Mrs Hackett's Parking Ticket

Unlike the late Smethwick Scumbag, Darren Cooper, it is not usually my style to refer to the family of councillors and bent staff in the Sandwell Council cesspit but it is necessary here as Tom Watson's poodle, Cllr Simon Hackett, does feature in this tale......

When West Midlands Police briefly involved themselves in "Sadwell" matters they were given information about Jan Britton's bent paid service allegedly cancelling numerous parking tickets to Councillors, their family members and sundry visitors to local mosques. I personally supplied information directly to them and I am aware that at least two other people also did so. The interviewing police officers were specifically informed where they might find a cache of evidence. Alas, we now know that at least one corrupt officer within WMP prevented any serious and proper investigation and that they were quick to drop the enquiry as soon as Cooper and Britton set up the farcical and very limited "Wragge" review.

Insofar as Wragge's looked at the parking tickets issue they seem to have only done so in respect of Oldbury's most celebrated amnesiac, Cllr Mahboob Hussain. But this is what they said about general conduct apparently authorised by useless "Chief Executive" Jan Britton:

"[The Principal Officer in the Parking Team] stated she has a lot of interaction with councillors, generally regarding parking issues they or their business contacts have. She has been asked to bend the rules and it is usual practice to be asked to do so.... She told us that Cllr Hussain was part of the electoral Members' group who decided the budget for each service, and she had been told "off the record" that if they do not keep the Councillor happy, the budget would not be approved."

Once again, West Midlands Police chose to ignore all this.

When you get a few minutes take a look at my old post of 17th October, 2014 which contains an hilarious video showing how Sandwell Council have doctored the double yellow lines outside Hussain's house to provide him with another parking spot:

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/sandwells-parking-madness.html

Notwithstanding this and the fairly large parking area outside his mansion, Hussain told Wragges that his family - who claim to "run" Oldbury - had racked up "30 to 40" parking tickets!!!! Bearing in mind the house is right on a busy junction this is surely scumbag behaviour of the first order and a considerable nuisance to other residents but, as this blog has previously reported, they are "too scared" to speak out.

Wragges said some of these tickets had not been paid in full and went on to find in respect of two tickets to family members:

"The evidence suggests that Cllr Hussain interfered in due process of parking tickets issued to his wife and son. He did so by contacting directly the officer concerned and asking (!), in effect, for them to be cancelled".

Besides the apparent illegality of this under Jan Britton, the conduct also led to small loss of revenue to the taxpayer. At present, Hussain has got off scot free for this and for other dubious activities.

Returning to Hackett his then partner (now wife) parked on double yellow lines in Crankhall Lane in August, 2012 and got a ticket. She appealed saying that she was moving house that day.

We have seen that the lickspittle Britton allowed senior Councillors the right to roam freely around the Council offices. On his partner's behalf, Cllr Simon bravely volunteered to take in some evidence on his partner's behalf that she was unloading whilst "moving house" and, without using his influence in any way of course, he was able to hand this directly to employee Irfan Choudry. (Happily, when Hackett came to be investigated in respect of this, Irfan Choudry could not be located to give a statement to the investigators). So all The Sandwell Slasher did was hand over an envelope.

Sandwell Council say there IS an exemption from parking fines where appropriate evidence is supplied and it would be very interesting to see what was actually supplied by La Hackett.

It is a very stressful business indeed moving house - rushing back and forth with stuff before the new folks move in and it all has to be done quickly before one has to hand over the keys - often on a Friday. How nice of Britton's bent paid service to show humanity and take all this into account.

But hang on a minute..... Most people have to rush to move on the day of completion. The parking ticket was issued on Monday 27th August, 2012 whereas Land Registry documents show that the Hacketts actually completed the purchase of their Crankhall Lane property on Friday, 24th August, 2012. Thus they had all weekend to move stuff in. The truth of the matter, of course, is that the Hackett's were not moving from a sold property to a purchased one in a rush but gently from the flat on Brookside they have owned since 2010 to their second Sandwell property. Not for nothing did this blog christen the former worker for the homeless as Simon "Two Homes" Hackett!

But, Jan Britton's bent service were satisfied on the evidence Hackett delivered that it was necessary for Mrs H to park on double yellow because she was "moving house". Remember this ruse dear readers when you are hoovering up multiple properties in the "socialist" paradise and need to illegally park!

Hackett may have a reputation for p*ssing in bus shelters but now Britton and Co are p*ssing all over us too!

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Darren Cooper - Greedy Scrote: Part One

I have to start this post with a caveat that some of the content may not be true! Regulars will know that there have been attempts by the comrades to pass me false information in the hope that I will then blog it and they can discredit me - a tactic that has failed to date. Are they at it again?

My problem is that the new information here - which has come from a very senior Labour Party figure - was "volunteered" to me and I have not yet been able to independently corroborate same. Having said that, the senior source was speaking with me concerning other matters and some of the other information supplied is undoubtedly true......

Darren Cooper was no socialist. Remember his pathetic, illiterate, Twitter account? He was an insecure little greaser driven by malice and envy and never missed an opportunity to slag off business and the wealthy. But then he wanted a slice of the action too when he realised Jan Britton's bent paid service was enriching employees and colleagues all around him.

Cooper saw the "Tipton Mafia" doing well under his leadership [sic]. The Joneses and hangers-on were doing well in Wednesbury and Jan Britton's bent paid service and various councillors provided massive assistance to Cllr Olwen Jones to secure a contract worth £105,000 for her son's partner. The late Smethwick Scumbag saw Jan Britton, Neeraj Sharma and Nick Bubalo act to enrich the family of Cllr Mohammad Rouf with the bent Florence Road deal. And then, of course, we come to the main man, Hussain, where the same triumvirate of Britton, Sharma, and Bubalo worked so assiduously to enhance the fortunes of dear old Mahboob's family.

