Moving the Island in the direction of openness and honesty
Tuesday 13th April 2010, 2:59PM BST.
From Deputy Daniel Wimberley.
WHY does it matter about Power and Warcup?
Surely, the Comprehensive Spending Review, or the Sustainable Transport Policy, to take but two things I am currently working on, will have a more direct impact on Islanders’ lives?
Yes, it can feel like a sideshow – but I am convinced that it is not. It also seems to have gone on forever, but I ask readers to just remember that delay is the classic tool politicians use to make an uncomfortable issue go away.
It must not be allowed to die quietly. It has to be brought to an acceptable, fair and transparent resolution. Otherwise the suspicion of corruption, and the division of our Island, carry on.
I challenge anyone to read what follows and then say hand on heart that they still think that the procedure followed was fair and above board.
• Until 11 November 2008, Home Affairs Minister Andrew Lewis ‘had no reason to believe that they (that is, the States of Jersey Police) were not managing the investigation well’.
• It was on the 11th that he saw the letter from Deputy Chief of Police David Warcup sent to chief executive Bill Ogley on 10th November 2008 and forwarded to him by Mr Ogley.
• This account is in Mr Lewis’s statement to the Wiltshire Police, which has the force of a sworn statement.
• But the letter from Deputy Lewis to Chief of Police Graham Power informing him that the disciplinary process had commenced was created three days earlier, at 8.44 on Saturday 8 November.
• The written notification of suspension was also drafted on Saturday 8 November at the same time.
• So why was somebody creating suspension letters at a time when the minister thought the inquiry was being managed well, and bearing in mind that only the Home Affairs Minister can discipline or suspend the Chief of Police?
• How could a minister be led to the extraordinary step of suspending the Chief of Police on the basis of one letter (the ‘Warcup letter’)?
• Particularly when that letter contradicts the opinion of both Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary who have praised the leadership of the force, and its success in reducing crime, and the Association of Chief Police Officers’ advisory team who have mentored and advised on the handling of the Haut de la Garenne investigation?
• This letter (the ‘Warcup letter’) of 10 November 2008 relies heavily on the Met ‘interim report’. No one has ever seen this report apart from David Warcup.
• The Met withdrew this report from its use by the Jersey authorities for disciplinary purposes.
• So when Senator Ian Le Marquand reviewed the suspension in March 2009, he was forced to put a red pencil though all the references to the Met Report in the Warcup letter. How then could it have properly been used in the original November suspension?
• When Mr Power was phoned by Mr Lewis on 11 November and summoned to the meeting on 12 November, he was not told that it would be a disciplinary hearing. ‘I had been given no notice, no time to prepare, and was not offered any representation’ and ‘suspension was not discussed until seconds before it was actually invoked’ and ‘I had not seen the documents to which the (suspension) letter referred.’ (Graham Power’s affidavit).
• The Disciplinary Code states that the chief executive (ie Bill Ogley) carries out a preliminary investigation to ‘establish the relevant facts. Facts will include statements from available witnesses and the Chief Officer.’ There was no such investigation.
I have focused in this letter on just one event – the suspension. I am happy to help readers who would like to be guided around other aspects of this murky affair.
We have to move as an Island in the direction of openness and honesty. We have to stop holding the door tight shut against the tide of history, justice and the evidence. It is an unworthy and in the end unsustainable position.
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Oh turn the record over just for once! This cost the Tax Payer £20 Million. Who cares what dates any of this was instigated from what we know now. Did Daniel Wimberley ever bother to watch the David Warcup Press Conference in November 2008 or any of the parting interviews from Mick Gradwell? They are all on the NET and now on a special Blog in case anybody wants to see the truth. This was farce from start to end. Transparency yes, lets get the Wiltshire findings out inthe open and ensure the International Media get a copy.
When will this small number of backbenchers face the truth about this farce and stop cheap political point scoring on an issue which is really an open and shut case.
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This all boils down to Graham Power’s word against theres. I know who I believe, Andrew Lewis.
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Blimey! Its got to be a scandal!!!
What does he want, Graham Power back in charge again with another blank cheque book? Heaven forbid!
