We will call the employing charity EZ and the charity of which Linda is a trustee, FX.
Cooper likes to portray me as some sort of hidden "troll" which is ludicrous. My blog is now well established with over 168,000 views, I have been quoted in local papers, interviewed on local BBC radio and regularly visit Sandwell Council House for either research purposes or to sit in on meetings. Indeed it was on one such research trip that this photograph was taken and so I am hardly "undercover":
 |
| Two of these three cabinets members have now stood down. But Cooper is trying to cover-up his vicious bullying by claiming that he is some sort of unspecified "victim" - which the mainstream local press were mostly happy to print without question. You will see below that this is what is popularly known as "bollocks". As we saw in Part 1 that Cooper had been unable to silence this blog - even with the help of Sandwell's Head of Legal, Neeraj Sharma, and so decided to "get at me" by attacking my wife and, more particularly, by trying to destroy her reputation with her present employers and with a charity of which she is a trustee. The initial tactic was to suggest that my blog was somehow "secret" and to keep threatening to disclose it to various persons. That didn't work and so why he should be returning to that particular, er, dog-turd is a mystery!
This blog is nothing to do with my wife and far from keeping it secret I am happy to promote it. I am personally very proud that The Skidder and its small but dedicated team have uncovered poor governance and wrong-doing by what claims to be a "Labour" Group in an area of great deprivation - particularly when such investigations were eschewed by most of the local mainstream media. And so Cooper's bullying threats were never likely to cut any ice with me - although undoubtedly unpleasant for Linda and the two charities Cooper and Rickers have made the decision to harass and intimidate.
It goes without saying that when, out of the blue, Unite the Union start attacking local arts charities they do tend to notice and ask questions!!!! Cooper and Rickers don't seem to have appreciated that!
We have seen that Unite's local officer, Rickers, harassed EZ with a string of lies (eg that he has a friend who works for them) and the imbecilic Cooper and "Paul Reeves" joined in. Then the massive troll attacks started. I am informed that EZ took appopriate action.
Rickers and Cooper could not even get the facts right when bullying EZ and started alleging that it is registered at our home address. Of course, Rickers was also harassing me about this and the dimwitted Cooper then sent a public twitter message TO ME:
"If your [sic] not going to reply to @brianrickers1 Could you explain why a great charity like EZ is registered at your home address".
Leaving aside why on earth I would want to communicate with Unite and a piece of shit like Rickers, this is factually wrong and EZ confirmed this to Britton and Sharma in writing on 4th December, 2014. Unfortunately, this very senior pair have no influence so far as the lunatic "leader" is concerned.
For the record EZ is a small performing arts charity but with a nationally and internationally-known reputation and currently enjoys Arts Council National Portfolio status. All its aims, programmes, activities and financial information are readily available for everyone to see via their own website and those of the Charity Commission and Companies House. It is a charitable company limited by guarantee and my wife is a Director - so that her address is clearly shown on all relevant sites. The Charity itself is registered in central Birmingham and not as stated by Cooper and Unite the Union.
Like all bullies Cooper does not only participate in this activity but likes to play psychological games which he thinks will distress his victims - in this particular case, us. But being incredibly stupid this is where he let the cat out of the bag! And so Cooper tried to intimidate us by threatening to write direct to EZ in the hope that this would harm our reputations - Linda's particularly.
We were quite surprised at this since, as before, Cooper always claims his twitter is purely personal and so why would HE write to the charity in a personal capacity? Was this just another one of his attempts at psychological bullying and, as I have given evidence to the Regional Fraud Team investigating Sandwell Council, witness intimidation? Surely not from a person who is, unbelievably, the Chair of the West Midlands Police and Crime Panel?!
But on 4th December, 2014 Cooper sent a public twitter message TO ME:
"Just preparing my letter to [EZ's Chair of Trustees] drawing his attention to your blog and twitter".
This is vitally important since you will clearly see Cooper's motivation - it is solely intending to be damaging to me and, unfortunately by association, to my wife. This came next:
@bcrover Info coming in on jobs for the boys & girls at well know charity. Is this true Jules #justasking
@bcrover Tell me when did your Wife start at the Charity? Can you tell me the date please.
(What on earth has this got to do with "private" or for that matter "public" individual Cooper? Besides you will see from Part 1 that he already knew this months before and threatened to confront Linda at her place of work. The only purpose of this is bullying and intimidation. He also knew from my blog that my only role with EZ had been a purely voluntary one).
But Cooper had to get the approval of Unite the Union for this action and so we have this:
|
 |
| 01/01/15 |
@brianrickers1 Be formally writing to that charity this week. Questions need answering Brian.