At the same time, Jan Britton was buying the silence of departing employees with eye-wateringly huge wads of OUR dosh.

But what was in it for Dazza? As regulars will know - he openly boasted that the money for his house extension in Londonderry Road came from Hussain which is an odd-thing to brag about if it didn't (and this is yet another thing the police apparently did not bother to investigate).

And so we come back to the ice rink..... Early on in the history of my authorship of this blog I was alerted by a usually reliable source that the ice rink was to be "Darren's payday". This was going to be a nice little earner for him personally. Thus, as we have seen, he was pushing it for all it was worth - excitedly mentioning a "big new development" at the opening of the New Square, Tesco and, unbelievably, even promoting it through one of his Twitter troll accounts whilst attacking me (and my wife)!

The late woman-bullying thug improbably claimed to the Josef Goebbels Institute in Queen Street, Wolverhampton (aka "The Express and Star") that he had initiated the whole concept and even floated the idea with a "couple" of ice rink companies. They duly printed this tosh in the full knowledge that a retard like Cooper was incapable of working out which hand to wipe his arse with let alone setting-up large business deals!

Jan Britton's bent paid service then used taxpayers money for staff to scurry around trying to find a suitable site but when they came to score the viability of the stinking deal it still only came out at 54% - way below what would normally be allowed, even under Jan Britton's regime. Nevertheless, the Asset Management & Land Disposal Committee gave the deal the go-ahead!

Now the mystery here is how Cooper expected to enrich himself? Contrary to his lies there was only ever one party involved in this potential deal - Mr Mike Petrouis. Now I need to make it absolutely crystal clear here that I do NOT insinuate or imply any wrongdoing of whatever nature on the part of Petrouis. He has a very controversial reputation in the ice rink world but there is no evidence whatsoever that he has ever acted corruptly or illegally. He has a mysterious business set-up involving dozens and dozens of active and dissolved companies but all fully audited etc. He has been involved in some very controversial projects with local councils, notably in Cardiff and the Isle of Wight. It is inconceivable, however, that he would do anything to corruptly enrich a nonentity like Cooper given his wider business interests and no such suggestion is made or implied here. (One suspects that he acted throughout here as a tough business negotiator who couldn't believe his luck to be dealing with a bunch of total tossers - as shown by the comrades switching the original plan to lease the site - owned by us taxpayers - to him for nothing to actually planning to GIVE it to him for free!) And so, alas, it remains a mystery for the time being how Dickhead Darren thought he was going to financially benefit from all this.....

(BTW - Petrouis used to advertise in the sister paper of the Wolverhampton c*ck-suckers, the Shropshire Star, but this obviously had no bearing on their enthusiastic support for this clearly bent deal).

I have pointed out in this blog many times that, notwithstanding the possible illegality of Jan Britton's Council repeatedly arranging contracts with single parties to the exclusion of all others, this is a most undesirable way of carrying on and a recipe for disaster.

You are probably wondering where all this is going..... This blog has shown that Cooper lied about the genesis of this deal but Britton's paid service have, hitherto, declined to answer a Freedom of Information Act about the true circumstances. I have also shown that, because Jan Britton is so pathetic, there is evidence that persons wishing to do business with "Sadwell" do NOT use the proper channels but make contacts with Councillors direct - another highly dubious and improper way of running a major local authority. (Just by way of example, we saw in the bog-gate scandal that when a relative - by marriage -  of Cllr Mahboob Hussain suddenly wanted to do a bent deal on some former public conveniences he initially made written contact about this with, er, proven liar Cllr Ian Jones rather than go through Britton's paid service!)

What is new - from the very senior Labour source - is that he says that the whole thing was actually set up by the former MP for West Bromwich East and now unelected legislator, "Lord" Peter Charles Snape! He allegedly introduced Petrouis to Sandwell. Now Snape makes no record of any interest in the Petrouis empire within his House of Lords Register of Interests and, even though he now lives in Birmingham, one can only assume that, if this is true, he was acting altruistically in suggesting such a facility for the benefit of his cherished former constituents. Whatever other reason could there be for his mysterious initiation of this deal?

I duly wrote to the noble "Lord" for his comments but he has declined to respond:

Dear “Lord” Snape,

THIS IS NOT A PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION

An allegation has been made by ***************************** that you personally introduced Mike Petrouis, the ice-rink operator, to Darren Cooper and/or Sandwell Council with a view to a new rink being built in West Bromwich.

Would you care to comment on this allegation please?

I did also try and corroborate this via a different very senior Labour source. When I asked him if Snape had initiated the deal he would only, cryptically, reply: "I wouldn't be surprised"!!!!

And so the plot thickens although at least we can say here that there is some good news as new Leader Cllr Steve Eling finally saw sense and scrapped the whole wretched project.

Coda:

Not only did bully-boy Cooper harass my wife and I with his nasty trolling campaign but he also used his own account to encourage all sorts of other people to have a go at me. Thus some hard-faced harridan on Twitter purporting to be "Lynda Waltho" started to put the boot in. Now I try and keep up with politics but had never heard of this person who was, apparently, the Labour MP for Stourbridge 2005-2010. Curiously, a "Lynda Waltho" shares the same Hall Green love-nest as one "Lord" Peter Charles Snape. Small world eh readers?