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The suspension and its timing no longer has any relevance, it is the allegations that matter and when Wimberely talks about transparency one has to also ask the same questions of the Police and their spending, especially with this Haut de la Garenne.
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I thought they had launched an enquiry into this already?
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Gary is right.
Check out the truth about Haut de la Garenne on here:
http://thehautdelagarennefarce.blogspot.com/
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Come on Daniel – The whole HDLG turned out to be a total and very expensive farce. It must have become obvious even to you that something was very seriously wrong with the whole investigation a long time before Mr Powers suspension. If the person in charge was not to blame than who was? Of course due to political correctness things have to be done in the right order.
As it is certain that things went very badly wrong at HDLA over the years is it not about time people stopped trying to make political capital out of these very sad events and instead concentrated on helping the victims and ensuring that this does not happen again.
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Well said Deputy Wimberley. A politician saying what any decent thinking person thinks, (including abuse victims).
Openess, honesty and transparency. Not too much to ask surely?
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I just checked out 6. rico’s link and its fascinating reading. Do our States members not even know why Power was suspended in the first place? The run up means nothing once you have read this.
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Totally agree with rico and Andy, where did this blog erupt from? What terrible police work, I have linked it on facebook.
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I agree with Gary no1 who is wanting the Wiltshire report out in the open there is far to much behind closed doors politics in Jersey which is supposed to be a democracy. His posting is very strange because he goes on to say once its out in the open it will stop cheap political point-scoring and its all a farce.
Obviously he has read the Wiltshire report and it supports Mr Warcups letter then.
Got that wrong diden’t I. Mr Warcup used the Metropolitan police report to write to Mr Ogley about Chief of Police Power. Which is the reference report used to suspend him, oh gosh, somebody’s telling porkys.
Taking small pieces out of any report can easily distort the true findings of a report, so it is the whole report that must be published. Senator Le Marquand has possessed it since November 2009. What is he afraid of ?
Well done Deputy Wimberly, his letter is short factual and to the point. The point being there is something very wrong here, and the police and Government departments must be whiter than white and follow the rule of law.
Who knows there may be a knock on your door one dark windy night.
Who will you turn to then? Scary.
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I cannot understand the excitement?
An enquiry is under way into the suspension so I would actually agree that it is an attempt to politically point score on an issue that is already in progress?
P.S. Good link.
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Very well said Deputy Wimberley, there are far too many unanswered questions in relation to this matter. Suspicious from beginning to end whenever that may be, talk about stretch it out and hope people get bored with it.
Graham Power was suspended for God Knows What? predominantly on the say so of the one person wishing to usurp his position and end up with his job.
Stinks through and through, and wasn’t it Frank Walker who gave the Police an open cheque book? Or was that just for show? Apparently Graham Power was told off when he mentioned costs.
Well done Deputy, let’s get all of this into the open.
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Linda, if you cannot even work out why he was suspended then you must be living on another planet. There is a definate connection now between supporters of Syvret and selective reading.
Too many questions to answer? I wont repeat what others have already said above.
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I am bemused by Wimberley’s call for openness. Governments have to keep some things secret from us. It might be for our own good not to know the truth.
They were elected by us and if they think we shouldn’t know something then surely we have to trust them. I am all for less openness if the government think it is good for us.
I can’t believe that anyone in our government would want to cover up anything at all. They can all be trusted, what would be in it for them. What on earth would be their motive for wanting to remove the Chief Officer? It’s not as if he was trying to expose any wrong doings by other politicians the executive or anything like that.
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Reading about the dog on your farce link is crackers, thank god we now have proper people running the SOJP thats all I can say.
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Jez says “I cannot understand the excitement?”
It has however interested him sufficiently to post twice within a few hours. QED LOL
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Its the same old story, something they don’t like to hear is a cover up. It is a shame Daniel Wimberley has been bitten by this conspiracy bug but I guess nobody else in the States is currently listening to him.
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Quote from Matt 15
I am bemused by Wimberley’s call for openness. Governments have to keep some things secret from us. It might be for our own good not to know the truth.
