SINS OF OMISSION

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I haven't posted on Jersey for a while. This is mainly because not much has been happening. Yes, I know there has been an election and a new Chief Minister, and the "leader of the opposition" has become Children's and Housing Minister and so on. But it is too early to assess the significance of these changes, if any.

What has provoked me into print is a development relating to the Abuse Inquiry. I know I will be accused of being obsessed with this feature of Island life and that does not worry me one whit.

How the authorities react in this area is a litmus test of their sincerity across the board and it is a simple one that is easily accessible.

People will remember that, earlier this year, the Inquiry's web site was taken down pending further redaction to protect the innocent (and maybe a few of the guilty as well). Not everyone believed the reasons given for the take down as it conveniently (for some) deprived researchers of the raw material necessary for an in depth evaluation of the Inquiry and of the authorities' response to it.

Fortunately, some of us had already lost trust in the Inquiry and in the authorities so this may not prove to be as serious an obstacle as it first appeared.

We were promised that the site would be gradually restored as appropriate redactions were made to the content, and, lo and behold, the first phase of the restoration is now finally upon us.

Before I go any further, a technical comment. I would have imagined that the first redaction would have been to upgrade the site's security in line with what is happening generally, including in the case of my own web site and my blogs (at Blogger). However when I try to access the partially restored site under the security protocol (https) my browser tells me:

The owner of www.jerseycareinquiry.org has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website.

This is a serious omission for an Inquiry which has already had its security lapses when in session.

I have had neither the time, nor the inclination at this stage, to examine what has been put back up in any great detail, but there is one glaring omission which screamed out at me.

In the section on Key Documents, there is an index to the "rulings" of the Inquiry on various matters such as media accreditation (of which more another time) and provision of, or funding for, legal advice/representation.

The Inquiry unjustifiably rejected Stuart Syvret's application for such funding despite the fact that he was a key witness and had been put in a very tricky legal situation by the Royal Court.

That ruling was always absent from the index though the ruling itself could be found on the site if one knew how to look for it. The partially restored site not only continues to omit the ruling from the index, but the ruling itself has now been taken down.

In the face of this unjustifiable and provocative piece of vandalism, I have posted the ruling on my own web site so that people can judge this matter for themselves.

I have referred to the restoration as partial. By this I mean that only part of the site has been restored. The word also has another meaning which may also be relevant, we'll see.

Anyway, what has not been restored is the transcripts of the oral hearings and the vast volumes of evidence submitted by participants to the Inquiry. These would be the meat of any assessment of the Inquiry and of the authorities' response to it.

Had these not been posted in the first place, and subsequently clumsily redacted, I would not necessarily have known the identity of the person referred to as 737 and that they were still in a prominent position in the financial sector despite being scheduled for police interview under caution as a suspect in the rape of an adult female.

So the taking down and continued absence of this material is no small matter.

While I'm in full flight, I'd like to refer to a document which has been brought to my attention. It is a discussion by some legal bods on The Jersey Way in the context of moving on from the Inquiry.

While it is by no means comprehensive, understandably so in a document emaninating from within the Jersey legal fraternity, and while it retains a sloppy reference to the infamous "coconut", it does have some sensible things to say on the subject.

It is something of an academic work, containing as it does many references to other sources, but this may be a useful feature as it brings together some of the current thinking in this area.

A central theme is trust and transparency - how to regain popular trust by operating in a fully transparent manner. While Jersey is still a long way from this, it is worth mentioning here some of the observations in the document.

It has an extensive comment on the Inquiry's dealings with Stuart Syvret:

An obvious hole in the Jersey Care Inquiry Report is the absence of former Senator Stuart Syvret’s evidence. Syvret had been an outspoken critic of the way the Jersey establishment had dealt with allegations of child abuse dating back to the 1970’s. In 2007 he was dismissed from his post as the Minister for Health and Social Services after claiming that child abuse cases were being covered up. When Syvret called for an independent inquiry he was accused by the then Chief Minister, Frank Walker, of damaging Jersey’s reputation. Syvret was arrested in April 2008 and charged under the Data Protection Act in relation to articles written on his blog allegedly containing confidential information. The Care Inquiry report noted his refusal to assist the inquiry as regrettable. But Syvret himself told the Jersey Evening Post that he wanted to give evidence, but did not because he was not granted legal representation, something he felt he needed to prevent the breach of any of the court orders that were in place against him.

If the States of Jersey truly wanted to draw a line and turn a new leaf, which is what this inquiry sought to do, then legal representation should have been granted to Stuart Syvret. That would have served one of the strongest possible indications yet that the government wants to move forward into an era of transparency and honesty whilst at the same time demonstrating an element of humility, which has been so lacking in the eyes of the victims.

