, loud enough for the room to hear, "Bailhache LaBesse?"
I looked across to where the lawyers of The Ogier Group sit - http://freespeechoffshore.nl/stuartsyvretblog/the-ogier-group/ - as their heads spun, and I caught that brief involuntary look of wide-eyed panic on their faces as our eyes met, and we shared one of those little moments of understanding that can come with a glance across a room. It was a wonderfully funny moment, to me. To them, not so much.
I still had the smile on my face as the Eversheds lawyer was sitting down and turning around to stare at me with a face dripping with a narrow-eye-hatred the intensity of which would have been beyond the greatest of Hollywood actors.
If the FACAWS thought this exercise was going to draw-a-line under the breakdown in the rule-of-law in Jersey, I refer them to the above.
The accruing ineptitude amplifying.
Back to the drawing-board boys & girls.
Stuart Syvret
Stuart
DeleteThis Inquiry and its outcome will in all probability be crap. A whitewash. But be this as it may you should still give your evidence. If you don't you are just leaving the victims and all who have given their evidence in the lurch. Do that and you may as well be on the same side as the Bailhaches. Stop finding excuses and do the right thing.
@18:46
DeleteYes Stuart, Sign up to those dodgy protocols, Then like Trevor Pitman you can be asked inane questions about the weather (or whatever), without touching on anything of real concern
Have your documentary submission 'dissapeared' off the CoI website .......like Trevor's
Or keep your powder dry?
Hmmmm......... now let me think
Was this an attack on Trevor, Stuart? I hope I am wrong because the two of you have fought so long for what is right. You two could have been the dream ticket for the progressives. But if you are turning on others of the good guys you are better off out of it all.
DeleteWell, sticks and stones might break my bones...etc.
DeleteThe Jersey oligarchy and its protectors are going to have to face reality, and come-to-terms with the fact they need better trolls.
They might want to start with a new co-ordinating spin-doctor, one capable of grasping, then coming-to-terms with, a "Jersey Situation" which is contended on the reality of law - as opposed to an artificial depiction of the "law".
This "public inquiry" is a creature of that old paradigm; so much so - such a comically inept over-reach - I'll wager it is already the unwitting coup-de-grace of the make-believe "law" of "The Jersey Way".
The serious, long-term cause of genuine and effective child-protection in Jersey requires that the era of the fake administration of "law" gets replaced with the new paradigm of the real administration of the law.
Doing the right thing means not giving-in to witness intimidation, not accepting zero full-time professional representation on the public-interest side, not tolerating an "evidence-gathering" process abdicated to conflicted civil-servants, and not going along with a "public" inquiry which has privatised and made secret - and then pulled-as-if-from-a-magician's-hat - what was supposed to be a core part of its "public" inquiry task.
In a strange kind of way, there's something almost impressive in the magnitude of the hubris; the audacity of it, the awesome level of ambition, that all-or-nothing - one-shot - grab for total victory we see exhibited in a "shop-front" long-con play of a fake "public-inquiry". You can see the "thinking" behind it - the concept; on paper, it will have seemed the "perfect solution" - another amazing "great-escape" by the Jersey oligarchy. Straight out of the same minds who dreamt-up their last great-escape perfect-solution - illegally suspending the Police Chief.
Alas for the Jersey mafia, the ideas were fundamentally stagnant - and the execution predictably inept.
A fascinating question is, just how many more times do the real powers-that-be allow this futile "doubling-down"? One day the music is going to stop - and the price of all these martingales is landing on the desk of high-authority.
Perhaps there'll be a few more comedy rolls of the dice before then. But that appointment with the phenomena known as reality won't be avoided.
Stuart
@20:52 & @20:38 below
DeleteSigh!
I posted the comment at 19:40
It was certainly not an attack on Trevor. He has done a great job of publishing reams of evidence under privilege (when/if the CoI let us see it!!!!)
If it was an "attack" it was an attack on an unfit CoI and on the 'advice' that we should put all our eggs in one basket (and let the CoI scramble them.
Whose judgement should I trust. Your's or Stuart's?
Hmmmm......... now let me think
P.S I don't think you are a troll, I think you are a dope.
We needed and still need Stuart and Trevor in the States and they both aren't there. What do you say to that Mister Dope?
Delete'Well, sticks and stones might break my bones...etc.'
DeleteYou said it Stuart.
Words kept on a blog and not put into an official Inquiry is not going to harm anybody.
You should drop the spin and give evidence, the excuses are lame and weary.
"We needed and still need Stuart and Trevor in the States and they both aren't there. What do you say to that Mister Dope?"
DeleteClever! Thanks for pointing that out.