They were elected by us and if they think we shouldn’t’t know something then surely we have to trust them. I am all for less openness if the government think it is good for us.
Matt what planet do you live on read your quotes over a few times, just unbelievable that you really believe what you say but thanks for giving me a good laugh!!
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Excellent letter Deputy Wimberley. Why are people so frightened of the truth? Why is transparency so threatening? What exactly is being hidden?
Secrecy is the friend of corruption, and the naivety of some commentators is extraordinary – like the Government know what is good for us and secrecy is for our own good? Such patronising garbage has no place in a modern democracy.
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Matt says ‘It might be for our own good not to know the truth.’
Call me Mr Picky but I’m quite keen on knowing the truth. I’d go so far to call knowing the truth a cornerstone of a decent, democratic society.
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15 Matt..you are either an establishment or in need of serious help..”Keep things secret from us for our own good” That is exactly what this COM have been working at and want the population to believe…If we were all sleep walking like you suggest we would have a totalitarian state..which we are not far off of now..NO NO NO it needs to be reversed and a real Democratic model and constitution put in place. I for one will work till I drop toward that end.Honesty so simple and it works…always has always will.
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No 15 “It might be for our own good not to know the truth.” Are you for real?
Maybe on some very rare occasion in the UK or the USA (and off the top of my head I’m struggling to come up with any such occasion) but in Jersey? If anything the States need the people behind them if they’re going to deal effectively with real problems.
I can’t think of anything that could happen in Jersey that it wouldn’t be better for the people to know about. Keeping us in the dark is just about protecting themselves, not us.
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So the United Kingdom, run by ‘Brown’s cronies’ as they are frequently described by the friends of democracy on these pages have a Freedom Of Information Act and are far more open about the affairs of government despite the fact that they have such serious issues such as the possession of one of the top five armed forces, are a nuclear power and are a front runner in the gathering of intelligence around the world plus a lot more beside.
!, has no armed forces, no nuclear weapons, no intelligence services, we do not control our currency or interest rates, etc, etc.
Jersey, run by the leading statesmen of the CoM
But the CoM insist on secret debates about health, the police and more besides.
Tiddlers with pretensions is the best description for them
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Pip – get a life. The only “secret” debates are those directly concerning individuals or for the tending of contract etc. Individuals have “human rights” as Deputy Hill keeps reminding us and we all have a right not to have our personal details published. With respect to contracts, we all have an expectation that the best possible tender is received and this would become nonsense if the States were to publish in advance how much they were prepared to spend.
Perhaps Deputy Wimberley would do better to research his “facts” and listen to people rather than just talking so much.
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Sanity, I feel that you are viewing this far to simplistically.
Aside from the fact that Jersey holds considerably more ‘in camera’ hearings than any other western democracy, the public are also entitled to know where tax payers money has gone. We often have this information witheld because it is ‘confidential’. I refer, by way of example, to whether the former CEO of health received a golden handshake and if so how much.
This is public money, yours and mine. We are entitled to know how much we are paying for our civil servants.
In England this information is freely available. By way of example see the published payments made to Mr Warcup from his previous post.
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Frosty – I understood that the Police Law dictated that the debate over Power had to be held in Camera. Other than a few big contracts I don’t recall that many “secret” debates. With respect to spending our money is that not why we elect our representatives. As for the conspiracy, not all States members are members of the “oligarchy”. In a small Island where most people know at least one States member I can’t see how this argument stacks up other than Deputy Wimberley seeking a bit of extra publicity.
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During the whole HDlG fiasco has anyone made a note of what decisions were made by the States and CoM?
I suspect they let this charade play out so that the focus was elsewhere when they made some pretty important decisions which have not come to haunt us yet.
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27…The people are not quite as gullible as was once thought,and are beginnig to wake from their slumber in increasing numbers which is why the establishment are getting twitchy.Dan Wimberley is a highly intelligent and honest fellow with principles…which of course would render him as popular as a hole in a lifeboat with the COM.
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Well said Daniel and at last a man of principal and not part of the old boys network.We now need an honest and competent Chief Minister who will establish a group of individuals who will do the best for Jersey and not their cronies.
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