I have written no less that six posts on the scandal of the Rouf mansion plus others referring to it but matters are actually WORSE than I have found out so far....
Let us not forget that Rouf has told a string of lies in his Register of Interests with regard to both his employment situation and his ownership of property. He used to own both 23 Wellington Road, Smethwick and a flat at 88 Shireland Road. Land Registry documents show that in or around 2005 he disposed of his interest in his interest in his flat to one of his sons, Mohammad Shauib though he continued to claim to own it in his Register of Interests (which means he made a false declaration to SMBC or to HM Land Registry). The flat has subsequently been transferred to Saleeman Begum - believed to be also connected to Rouf.
In April, 2013 he sold his unmortgaged property at 23 Wellington Road for £125,000 but despite having this large capital sum (and the possible interest in a flat) he was given an SMBC council house at 33 Trafalgar Road, Smethwick. Why is this not being investigated for f*ck sake?
We saw in yesterday's post how Cllr Frear concealed that he had also been given a council house by claiming to own it in the Register of Interests when this was clearly untrue. Rouf has done exactly the same thing IN MORE THAN ONE DECLARATION. Making a false declaration is, potentially, a criminal offence but, as ever, bent West Midlands Police (WMP) have refused to investigate this.
This blog has shown that Labour Sandwell Council paid over £200,000 for 8 houses in Poplar Grove on Florence Road, Smethwick and then used our, taxpayer's, money to demolish them and create a nice clear building plot. The area is all terraced housing but Labour then sold this huge plot to Cllr Rouf's son, Shauib, for just £65,000. He was granted planning permission by the comrades to put a huge and incongruous seven-bedroom house there - despite widespread local objections (including to London-resident "local" MP John Spellar) - which was subsequently built and where Cllr Rouf himself is now in residence. For good measure, the comrades reduced the price of an annual parking pass in the car park opposite to a pittance!
This blog was actively blocked by Jan Britton's bent paid service from establishing the facts for many months. I have been contacted by a number of people who wanted to buy the nice cleared plot and who contacted SMBC. They say that they were fobbed off either by being told the property was going to auction or that there was a problem in selling the land because of the presence of a small electrical sub-station thereon (which was moved without fuss to land supplied by, er Labour Sandwell Council in the car park opposite. It is not clear whether the comrades also paid for this to be done as another gift to the Rouf family.) One or two other yarns were told potential buyers. they all say that despite having expressed an interest they were NOT contacted by SMBC when the alleged bidding process started.
One family who own businesses in the area were particularly interested. Like all the other people I spoke to they were mystified about the "sealed bid" process for the sale and say they knew nothing about it. This family certainly contacted WMP when the first corrupt fraud "investigation" started and voiced their concern that there had been criminal activity in the bidding process.
But it gets worse! It now transpires from the meeting of the Audit Committee last week that the plot WAS actually put up for auction but a file note says that the former "leader", Smethwick Scumbag Darren Cooper, asked Cllr Ian Jones to pull it from the sale. There is, apparently, a paper trail linking proven liar Jones to the removal of the property from auction. We are now also told that the property was removed from auction by Cllr Ian Jones as it was to be sold privately to another son of, er, Cllr Mohammad Rouf at a considerable undervalue!!!!
Nothing was said at the Audit Committee why this sale did not proceed and we clearly need evidence about this.
At the Committee meeting were two of the Council's statutory officers. Firstly Darren Carter, the new s.151 Officer who is supposed to be the money man. Secondly, the "on contract" and, no doubt mega-expensive, Monitoring Officer, Meic Sullivan Gould (as featured in this blog when he boasted how he has bought a sports car from the money he made out of another Labour basket-case council, Tower Hamlets).
There is no evidence that Mr Carter has been involved in the fraud and corruption of the Cooper/Britton period but I understand that he has been with Jan Britton's bent paid service for some years - certainly since 2014 - as a senior accountant etc. If he was not aware of the fraud and corruption then he was another, like Britton himself, who seemingly had his head up his arse throughout all the shenanigans and the question has to be asked as to whether he is a fit and proper person to be engaged in these investigations. Even if he is squeaky clean there is a public perception that he was in very senior posts when all this was going on. Surely, someone independent must be brought in to deal with these allegations?