So I am clearly entitled to attach significance to this ruling by the Inquiry and am not surprised they have gone to some lengths to hide it as it is a perverse ruling and, in my view, undermines the independence of the Inquiry itself.

Furthermore, the document quotes

Specifically, McAlinden and Naylor argue, the inherent limitations of public inquiries, like narrow terms of reference, which are primarily focused on recommendations for law reform, ‘may impede the deeper systemic exploration of the context, causes and consequences of abuse that may be necessary in seeking a just process and outcomes for victims’.
A. McAlinden and B. Naylor, (2016) Reframing Public Inquiries as ‘Procedural Justice’ for Victims of Institutional Child Abuse: Towards a Hybrid Model of Justice, Sydney Law review, Vol.38, p.294.

This particular Inquiry narrowed its own terms of reference and then only went beyond them when it suited it. It ignored the term of reference which obliged it to go back to the States (parliament) before it set its rules and procedures in stone. It went outside its terms of reference in commenting on the Victoria College scandal but refused to comment on the significance of the illegal suspension of the Police Chief although this was a critical event in the attempted cover up of abuse and the effective shutting down of Operation Rectangle. There is no question but that this suspension was slap bang in the middle of its terms of reference. It also refused to follow up on the apparent abandonment of the scheduled police interview with person 737 in the immediate aftermath of the Police Chief's suspension.

Clearly the Inquiry itself baulked at any effort to pursue the trail into the financial sector, the reputation of which it put above its own purpose. And there is no point in saying to me that this was an alleged adult victim and so not relevant to the Inquiry. It was a classic demonstration of the psychology behind the whole cover up, and the Inquiry knew this.

So how could one trust this Inquiry to have due regard to the "deeper systematic exploration" referred to in the quote above.

Anyway, this post has gone on long enough. You can read the legal bods document yourself if you are sufficiently interested. It is worth the read and seems to me to represent some small awakening in the legal profession to the need to raise these issues in public if there is ever to be closure in this horrific area.

Just a parting footnote: I would not like to be taken as ignoring the efforts of Philip Sinel, single-handedly among the Jersey legal fraternity, to do precisely this at no small cost to himself.

Original post here

JON COMMENTS

As I have explained elsewhere, I will not tolerate comments on individual blog posts where the nature of those comments, usually crass and insulting, would undermine my ability to refer bona fide readers to my posts.

I am in favour of free speech in society at large and do not fear criticism even when it is such as would strike terror into the heart of a grown man.

I have been subjected to crude and irrelevant comments from Jon Howarth over the years and have been quite happy to ignore them. They have turned up under all sorts of totally unrelated posts and as a result on occasions I have had some difficulty knowing what he is going on about.

However, we are here in different territory. I have actually done a post on Jon, sparked by the Commissioner for Standards finding that Jersey parliamentarian, Sam Mézec's, forthright and perhaps slightly over the top, description of Jon is not out of place coming from an elected representative because it is in fact true.

This is quite a departure for Jon who has been "getting away with murder" for years. Yes he did get bound over in 2011 for making threats but, as Stuart Syvret has pointed out, this case only got followed up by the police because Stuart had raised the matter in a courtroom. Par for the course would have been for the authorities to ignore it as was their wont. After all did Jon not do them a big favour by letting himself be used in the disgraceful official campaign to have Stuart's blog taken down.

Islanders got a shock many moons ago when ex-RUC man Lenny Harper, coming from off-island, confiscated their bazookas. Now we have another ex-RUC man making it quite clear that he is not going to lend himself to endorsing frivolous and unjustified complaints. Hopefully we will see him upholding those which have substance and lighting a few fireworks under deserving elected backsides.

Lest, as a southerner, I am taken here as unjustifiably smearing/complimenting former members of the RUC, I have to declare an interest. A friendly RUC man, who I had just met, once offered to mind my southern registered car parked outside the Guildhall in Derry at the height of the troubles. No one touched it.

Anyway my Jon post is clearly a special event. I have had 468 pageviews, some 40 printable comments and a further 30 which I have not passed.

So in a spirit of fair play and free speech I intend relaying some of the points (below in bold type) made in comments that I have held back.

So here we go; hold on to your hats till the storm abates.

---

Póló is an off-Island coward


Ever wondered why so many comments on the serious blogs are made anonymously. Normally I would expect anonymous commments to be stupid or insulting and not pay much attention to them. However, Jersey is a different kettle of fish. Serious commenters will feel obliged to comment anonymously for fear of retribution. So it is not only acceptable, it is wise in many cases.

