A FORMER police officer has broken his silence and told of the bullying he received while he was a serving officer in Jersey.
Now living in Australia, former firearms officer Chris Holmes has alleged how he received rats’ tails in the post and had his car trashed for giving evidence in court against corrupt fellow officers. He has claimed that senior management forced him out of the force because he criticised former deputy police chief Lenny Harper for the way he responded to an armed siege in 2006.
Mr Holmes (37) and his wife Rebecca (28), who was also a States police officer, both claim that they left the force because of internal bullying behaviour. They are now serving officers in Australia.
The new acting police chief officer, David Warcup, has since warned that bullying and harassment will not be tolerated. He said: ‘The welfare of staff and how they feel at work continues to be a priority for the States police. We are aware that in the past, concerns have been expressed about bullying and other similar issues within the workplace. We are taking action to address this.’
• Picture: Chris Holmes as a firearms officer in the States police
Article posted on 27th February, 2009 - 3.00pm
51 Article Comments
You know the more I read about Lenny Harper the more I wonder how such a man managed to get into a Deputy Chief position within the Jersey police. For all those that worked under him it sounds like he was a nightmare and couple this with the Child Abuse scandal he made a pigs ear of with the media so is there anything at all good to say about the man?
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This has gone on for a long time, definitly pre-Lenny Harper. If your face didn’t fit, life could be made difficult.
However, there are also some very decent officers in the force, and they should not all be tarred with the same brush.
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Chris Holmes was a large factor in putting my son on the straight and narrow and I will never forget him for that. He showed care and compassion when dealing with my son and had it not been for that I dread to think in which direction my son would have gone.
I wish him and his wife a great future in Australia, they are lucky to have such a good officer.
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Well done to this officer for having the courage to speak out. Having read the JEP this is the 3rd time he seems to have spoken out and let’s hope this time he doesn’t suffer the abuse he had after the first two instances. Rat’s tails through the post? What kind of a human being does that? I am appalled.
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Sounds like this would make a good Hollywood movie!!
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it so wrong
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I knew several officers who used to serve and some who still do. The stories I heard about Harper were horrendous.
And this is before he made a fool of himself and our island with the HDLG fiasco!
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How many others have left the police force like this? I just wonder now what the pro-Harper brigade have to say about it all seeing as they were saying he was so wonderful last year. Nothing I bet.
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The Police like the Armed forces is a career choice where aggresion and banter goes hand in hand. If you can’t take the heat stay out of the kitchen!
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Re comment 9: Uhhh yeahhh Monkey, how is receiving a rat’s tail in the post or your car getting trashed ‘banter’? Get your simian little brain into working order dearie (now don’t get offended, that last sentence was in fact banter as it is commonly understood).
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Oh dear, further SoJ Police revelations. Lenny Harper had access to £60,000.00 worth of qualified firearms advice, but chose to a) ignore it believing he knew better and then b) contrinuted to the officer deciding his and his wife’s futures lay overseas. So that’s £60,000.00 of tax payers money and fifteen combined years of Police experience casually thrown away by the then DCO. Sadly, I fear Harper’s (non-existant) management skills will already have contaminated the day to day thinking and conduct of those officers now jockeying for his position. Not a pleasant prospect for any of the lower ranks or for the future policing of the Island. Unless of course Mr Warcup can steady the ship. It seems that he might just be winning over the “dressing room”. We should all wish him well. I certainly do.
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“Cops” burning panda cars???… what on earth are they up to? These chaps need some real crime to sink their teeth into. It’s high time they shut a few banks down and reverted to fishing, knitting and brewing calvados like the good ol’ days
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Sending an envelope filled with rats’ tails to an officer that testifies against other officers involved in insurance fraud is not banter.
The police are supposed to uphold the law, they should enjoy the support of the public because the standards that they personally maintain are as good as or better than the general public.
If I see a police officer doing 80mph along the Five Mile Road I am not going to treat him with respect when he catches me doing 25mph through St Peters Village!
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Re Monkey Harris’ comment – does he seriously think that sending rats’ tails to someone and causing £4000 worth of damage to someone’s car is ‘banter’ worthy of a professional service like the Army or the Police?
