LETTER FROM EXILE: # 4

LOOKING INTO THE MICROCOSM

FROM REALITY.

LEAKED!

Top-Secret Minutes

From Operation

“Salvage Mick Birt’s Knighthood”!

In yet another amazing example of fearless and public-spirited ingenuity on the part of my moles, the Quite Vile Blog has been able to obtain the detailed minutes from a meeting of the Gold Command group, who are leading and co-ordinating the Jersey oligarchy’s strategy to destroy me – and thus salvage Michael Birt’s Knighthood.

But – before we examine a section of this unique and fascinating insight into the innermost workings of the Jersey oligarchy and their ‘Friends at Court at Whitehall’ – notice of some forthcoming postings.

As remarked in a comment, I had deliberately not written about the States debate on the question of whether to establish a Public Inquiry into the management of the Health & Social Services Department. I took the view we would just wait – and see.

Sure enough – the proposal was rejected.

A result so immoral and imbecilic, that you’d have had a hard time getting a room full of Palermo Councillors to support it – even if each of them was blindfolded, handcuffed, and had a Beretta to the side of their heads.

So – later in this coming week, hopefully - after the Hansard of the debate is fully available – we’ll be taking a very – very - close look at this latest act of self-inflicted disrepute by the States of Jersey.

Also – when time permits, I’m writing a letter to the Jersey Evening Post in response to the predictable mish-mash of disinformation, diversion, lacunae and lies we have so come to expect from Jersey’s only “newspaper” – The Rag.

They won’t print it of course – so in due course - it will be posted here.

Further – in the course of preparing the legal papers for serving upon the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, I’m obviously writing a detailed account of my case, the facts involved, how and why things have reached this state of affairs – and the various gross abuses of the policing and judicial procedures we see being engaged in by the Jersey oligarchy.

As readers have asked for a straight, and easily understandable description of the situation - because people aren’t getting such facts from any of the Jersey media - I will abstract the key points from the legal case, and post it as a guide to the situation.

I guess, that will be around next week some time.

But – before then – contemplate the very latest exclusive scoop from the Channel Islands’ leading news source.

You know – I know – we all know – none of the Channels Islands' traditional media – especially BBC Jersey - would report any of this material; real news and dynamite scoops not, apparently, being of interest to Jersey news editors.

So here – in yet another apocalyptic exclusive for the Quite Vile Blog – I reproduce the first few items from the leaked minutes.

There is simply too much of it to publish in one go, so during the next week, readers will be able to ponder the remaining sections.

But – to be going on with – here is Part 1 of our exclusive.

Stuart.

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL.

OPERATION SALVAGE MICK BIRT’S KNIGHTHOOD

(OSMBK)

MULTI-DISCIPLINARY GOLD COMMAND MEETING

FRIDAY, 30TH OCTOBER, 2009.

Present: -

William Bailhache. (WB)
Michael Birt. (MB)
Sir Philip Bailhache. (PB)
David Warcup. (DW)
Dave Minty. (DM)
Mick Gradwell. (MG) (By video link)
Emma Martins. (EM)
Bill Ogley. (BO)
Kathy Kier (KK)
Terry Le Sueur. (TLS) (attending on Behalf of Chief Minister Senator Ozouf)
Bridget Shaw. (BS)
Stephen Baker. (SB)
Lieutenant Governor. (LG)
Agent X: Ex Cathedra. (AXE) from the Department of Justice, representing the “Friends at Court at Whitehall”. (FACAWs)

Items Discussed:

1: Signing of minutes.

2: Consideration of mission statement.

3: Status up-date.

4: Team-OSMBK discussion and assessment.

5: View of the FACAWs.

6: The 'Syvret' issue.

7: Opinion management up-date and discussion.

8: Strategic assessment of options.

9: Budgetary considerations.

10: Fix date of next meeting.


1: The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed as a correct record, and duly signed by William Bailhache (WB).

2: Consideration of mission statement.

William Bailhache (WB) began by reminding members of Team-Operation Salvage Mick Birt's Knighthood (OSMBK) that the exercise had grown out of the Program for Limiting Effective Plebeians (PLEBs) which had been initiated by several of the current members of OSMBK, following Syvret's success in the 2005 general election.

WB stated that the present exercise constituted the third attempt to oppress Syvret since PLEBs had been initiated. The first attempt to neutralise Syvret followed his writing of a satirical open letter. However, that attempt had been abandoned when it was realised most members of the public regraded the letter as an accurate and amusing depiction of power in Jersey.

The second attempt had proven more effective, in that it did succeed in removing Syvret from Ministerial Office, but this had only been viable because Syvret had been foolish enough to discover that the senior management of his department had very badly failed in respect of child protection. Obviously, this serious tactical error on Syvret's part, of expecting them to be carrying out their jobs effectively, resulted in the entire top-tier of the island's civil service uniting against him.

