A letter from the Home Office

Following the interview between Brian Gerrish and the Metropolitan police whistleblower, UK Column has been attempting to get the Home Office to say what they are going to do to assist him.

"This was a remarkable saga," Brian Gerrish says.  "First of all the Home Office said they were unable to listen to the audio through the UK Column website. So thousands of other people could do that, but not the Home Office. - I believe they employ 15,000 professionals -  but they couldn`t seem to get that audio."

"So we then provided that audio to the Home Office separately and we were then a little bit surprised and saddened that they were unable to open a file. They couldn`t listen to that one. And then they needed a transcript. So eventually they were provided with a transcript.  Then it went very quiet, until we started putting pressure on the Home Office to ... answer the original emails which said: `What are you going to do to protect this very brave police whistleblower and what are you going to do to investigate the cover-up by the Metropolitan police, by politicians, by local authorities, charities and others, the abuse of children, including little girls found dead in the gutter?`"

"Well yesterday I got a phone call from the Media Team in the Home Office and they were very pleased with themselves because they said a letter is on its way. I opened my email account and sure enough there was a letter."

 

"Now we`re all trying to make this easily readable but the nub of it is - here is the letter addressed to me and the essence of it is: `Well don`t worry because the organisation that is protecting the whistleblower is the IPCC`.  So they`re the Independent Police Complaints Commission and they`ve got it all in hand and even though `we are the government we think it`s best to leave it to the IPCC.  And we also think that you should be reassured because we`ve got MPs like Mr Lewis who is responsible for making sure the police do their job`."

"Well, it gets more and more interesting. This is the start of the letter. It says: `I am writing in response to your letter to the Minister published on your website UKColumn.org concerning a recent interview with a Detective Constable from the Metropolitan Police force. Before I respond to the points raised in your letter, I would like to inform you that the Criminal Justice ministerial portfolio has transferred to the Ministry of Justice.  Brandon Lewis MP is the Minister for Policing and Fire Services.  Sir Oliver Heald QC MP is the Minister for Courts and Justice and Dr Philip Lee MP is the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Victims, Youth and Family Justice`."

"Now this of course was ... irrelevant because I`d already sent the correspondence to Mr Lewis and I told the Home Office that was the case.  But what we`re actually interested in is this: it says `Dear Mr Gerrish  I am,` and in the second paragraph it says: `before I respond`.  So I assumed that this letter had come from a genuine human being but at the end of the letter it actually transpired that there was no person. It was an anonymous letter. It had been written presumably by a computer in the Policing Fire Services Directorate..."

 

"But I then discovered what this was about because after I left the conversation with the Media Team, I phoned the telephone number on the top of this letter, and this is what transpired. Essentially, the Home Office has deliberately hidden the identity of the individual writing the letter to me. The Media Team state that this is normal procedure and it will not affect how I address a response. Very important this because they kept pushing it. This is perfectly normal. No signature, no name. `And it doesn`t matter Mr Gerrish because it won`t affect how you then deal with the matter`. I asked should it be Mr Anonymous or Dear Ms `X` but they were unable to advise on that. But this is what they were really doing."

"This is deceit because when you phone up the number at the top of the letter the operator, who is very helpful said: `I`m unable to put you through unless you can tell me a name and a department`.  So the fact that the name was withheld means that when I phone that number I go into no man`s land because the operator - I believe the lady was telling me the truth - she is unable to put me through."

"Deliberate, calculated deceit by the Home Office Media Team. When I asked the particular gentleman who had told him there was an email for me with the letter attached; he didn`t want to tell me that either."

"So the moment we get into child abuse, it`s cover-up and deceit by the British government."

 

"Well of course they mention the IPCC; so let`s have a look at them because the letter said that the IPCC had actually produced the policy on how they were going to deal with whistleblowers. So I went to the website.  I had a look. I couldn`t find the document the Home Office referred to, but I did note that Mr Julian Blazeby is now the Director of major investigations and if you want to have a look at him; I suggest you do; because you can see him on LinkedIn, his full profile. There`s quite a lot of information here: previously Assistant Chief Constable with Staffordshire Police and I did note down at the bottom that he`s not only Common Purpose* but he`s boasting that he`s able to operate outside authority. So I would imagine that`s pretty handy if you`ve got a little bit of trouble with child abuse."

"So we had a little look further for this gentleman and came up with the Sentinel`s report: `Staffordshire Police under investigation after social media drink-drive naming`. And what they did is they named people they had picked up for drink driving offences before it had gone to court. So this was a quote from Julian Blazeby."

"Staffordshire Police assistant chief constable Julian Blazeby added: `We can confirm we have been approached by the Information Commissioner`s Office (ICO) in relation to the recent drink driving campaign`."

"`They asked us to provide information on some elements of the campaign and we will be providing a full response to the questions they have asked in the next few days`."

"So they broke the law... They can just publish without any due process, without any conviction; they just publish people`s names..."

"Well the key point here Mike is that they`ve been through a training course where the training course boasts it`s producing people who are able to operate outside authority.  So in this police constable`s mind he`s in his proper area."

Mike Robinson points out that the CEO of Common Purpose*, Julia Middleton, used the term `beyond authority` but Blazeby says `without authority`. "That changes the context completely."

"It gives you a free rein to do what you want Mike."

"So this is the man in charge of major incidents within the Independent Police Complaints Commission; so we shouldn`t worry; this is probably the man who`s got the whistleblower`s safety at heart."
　

http://www.ukcolumn.org/  [25 August 2016]

* A secretive organisation (charity) that provides leadership training courses.