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Monkey Harris(9). I enjoy banter just as much as anyone else, but if I came round to your house and trashed your car, would you accept that is was just a bit of harmless fun.
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Well done to Lenny Harper and Graham Power for attempting to clean up the police force. It was always going to be difficullt as evidenced by many of the above comments.
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It is interesting how Monkey Harris has gone very quiet in the face of non-intimidatory posts. I wonder how he would have stood up to a little harmless banter and aggression; if his response so far is anything to go by he would have ran for cover.
On another note the States of Jersey Police Force is not the SAS or the Paras; Jersey is not Basra or Helman Province, it is a very small island police force on a very small and peaceful island where crime is not even up to the levels of England in a rural town in the 1980s.
We do not require the type of aggression referred to by Mr Monkey Harris with loads of testosterone charged, adrenaline fueled, rat mutilating, car smashing, psycho-killers running around going ‘Hoorah’ and ‘hut hut hut’ etc!
We need nice friendly, cuddly sort of policemen and women who don’t feel bullied and intimidated by mean and nasty senior officers. So let’s move away from the black shirted, Kevlar armoured, German helmet wearing image and get back to ‘policing by consent’ by officers recruited from the community of Jersey for the benefit of that community.
Much policing is about image and perception and quite frankly I for one do not really like what I think I see.
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I wonder now that Mr Holmes has finally spoken out, if the results of the Police internal staff survey will finally be made public? I am sure he will have spoken honestly and objectively in his reply to this survey which was designed to allow Police Officers to speak freely about the current feelings/ morale within SOJP. As is clear with his no holds barred interview with the JEP, he and other like minded officers must have expressed their concerns years before. I wonder if, like most of the Police exit interviews that were conducted with the Officers who left in droves, the notes were destroyed to protect those higher up the food chain. After all, if what we are led to believe within the States is true, most of these notes are destroyed to protect allegations later down the line. As Mr Warcup has clearly explained, exit interviews were held with most Officers who left the Force. Exit interviews are in fact optional within SOJP. The problem with those exit interviews is that those who conducted them were supposed to pass on the results to those who were being strongly criticised during the same meetings. Call me old fashioned but perhaps this should not be the case.
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Well done to Mr Holmes you’ve got balls to open the can of worms now hopefully more will come forward and be open and honest about the issues within the Police dept…
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I applaud Mr Holmes comment and know him personally as a very honest policeman. Why should he not have reported those 3 corrupt officers when he knew what they had done. Surely when he signed up for the force he made an oath to tell the truth and that its what he did. His job. If more officers were honest with themselves and the general public they would be given more respect. I also know of another officer who has since resigned from the force due to another bullying case which i am sure will come to light eventually as well who was told when he was a probationer that he was not to reason with people but to just go ahead and arrest as they need to have a certain amount of arrests per week to pass their probation.
What gives anybody the right to disrespect the public and flaunt every rule in the book and think they are above the Law because they wear a uniform.
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I am not condoning this but Police officers, one could reasonably expect to be strong enough to withstand this sort of abuse.
I am acquainted with a former cleaner who had to resign her cleaning position from the SOJ police station because of bullying. after making a complaint of this her life was made hell and she had no recourse but to resign.
Bullying appears to be rampant at the station
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Has anyone ever given thought to the families of these bullied SOJP employees? We have to pick up the pieces and take the flack from people who have no idea what it is like to have a family member subjected to this outrageous conduct every time they walk through the doors of Police Headquarters.
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Let’s get real folks. All “sharp end” Police Officers expect to receive abuse, physical and verbal, from the lawbreakers, miscreants and other deliquents that I’m sure they have to deal with on a day to day basis. I’ll wager that they are rarely disappointed. However in whatever form it manifests itself, no Police Officer should have to deal with any form of abuse from other Police Officers regardless of their rank, or lack of it.
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The culture of bullying and harrassment was going on for many years before Harper arrived on the scene. It is a very unfair to single him out as being the person most responsible for it.
The years under the Le Breton ‘leadership’ were at least equal to the witch hunting Harper era.
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I am suprised and dissapointed that no one from The Police Association has commented on this forum or the previous one concerning this subject.I served for 20 plus years,no problems with the lawbreakers,miscreants and deliquents,do the job and put them away, however it became apparent to me and others that there was a witchhunt from above against those that took a stand against their Draconian authority.