WB continued, however this was only a partial success as Syvret continued to be a significant threat to the oligarchy's hegemony, and, in particular his activities were making it extremely difficult to maintain the Culture of Concealment, with particular regard to the child abuse.

WB reminded those present that Team-OSMBK had been formed when events took on an altogether more serious and urgent nature. This had occurred when Syvret had published on his blog, in March of this year, a 1999 police report he had obtained.

The report revealed that a male nurse appeared to have murdered 13 frail elderly people during a two-month period on Corbiere ward of the hospital, during 1999. The investigation had not been effectively pursued, for the customary reason, and it had been felt at the time there was no need to inform the relatives of the deceased of the strong likelihood their loved ones had been murdered.

However, whilst somewhat embarrassing, by far the most significant and problematic aspect of Syvret's publication was that it suggested that the then Attorney General, Michael Birt (MB) was, in some way, accountable for the discontinuation of the murder investigation.

The custom and practice of traditional Jersey oligarchy Attorneys General had always been to minimise prosecutions for serious crimes, when such prosecutions would be damaging, or in some other way, problematic, for the establishment. MB had, when Attorney General, followed this standard procedure.

However, MB had had the misfortune to have had at least four of his “not in the public interest” non-prosecution decisions resurrected; co-incidentally, all by Syvret.

The four non-prosecutions in question being: -

(a) Not prosecuting the States of Jersey for the criminal act of dumping hundreds of thousands of tonnes of highly toxic municipal incinerator ash into the sea-porous land reclamation sites around St. Heller.

(b) Abandoning the prosecution of Jane and Alan McGuire, even though they had spent over a decade committing monstrous acts of child abuse against orphans.

(c ) Not prosecuting Jack Hydes, Frances Hamon, John Le Breton and Piers Baker for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and for concealing child abuse.

(d) Not prosecuting nurse M for multiple prima facie counts of murder against frail, elderly people. This case appeared particularly problematic for MB, given he had played a role in the group decision made on the 20th May, 1999, to the effect that the families of the relevant patients wouldn't be told or interviewed in phase 1 of the investigation. It was also recognised as especially problematic for MB that, although Nurse M had been remanded in custody for a number of other, serious charges, MB, as Attorney General had decided to not oppose bail, so Nurse M was released from custody, two days after the launch of an investigation, based upon powerful prima facie evidence, that Nurse M was, in fact, a serial-killer.

WB informed the meeting that whilst tremendous latitude was given in such matters by the Friends at Court at Whitehall (FACAWs), it had been felt that the customary and automatic granting of a Knighthood to MB may be hampered somewhat by such 'clouds of controversy' hanging over him.

Whilst no indication had been given that this problem would influence the conferring of the Knighthood, it had been agreed that it was better to be certain, and thus seek to exculpate MB before Christmas 2009.

It had, of course, been recognised that the salvaging of MB's knighthood had a double advantage in that it would also produce, as a consequence, another opportunity give effect to the objectives of Operation PLEBs, namely destroying Syvret.

There had, therefore, been complete unanimity that OSMBK would be launched.

WB concluded that, a;though an all-out attempt to eliminate Syvret involving all arms of the state had been initiated, it was still proving surprisingly difficult to bring the exercise to a successful conclusion.

WB invited acting Chief of Police, David Warcup to provide the status up-date.

3: Status Up-date by DW.

David Warcup (DW) informed the meeting that Operation Salvage Mick Birt’s Knighthood (OSMBK) had suffered a serious set-back since the previous meeting.

He stated that Syvret had escaped from Jersey on Monday the 19th October, and that the escape had been effected two days before the pivotal judicio-prosecutory manoeuvre – namely the ruling that Syvret’s entire defence case – previously accepted as admissible for the preceding three months – be now deemed inadmissible.

This action – simply ruling the entire defence case inadmissible – would have secured a conviction for the Establishment.

However, Syvret had recognised this tactic, and had fled to London.

DW offered the assessment that SB and BS had, perhaps, revealed too much of the hand during the last directions hearing Syvret attended.

BS responded to this by saying no blame could be attached to her as she simply followed the instructions of SB, as the transcripts show, and asked why the police had not prevented Syvret from escaping?

DW responded, saying that, as has been previously noted by the group, Syvret was under 24 hour-a-day surveillance, and although MG was no longer based in Jersey, Mark Cane and Julia Jackson continued to oversee the monitoring of Syvret.

However, there were limits to what even DW and the SOJP could get away with. If Syvret had revealed any indication that he was leaving Jersey and not planning to return, the SOJP might have had some semblance of an excuse to arrest him at the airport.

But as Syvret had not discussed his plans via any electronic means of communication, and had purchased a return ticket for the Wednesday morning, effecting an arrest at attempted departure would have been legally problematic – even with the obviously available support from WB and MB.