We don't know much about Meic apart from his love of putting pictures of himself eating and drinking in foreign climes on social media and whether he is up to the job. He seemingly has no local knowledge and it is noteworthy that after the previous Audit Committee meeting he was to be seen laughing and joking with Cllr Jones's solicitor which seems highly inappropriate in the circumstances.
These two gentlemen claim to have "investigated" these matters. They accept that the allegation that Jones pulled the property from auction to sell to one of Rouf's sons may have been a breach of the Council's rules (!) but they say this should NOT be a matter that should be referred to the police!!!! They say that because the deal was mysteriously stopped by person or persons unknown there was no loss to the Council. (And so if I run into the post office with a gun to rob it but come out empty handed this is not a police matter???)
Darren and Meic then claimed that there was NOTHING WRONG with the sealed bid process where, by amazing coincidence, the plot was sold to another of Rouf's sons.
We must remember that disgraced employee, Dave Willetts of Bog-gate infamy, was involved in all this which must, in itself, be a cause for concern.
Willetts said in a Freedom of Information reply that the large clear plot was "marketed" in an unspecified way for "four or five weeks". Despite the widespread local interest (eg see comment below from Gail Meek and, as above, that a family gave evidence to WMP about their definite interest) Cooper's big mate Dave said only three bids were received. There was, oddly, a £75 fee to bid but one bidder had failed to pay and was immediately disqualified. Of just two remaining bids the highest at a mere £65k was from Rouf's son.
In the very same meeting, Darren and Meic said they were referring other matters to WMP because of problems with exactly the same "sealed bid" process in other land sales but for some bizarre reason they think everything was OK here?
To be fair, at least two Councillors present at the Committee meeting were incredulous about all this. Cllrs Bob Piper and Bill Gavan argued there was clear prima facie evidence that there was something seriously wrong here which must be referred to WMP and it was up to them to decide if there had been criminality. Unfortunately, this rather overlooks the fact that part of this sorry saga WAS reported to WMP by me and others. When nothing was being done due to WMP corruption I specifically wrote to DI Chris Berrow way back on 17th April, 2015 and a redacted form of that letter was shown on this blog as long ago as 24th April, 2015 (see item 7).
http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/smbc-another-big-police-cover-up.html
We now know that Darren Cooper, Jan Britton and Neeraj Sharma agreed to commission the Wragge Report and that corrupt WMP agreed to pull the fraud investigation (such as it was) because of this. This is crazy. The Police have extensive investigative powers - far beyond Wragge's and even the Council itself. Wragge's report - in my opinion a very expensive piece of badly-written sh*t - only looked at documents and not the context here. They have assumed that everyone is telling the truth which is ridiculous. In this particular case Jan Britton deliberately made sure that the instructions to Wragges were very limited and did not even ask them to consider some very serious issues like this one (perhaps because Cooper was directly involved) and the Hussain taxi contract! Given the colossal cost of the report this should be a disciplinary issue for the joke "Chief Executive" in itself.
It is noteworthy that at the small demo outside the Oldbury Council House back at the 2016 mayor-making the demonstrators called for a Wragge-style investigation into Rouf but still nothing has been done. As ever, the comrades have circled the wagons rather than root out corruption.
In this particular case the Police already had a prima facie case to question the sealed bid process (also criticised in my very first blog on this affair all the way back on 26/09/14!) and to seek evidence from local people about the dubious sales process. (I am now planning a leafleting campaign in the area.) We know that WMP only interviewed four people under caution in the whole alleged initial investigation and we can safely surmise that Mohammad Rouf was not one of them! That HAS to be rectified Chief Constable particularly given the new evidence on an earlier attempt to sell the land at an undervalue to another member of the same Councillor's family. Come on Dave Thompson - pull your finger out or arrange for an independent force to do the job properly!
THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!
Confidential phone no: 07514 046661 Facebook: Julian Saunders
Email: thesandwellskidder@gmail.com
PROUD TO HAVE BEEN TROLLED BY DICKHEAD DARREN COOPER DECEASED!
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