You will no doubt recall that both men (& also Shona Pitman) have been shystered out of politics.
All three have been rendered INELIGIBLE to stand by the use of corrupt court cases, using paedophile protector Jurat Le Breton and the death threat troll.
You couldn't make it up!
http://therightofreply.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/another-reminder-of-jerseys-freaks.html
In the audio note how he boasts of police and data protection.
All proved true!
They hate it that you are at the most important sittings, in the public area, sniggering, staring daggers, heckling....
ReplyDeleteAnd keeping your precious powder very, very, dry!
All I am saying is not much point in having lots of quality dry powder if you never take the opportunity to fire your musket at the enemy?
DeleteNo point in having yet another bucket of wet powder.
DeleteTrevor Pitman and others have done a great job of showing this CoI is a sham of a lawyer fest.
You want Syvret to do the same??? How does that work?
With the alternative approached of Syvret and of Pitman & co we have belt and braces
It's not great, but short of hanging the feudal lords from the lampposts, what choice do we have?
"Trevor Pitman and others have done a great job of showing this CoI is a sham of a lawyer fest."
DeleteSince when? The Care Leavers are fully committed to the process and when I asked about Trevor Pitman's questioning being so short, the COI said a lot of his Statement had nothing to do with the Terms of the Inquiry. If that is true then why has Trevor Pitman not stuck to the script? Phone them if you want to ask for yourselves, they are at least concentrating on their mandate.
You are basing your argument on the Inquiry's version. The four words you (wisely) used are "If that is true." The Inquiry has spent many hours questioning witnesses on subjects that are not part of its TOR's so that argument doesn't hold a lot of water.
DeleteHopefully, in the next couple of days, Mr. Pitman will either submit a Guest Posting to this Blog with an update of what's been happening recently concerning his evidence. If not a Guest Posting then possibly a video interview.
If one phones up the COI one is told no such thing. In fact one cannot get anything like a reasonable answer from them. If 'a lot of his statement had nothing to do with the TOR' then it would have been removed obviously. Yet we hear it is redaction issues arising no doubt from named individuals and worried Law Officers. I recall that Trevor Pitman has stated he submitted a 200+ page statement and when it has been briefly up loaded it was still some 200+ pages regardless of redactions. I actually downloaded one version. These realities have me asking why you even bother to publish such an obviously troll-tinged comment. It just muddies the water. Just what the Law Officers and their subservient COI want?
DeleteSpot on VFC & 11:48
DeleteAnonymous at 08:39 "The Care Leavers are fully committed to the process and when I asked [the CoI]...."
Someone who claims to speak for all Care Leavers ..... has a hotline to the CoI
and is unconcerned about ever moving TORs and restrictions which prevent understanding of the child abuse disaster.
Can't think why you would think it a troll or PR stooge PMSL.
I sincerely hope that Anonymous at 8.39, be it the infamous troll or whatever is not speaking for The Jersey Careleavers Association. The JCLA have never phoned to ask for any explanation of the reasons why Trevor Pitman's statement is having a yo-yo effect. We have a presence at the hearings every day, and can therefore speak with the legal team, or indeed Trevor himself when he attends.
DeleteSo........who are you exactly?
It is not often that this blog hears words of praise for William Bailhache but let us at least give him some recognition for that part of his evidence today in which, according to a BBC report, he was candid and specific about the suspension of Police Chief Graham Power at the height of the abuse Inquiry.
ReplyDeleteWe have known for some time that the Solicitor General advised against the suspension on the evidence available at that time. We now have it from the former Attorney General himself in the most unambiguous terms. He told Frank Walker and Bill Ogley in a direct and unequivocal email that they should not do it. They did it anyway. Unless it is thought that we have suddenly become admirers of the former AG and current Bailiff let us not forget that this admission was effectively forced out of him by the Committee of Inquiry its powers of disclosure and ability to compel witnesses, and that a lot of trouble and expense would have been saved if he had come clean earlier.
Let us also not forget that it was the same William Bailhache who deployed a succession of lawyers to prevent Mr. Power and others from discovering the truth about what happened. But the revelation is a gem anyway, and one which raises an interesting number of supplementary questions.
For example, did Walker and Ogley tell Lewis that he was being pushed into acting contrary to legal advice? Given that the advice was so specific and that they went ahead anyway, were those involved acting beyond the powers of their office, and if so are they now legally "on their own" and could they be personally liable from the considerable public expense which has flowed from their action? Perhaps the Attorney General should be asked for his advice. (Yes I know but we have to start somewhere.)
@20.41
DeleteBut how convenient, just happening to have prepared this get-out-of-jail-free card while letting an underling do the dirty work.