As Jersey Bean states,probationers are/were expected to achieve a number of arrests,detect minor traffic offences etc.,as are the rank and file. When my shift was compared to another which had a higher public order arrest rate compared to mine,I was brought to task,my answer was that perhaps my officers had better interpersonal skills,diffused the situation on the street and therefore were not tied up with paperwork and able to remain on the street where the public wants to see them, ready to deal with serious offences.My Masters did not have an argument against this,suprisingly!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Those who think this is just a bit of banter have got no idea at all of what is going on. The abuse in the station is of the worst kind. How about being suspended for 18 months for a dispute on someone’s appraisal. I know being off for this long may sound quite nice but when yo’re threatened and your career/house/marriage/life is looking very shaky, it isn’t banter and it isn’t funny.
Oh, and what about the next firarms instructor they paid £80,000 totrain up and then there was a dispute over an incident in UK. No charges but lets punish him and put him back on the beat. Another large chunk of money gone. Laughing Mr Harris? It’s your money they are wasting.
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If they actually had some work to do then maybe they wouldn’t have time or energy to bully each other! Clearly too many police officers for not enough crime.
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I knew Chris Holmes and found him to be an excellent officer.His father and uncle were also cops and ex-Guardsmen. He acted with absolute integrity in reporting his three colleagues for setting fire to a car in France. He really should have received better treatment from his colleagues and managers. The point I want to make however, is you can not tar all police officers with the same brush – there are still many excellent guys and girls in the Force. I just wish there weren’t so many ready to snipe at the police due to some hidden agendas.
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To Chris Holmes,
You are not the only one whom suffered bullying for many years. I also suffered bullying in the Jersey Police service. I left. Thank God I was young enough. It is a culture and will it ever change? This has been going on for far too long, over 13 years now.
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I continue to be amazed that people who clearly have no idea at all about policing and police officers could write comments which are so wide of the mark. All police officers are working in an extraordinary profession. One that requires extraordinary things from each of them. Things that are to and for the benefit of society as a whole and for all those who wish to live in peace and tranquility and under the rule of law. That said, it’s a fact that in any organisation there will be staff problems from time to time. Usually these are simple to resolve with a quiet word of advice from an enlightened management. But when managers are not over endowed with the requisite skills and are cursed with an inability and reluctance to accept qualified advice from someone they consider to be merely an underling, that organisation is in quite serious trouble. Staff respect for management, which always has to be earned on a daily basis, sails off into the sunset, morale suffers and staff vote with their feet, as in the case of Mr Holmes and his wife. And all the others who have voted in the same way.
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I think its wonderful that finally someone (an officer) has spoken out. At least there is someone now in management to sort this out and hopefully ease the lives of those who have to work under these conditions. It’s bad enough at the amount of abuse these officers have to face on a daily basis by the public in Jersey without having to endure it in the work-place as well.
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Lets face it, it’s easy to be brave from the other side of the world. Why didn’t he speak up sooner? Perhaps the whole establishment should be subject to a full and thorough investigation because it is clear there have been injustices and massive incompetence. Who’s to say it’s improved….perhaps in several months time we’ll be discussing more incompetencies occurring now.
As for the police, when do you ever see them when they are needed……it’s a rarity to ever see one patrolling the streets after closing time. I guess their now cushy jobs entail watching CCTV footage and punishing motorists because it brings in the dineros!
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Having a family member in the force, I am horrified as to what he has told me goes on. The way of dealing with people who disagreed with him was to move them back to shift, suspend them or just make there lives hell, and the sigafants under him were more interested in his style of missmanagement to further there careers to the detriment of others. there was a certain feeling that senior officers went out of there way to take the legs off officers so they could go running to lenny and say look at me.The job is stressfull enough without having to watch your back, if you do wrong you deserve what you get, if you make a genuine mistake we are all human deal with it appropriately.
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MOI
If you walk around St Helier at night you will a lot of officers walking the beat. Look outside every night club at 2.30 am on a Sat and Fri morning. You will see these officers upholding the law and protecting the public.
