The late Smethwick Scumbag, Darren Cooper, regularly railed against the Freedom of Information Act (either personally or via his pet social media troll, Andrew Hipkiss) whilst his head of the bent paid service, Jan Britton, caused and/or permitted many replies under the Act to be grossly misleading, incomplete (usually concealing information for spurious reasons), unanswered within the statutory time limits and, in some cases (eg Mr Willetts in the Bog-gate Scandal) completely - and seemingly deliberately, false.
Here was Cllr Eling speaking to The Skidder just last week after the full Council meeting (and what a difference in intelligence and attitude from the threatening, grunting sh*t-smear who preceded him as "Leader"):
But, alas, "good news" doesn't last long in Sadders - particularly when Tom Watson MP is involved. And so we come back to the case of Watson's puppet, Cllr Simon "Two Homes" Hackett.
Hackett recently faced a standards investigation in respect of no less than SIX allegations. Firstly, that he inappropriately disclosed information concerning a child gleaned in his position as political boss of the appalling failure that is Sandwell Labour's Children's Service to the late Smethwick Scumbag and others; secondly that he intervened in respect of a parking ticket to his wife; thirdly that he intervened in a proposal for the Council to buy-back his mother's flat; fourthly that he was caught by a SMBC warden urinating in a public place (and this was hushed-up as featured in my post "It's a Cock-Out" and others); fifthly, that he bullied SMBC staff and sixthly, that he failed to make appropriate declarations in respect of the second and third issues above.
It is noteworthy that Sandwell Council hand-delivered a solicitor's letter to my home threatening me with an injunction to stop me writing about all this.
It is very rare for those usually exceptional chroniclers of the misdeeds of SMBC The Halesowen News to take their eye off the ball but on 1st December, 2016 they reported a story under the headline "Cleared Sandwell Councillor speaks of delight after investigation finds no wrongdoing." They quoted "Two Homes" as saying, "they were malicious, politically motivated and untrue allegations". Former "Sadwell" Labour Councillor John Tipper weighed-in with "these allegations were nonsense....".
So let's drill down into this a little deeper....
Allegation One - far from being untrue the Standards Committee investigators stated in a draft report AND a "final report" of August, 2016:
"We find by either raising the matter at the meeting and or allowing a discussion to take place that Councillor Hackett has either disclosed or caused to be disclosed confidential information. The councillors present at the meeting were not entitled to be informed of the matter and for a discussion to take place".
"The information given to Cllr Hackett was given to him in confidence and the paperwork marked as IL2 Protect. This was disclosed at the meeting."
The investigators then decided that Hackett HAD breached the Code of Conduct:
"we have determined that the evidence..shows that there is a breach of the Code of Conduct in that a member must not disclose any information given to them as a member in breach of any confidence."
As we shall see below it is important to note that these finding were made after an extensive investigation and the report was prepared six months after the meeting complained of.
Allegation Two - whilst Hackett was "exonerated" see my earlier post disclosing the discrepancies in Mrs Hackett's appeal against her parking ticket:
http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/mrs-hacketts-parking-ticket.html
Allegation Three - again Hackett was exonerated but mainly because the Standards Committee investigators trashed the evidence of a very senior SMBC employee, Kerry Bolister. Hackett directly accused her of lying to the investigators: "Councillor Hackett denies speaking to Kerry Bolister and states this is a lie." Although his Mother eventually moved into his own second property he claims he knew nothing of any proposed buy-back and had not actually seen her for months at the material time. The Standards Committee report apparently disbelieved this stating in their findings of fact "it appears that the weight of evidence does suggest that he knew of his Mother's application sooner than he accepts." (!) Nevertheless he was "exonerated" and a nasty stain left on the character of Ms Bolister who no longer works for SMBC.
Incidentally, beleaguered Cllr Ian Jones also features in this little saga.
See also my post:
http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/kerry-bolister-liar-claims-cllr-hackett.html
Allegation Four - as reported in many posts passim. Hackett's "defence" was that he was too pissed to remember anything of the evening in question. So was the allegation untrue etc? Here is what the Standards Committee investigators say:
"The evidence of Chris Jones (the Street Warden) is clear, he was on patrol in the early hours of the morning...and observed a man urinating in a bus stop. He approached the man, who he observed to be intoxicated, the man was still urinating......Chris Jones took the man's details, which were given as Simon Hackett."
Following further corroborative evidence the investigators stated:
"Considering the evidence on the balance of probabilities the act did occur and on the balance of probabilities, Cllr Simon Hackett was the person who committed it."
He was only "exonerated" as he was not acting in his official capacity as a Councillor at the time. It was also found that ex-Mayor and Councillor Derek Rowley did not cover the matter up though there is no explanation whatsoever why Hackett did not receive a fixed penalty notice although staff "were aware" that he was a senior Councillor...... (The Council have recently reported certain unrelated allegations concerning Derek Rowley to West Midlands Police for investigation. I am guessing that Rowley denies the allegations.)
Allegation Five - we have seen other allegations that Jan Britton caused and/or permitted the bullying of staff by certain Councillors. Here, no less than FIVE employees gave written statements alleging bullying by Hackett. The investigators stated:
"There does appear to be a general feeling amongst the staff at Wednesbury in particular, that Cllr Hackett's approach does make some staff feel unhappy."
Whilst finding for Hackett on the bullying allegation the investigators said this:
"Cllr Hackett should be mindful that even though we have determined that this behaviour does not breach the code of conduct, his approach towards some staff requires some improvement. Cllr Hackett accepted in his interview that there could be some change on his part."
Allegation Six - no longer relevant as allegations two and three not proceeded with.
But what happened next? After all, there HAD been a finding of breach of the Code of Conduct in respect of allegation one after extensive investigations and interviews with a number of Councillors (including Tom Watson employee Cllr Moore, Cllr Crompton and the now rebel leader, Cllr Yvonne Davies. Alas The Turdmeister was unable to give evidence though, as a pathological liar, it would have been of little worth in any event.)
It seems, "final" doesn't exactly mean just that. It is alleged (and I have no proof of this) that after the "final" report was circulated Tom Watson MP intervened. Over six months after the event and a thorough investigation it is said that further "witnesses" suddenly made themselves available to the investigators. Whisper it softly but it is alleged one was none-other than "fraud-buster" Steve Eling himself. And so, in the light of the "new evidence" the charge against him was dropped.
Hackett took to Facebook crowing about his "innocence":
Despite the comments in the report as set out above a number of cheering comrades liked or commented on this post ie Cllrs Piper, Taylor, Gill, Giles, S. Hosell, Costigan and Marshall plus ex-Councillors Davies and Tipper.
Well.you might say, trebles all round! In Steve Eling's new "open and transparent" administration there can now be no problem in releasing all the documentation concerning this - suitably redacted in respect of the confidential information concerning the child. After all, Hackett has been found to have been as pure as the driven snow [sic].
It is not often that I ask my long-suffering readers to plough through the detail of a Freedom of Information Request but my request and the reply from Sandwell Council is set out in full via the link below and I urge you to take a quick look. Now why would Cllr Eling want to cover-up this whole sordid tale? He's a very approachable sort of guy so why don't you ask him? Meanwhile, it looks like I am going to have to head off to the Information Commissioner to try to force a proper and detailed reply.
Cover-up? What cover-up:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/381478/response/949932/attach/html/2/attachment.docx.html
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