(Don't forget the new Skidder number - 07514 046661)

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Hackett Investigated for Alleged Bullying!

Tom Watson's boy and Sandwell Cabinet flop Simon "Two Homes" Hackett has been subject to an investigation in respect of alleged bullying of Council employees. This on top of other alleged misdemeanours!

We know that Chief Executive [sic] Jan Britton has allowed senior councillors to dominate every aspect of the Council's work. The late Smethwick Scumbag Darren Cooper roamed the building attempting to exercise his droit du seigneur and even the pathetic Wragge Report referred to alleged bullying by Mahboob Hussain on Britton's watch. It seems that this was also condoned by the trade unions purporting to represent the cowardly staff.

The Skidder understands the bullying allegations do NOT relate to Children's Services but in respect of other Council work and that there have been a number of upset employees at the "receiving end".

As ever under Britton this is being swept under the carpet and as I have stated here previously, new Leader Steve Eling is powerless to act against Hackett given Watson's patronage of his pet poodle.

In the meantime, at least the comrades have provided The Sandwell Slasher with some portable devices to protect his modesty if he needs to take a p*ss in a bus shelter....

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Wednesbury Police/Sandwell Labour In Pictures!

We know that there is a bent copper (or coppers) within the higher echelons of West Midlands Police protecting Sandwell Labour. The local Cowards in Blue have been anxious to protect the late woman-bullying thug Darren Cooper and, of course, Sandwell's "Mr Big", Mahboob Hussain.

But even at lower levels the law enforcers [sic] and local councillors cannot resist extensive mutual masturbation as a small number of many tweets set out below show.

Whilst turning a blind eye to widespread fraud, corruption and dodgy land sales (the former Coroner's Office sold to Hussain's son was just yards from Smethwick nick) they also refused to investigate the sting by Wednesbury Celebrates on Sport England which netted a £105,000 contract for Richard McVittie, boyfriend of Richard Jones who is, of course, the son of Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones and the brother of Cllr Stephen Jones. (Once again, Wednesbury Celebrates were operating just 100 yards from the door of Wednesbury Police Station.....)

I am informed that local residents have also been to Wednesbury Police alleging that large sums of money are, at worst, missing from Wednesbury Celebrates or, at best, not properly accounted for. The following tweets again help to explain why the local plod have pissed over the other complainants too.

For most of the time that there was suspicious activity, Cllrs Olwen Jones and Elaine Costigan were "trustees". Labour Party sources AND at least one trusted local resident assure me that Elaine was an innocent dupe in all this and didn't really appreciate what was going on. I find this rather surprising as she was intimately involved in applications for funding at a time when she was actively trying to get out of paying rent for Wednesbury Town Hall (and, of course, had she and the other "trustees" declared the debt to people like Sport England and the Big Lottery Fund they would have refused to pay grants to a clearly insolvent organisation). Further (and this is STILL a matter which has not been referred to the Standards Committee) Jones and Costigan constituted a Town Forum meeting which awarded their own organisation a grant from Sandwell Council!!!!

But if the police had done their job properly they should, at the very least, have interviewed Elaine Costigan as a witness if not as a suspect. And, of course, if she was genuinely duped there is nothing to stop her attending Wednesbury nick (where she clearly has many friends) and offering a statement about what has been going on. Don't hold your breath folks!

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And finally.....

Whilst on the subject of the Police, our old friend Bas Javid has been promoted! The brother of Cabinet Minister Sajid Javid was, of course, DIRECTLY involved in the bent Public deal as a Governor of sleazy "Sadwell" College. That is NOT to say that he is bent - he may have been mislead about the nature of the stinking deal or he may be a little dim when it comes to unusual transactions of that particular kind. Perhaps he just couldn't be bothered with technical stuff on top of his busy day job and he did miss a couple of the meetings? We do know, however, that he was very happy to go along with his fellow governors in trying to keep the "brilliant" deal, er, secret from the rest of us. Good on ya, Bas!

In the meantime, Mahboob Hussain is still wielding power and influence within local Labour Party politics despite being, er, suspended! He has now managed to get his young relative and protegee, Wasim Ali, an official post in Warley Labour Party. The great man is said to be grooming his boy for any spot on the Council that may arise (let's hope no one "does a Darren" anytime soon although Hussain's chums are also said to be manoeuvering to deselect one or two councillors to "create" a vacancy.) As above, Hussain has been assiduous in maintaining very close relationships with WMP - not for his own personal advantage of course, but for the benefit of the community - particularly in respect of matters relating to terrorism and security "lol"! Thus it will come as no surprise, given the identity of his mentor, who one of the first people to send grovelling congratulations to Bas Javid on his promotion to Chief Superintendent was......

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Scumbag Dishonours Sandwell War Dead

Shock and horror as alleged provider of "special services" to West Midlands Police and disgraced Councillor Mahboob Hussain played a leading role in Oldbury's Remembrance Sunday commemorations today. Despite Tom Watson MP now actively working to bring him down after years where his tenure as a Labour councillor has seen him and his family enjoy mysterious enrichment he was allowed to officially parade with the comrades from the Oldbury Council House and even, so I am told, lay a wreath.

Unlike the dead and injured of conflicts Hussain is more used to buildings he has been connected to catching fire than being under fire himself. Happily, he enjoys police protection and, even now, some support from a dwindling band of supporters with "Sandwell Labour Group". But people are tiring of his conduct - a local undertaker even campaigning to have a plaque bearing his name removed from the Muslim cemetery. He lost his puppet muppet earlier in the year and his "socialist" fans seem to now consist of old bag-carriers like Stephen Bloxham/Andrews/Kerton/Frear and Carol "the Debtor" Goult (who both had a public love-in with him at today's solemn event) and the lunatic fringe (ok, yes, I accept that this is a fairly broad category within "Sadwell" Labour) like Linda Horton.