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Further to 32 above, Constable Holmes did speak up at the time according to the JEP article. Harper clearly didn’t like the fact that a Constable knew more about firearms and tactics than he did. So, with his Jersey Police career in tatters because he had upset Harper, and Harper’s immediate underlings, there would have been no point whatsoever in raising a complaint against the then DCO, who was apparently responsible for dealing with all complaints. Fortunately, it seems that the Western Australia Police Force has a much more enlightened attitude and embraces, and makes full use of, skill and knowledge in specialist areas with open arms.
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The rank and file Police Officers in Jersey do an excellent job. Chris Holmes was a very good officer and maybe the reason he didn’t say anything when he was in the Island, was because his senior management wouldn’t listen. I concur with PJG, during the week ends in the evenings and early mornings, you will see plenty of cops on the street. Also all you have to do is monitor the J.E.P.’s reports on people appearing in court to see they are out doing their job, keeping you safe on the streets.
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What about patrolling the streets during the day? What about traffic police? There are enough laws being broken and unpunished every day to keep you busy….the Welly Hill fiasco wouldn’t be a problem now if that was dealt with by law enforcement at the first sign of any illegal parking!! Where are the police when these gangs of teenagers are up to no good?
I rarely ever saw a policeman out on the town at night and I certainly do not see any during the day so please tell me what they’re doing and where they all are??
I know for a fact that some of the boys in blue boasted about all the overtime they were doing for the other fiasco at Haute De La Garenne because it was “easy money”….very professional!!
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MOI – Yes it is easy to be brave from the other side of the world. But it is even braver to stand up for what you believe in and sacrifice your career in Jersey to stand up to a senior officer that you know has made a horrendous mistake – a mistake that could have cost someone’s life. Hopefully by standing up for what he believed in, and knew to be true, Chris Holmes has ensured that the senior management team at the SOJP will never again allow unarmed officers to enter a property where someone is firing an air rifle at them.
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“phil Posted February 28, 2009 at 10:45 am
Well done to Lenny Harper and Graham Power for attempting to clean up the police force. It was always going to be difficullt as evidenced by many of the above comments”.
Well done? It looks like innocent people have been accused of things they have not done here. A bit like his investigation last year, loads of finger pointing but when it comes down to proper policing it fails in all areas. I am glad he has gone and I cannot believe some of the people that still support this man that are out there.
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Moi, you are missing the point. Not all cops are bad, the same as everyone on the street is not a villain.
(By the way I am confused by your earlier assertion about the police punishing the motorists – the police don’t punish anyone. It is either at a parish hall enquiry or in the courts that sanctions / punishments are imposed. The police merely gather evidence and report the facts, to enable others to make decisions on whether or not to punish someone.)
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Quentin, what with Rose Gellers intent to raise alcohol proces perhaps you could let me know how to make my own calvados!
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Delta 1…perhaps you’ve missed my point.
I have not mentioned the police are bad at all. I am merely questioning what it is they actually do on this island because I never see one around when one is needed.
PJG stated “You will see these officers upholding the law and protecting the public”. I disagree with his comment.
Surely traffic laws are to be enforced by the police & traffic wardens so why is there so much abuse of these laws on a daily basis. What is the purpose of a yellow line when anybody can park on them as they please and help cause traffic chaos!??
Again i did not say that the police punished motorists (perhaps reading an opinion properly may help before passing comment on it). I said there are enough laws being broken everyday which go unpunished. The police are there to uphold the law (in PJG’s words) and the courts / parish halls will obviously do the punishing with suitable fines or other sentence.
So please explain what the actual point of your comment (39) was because you seem to have read something else!
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Moi, I didn’t misread your entry at 32, you discussed the police punishing motorists. If you have a specific concern about the lack of action by the cops in dealing with any offences, you have the right to complain.
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MOI
Your question was “As for the police, when do you ever see them when they are needed……it’s a rarity to ever see one patrolling the streets after closing time. I guess their now cushy jobs entail watching CCTV footage and punishing motorists because it brings in the dineros!”
Closing time is 11.30 Pubs 02.30 clubs.
I don’t know how often you are observing the streets of St Helier at these times,especialy weekends, I am not talking about making your way home after partaking, I am talking actually observing.
I am an honorary policeman and frequently patrol at these times.
