Remember when "Sir" Keir Starmer said he was personally going to "sort out" bent Labour Council? Well that went well! Sir Woodenarse's idea of "sorting out" Sadders involved giving even more influence to The Gnome of Bromley, aka John Spellar (the man who purports to be the MP for Warley), and his bent Sandwell pals employing his crony, Imogen Walker. In the meantime, the corrupt Council has been put into "special measures" - at huge cost to the people of Sandwell and TWO Labour Councillors - including one of Starmer's favourite criminals - have now been found to have breached the standards expected of elected representatives.
The Liar, Parbinder Kaur
This blog exclusively revealed that this liar had concealed that she is a private landlord (like many of her Labour Councillor colleagues) and, in particular, that she failed to disclose her half interest in a posh four-bedroom house in the benighted Borough (which she was also renting out).
Kaur was found to have breached the Code of Conduct by failing to declare her property interests, and was given a slap on the wrist i.e., sent for a training session FFS!
We have seen in this blog that the current "leader" of the bent Labour Council is Kerrie "Dim Kez" Carmichael and that she herself lied twice in a full Council meeting, literally within minutes of being appointed to the top job. Clearly she likes kindred spirits and has duly rewarded fellow Liar Kaur most handsomely with "special responsibility" payments. Kaur attends three Boards of the Council and also sits on the all important Planning Committee!
Kerching!
Steve Melia - the Hardman, er, Coward
Please note that to keep this part of a long-ish blog shorter, some of the more detailed story is set out underneath the legal notice below - it does make shocking reading for hardcore Skidderati!
Most readers know that Melia assaulted me outside Oldbury Council House and was criminally-convicted, on his own guilty plea, at Dudley Magistrates in 2022.
The video of the attack is via this link (if you watch it you will have done more than Deputy District Judge (DDJ) Dhaliwal bothered to do at Melia's sentencing):
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/G2jjpZzdwrc
The incident happened late on a Thursday evening and the Police contacted me whilst I was actually at the Council meeting. They arranged for me to go in to West Brom Police Station on the Thursday which was 9th December, 2021 - a date which will crop up again later on.
My police statement is shown below and it will be seen that I informed the Police on 9th December of minor injury and damage to my phone (which the police also saw for themselves).
Prior to the Magistrates' hearing hardman Melia, via his Solicitor, literally begged the Police and the CPS to drop the case!
I have described the events at the hearing in another post:
https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2022/04/melia-psses-on-deputy-judge-dhaliwal.html
Suffice to say that Melia uttered just one word and one word only in Court: "Guilty". Otherwise his Solicitor did all the talking. Apart from speaking that one word he did NOT make the speeches (and apology) he falsely claimed to have made at his Standards hearing (more anon).
Of course, he also lied - via his Solicitor - that his political career was over and the DDJ fell for it.
In a moment of prescience on the day following the assault I speculated how bent Labour Sandwell's Monitoring Officer would try to get Melia "off" any standards charge. Mr Surjit Tour* has form for acting as the "Defence Lawyer" for corrupt or lying Labour Councillors rather than as the "policeman" ensuring this shower play by the rules:
It transpires from his "evidence" at the Standards hearing that Tour was the first person Melia went to when he realised that he was in the sh*t - as per this rambling comment at the Standards hearing:
Roughly 5 minutes after this occurrence I had an email from the local press asking if I'd got any comments on something that just happened outside the Council chamber. I immediately went to Mr Tour and told him what happened that the press had contacted me, and whatever proceedings has got to be made to make those proceedings [sic].
Tour's usual modus operandi is to find a supposedly "independent" expert and pay them a shed load of taxpayers' money to exonerate the accused (note especially the Squealing Eling case). Incredibly, he attempted an "inside job" here with former SMBC Solicitor Linda Clarke initially appointed to "investigate", but I immediately objected given her previous conduct towards me. He finally chose someone of (mostly) sterner stuff. The independent investigator, Ms Carruthers-Watt (MCW), produced a draft Report which was duly sent to me (and Melia) without the annexes on 11th October, 2022. To my astonishment the draft included (twice) the false statement from Melia that he had apologised to me. On the very same date I asked Tour to supply me with a copy of the supposed apology.