Hopefully, his two-fingers to the memory of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for a free and better society will be the final straw. We shall see.....

Oh, and he couldn't be bothered to wear a suit either....

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Exclusive Breaking Sandwell News - Tricky Dicky!

The Yanks may have elected a clown but in Sandwell, Labour still have the whole bloody circus in control. Two days ago, I blogged about the Private Eye Magazine revelation that a Sandwell Councillor had failed to pay Council Tax and a summons had been issued. Today The Skidder can exclusively reveal that the person involved was Labour Cabinet member Richard Marshall. I understand there were some mitigating circumstances and that the whole bill was swiftly paid after the summons.

The new Leader, Steve Eling, promised a change from the regime of the late Smethwick Scumbag but has not followed through with joke "Chief Executive" Jan Britton already blocking FOI replies - eg in respect of Melanie Dudley's payout. Private Eye did a nationwide survey when most councils duly coughed up the information about errant councillors including neighbours Birmingham (Labour's Nawaz Ali) and Wolverhampton (Labour's Rupinderkit Kaur). But not "Sadwell" of course where Britton - presumably with Eling's blessing - fought to keep this secret. This is not an auspicious start to the new regime......

Addendum 10/11/16:

It gets worse! It seems that the late Smethwick Scumbag Darren Cooper was aware of all this and, no doubt, duly ordered the cover-up. The problem for Jan Britton is that in March, 2016 an Upper Tier Tribunal found that it was NOT appropriate for councils to try and conceal the identity of non-paying councillors using spurious exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act. The case was widely reported in the local government press (link below from Local Government Lawyer magazine) but, of course, we can't expect someone of Britton's abilities to be able to keep up with the law - and, in any event, the Cooper/Britton regime were happy to ignore it anyway if it suited them. Stinking Sandwell was one of just 25 councils out of 377 who failed to properly answer Private Eye Magazine's lawful FOI request. Steve Eling needs to lance this particular boil as soon as possible and I am writing to him appropriately.

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Skidder Shorts #30 - The Joneses

BREAKING NEWS - this blog has previously established that Richard Jones - son of Labour Councillors (the proven liar) Ian Jones and Olwen Jones and the brother of Cllr Stephen Jones - was directly involved in the bent bid to Sport England (supported by Sandwell Council and numerous Labour councillors). A mere £105,000 of the Sport England swag was to provide a job for Richard's boyfriend - £35k for three years. This was not mentioned to Sport England and no-one else was considered for the job. The boyfriend, Richard McVittie, moved from Guildford to take up the post (where he and Richard had been living together). The bid also failed to inform Sport England that Wednesbury Celebrates - the bidder - was heavily in debt and technically insolvent. West Midlands Police are STILL refusing to investigate this (and other allegations).

The Skidder has also shown that Richard Jones advertised his business as operating from Wednesbury Town Hall. He used those publically-owned facilities extensively but, er, neglected to pay us taxpayers any rent.

I am now informed that when the Sport England dosh started coming through a separate bank for "Sport Wednesbury" was set up and guess who one of the signatories was? Yes, step forward Mr Richard Jones! It just gets worse and worse....

AND:

Regular readers will know that Cllr Olwen was recently bragging about her new car:

You will all be glad to know that this week she has been boasting that she and her liar husband now also have a new "luxury" chalet in Kinver. Wednesbury does indeed Celebrate!

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Skidder Shorts #29 - Who Is The Mystery Miscreant?

With special thanks to the brilliant Private Eye Magazine who have produced an interactive map concerning those councillors who, in financial year 2015/16, were late in paying their council tax or were even summonsed for non-payment.

Noting that in the Steve Eling leadership debacle, a number of councillors were debarred from voting for non-payment of their dues to the Labour Party it seemed inevitable that the tight wads who lord it over the unfortunate local residents would appear in this Private Eye survey and so it came to pass even though the late Smethwick Scumbag had ensured that almost the entire council received "special responsibility" payments on top of their normal allowances.

Here is the entry for "Sadwell":

And so who is the Councillor who received a Summons for non-payment? I understand that SMBC won't say citing the usual confidentiality b*llocks and so I think a FOI request and appeal to the ICO is in order. Private Eye said the errant Councillor coughed up "after court" and so we shall have to try and find the court records too. Of course, the guilty party could save everyone a lot of bother by just owning up - but you know what this sleazy bunch are like.....

And finally...

Useless Chief Executive "lol" Jan Britton was seen this morning trying to force his gargantuan bulk into his little black sports car parked outside The Kremlin? Does he also have to pay car parking charges now like the rest of the cowards who work there have been forced to? I think we should be told.....

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Cllr Liam Preece

Steve Eling seemed to start so well as the new Leader of Sandwell Council but his promise of "greater transparency" already looks hollow. Whilst he is quite rightly getting rid of the top management structure (with the exception - so far - of two of the worst culprits) who presided over the corruption, incompetence and cronyism of the Cooper/Britton regime this is at huge cost to the taxpayer. And, of course, the leavers are signing confidentiality agreements in return for secret payments of huge sacks of our dosh (more on this shortly).

This blog has shown time and again that a number of councillors have potentially committed a criminal offence by failing to accurately complete the statutory Register of Members' Interests eg Mahboob Hussain, Mohammad Rouf, the liar Lucy Cashmore, Stephen Frear/Andrews/Bloxham, and Tony "Fudgy" Meehan. The most serious cases were referred to Sandwell Labour's friends at West Midlands Police who did precisely nothing even after my complaints were upheld by the Independent Police Complaints Commission!

