Saturday, July 31, 2010

The Met was not quite convinced by the Gaul RFI experts...

…but left it to us to investigate the fraud

In an earlier post, we gave details of the information received from the Metropolitan Police in response to our FOI request for the police report assessing our allegations that the conduct and the outcome of the Gaul inquiry (RFI) amounted to fraud.
As the published copy of the report shows, most of the information therein had been redacted so that nothing relevant could be seen.
Last month, however, following an intervention from the Information Commissioner, the Met have, reluctantly, released an extra paragraph - one authored presumably by a superior of the case assessment officer - which simply reads:

Please thank DC Boyce for his prompt and thorough assessment of this case.

DC Boyce seems to conclude that the Inquiry’s findings as to why various chutes were open are not necessarily correct [1] when considered against conflicting expert evidence. I agree that these issues are very subjective and I do not have sufficient knowledge of these matters to either agree or disagree with the Inquiry’s conclusions. However, I accept that the evidence to support a further criminal investigation is not made out.

It is quite something to get the police to admit, however reluctantly, that the conclusions of the Gaul inquiry were not necessarily correct (one does not need specialised knowledge to admit that - just a bit of common sense).

The evidence we had provided, both to the police as well as on this blog, should have been more than enough to trigger a criminal investigation. It would have been very easy for the Met detectives to contact the few witnesses we had suggested and thus extract further details about what went on behind the scenes prior and during the Gaul RFI.
Unfortunately, the Met must have decided that it was not their job to investigate and collect evidence, but ours.


As to the rest of the redactions in the case assessment report, both the Met and the Information Commissioner’s Office suggested that a Subject Access Data Request [2](SAR) might shed some light upon those black lines, which we, accordingly, submitted. But that is another story…
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[1] The bold emphasis belongs to us.
[2] We also requested the Met to release, for a small fee, any personal data about us that was contained within the report in question.

4 comments:

RAJ said...

Gadfly,
I can only admire and seek some inspiration from your tireless devotion in seeking the truth, it is becoming all too evident that the government will and have stooped to incredible lows with regards to maritime casualties in which they might have some liability. As for the FOI act that too is sadly lacking in my opinion, the censured response you received was nothing short of a farce and again presumably funded by the public.

gadfly said...

Thank you, RAJ

Yes, our officials did stoop to incredible lows, and what we’ve have exposed here is just one example.
One would have thought, however, that now, with the ashes of the Gaul scandal still in their mouths, they would have shown some hesitation before pulling a similar scam - yet, as we have seen, the Trident inquiry seems to be following the same script.
Is it that one is meant to buttress the other and vice versa, or are they completely shameless?

Best wishes,

dthiel

RAJ said...

Gadfly,
I would suggest it is a matter of doing whatever it takes to reach a specific conclusion, being shameless would, in such a situation be a great asset.
It is now so obvious that to have an interested party running the show so to speak is not going to be in every ones best interests if the facts are going to rise to the surface. As was indicated in an earlier post that future inquiries will be held by an impartial third party only then will all the facts come to light.

Best Regards RAJ

gadfly said...

RAJ,

You are right, but those who have acted improperly need to be held to account and all those who suffered from past official wrongdoing should receive justice in a timely manner.

Best regards,

Gadfly