There followed an unnecessary course of correspondence with Tour (copied to MCW) simply asking what evidence either of them had that the supposed apology was ever made but none was forthcoming - for a very obvious reason! But then on 25th November, 2022 Tour served the "final report" (without the annexes) - still containing the bullsh*t about the "apology".
I wrote to Tour protesting about this nonsense and this time copied-in Melia. This was 19 days before the hearing (hold that thought folks) and in the email pointed out that Melia himself must know how he sent the supposed apology and that he have some record of it. Tour replied falsely stating: "You will be afforded the opportunity to make representations in relation to the issue". This was always a lie since he and Cllr Allcock (the Chair of the Sub-Committee and a big mate of Melia) blocked me from giving live evidence (and we have seen that Tour did the same to me at the Ian Jones hearing many moons ago).
On 6th December (10 days before the hearing) I wrote to every single Councillor (including Melia, of course, and the "Leader") pointing out that Melia was lying and Tour was causing and/or permitting that lie to be placed before a Committee of the Council. I again urged Tour and MCW to simply ask Melia for the proof that he sent the alleged apology. Tour refused to do so - an odd reaction from the statutory Monitoring Officer of the Council!
In the email to all Councillors I stated: "Rest assured - if the criminal is allowed to keep perpetuating this "apology" [lie] - this will be publicly exposed. The members of the sub-Committee were therefore also duly made aware of Melia's "apology" lie.
On the day before the hearing another serious matter arose. Bent Labour had appointed Cllr Rizwan Jalil to the hearing panel. I immediately pointed out in writing that whilst I expected - from the experience of many years - that Labour Councillors would be hostile to me, Jalil had recently phoned me three times threatening me - once at 10 pm on a Saturday night! Clearly he could not possibly exercise a quasi-judicial function involving myself in those circumstances. On the morning of the "trial" a Labour Councillor informed me that Jalil had been removed from the hearing panel - although at the meeting itself he was simply marked as being "absent" (along with Elaine Giles)!
I arrived early for the hearing at Oldbury Council House (OCH) on a freezing morning and picked my way through the ice sheets uncleared by the Labour Council around their "flagsh*t" building. I entered the Heart of Darkness itself which is advertised as a "warm-zone". The building appeared to be substantially empty.
[Just as an aside, now that many local government staff are allegedly "working" from home, at least one Council - North Somerset - is considering bulldozing its principal office and building affordable housing on the site. But in Sandwell, Labour, having failed to move to Providence Place and losing £22m of taxpayers' money on that fiasco, spent, er, millions more on tarting-up OCH!]
As the Complainant in the Standards hearing I wanted to review the bundle prepared for the hearing but had no wifi within OCH. I asked the security staff hanging around the entrance (seemingly unoccupied) for wifi access but was directed to the Library (the alleged warm-zone proper). But at the Library I was told I could not have wifi access unless I joined the Library (one way of rigging the membership numbers I suppose!) I went back to the entrance and filled in the application for wifi access as an official visitor citing Tour as the person to grant me access. He was then sent an email at 9.44 (the meeting was due to start at 11) but he failed to respond for whatever reason - perhaps, lol, he was having another of his "secret" briefing sessions with the hearing panel (as in the Ian Jones case - Skidders passim). How pathetic though that lawful visitors can't access wifi in this day and age despite the millions Labour spent at OCH.