In the "new spirit of openness" under Steve Eling only the current Register of Members' Interests is available online and SMBC would only disclose earlier entries pursuant to a Freedom of Information Request!!!! How crap is that? (I am building a database of entries for future reference....)

Incidentally, whilst "Hurricane Eling" has been showering cash on the leavers a further problem arises in that most right-thinking Local Government workers do not want to work for such a dysfunctional authority nor under a pathetic, useless (or worse), greaser like Jan Britton. Nor to they want to live in the dog-sh*t smeared streets of the "socialist paradise". Thus the new regime is having to (secretly) pay out what a senior councillor told me is "a fortune" for various people to come in and fill the vacancies on mega-expensive short-term contracts.

One such is the new, temporary, Monitoring Officer appointed by Jan Britton - one Meic Sullivan-Gould. He has come to Sadders from that other bastion of Labour corruption, er, Tower Hamlets. One can guess how much of our money this character is receiving since, despite the costs of travelling and working in London, he was able to shamelessly boast that the taxpayer had funded a little present to himself:

Regular readers will know that Richard Jones - son of Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones and brother of Cllr Stephen Jones - was directly involved (with SMBC) in the bent application by Sport Wednesbury to Sport England which netted his own boyfriend a £35k per annum job for three years (£105K). (Another matter the local "Cowards in Blue" are, so far, refusing to investigate).

Readers will also know that Richard Jones operated his "5 Star Performance Academy" from Wednesbury Town Hall whilst neglecting to pay us taxpayers any rent (there is STILL an outstanding FOI request about this Cllr Eling!)

Now yet another Councillor has been drawn into this scandal (Cllr Peter Hughes also supported the bent Sport England application as did Cllr Paul Moore - though the latter has stated that he had no idea that Richard Jones's boyfriend was the main beneficiary of the deal. Cllr Elaine Costigan was directly involved with Cllr Olwen Jones as "trustees" of Wednesbury Celebrates and there was the mysterious involvement of Murray Hall Community Trust where Cllr Bob Lloyd was Chair of Trustees. Finally, Friar Park Millennium Centre also supported the bent bid where the Chair of Trustees was Cllr Simon Hackett).

Yes, it now transpires that Cllr Liam Preece was actually on the payroll of Richard Jones's Academy as a freelance* Drama Teacher until, at least, August 2014!!!

Sandwell have now finally supplied me with Preece's various Register of Interests entries. Although he was elected in May, 2012 the first is not dated until 5th March, 2013 (?) and he doesn't declare any job with Jones in his handwritten entry. On 17th February, 2014 a typewritten entry and been amended in manuscript to add that he was working for 5 Star and giving Jones's business address as, er, "Wednesbury Town Hall". Whilst Preece has told The Skidder he stopped working for Jones in "August, 2014" he did fill in a typewritten Register entry on 20th August, 2014 stating he was still working for Jones then and also repeating the business address as "Wednesbury Town Hall".

And so at least it seems that Preece has made an effort to comply with the disclosure rules although that should not be surprising really as, in the murky, incestuous, world of Sandwell Labour, he states throughout that he is cohabiting with a "Sadwell" Council employee working in....wait for it... Governance Services!

But the fact is that whilst Richard Jones was shafting us taxpayers for rent, Cllr Liam Preece was prepared to take his shilling. What a guy!

And finally....

Thanks to all collaborators and, of course, readers of The Skidder. I am pleased to announce that we have now exceeded half a million views!

*"Freelance" in the sense of self-employed worker rather than in the Hosellian sense....

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Cockgate - Spot the Difference!

I thought it might be fun to play a little game. Jan Britton and Darren Cooper set up a huge propaganda machine at a cost to taxpayers of over half a million pounds per annum to glorify the late Great Helmsman and Sandwell Labour. The sinister "communications department" is severely over-staffed whilst other "frontline" services are being cut and when not watching their own impressive large screen TV in the office the drones try and fill the day by endlessly tweeting about dog-sh*t. But at least we know from this that SBMC's wardens are out and about doing good works - or do we? Compare and contrast:

Spot the difference when street warden Chris Jones found Cllr Simon Hackett urinating in a bus shelter. Fine - nought, zero, zilch.....

The whole Cockgate saga in a beautiful example of how the sleazy "socialists" in "Sadwell" operate. I cannot speak for my female readers but I am guessing a high percentage of male ones have pointed Percy at the pavement at one time or another. So, Simon "Two Homes" Hackett was totally pissed and felt the need to relieve himself in a public place? Embarrassing yes, but hardly the crime of the century? And I am sure that such indecent behaviour under the corrupt Cooper/Britton regime would not have debarred him from his eventual elevation to be Head of, er, Sandwell's disastrous Children's Services "lol"!

But as this blog has pointed out over and over again, the insidious, dictatorial brand of "socialism" in Sadders and Labour's iron grip on the Council for 40 years of abject failure means that even matters like this have to be covered-up so that there is no embarrassment to "The Party". This attitude led directly to the evil cronyism, incompetence and corruption of the Cooper/Britton regime, helped on by the supine inaction of West Midlands Police.

The Hackett cock-out story has been known to me for some time since a long-standing informant within SMBC was, ahem, "privy" to some of the contemporaneous conversations that went on. The original story was that Hackett was drunk and was with Tom Watson MP at the time. The warden, Chris Jones, did not apparently know who Hackett was and was going to issue a fine there and then but Watson did the "don't you know who I am?" routine and Chris Jones backed off. Alas, as we shall see, it appears that one part of this story cannot be correct.

