An Ex-Police Officer Writes....

I am an ex-police officer.

When the Police Regional Fraud Team (RFT) were appointed to investigate various matters concerning Sandwell Council I contacted them with regard to what, if true, appears to have been a serious conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by a male Labour Councillor. My information - which I consider to have come from an extremely reliable source - was that the Councillor concerned had, on a number of occasions, entered the private “staff” areas of the SMBC offices in Oldbury and ordered the cancellation of parking tickets issued against his family, friends and/or associates. Staff at SMBC were too afraid not to comply with his requests/orders and a number of parking tickets were duly rescinded.

Many months ago and following my contact with the RFT, I was contacted by them and then interviewed at a location in Birmingham. I told the investigating officer the name of the Councillor alleged to have been involved in this activity and also indicated precisely where the Police would find written proof - at least that certain tickets had been rescinded by staff. I have received no further contact whatsoever from the Police with regard to this and the same informant has told me that to the best of their knowledge, the Police have made absolutely no attempt to recover the evidence which was available to them. Clearly there is now a high risk that, with the lengthy delay, the evidence has been destroyed.

I became aware that The Sandwell Skidder had made a similar complaint and duly contacted him.

AN EX-POLICE OFFICER - 1ST JULY, 2015.

THE SKIDDER ADDS:

It is absolutely correct that, independently, I passed identical information to the Police many months ago. I was particularly concerned at that stage that they took steps to, at the very least, secure the evidence which was said to be available in case it was to be destroyed/”lost”.

After a period of time I was informed that it appeared that the Police had taken no action whatsoever and so I specifically contacted the Police in writing and asked if I could blog about this. At the very least, it is indicative of the shambolic way that the highly-paid Chief Executive of SMBC runs his Council when certain Councillors were (still are?) permitted to have an “access all areas” pass and use them to wander the building interfering in the day to day running of the Council. I believe this access may have also been granted to Darren Cooper, the joke “Leader” of the Council, and, seemingly, he too was also content for others to be allowed the same ludicrous facility (something that is certainly not allowed in most other councils).

On 26th February, 2015 (ie OVER 4 MONTHS AGO) I received a written request from the RFT NOT to blog about this and, of course, I was very happy to comply with that. Regular readers of this blog will know, however, that the DI in charge of the Sandwell investigations has belated advised - and only after I specifically wrote to him - that the Sandwell enquiry has only a very narrow remit and that the Police will not be investigating this particular issue. I have, accordingly, given them written notice that this blog will be appearing.

Let us hope that the police failure to investigate is down to lack of resources rather than negligence/incompetence (I have to say that the officer who interviewed me appeared to be an exceedingly competent officer) although the layperson might think that the Police would jump at the chance to grab some “low-hanging fruit”. All this leaves a very nasty taste and does nothing to dispel the widely-held perception that parts of West Midlands Police are far too “pally” with Sandwell Council in general and with certain Councillors in particular. For example, see also their anxiety not to investigate Lying Lucy Cashmore etc and also Darren Cooper’s “purely coincidental” association with multiple troll accounts on Twitter (but then he is the Chair of the West Midlands Police and Crime Panel and so he must be protected at all costs mustn’t he!)

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

e-mail thesandwellskidder@gmail.com Twitter @bcrover (Vernon Grant)

Confidential phone number: 07599 983737