Arriving in the Council Chamber for the hearing I explained to the ever-helpful member of staff, Suky Suthi-Nagra, that Tour had not dealt with my wifi access request. She made several attempts to link me to the system to no avail and so then supplied me with a paper copy of the documents - including the annexes. For the first time I noted that they included documents relating to the McNally case and I immediately objected to their inclusion in the papers. Firstly, they were obviously intended to be prejudicial to me, and, secondly, they were totally irrelevant to Melia assaulting me. This was, in my view, yet another crude attempt to smear me.
Then I noticed that, despite Tour never having mentioned any "proof" of an apology, this was slipped into the bundle by him and MCW:
Needless to say I was "not happy" as this alleged "apology" had NEVER been sent to me and I objected to it being included in the bundle. Firstly, although the wording is very odd, I don't believe that Melia wrote it as he has shown no remorse at any time for his actions (see further below). Secondly, I believe it was cooked up by Tour, or someone in his Legal [sic] Department, since - although the wording is absurd - it purports to be careful to limit the apology to the single incident.
And note the date. We now know from Melia himself that, immediately after the assault, he ran straight to Tour (the, er, STATUTORY MONITORING OFFICER for protection). This document appears to be a crude attempt to head off any police action. But I was very open on social media about the Police involvement, particularly my visit to West Brom Police Station on - as above - December 9th.
If my hypothesis is correct, Tour would have realised on 9th December that criminal proceedings were now a distinct possibility and that he could not compromise his "client" (!!!!) by allowing him to send an obvious acknowledgement of guilt for the assault. Thus I believe Melia had this apology drawn up for him - and at the hearing he gave every indication he had not seen the document beforehand - but that Tour buried it, only to slip it to MCW during the investigation for her to include in her Report. Either that, or Melia was advised by Tour or someone else in Tour's Legal Department not to send the apology once it was realised that a criminal charge was highly likely.
[Once again, the Conservative members of the Council should be questioning Tour's relationship with Labour Councillors!]
It is noteworthy, as above, that Tour only served me with the draft Report and the final Report without the annexes. I was served with the Index which described the document thus:
Annex 4 2021 1210 Apology to CE. pdf
What the hell does "1210" mean? In local government "CE" usually means "Chief Executive" so why was I not named on the document? And was the original document in pdf format or just the reference to it? As Melia is pomposity personified, and glories in his titles, he would surely have signed it "Councillor Steve Melia"?
(At the commencement of the hearing the Criminal specifically introduced himself not only as "Councillor" Steve Melia but also as "West Bromwich Town Lead".)
In any event, and as above, if Melia had sent this seemingly fake document - which he did not appear to recognise when presented with it - he would have proof of this but in the 19 days he was given pre-hearing, he failed to do so.
Whether Tour was involved in writing the apology or not, he failed to produce it to me pre-hearing despite my extensive correspondence specifically about this with him and MCW from 11th October, and this is appalling conduct from a qualified Solicitor and Monitoring Officer (whatever his motivation behind this).
At the hearing itself, Melia boasted that he had sent apologies to, er, The Labour Party and The Council. WTF?
MCW was very fair in her presentation to the Panel stating:
"l asked Cllr Melia if he'd be prepared to apologise to Mr Saunders. Cllr Melia indicated that he had already apologised and I should make it clear that Mr Saunders has denied throughout that he has received any apology from Cllr Melia. It wasn't clear from what Council Melia told me whether he made an apology to the complainant. He certainly didn't provide any evidence of an apology being made in respect of this matter."
She also added:
"There is no indication in my view … that any incident took place that warranted Cllr Melia's actions …"
Bearing in mind that, as above, Melia said just one word at the Magistrates' Court - "Guilty" - he told the Ethical Standards Sub-Committee this blatant lie about the "apology" when challenged by Conservative Cllr Amrita Dunn (Tividale);
"Towards the end of the court case and I believe in every court case the judge or JP asks if there is anything you want to say before sentence is given and I said at that time that I apologise for my actions on that day. It never happened before I don't suppose it would never happen again. And I believe that the apology to the Court would be an apology to everyone."