And never had the opportunity to bring the subject up over all these years
.....until now
Patsies aplenty !
DeleteAlso, wasn't it that document that Deputy Police Chief Harper questioned the authenticity and date of?
wouldn't be the first time that metadata has proved the shysters are lying.
"And never had the opportunity to bring the subject up over all these years"
DeleteThat's not strictly correct. He did have the opportunity to supply Brian Napier QC with that crucial evidence but for reasons only known to him he never did.
Exactly VFC #satire
DeleteYou couldn't make it up!
William Bailhache may have come across as more credible than his Senior Moment Senator brother but never forget he is still an enemy of all that is good and decent and a champion of the Jersey Way. In a single word a shyster. His serial malfeasance in public office must never, ever be allowed to be forgotten just as Stuart Syvret has rightly told us so often.
ReplyDelete20.41 That is not my understanding. Andrew Lewis claimed in the "in camera "debate that the Solicitor General had advised him as did others that he was on safe ground, my words. The AG said in tonights hard copy of the Jersey Post, that as AG had advised the SG. from giving that advise. I have given the paper away. Maybe a reader would check. It may be I miss understood.
ReplyDeleteQuite so! (00:51)
Deleteand as VFC points out above .....if William Bailhache's pre-suspension advice is genuine then why did William Bailhache apparently choose to withhold this crucial evidence from Brian Napier QC ???
And not mention it at other multiple opportunities?
A cynic might say that he was in of the lie but kept this up his sleeve in the hope of leaving his patsies to take the consequences when they were rumbled.
Can no one spot a Teflon Don?
Teflon becomes unstuck in very high temperatures.
DeleteCan anybody confirm that William Bailhache has indeed now claimed that he gave unambiguous advice to Walker and Ogley that, in his opinion, it was not lawful for Graham Power to be suspended; and if so, when was this advice given? The time-line is very important here.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Bailhache, on the 11 November 2008, advised NOT to suspend the chief Police Officer. This was an e-mail to Frank Walker and Bill Ogley.
DeleteI am currently constructing a Blog Posting on this very subject.
Can Frank Walker be called back to the COI to verify the email was received at that date?
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't need to be called back. He has acknowledged its receipt at his Public Hearing.
DeleteDid Frank [the W] confirm that send/receipt predated the suspension?
DeleteIs there any doubt about the authenticity of the date of the "advice" [that suspension was illegal]?
I ask because the establishment story constantly shifts position, like it did with the suspension letter which turned out to have been drafted when the establishment initially claimed it had no concerns about the Chief of Police. The letter was subsequently used to unlawfully suspend Graham Power as an "emergency measure".
This advice is becoming a very important aspect indeed!Given that WB had advised the SG to advise against it , because of the nature of the Interim Report , his silence speaks volumes.
ReplyDeleteThe in camera debate this was was said;
Deputy P.V.F Le Claire
Thank you very much, Solicitor General. Could I just add one small query on that because that is very informative and helpful?I just have a question mark over the "available in one form or another". Surely the full interim report should be available because the full interim report has been given to the Minister of Home Affairs and it has been that interim report that has given him this position.
The Bailiff:
I do not think the matter can really be advanced any further, Deputy, at this stage.
Paul le Claire said:
ReplyDeleteIn the in-camera DEBATE.
“The Minister has made reference to the Metropolitan Police Report which, as an interim report, he has described as alarming. As an interim report he has said that has swayed and made his decision, something he has relied upon.”
Andrew Lewis did/said nothing to correct Paul le Claire in that Lewis had seen the Met Interim Report, it was damming, and the Minister (Lewis) relied on it.
Surely that (if Lewis’ statements to Wiltshire, and Napier are to be believed) is unambiguously Andrew Lewis knowingly misleading the parliament?
VFC, I’ve long followed your work and the other Jersey blogs so I’m reasonably familiar with the material. Forgive me, but I get frustrated when I read comments which seem to show Jersey campaigners persist in missing the wood for the trees. Comment like this for exmaple,
ReplyDelete‘Can anybody confirm that William Bailhache has indeed now claimed that he gave unambiguous advice to Walker and Ogley that, in his opinion, it was not lawful for Graham Power to be suspended; and if so, when was this advice given? The time-line is very important here.’
You are all missing the thing which sits in plain sight. You have already won, and you don’t need a public inquiry to confirm that. You need to study some of the case-law on ‘bias’ by public authorities. Because if you don’t, I can see you being taken for a ride here. You all seem to be getting excited over the fact your Attorney General advised Chief Minister Walker & Chief Executive Ogley that to suspend your Police Chief Graham Power on the basis of the ‘Met Report’ was unlawful. But before you all jump onto that bus to be taken off to some false destination, the more basic and fundamental question you must ask is this, ‘was it lawful for the Jersey Attorney General to even be involved in having anything to do with these issues concerning the Police Chief in the first place?’
