By Ian McFerran

I am now authorised to release this information.

After much argument, back and forth, the line manager in charge of the two Council Officers who attended the raid on the home of Anne & Hollie Greig on 3rd June 2010 has now been identified.

It must be stressed that there is still no way of knowing if the manager of the two Council Officers, or indeed the Officers themselves, were innocent 3rd parties as some suggest or fully complicit in this illegal raid.

Shropshire Council has been shown to have blatantly lied in response to my previous Freedom of Information request about its involvement and prior knowledge of the raid.  The Council initially stated that they had no knowledge of the incident in question until the day after.

When I challenged the Council on this point, they stood their ground and lied again in their formal ‘internal review’ of their response (an internal review is standard procedure under such circumstances). It wasn’t until I presented hard evidence, via Robert Green, to the Information Commissioner, who in turn presented that information to the Council, did the Council admit that they had indeed attended the raid!

Not only that, they had convened a ‘Level Two’ meeting with the local Police, which lead to the raid, the day before!

The Police have already stated that it was the Council who informed them that Hollie was under their ‘care’. That was a blatant lie! Hollie Greig has NEVER, to this day, been under the ‘care’ of Shropshire Council. Her mother Anne provides her with all the love and care she needs!

Therefore, Shropshire Council knowingly and wilfully deceived the local Police. That is a criminal offence, an offence that the Police have chosen to ignore. I’m sure that if I had wasted Police time, I would be investigated, arrested and charged accordingly. However, on this occasion, the Police were happy to stop what they were doing (detecting and preventing crime and arrested criminals) and break into the home of Anne & Hollie while they were on their summer holiday, just like many other people at that time of year in the UK – perfectly normal behaviour!

Shropshire Council is maintaining its stance about protecting the identity of the two ‘junior’ Officers who actually attended the raid, claiming that their identity is protected under the Date Protection Act 2000. The Information Commissioner has up-held the Council’s position on that point, so I have appealed the Information Commissioner’s decision on the grounds that the Data Protection Act 2000 cannot be used to protect the identity of those knowingly or unknowingly committing criminal acts, especially when it is the public who is PAYING for those acts to be carried out. This appeal is ongoing.

If the appeal fails, it means that a dangerous precedent has been set and ANY rank, no matter how low, of public office will be able to claim ‘Data Protection’ and hide from the law if/when they break the law. The outcome of this appeal, therefore, is critical.

The response I received this morning makes two things very clear.

1. The line manager appears to have been oblivious to what was going on in her own department. Speaking as someone with experience of local authorities, I can state that this is a breach of normal operating procedures for ‘any’ local authority in the UK. The normal approach in matters such as this is for the higher ranks to ‘delegate’ the required operation down the chain of command to the appropriate ‘manager’ who then assess their departments needs and resources and appoint an Officer(s) to carry out the delegated instructions. This is why managers are managers! This is also to ensure that every penny of public money being spent on that operation can be properly accounted for and also to ensure Health & Safety as a department manager needs to know where their staff are and what they are doing at all times.

2. Health & Safety and Insurance requirements have, on this occasion, been breached in respect of the vulnerability of the attending ‘Officers’ themselves as a result of the declaration below that the line manager did not know where they were or what they were doing. What if Anne had left a psychopath in their home to house-sit while they were on holiday and that psycho injured one of the Council Officers? Would the Officers be covered with insurance? Could they claim/sue? The line manager, if we are to accept the Council’s response, had no idea if her staff would be out of the office for 10 minutes, 4 weeks or somewhere in between. In fact, from the response, it appears that the line manager had no idea if the Officers were even in work that day.

This is a point that I’m sure the Officers themselves – if they know what’s going on – may wish to bring up with their senior management, via their Union Representative.

It’s worth keeping in mind that this is not the first time the Council Leader has used lower ranked staff to unwittingly carry out his dirty work, if that is what has happened here!

Because we’re told – albeit under duress of the Information Commissioner’s pressure on the Council to do so – that the manager had no idea what was going on, we have two options. We can either believe the Council who have been caught lying already, or we can refuse to accept this version of events. I would suggest that, until the two Officers are put on the record, the second option is applicable.

Having said that, I would also point out that, due to the lies of Shropshire Council thus far, it is ‘NOT’ 100% certain if the line manager is innocent or guilty of involvement in the criminal actions that took place on 3rd June 2010. Therefore, it would be a sensible approach to wait until we know the decision of the final appeal as that decision could change everything… or nothing.

I think it’s also important that we stress Owen Patterson MP, the local MP for Hollie, needs to take some accountability for his failure to help Hollie throughout her time in Shropshire.

Something exists which could have been very useful for Anne & Hollie, it’s called the ‘Victim’s Charter’. Mr Patterson MP appears to have failed in that duty, as have West-Mercia Police Force and Shropshire Council as the relevant public services for Hollie & Anne.

One point that the Victim’s Charter makes clear is that Hollie has the right to “…an enhanced service in the cases of vulnerable or intimidated victims.”

Hollie was never given that courtesy!  I suggest Mr Patterson MP needs to be asked… WHY?

The Charter also states…

“A victim’s rights include:
The right to – information about their crime within specified time scales, including the right to be notified of any arrest and court cases
The right to – a dedicated family liaison Police Officer to be assigned to bereaved relatives
The right to – an enhanced service in the cases of vulnerable or intimidated victims
The Government aims to ensure that every victim, including relatives of people who have died as a result of a crime, has access to information on support services in their local area”

Further, an interesting entry in the Charter states:

“If victims feel that any of the service providers have not met their obligations under the Victims’ Code of Practice, and are dissatisfied with the response to their complaint, they can take their case to the Parliamentary Ombudsman via their MP.”

Over to you, Mr Patterson!

For reasons best known to themselves numerous public authorities are colluding in the largest cover-up of paedophilia and its ‘enablers’ Scotland has ever known. These enablers operate in England as well as Scotland. The message must go out to these supporters and protectors of those who harm children that the pressure will NOT be eased off, the campaign will NOT go away and justice WILL be achieved for Hollie Greig as well as the tens of thousands of other children and vulnerable adults in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

JUSTICE FOR HOLLIE GREIG!
FREE ROBERT GREEN!
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Freedom of Information compliance notice:
(Received: Tuesday, 28th February 2012 at 08:19)

Dear Mr McFerran

Further to the recent Decision Notice issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office, we confirm the name of the Head of Landlord Services below.

Whilst we accept the Information Commissioner’s decision to name one of the three staff names requested, we emphasise that the officer named below had no involvement in the case involving the occupants of the property and had no knowledge of the attendance by staff at the property.

The officer who was in post as Head of Landlord Services at the time was Sue Adams.

Yours sincerely

Information Governance Team
Shropshire Council
Shirehall
Abbey Foregate
SHREWSBURY
SY2 6ND
Tel:                  01743 252179
Email:             information.request@shropshire.gov.uk
Web:               www.shropshire.gov.uk/foi.nsf