I can assure you as an independent, sober observer The officers of the States of Jersey Police do an extremely good job of protecting the general public at these busy periods, there are many well-behaved revellers who have been protected from the minority of thugs, I have seen these officers’ wounds, received while doing this. They do not complain about this, they are professionals and “if” they are being bullied by their superiors, they deserve our support not ridicule.
As an afterthought, if you are really concerned about the traffic violations being committed while these brave souls are protecting our population, why not join the honorary police?
Every hour we put in doing that mundane type of work frees up a highly trained SOJP officer to make our streets safer.
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MOI
Exactly how many uniform police officers do you think there are??? I fully support and agree that the police do their very best.
Maybe you would prefer they spent all of their time moving on drivers who parked in daft places rather than dealing with serious crime.
I know where my vote would lay.
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Bitter? Of course he’s bitter! Wouldn’t you be a tad bitter if you had received £60,000 worth of training in firearms and ballistics and were over-ruled by a senior officer with no experience or training in this field? I wonder if Lenny Harper would have been happy to enter a property unarmed when someone in there is firing a weapon at you (a weapon whose bullets Chris Holmes later proved would have penetrated police armour)? Mr Harper is living in cloud cuckoo land.
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I see that now Mr Harper has (tried) to rubbish Constable Holmes’s claims regarding the Grands Vaux seige saying “In the event in question I intervened to stop him from possibly shooting dead a man armed with an air rifle”. I hope he wasnt suggesting for a minute that a highly trained Police Firearms Instructor would deliberately shoot a member of public. It simply shows the man still has no idea what he is talking about. The whole idea of Police Officers being armed in the first place is not to shoot armed suspects. Armed officers can only use lethal force when they or members of public are in immediate danger. They are armed in order to protect the public and other Officers. They are not there to act as judge,jury and executioner. Unlike some of Mr Harpers management decisions it would seem.
If Mr Harper had bothered to conduct any research or indeed had any knowledge on Air Rifles he would know they have been responsible for a number of deaths world wide. Just try using the internet and see for yourselves. They are a lethal barrelled weapons under Jersey’s Firearms legislation and as such, require certification.
Mr Harper also seems to forget that the same Offender was in possession of a samurai sword.
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Please allow me to point out two flaws in the “defence” offered yesterday by the ex DCO. The first flaw is one of factual inaccuracy. There is no such thing as a “semi-automatic” weapon. The term “semi-automatic” has always been a misnomer – frequently used by those with an incomplete knowledge of firearms. It’s a popular name, but it’s still wrong. There are no “semi-automatic” firearms anywhere in the world. There never have been. The ex DCO is actually referring to “self-loading” weapons. There are billions of these world wide. The second flaw concerns a complete mystery. Leaving aside the numbers of deaths on the mainland directly attributable to the misuse of air rifles in recent years, what has happened to the equally lethal “samurai” sword which was apparently present throughout the seige. The ex DCO has conveniently failed to mention that.
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I assume that ex SOJP Constable Holmes has a family who may well live locally. If so, they must be going through hell at the moment. He has put his case, and now the ex DCO has put his. Since both parties are now living “off Island”, I believe that, for the sake of any of Mr Holmes’ family, this whole sorry saga ought to be quietly closed down. Neither party can win so let’s declare a draw, and wish ex Constable Holmes, and his wife, all good fortune “down under”. I shall not be submitting any further postings on this issue. Goodbye.
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hi,
This ex Jersey copper sounds like a massive winge bag. Bullied !!! Must have felt realy macho with his guns by his side but can’t take a bit of flak from the Boss. Wait till the Aussies start calling him Winging Pom.
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Ted – Firstly I think you will find that Jersey police officers do not have guns by their side. They are only authorised to carry them when there is an incident serious enough to warrant them (such as rifle and samurai-toting members of the public intent on shooting them).
Secondly, those promoted to the rank of ‘Boss’ cannot (in normal circumstances) know everything. The most talented and capable bosses usually therefore surround themselves with experts on whose advice they rely. Only an incompetent boss would take the advice of an expert and then choose to ignore it.
Thirdly, as Chris Holmes appears to have been promoted twice since his arrival in Australia, the Aussies obviously don’t consider him to be a Whingeing Pom. On the contrary they seem quite impressed by his knowledge and skills.
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