The answer to that question is very clearly, ‘no’. And if you spent a little time doing some basic legal research you would recognise that. Why was it unlawful for the Jersey Attorney General to be involved?
Firstly, the office of Attorney General in Jersey carries so many mutually-exclusive rolls, powers and functions it is permanently structurally conflicted. Being both the legal adviser to the executive departments, and also being the sole prosecution authority, the office of Attorney General is essentially deciding whether to prosecute its own clients whose unlawful action may well be as a result of advice given, or the omissions of advice which should have been given, to those executive departments by the office of Attorney General. A prosecution authority deciding whether to de facto prosecute itself.
I read (admittedly a few years ago) the Carswell Report into your Crown Office functions, which purported to give a ‘clean-bill-of-health’ to the present structure of Attorney General in Jersey. The Carswell Report is nonsense on stilts. And that was the view of several other lawyers I asked. Its endorsement of the present prosecution function arrangements in Jersey was so far at variance with settled administrative law (not to mention the ECHR) the report is a fine example of being able to get whatever you pay for when you have a lot of money to employ legal advice.
But, secondly, even setting aside the terminal structural ultra vires of the office of Attorney General in Jersey, the functions of that office were, in all these issues, fatally conflicted because of the extensive direct personal conflicts of interest besetting the then office-holder William Bailhache. (for exmaple, as mentioned above the fatal entanglement in the Balance Pierre abuse case of Appleby Global/ Bailhache LaBesse.)
The settled law on ‘bias’ by ‘public authorities’ is not complex. In essence, the law is that ‘ a body (any public authority) must not have a direct interest in the outcome of a decision or show actual bias or the real possibility of bias.’
The office of Attorney General in Jersey fails that test. Fails it for the two reasons I’ve outlined above.
That’s it. Game over. You have won. Now, why are you still focusing on a ‘public inquiry’ of doubtful vires itself, which is exhibiting all the warning-signs of being another bought & paid for false endorsement of the status quo (like Carswell) instead of now campaigning for the relevant UK authorities to fix the plain illegality of the Jersey system?
BTW, further to my comment above, here's another way in which you risk being diverted from the fundamental issues. If you get too fixated on the (obviously unlawful) actions of the then Home Affairs Minister Andrew Lewis, you risk falling into the obvious trap whereby your Establishment will shrug their shoulders and say, 'oh well. Yes that Andrew Lewis was an idiot and shouldn't have acted that way. But never mind. The Police Chief was subsequently further suspended, twice, on different grounds, by a different Home Affairs Minister. So when all's said and done, the suspensions of the Police Chief which mattered, were lawful.' You can see that's what the authorities are going to claim.
ReplyDeleteBut, again, that tactic should not help them one iota provided you focus on the law. You must learn to start taking your arguments always to that first base and last base. What the pure settled law says in respect of the conduct of your 'public authorities'. And what I'm pointing out here should be taken as a lesson in the importance of always turning to the law, to basic principles.
The same reasons of the settled law I explained above concerning the conflicts of interest which make the acts & omissions of your Attorney General unlawful in these matters, also catch the second Home Affairs Minister Ian Le Marquand. Again, there's no hiding place from the effect of the law on 'bias'. Ian Le Marquand before being Home Affairs Minister was the magistrate who took to himself an illegitimate 'power' for which no provision existed in law, to de facto jail children (abusing a power to 'remand') and inventing 2 categories by which some children, often with mental health problems, ended up being subjected to long periods of coercive solitary confinement. A practice which was illegal and an abuse of those children's human rights. So seriously conflicted into all matters concerning Jersey's child-protection failures was Ian Le Marquand, that the law on 'bias' required him to recuse as Home Affairs Minister from all and any matters concerning the investigations of the child-protection failures. He did not do so. Therefore his acts and omissions as Home Affairs Minister relevant to such issues as suspending the Police Chief were unlawful.
It is as simple as that. Those latter decisions to suspend were taken by a directly and very seriously conflicted individual. Thus the office he purported to discharge, the 'public authority' of Home Affairs Minister, was very seriously contaminated and falls fatally foul of the settled law on 'bias' which binds public authorities.
It is kind of the commenter at 18:28 to so condescendingly tell us what we know already. It's not exactly a novel observation to any of us that the office of the AG is conflicted. What on Earth does he or she think Stuart Syvret has been arguing in court for several years?