After a month of intimidatory threats the letter was finally sent to the Chair of the Trustees as set out below dated 8th January, 2015.
Just to give us what Cooper threatened us would be "sleepless nights" (?!) he made sure we knew the letter had been sent by publicly contacting Rickers again:
@brianrickers1 Did you get that letter I've sent to the charity?
Here is the ludicrous letter (charity & trustee's name redacted) which I obtained pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act and then I will comment on it:
.jpg)
(Signed by Cooper personally)
Councillor Darren Cooper
Leader of the Council
.jpg)
(Signed by Cooper personally)
Councillor Darren Cooper
Leader of the Council
The first thing to note is that Cooper can no longer hide behind the farcical allegation that his twitter account is "personal". This is an official letter from SMBC and on their formal notepaper and you will see that he is complaining that he is only writing the letter because his allegedly personal twitter account was blocked by the charity (along with Rickers and numerous troll accounts the two of them were actively engaging with). Curiously the charity did not apparently like being harrassed!
Cooper is so dense that it is unlikely he would have been able to write this letter alone and so someone in Sandwell Council seems to have helped him. I will leave it to you decide whether this is an appropriate use of the Council's scarce resources by Labour. Clearly it is a sad indictment of the depths to which Jan Britton's regime has sunk.
You will see that in paragraphs 1 to 4 Cooper tries to use his tried and tested stunt of saying he is acting on behalf of constituents. This is a lie. As above, the financial and funding information is readily available for all to see online. I am also informed by EZ that not one single person from Sandwell (nor indeed anywhere else) has contacted them raising the issues mentioned by Cooper!
I have also contacted most of the main arts organisations in Birmingham and none of them have received a similar letter from Sandwell Council eg about activities in Sandwell. But then they don't employ someone Cooper wants to do serious harm to do they?
Incidentally, Cooper has destroyed the arts provision in Sandwell to keep pumping money into sports, rich Premier Football Club The Baggies and what is supposed to be "its" charity, leisure centres etc and so it is hardly surprising that the Borough now has virtually no arts offering!
Incidentally, Cooper has destroyed the arts provision in Sandwell to keep pumping money into sports, rich Premier Football Club The Baggies and what is supposed to be "its" charity, leisure centres etc and so it is hardly surprising that the Borough now has virtually no arts offering!
Cooper got round to asking questions about the two of us but did not mention my blog or twitter. So why the interest in Linda?
You will note he made insidious suggestion that the charity in some way does not operate within the law by employing me as a volunteer which was the defamatory allegation made by the trolls Cooper and Rickers were (and in a number of cases still are) directly engaging with. That is most definitely not the case and I am told the charity has responded appropriately.
Cooper is also trying to send out a wider message - speak out against him and you know what you will get. His treatment of the likes of Bob Woods speaks to that. No wonder so many poor SMBC employees are frightened of him!
And finally, it seems even Sandwell Council are embarrassed by this pathetic stunt by Cooper. Below you will see the actual Freedom of Information Act request I put in about this and Sharma's aggressive reply:
"Dear Sirs,
On 8th January, 2015 Councillor Cooper used SMBC to write to a Birmingham
Arts Charity, xxxxxxxxxx. Please disclose a copy of his letter.
Please confirm that the letter was the same as that referred to in the
following tweets of Darren Cooper to Mr Brian Rickers who is a resident of
Dudley and not Sandwell.
05/01/14 "Be formally writing to that charity this week. Questions need
answering Brian".
11/01/14 "Did you get that letter I've sent to the charity".
If the answer is yes, please confirm whether it is normal for the Leader of
the Council to forward correspondence to a member of the public in a
different Borough and the purpose of him doing so on this occasion?"
Sharma replied initially (the letter being disclosed at a later date) with great rudeness bearing in mind that I am SPECIFICALLY named in an official letter of the Council:
"The tweets you refer to were made by Councillor Cooper in his personal capacity.
Councillor Cooper can of course communicate with whomever he chooses in his private or official capacity, whether they are in the borough or outside, and all of this is of course no concern of yours."
But here's the rub. This was an official FoI Request under number 1:696996336 but you won't find it published on the Council's website (which is why certain members of the press couldn't find it either):
Recently-promoted Ms Sharma appears to have accidentally "overlooked" publication of this. Clearly she obviously wouldn't want to hide Cooper's bullying from public view.....would she?
(Confidential phone no for Police Regional Fraud Team investigating SMBC - DS Wayne Haynes & Team - 0121 251 2175 who are also dealing with the Twitter harassment and witness intimidation issues)
THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!
E-mail: thesandwellskidder@gmail.com Twitter: @bcrover (Vernon Grant)
Confidential phone no: 07599 983737
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.