When Jones reported the incident next day the p*ss hit the fan as other individuals obviously knew who Hackett was. My informant told me that SMBC employee Mr Kevin Dennis became involved and reported the matter up the line - but some unknown person happily decided no further action would be taken against the good councillor. I have tried via the Freedom of Information Act to ascertain who made the decision not to proceed with action but to no avail..... The cover-up continues!

Mr Kevin Dennis has since left the Sadwell cesspool and must be a fine upstanding individual as he is now Chief Executive of the Nottinghamshire Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, no less! I duly wrote to him on 13th September but, alas, he did not feel the need to tell me the truth about this sordid affair:

"Dear Mr Dennis,

I write a blog about Sandwell Council and I understand that you used to be Head of Community Safety there.

I am informed (from a usually very reliable source) that you were aware of a community officer finding Cllr Simon Hackett urinating in a bus shelter and that the officer concerned intended to issue a penalty notice. However, SMBC say no such notice was issued. Were you responsible for blocking the issue of the notice at the time or someone else please?"

Of course, Hackett went on to commit the cardinal sin of opposing the vicious woman-bullying thug, Darren Cooper, and so the Smethwick Scumbag had a couple of his cronies phone me dishing up the story. That was the way he operated. But then a very senior Sandwell Councillor close to Hackett tried to put me off the scent telling me that Simon was "so pissed" he had absolutely no recollection of the incident whatsoever. The implication being that the incident never happened although that would effectively be calling Mr Chris Jones and Kevin Dennis (together with other SMBC employees such as ****** *******  and **** *****) liars which would be a rather serious allegation wouldn't it readers?

We do not know if Hackett's convenient amnesia was another manifestation of that sudden temporary memory loss known in Sadders as "Hussain's Disease" or whether the current Chair of Trustees of the Albion Foundation and Head of Children's Services was so inebriated he genuinely could not remember anything (and he must have been pretty smashed not to remember an encounter with authority).

It is not clear how this information was ascertained but it is now being said that Hackett was alone when the incident occurred and so the "Watson" story doesn't, er, hold water.

So whilst errant dog-owners get fined £75, pisshead councillors who urinate in the street get off scot-free. But there are a number of other serious allegations stacking up against "Two Homes", not least the serious breach of confidence mentioned in a recent post, and the Sandwell Slasher is not out of the place where bears defecate just yet....

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What Melanie Did Next?

I don't like to deal in rumours but it is a great shame that so many folk in Sandwell "do a Watson" when asked perfectly reasonable questions. They follow the policy of that great tribune of the people Tom Watson MP ie never responding or commenting on anything.

I did think I would probably not be bothering with Melanie Dudley in this blog again save in respect of a Freedom of Information request which I put in with regard her huge pay-off at our expense.

Regular readers will know that Mel was at "Sadwell"for a long time  (although - certainly latterly - she wouldn't live in the sh*t-hole herself) and was near the top of the greasy-pole for much of the period when the Council plunged into corruption and incompetence during the disastrous Cooper/Britton regime. And yet despite being right in there as many of the fiascos and scandals occurred the late Smethwick Scumbag, Darren Cooper promoted her (!) to Assistant Chief Executive as recently as December, 2014 (her 2015/16 package was just £141,231 for the year).

Of course, Mel knew where most of the bodies were and even, it seems, had information on the sexual peccadilloes of at least one of "the comrades". There were even suggestions that she would get the top job when Cooper and Britton went off to run the new West Midlands Combined Authority -"lol".

Yet in April, 2016 (when it was obvious that the crazed Cooper's deluded dream of being WMCA Mayor was in tatters) she arranged a severance package to commence in February, 2017. But why that date of departure?

Now a letter went out to Councillors which I have referred to before but please note especially what Jan Britton had to say at the time:

"The Assistant Chief Executive, Melanie Dudley, has also made a mutual agreement to leave the council's employment in February next year. This was agreed by the previous Leader of the Council, Cllr Darren Cooper."

I duly asked what authority the late stiff had to make a deal with anyone and the story has subtly changed.in a new FOI reply. It was, they say, actually Jan Britton who set up this weird deal but as was "common practice" he had consulted Dickhead Daz who approved it shortly before he snuffed it. (Of course, in a data protection issue raised by a local community activist Jan Britton's Council admit in writing that they scrubbed Cooper's email account very quickly after his death - I can't imagine why (!) or how that was actually legal).

But Jan Britton now claims he agreed to Mel departing under the "Planned Leavers Scheme"! This was a scheme set up to try and mitigate some of the worst effects of Cooper & Britton's mass redundancies whilst also SAVING the taxpayer money. But like the "Jobs Promise" scheme etc this was not intended for Chief Officers - indeed one document clearly shows the ACE (ie Mel) being specifically excluded!

In my FOI, I also asked for all documentation with regard to the deal but this has not been forthcoming despite SMBC sending me details of the scheme which shows that Dudley had to apply via form HR25.2 if not eligible for pension or via email/writing to her service manager - presumably Britton - if eligible. The fact that she was not eligible under the scheme - despite what Britton now says - is that any dispute about eligibility had to be referred for decision by, er, Melanie Dudley.

Oh and by the way, the report recommending that the scheme be implemented was submitted by one, er, Melanie Dudley!!!! (As an aside, all eligible persons have to sign a legal settlement agreement conveniently drawn up by the SMBC legal department. Do you think that might contain a confidentiality agreement eh, readers?)