It is true that his Solicitor did say that Rocky REGRETTED his actions - which is something very different to apologising. He really regretted getting caught and prosecuted. In any event, he lied as he did NOT speak at the sentencing other than to plead guilty.
Of course, he then went to the media and said that he was not sorry at all and that many local morons thought the criminal assault was actually a good thing.
When pressed about proof of making the apology he was referred to the written document shown above but did not appear to recognise it. He said to the hearing:
"I obviously can't say. what I can say I've got a list of things on my computer here - about 80 items in length - if you want me to go through all that system I will do so but I can't give you date and time and place. It wouldn't be written with a pen it would be an email. It would be computerised."
This of course is b*llocks as he had 19 days to search his email records. He didn't do so as this POS was lying. I asked Allcock again if I might be permitted to give live evidence, but he declined and threatened to have me thrown out of the building. So much for looking after victims of abuse, eh Labour?
There were other gems at the hearing. Like most bullies Melia is a coward (despite all his sucking-up to "the military") and at the start of the hearing he asked his pal Allcock if he could sit under the the public gallery so that he couldn't be seen from there. Incredibly, his pal allowed him to do this and when there were protests from the, er, two people in the public gallery Allcock justified his extraordinary decision by the fact that the Hearing was being filmed.
But here are you folks - here is the pant-wetter trying to hide himself - ROFLMAO!
Despite his guilty plea in Court Mr Brown Trousers actually tried to justify himself. He said he had received lots of letters and phone calls congratulating him on his action. He actually boasted to the Panel:
"The reaction … was totally positive on my behalf … Not once, not once has anyone said that I should be regretful of my actions."
Of course, my evidence that, on the night, the video received over 100,000 Twitter views and the response of 99%+ viewers was one of shock, was not referred to the Panel at this stage. That's 99,000+ people who were appalled at the bully's assault on a journalist (and there were many more such comments on other social media sites in the following days and in media outlets such as Private Eye and Skwawkbox). Yet Allcock allowed Melia's statement to go unchallenged.
At the bottom of this post is my Police statement. Wisely, Melia's Solicitor did not attack this at the Magistrates' Court but relied on the alleged provocation i.e., asking a Councillor a question! Now Melia used the forum of the Sub-Committee to accuse me of lying to the Police and Court and using as "evidence" my friends - "lol" - the Wolvo C+cksuckers:
"In The Express and Star the evening after this occurrence there is a statement that says there were no reported injuries and no property was damaged.
In court Mr Saunders said that he'd got injuries to his arm and there were chips and damage to the camera. So he's obviously a liar."
On prompting from the Independent Solicitor even Allcock had to intervene here warning Melia to watch his language but then he let him get away with this:
"I do believe that that proves that Mr Saunders does not always tell the truth."
Yet again I was traduced by this Criminal and was not allowed a right of reply by Allcock. Legally, Melia may (may) have an element of legal privilege given the setting in which he made these grossly defamatory and malicious allegations. I have written to him explaining that if he repeats these serious falsehoods he will face swift Court action.
On another issue, Tour has form for withholding, and then deleting part of, a CCTV tape presented to the High Court in another matter. I was sent - pre-hearing - a small piece of CCTV footage showing Melia walk up and clock me, but at the hearing panel other CCTV footage was shown which Tour had NOT disclosed to me. Incredibly, my video (link above) was not originally going to be shown but, fair play, Cllr Allcock did insist on this.
After the initial assault, of course, Melia tried to continue the attack but Darryl Magher and others intervened and he was pulled away by Cllrs Giles and Gill still "fighting mad" and threatening me:
The (previously undisclosed) CCTV footage showed that even when they got him inside OCH he made another attempt to get outside and have another go at me.
Melia wrongly told the panel that I was shouting at him through a megaphone when I was not but, again, Allcock would not permit to me to correct Melia's lies.