DW continued, the SOJP had three non-uniformed officers present at the airport in connection with this operation, but that two of them were recognised by Syvret.

DW conceded that the actions of the officers – pointedly sitting at a table next to Syvret in the coffee shop in the departure hall, staring at him, and saying, “hello”, may not, with hindsight, have been an appropriate tactic, given it had long been plain that intimidation and other types of psychological warfare had zero affect on Syvret.

AXE agreed with this last observation, and said some serious thought would have to given to this subject when Team-OSMBK reached agenda item No. 6.

DW continued. Notwithstanding this encounter, CID in co-operation with Customs - were able to delay the flight departure for one hour, thus enabling a comprehensive search of Syvret’s hold baggage. It had been expected to reveal two lever-arch files containing copies of the 1999 evidence disclosed to Syvret. Though Syvret would have had a legitimate purpose in taking the evidence out of the island in connection with obtaining legal advice, it would, nevertheless, have furnished OSMBK with sufficient excuse to arrest on grounds that the spin-doctors could have then peddled as legitimate.

However, no such material was found in Syvret’s baggage, thus disposing of the last opportunity to effect arrest.

The standard fall-back procedure of planting a quantity of cocaine in his bag was considered, as would be expected, but it was felt that this might be too implausible, notwithstanding the ‘Special Latitude’ applying to OSMBK.

However, a further profound problem was revealed later that morning via surveillance. After Syvret’s departure, it became clear he had electronically scanned every single page of the disclosed evidence, and, before departing for the airport, had e-mailed the resultant quantity of PDFs to several secure e-mail addresses, to which only he has access.

DW accepted that the resultant loss of control of the data could well be a fatal turn of events for OSMBK. It was now recognised the 1999 evidence destroys the prosecution case against Syvret and secures a watertight public interest disclosure defence. But worse, in respect of the objectives of OSMBK, the evidence demonstrates a criminal investigation failure even greater than Syvret had previously suggested.

DW accepted that the surveillance operation could have been more alert, and spotted the e-mailing of the PDFs before Syvret was able to escape, thus enabling his arrest.

However, DW remained strongly of the view that the SOJP could not always be expected to recover the serious errors of other agencies involved in OSMBK.

He pointed out that the terminal error had been committed by the prosecution in first agreeing that Syvret had a right to run a public interest disclosure defence. Had the prosecution not done so, the 1999 evidence would never have been disclosed to Syvret in the first place.

Not only would an ‘inadmissibility’ instruction to BS have kept this profoundly damaging evidence out of Syvret’s hands, it would also have protected the prosecution and the court from the immensely high-risk and unprecedented gamble of attempting to turn back time, and have the public interest disclosure defence deemed inadmissible, three months into proceedings.

SB intervened at this point, and reminded Team-OSMBK that permitting Syvret to run a public interest disclosure defence had been agreed by all, as it was felt important for cosmetic reasons that some kind of defence argument was available to him.

KK agreed with this view, stating that the credibility of the proceedings had already been difficult enough to maintain, given Syvret had been denied access to the vast majority of evidence he required as disclosures for his defence, prevented by the court from calling all but two of the witnesses he sought, and denied adjournments – even though he was self-representing and without legal advice.

KK continued, if, at an earlier stage, Syvret had been denied a public interest disclosure defence, the proceedings against him would have had no public credibility at all.

It was explained that whilst this was not a problem within the Jersey media, there were limits to what could be maintained at a national media level – even with the very substantial bribery slush-fund made available for use on certain freelance “journalists” by OSMBK.

KK also pointed out that whilst the manipulated and forged e-mails used against the Historic Child Abuse Investigation had been very effective, that strategy had become perilously close to being exposed at a national level, and may still be so.

DW concluded his status up-date by informing Team-OSMBK that he was not now certain how events would play out from a police force perspective. Obviously, had events been confined to Jersey, the policing element would have been able to act as predicted.

But now that the Met had been pre-emptively approached by Syvret, and MPs who were supporting him, and had agreed a single point of contact, and had indicated that no enactment of a ‘backed’ arrest warrant would be undertaken without due legal process, the chances of recovering the situation via customary policing interventions were now extremely limited.

WB accepted the status report, but expressed serious dissatisfaction at the turn of events.

He explained that the normal constraints on policing activity did not apply in Jersey, generally – and that in a “Special Latitude” case, such as this, the police would have been legally secure in respect of virtually any action they had taken against Syvret, short of machine-gunning him to death in the airport departure lounge.

However, WB continued, even that action may have been legally secure given that Syvret possessed a copy of The Guardian in his bag, and is a member of Greenpeace, thus justifying an ‘extreme prejudice’ anti-terrorism intervention.


PART 2 OF THE QUITE VILE BLOG'S AMAZING SCOOP TO FOLLOW LATER THIS WEEK!