But the scheme involves defined benefits for the employee so why would Jan Britton and Cooper agree her a much better package when she was leaving on a date of her own choice and for her own reasons? Needless to say Britton is refusing to say and the FOI request moves on to the next stage.

The new Leader, Steve Eling, then booted Mel out early but with a massive and secret pay-off. I have no interest in the confidential amount that the taxpayer, via SMBC, were due to pay her off via her contractual entitlement  but the public is surely entitled to know how much over that sum has been agreed by Britton? Looks like that will go all the way to the Information Commissioner.....

But it has been bothering me why, last April, Britton agreed for her to go in Feb 2017 with a huge pay-off. Why was that date selected by Mel?

There is a rumour - which, please note, MUST be false - that she had already been lined up as highly-paid Chief Executive of Murray Hall Community Trust, a charity in receipt of  very large amounts of public funds, in place of one Malcolm Bailey.

Now sharp readers will remember that Murray Hall featured in this blog before in respect of the bent application by Wednesbury Celebrates to Sport England which happily gained a three-year £35,000 a year job for one Richard McVittie, the partner of Richard Jones, son of Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones (and brother of Cllr Stephen Jones).

Malcolm Bailey was obviously entirely innocent and in the dark when he wrote on behalf of Murray Hall supporting the bent bid to Sport England and saying that Murray Hall and three other organisations including Kaleidoscope (no doubt after thorough due diligence) were going to put £15,000 in themselves. Wednesbury Celebrates - run principally by Cllrs Olwen Jones and Elaine Costigan at the time) then told Sport England that:

"Murray Hall trust has agreed to manage the Activator role as they have the resources in place to supervise and manage full-time employment."

But when I broke the story of the bent nature of this deal the BBC took an interest. An unspecified "spokesperson" for Wednesbury Celebrates stated to them that Richard McVittie HAD been interviewed by Murray Hall and all was above board in his recruitment (he had previously been living with Richard Jones in Guildford). But then Murray Hall did a Watson with the BBC and refused to speak to them - insisting they refer back to Wednesbury Celebrates! And when I contacted this allegedly reputable charity they replied "we will not be communicating with yourselves on this matter now or in the future."

Curiously I also contacted Kaleidoscope whose Monica Shafaq stated in writing that they had no involvement in the project!

Of course, Labour Councillor Bob Lloyd is Chair of the Trustees but he too did a Watson on all this. Meanwhile, Wednesbury Celebrates and Richard Jones "5 Star Academy" were racking up huge debts to SMBC which they failed to mention in other funding bids thus hiding their actual insolvency from funders.  I am STILL awaiting a FOI reply on how much SMBC actually recovered and why they are not taking legal action but even under the new "Hurricane Eling" regime the information has not been forthcoming although one reply did elicit that one Melanie Dudley was involved in trying to sort it out!

One has to assume, despite their occasional, opacity that Murray Hall are reputable and I am sure their funders have their finger on the pulse as it were. It cannot be the case that they would break all the rules just to present the CEO position to Mel. Obviously it would be very easy for them to confirm but, yes you guessed it, they won't!

Here is my mail to them of  4th October to which I have not even had the courtesy of an acknowledgement let alone a substantive reply:

"I am informed that Murray Hall Trust had a candidate lined up to replace Malcolm Bailey "when he goes". No doubt this is all a misunderstanding as the post would have to be advertised etc.

For the record. is Mr Bailey due to leave and, if so, when? If his departure is to be fairly soon what will the recruitment process be for his replacement and where will this be advertised please?"

And so I also wrote to the Chair of Trustees, Cllr Lloyd, on 7th October but answer came there none:

"I wonder if you could use your good offices to secure a reply from Murray Hall to my email of 4th October?

"I am informed that Murray Hall Trust had a candidate lined up to replace Malcolm Bailey "when he goes". No doubt this is all a misunderstanding as the post would have to be advertised etc.

For the record. is Mr Bailey due to leave and, if so, when? If his departure is to be fairly soon what will the recruitment process be for his replacement and where will this be advertised please?"

All another Sandwell "misunderstanding", I am sure. There is, of course, no problem in Mel applying for the job if and when it becomes available - despite the shocking history of SMBC under her co-stewardship - and I am sure we all wish her every success so that she doesn't have to dip into the large pot of gold we have given her any time soon....

AND FINALLY - there is some more potential bad news for Sadders. The joke "Chief Executive", Jan Britton, was meant to be the advance guard at West Mids Combined Authority for the uber thick Cooper to become Mayor (ROFLMAO) and despite the fraud, cronyism and incompetence within Sandwell since he was appointed in 2010 he was - unbelievably - appointed "Chief Operating Officer" for WMCA for two days a week. But the current rumour is that this is being reduced to one day a week which obviously means he will be bringing his "skill-set" "lol" back to The Kremlin for extra hours........

Here's a picture of him playing with himself, er sorry "multi-tasking", during the inaugural meeting of the WMCA. What a guy! Greater Birmingham's loss will be Sandwell's gain....

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Shooting The Messenger - SMBC Make Legal Threats!

I have tonight received the following letter by hand-delivery from SMBC which is not marked as being sent on a private and confidential basis:

It will probably come as no surprise that SMBC make no comment with regard to the substantive allegation but use their power to bully and cajole. I do, however, have to consider my own legal position and so I have, unfortunately, made what I hope will be temporary redactions to the original post. It seems a great shame that the new leadership seems to be following on in the same manner as the old.

Here is my reply to SMBC:

"I have received your hand-delivered letter.