ReplyDeleteContrary to what he or she thinks, sworn testimony by the AG that he advised against suspending Graham Power is potentially of enormous importance. It's one thing to be "structurally conflicted" due to the vagaries of ancient office: one can always make lofty claims that one maintained the appropriate Chinese walls and objectivity at all times, and never allowed potential conflicts to become actual conflicts.
It's an entirely different proposition if the holder of that office has actually demonstrated evidenced misconduct, which is what we are potentially looking at here (e.g. why the AG never disclosed his advice to Napier, or never raised the issue in the States during the in-camera debate).
Furthermore, it also raises the possibility that Frank Walker and Andrew Lewis seriously and deliberately misled the States in the most alarming manner.
You are therefore quite mistaken if you think we are missing the point here. Don't you think the legal argument that the office of the AG is fundamentally incompatible with modern civil society is far more robust if you can demonstrate that office holders have abused and politicised that office?
I don't disagree with any of those observations. Proving (again) the actual misconduct in a public office by William Bailhache is important, and adds yet more inescapable evidence to the case for inevitable intervention. I don't think our basic points are mutually exclusive.
DeleteWhat concerns me, and I'm sure a large number of other external observers, is that when you say you 'know already that the office of Jersey AG is conflicted' the work and campaign you do doesn't reflect that fact. I and others I'm sure could be forgiven for thinking the Jersey campaign has very little grasp of the fundamental and overarching legal principles, but is instead fixated on the idea that if you can only prove another 2 or 3 examples of misconduct, or conspiracy, you will 'have them'.
What I'm asking is 'how many more evidenced examples of gross criminality do you need?' And, 'suppose hypothetically, 50 such examples are not enough, and you feel you need another 35, ok. But then what?'
I have to repeat the point, I see very little evidence from your campaign that you grasp the gravity of the numerous examples of illegality which are already established. To take an example, the conspiracy engaged in by Chief Executive Bill Ogley to unlawfully obstruct the legally mandated protections vulnerable children in Jersey have in the Children (Jersey) Law 2002 by obstructing and sabotaging the public authority of the day, the Minister. (And it matters not who the post holder was. Almost certainly the same unlawful conspiracy would have been committed against any honest Social Services Minister. The fact it happened to be Syvret is immaterial.)
That example of lawlessness, a deliberate sabotaging of child-protection, and an attack against the foundation of democratic accountability for public authority, could be alone your casus belli, as could be any number of the many other acts of lawlessnesses you already have evidenced.
The point remains. Once you reach a stage when you are satisfied your dossier is extensive enough, what do you do with it? Whether it's in 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, 2 years or however long it may take until you think to your satisfaction, 'right. We have enough now. Let's go', what will you do then, and where will you take it? And regardless of whether you have 50, or a 100 evidenced examples of lawlessness by the Jersey system, you are still standing at the starting-line of an obstacle race which says, 'how are the basic principles of the rule of law engaged by all of the foregoing examples of corruption?' No matter whether you take the short path, or the long path in accumulating examples of Jersey establishment corruption, both routes take you to the same place. The starting gate of the quest for the proper administration of justice.
http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.com/2016/01/lenny-harper-jersey-child-abuse-inquiry_24.html?showComment=1454073645636#c4481909338568780756
Deleteso how can you help?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e__dowLnTo0&t=1m20s
ReplyDeleteAnon,
DeleteYou have accidentally(?) set the above link to miss out the first 1m20seconds of that video so that it appears to contain the prosecution case information only (well, 'promises' of information)
Wouldn't you prefer readers to watch the whole video which is only 2m28s long:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=e__dowLnTo0&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ssS6QK-3vkt=1m45s
ReplyDeleteAnon,
DeleteYou have accidentally(?) set the above link to miss out the first 1m45seconds of that video
The video is the 24minute audio of Philip Bailhache pleading with the states not to continue with the next stage of the Child Abuse Inquiry
The speech is a cringeworthy mash of hand wringing fear and insincerity. Why would anyone want to skip the first 1m45seconds when Bailhache was at his most stilted and hesitant?
I'm not sure the atempted crop worked but anyways the full video is available at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ssS6QK-3vk
VFC, the links to the videos above don't work. I'm getting taken to a link which says 'unusual traffic' or something like that. Could the links be re-posted? Thanks
ReplyDeleteSorry, the browser seems to object to those as "auto links" but they should play if you paste the below into the web address:
Deletewww.youtube.com/watch?v=e__dowLnTo0&
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ssS6QK-3vk
You could try this one as well:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ37Z_oUfJY
Turns out the reasons given were a pack of lies - so 8 years later they decide "OH those weren't the reasons, there were other reasons"
You couldn't make it up!