All this cost thousands of pounds and much of this could have been avoided had the pusillanimous Melia simply fessed up. The Investigator's Report alone was £3,600 ex vat and it is not clear if that included her attendance costs for the hearing. Also an Independent Solicitor was present for several hours.
But despite everything, Melia's own arrogant conduct at the hearing had clearly riled the Panel and the Independent Person who attends such affairs.
In pronouncing their decision Allcock stated:
"We are concerned that you have not shown remorse for your actions in the proceedings today."
He actually repeated that Melia had shown "no remorse today".
The Panel, including the Independent Person, gave this Decision:
"We will be recommending to the Leader that you be removed from any and all committees and sub-committees of the Council. We recommend that Cllr Melia makes an apology at the next full meeting of Council and also sends a written apology to the Complainant in a form agreed with the Chair of the sub-Committee within 28 days."
The final question is why Labour let this Criminal stand again and why Dim Kez then deliberately rewarded him for his appalling misconduct and criminality. I duly wrote to the "Leader" on 1st January, 2023 regarding Melia and Hackett (the latter, of course, deliberately taunted the people of Sandwell that Labour would continue to reward Melia - Skidder passim):
"THIS IS NOT A PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION
Since becoming Leader you appointed Simon Hackett to Children's Services knowing full well (a) his appalling record in that post previously, and (b) his shocking corruption and lies in the data breach affair which has caused enormous financial harm to taxpayers.
You also endorsed Melia as a candidate in the full knowledge of a recent criminal conviction and then specifically rewarded him - including financially - for his misconduct by making him WB Town Lead [sic].
Why?
At the December Standards Hearing the sub-Committee recommended that you strip the criminal Melia of the post YOU gave him. Have you now done so and, if so, when was this effective from?"
BUT ANSWER CAME THERE NONE ...
AND FINALLY, A REMINDER OF MELIA'S INFAMOUS CATCHPHRASE:
* See also:
https://crowmultimedia.blogspot.com/2021/12/monitoring-monitoring-officer-case-study.html
THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!
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PROUD TO HAVE BEEN TROLLED BY DICKHEAD DARREN COOPER DECEASED!
LEGAL NOTICE (Version 3 from 14th February, 2021)
I cannot list every previous mention of individuals referred to in the entirety of this blog. Where I refer to a specific story please follow the supplied hyperlink since this forms legal justification for later comments. Similarly references to “posts passim” and to earlier posts mean any individuals concerned about purported defamatory or otherwise unlawful material must read later posts in the context of earlier posts. Full information can also be supplied within a reasonable time upon application via email to thesandwellskidder@gmail.com
In most cases we try to give the subjects of these blog posts the opportunity to comment on our journalism pre-publication to ensure the accuracy of our work.
Every now and again we make a genuine honest error and get something wrong. If an error in the blog affects you please email thesandwellskidder@gmail.com and we shall use our best endeavours to publish appropriate corrections forthwith.
We have had to remove the direct comment facility from this blog due to the activity of a West Bromwich woman but we are pleased to receive comments via email to thesandwellskidder@gmail.com , on Twitter via our publishers @CrowMultimedia or via our dedicated Facebook Group: “The Sandwell Skidder - Speaking Truth to Power!” We are happy to publish any sensible commentary and offer a right of reply where applicable.
If you consider that anything written is defamatory or otherwise unlawful please email thesandwellskidder@gmail.com or telephone 07470 624207 forthwith. If your complaint has merit we shall endeavour to make immediate amends.
Additional Info:
1 Julian's Police Statement
2 Comments of MCW - the Independent Investigator
"It is the case that citizen journalists have become more prevalent particularly in dealings with local bodies and raising local issues, and I think it's really important that members understand that those rights are rights which are exercised by people in carrying out that type of activity.
Mr Saunders's right to exercise free speech is protected by the Human Rights Act … and it has been stated and held that this right is particularly important for journalists and other people working in the media.They must be free to criticise the government and our public institutions without fear of prosecution."
END.
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