This is NOT a private and confidential communication.

I am not prepared to remove the blog but without any admissions whatsoever and pending clarification of the legal issues I have redacted certain sections and attach herewith the edited post.

Let it be said that this post was written as it dealt with a matter of obvious public interest and the content is entirely justified. 

It is not possible for me to comment on the accuracy or otherwise of the report you refer to but you have specifically NOT said that my blog post of today contains inaccuracies. If that is your position please advise and I will certainly give consideration to deleting the post in whole or in part. If that is not your case I will seek to reinstate the redacted sections as I will not be intimidated into silence

by your threats.

Please also note that I hold further information pertaining to Cllr Hackett which has been gleaned from a whole variety of sources. I will CONSIDER a temporary suspension of further posts about him but that is my decision and not yours.

I trust my response is wholly satisfactory."

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Cllr Simon Hackett - Part 1

WITHOUT DENYING THE TRUTH OF THE ALLEGATIONS MADE IN THIS POST, SANDWELL COUNCIL HAVE THREATENED ME WITH AN INJUNCTION FOR PUBLISHING SERIOUS MATTERS THAT ARE CLEARLY A MATTER OF CONSIDERABLE PUBLIC INTEREST. I AM A ONE-MAN BAND AND DO NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES OF SANDWELL COUNCIL AND SO I HAVE HAD TO REDACT CERTAIN SECTIONS OF THIS POST PENDING RESOLUTION OF LEGAL ISSUES.

PLEASE ALSO SEE MY FURTHER POST "SHOOTING THE MESSENGER..." VIA:

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/shooting-messenger-smbc-make-legal.html

An open letter to Edward Timpson MP, Minister for Vulnerable Children with copies to Cllr Steve Eling, Jan Britton (for what that is worth) and The Albion Foundation.

"Dear Minister,

Re: Cllr Simon Hackett - Head of Children’s Services - Sandwell SMBC

On 6th October, 2016 you wrote to Cllr Steve Eling, the new Labour Leader of Sandwell Council explaining that the Borough’s disastrous Children’s Services were to be taken over by a trust. As you succinctly put it:

“SMBC has failed its most vulnerable children and young people for approaching seven years.”

(Coincidentally, the Chief Executive [sic] of SMBC, Jan Britton, has been in post since 2010).

For you to make sense of what follows I need to explain how Sandwell Council operates to a different code of ethics (insofar as it has one) from most other councils. Until recent difficulties Labour held 71 of the 72 council seats and the party has been in total control for decades. The Council and “The Party” are now synonymous in the manner of the Pyongyang regime. Every decision is initially assessed as “will it help the Party” before any greater discussion of the wider public good.

You probably had the good fortune never to meet the previous Leader of the Council, Darren Cooper (now deceased). He was a thick, bullying moron and social media troll who liked to attempt to control every aspect of life in the Borough and who loved to obtain information on people in the hope he could use it for his own political ends at a later date. (You may also wish to investigate how Cooper and Britton intervened during the tendering process which led to Impower being employed at huge fees to "improve" Children's Services).

(Again it is noteworthy that under the Cooper/Britton regime the Council became a byword for corruption, incompetence and cronyism so that there have been a large number of high-profile departures from the Council recently - albeit at huge cost to the taxpayer).

Sitting above all this is the loathsome Tom Watson MP (infamous, of course, for hounding a man to his grave with unfounded allegations of the vilest kind). He employs Simon Hackett (according to the latter’s Register of Interests) AND another Councillor who was privy to what follows. He also claims, for electoral registration purposes, to spend a considerable period of time living Chez Hackett when this is not true - a matter duly ignored by the said Jan Britton qua Returning Officer.

Simon Hackett has gained very extensive knowledge of the “third sector” through earlier employment and is a trustee of a charity which has significant child safeguarding responsibilities. He is an experienced Councillor and Cabinet member. In the circumstances he his very well aware of the duty of confidentiality when dealing with children and young people. Unfortunately, he has abused the trust placed in him and failed in his duty.

[Paragraph temporarily removed under threat of injunction by Sandwell MBC]

This is not only a very significant breach of standards and a gross dereliction of his duty but this shabby behaviour was also highly likely to have been a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 [Addendum - even though SMBC have not disputed the facts upon which I based this post their lawyers insist that there was NO breach of the Data Protection Act 1998. They provide no evidence for this assertion and I cannot comment further until additional information is available.]

I should say that I have the evidence of all this.

The problem that the people of Sandwell have is that Councillors who are “caught out” there never do the honourable thing and resign. Unfortunately, the new Leader, Mr Eling, does not have the power to dismiss Hackett because of the malign influence of Mr Watson in the running of the Borough. Therefore I am asking you to use your good offices to have this appalling state of affairs thoroughly investigated by your department and/or by the new Trust to make sure that Hackett can never xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [sentence partially redacted under threat of injunction by SMBC]. I respectfully submit that your duty to vulnerable children in Sandwell (already so badly let down) demands your intervention here.

I am copying in the Albion Foundation where Hackett is a Trustee as they need to review their own safeguarding policy given Hackett’s apparent willingness xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [sentence partially redacted under threat of injunction by Sandwell SMBC]

I leave it to you to investigate whether Hackett acted maliciously in behaving in the unacceptable way he did.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can assist further but Jan Britton and SMBC employee Jane Perham will be able to assist you with all the facts and documents involved in this sordid and scandalous affair and Hackett xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [sentence partially redacted under threat of injunction by Sandwell SMBC].

I await the outcome of your investigations with interest.

Yours faithfully etc...."

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