As they say down my way "the proof is in the pudding", and a raft of people have suffered severe retribution at the hands of the authorities, including Stuart Syvret, Trevor Pitman, Lenny Harper, Graham Power & God knows how many others known only to family & friends. Mike Higgins is still battling away from inside the States despite their having tried to bankrupt him at least once.

Now I'm off-island and a little more beyond their reach and I am grateful to Jersey for the wonderful times I spent on the island, so I feel I owe them something in return.

Leah McGrath Goodman

And while I'm on the topic of off-island I'd like to pay tribute to Leah, an internationally renowned financial journalist, who has put herself out to report abuse on the island. She then ran into trouble with UK border control on a return visit and her situation was only "regularised" after intervention by a number of highly placed individuals who supported what she was doing. Hopefully she'll soon be landing an unwelcome book on the desks of a few island worthies.

I would also like to pay tribute to Leigh Lafon (Denver Elle) who for a number of years supported the cause from the US with posts that were always perceptive and to the point. Thanks Leigh for all your encouragement and we hope to see you back sometime.


Your Blog has been reported to the Police for harassment because that's all you are doing. McMurray has also been reported for promoting it. One way or another I will win, because I always win and if all you have is old news to hit people with then you are a fool.

Ian Le Marquand, former Justice Minister
& creature of the City of London

Why does Jon get away with his damaging behaviour while others have been harassed by the authorities for doing their job and attempting to clean up the island.

Former Police Chief Bowron

And at the same time others who have complained about Jon at the highest level of the police are just ignored. Check out Rico's story. There is enough evidence around to give rise to the suspicion that Jon is being protected.


The owner of this Blog must be seriously thick.
This is a member of the Jsy public who you are trying to vilify and re-try over a spent court case I am told is almost 8 years old so is meaningless under the rehab Law.
Any Copper or Court reading this hate campaign would this person is being harassed.


Regarding the court case in 2011 where Jon was bound over for making phone threats, he claims that the lightness of the sentence proves that he never threatened to murder anyone. However, that claim could be stood on its head, and we could wonder, particularly as there is phone evidence of a murder threat, why the sentence was so light. Now there's some food for thought.


I will set the law on you for harassing an innocent and insignificant member of the public.

John can only claim to be an insignificant & ordinary member of the public because he gets away with what he does. In any functioning society he would be behind bars or in treatment.

He complains that I am abusing my off-island position, presumably on the basis that I am acting irresponsibly while I am unaccountable for what I do. In the same breath he is telling me he has reported me to the Police and that they are coming for me as there is no hiding place. Well Jon which is it?


You should be ashamed of yourself putting Rico Sorda's private life up online.


I have simply alluded to matters that Rico himself has put in the public domain. These are matters which, were it not for Jon's evil behaviour, Rico would not have needed to allude to at all in public.

It was in fact Jon himself who, in the course of his nasty gloating comments, attempted to put further aspects of Rico's private life in the headlights.


You know stalking is a criminal offence.


This was posted as a comment under a post of mine that was totally unrelated to Jersey. There have been many of these, while I have only very occasionally referred to Jon and in relevant contexts. So it's really a question of who's stalking whom here.


Stuart is under a court order to leave Nurse M alone. He has broken this and will go to prison, the stupid cunt.

Stuart Syvret

Nobody is sure at this stage precisely what legal constraints apply to Stuart Syvret. It was thought that he was subject to a super gagging order and his behaviour would lead you to believe that this was in fact the case.

His efforts to stop Nurse M in his tracks were a dismal failure, no small thanks to Jon, and they resulted in his blog being taken down. There is unfinished business here but the authorities are running a mile in the opposite direction.


You are a thick Irish dickhead ... so go fuck yourself.

Jon is deluded into thinking he is part of Jersey Royalty.

In with the in-crowd.

But Jon, you will be dispensable when the heat comes on.

So gather ye rosebuds.


The COS [Commissioner for Standards] will be removed for the way he has dealt with this.

I have made my views on this clear above.


Pain in the ass because the Police have read your post and now I have to go and make a statement.

I surely hope they have and might do something about you as a result.


You are also being reported to the police for online harassment and abuse.

Jon, go look in the mirror.

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Some other comments have been passed on to me from the Voice for Children blog where Jon has left them. I'm just including two below but others have been along the lines of those above.


Ian Gorst, the AG and the SG were apprised about it today. Hope you know what you are doing.


Lets hope Chief Minister Ian, the Attorney General and the Solicitor General are already reading my blog. They are welcome to come on and comment here any time. And that also goes for the next Chief Minister and the Chief of Police.


If he has nothing to do with historic abuse like he says then you are targeting him for the sake of it aren't you?

I don't think anyone has linked Jon directly with historic abuse, assuming he means child sex abuse. His behaviour and the official non-treatment of it does serve as an indicator of a totally corrupt system which we know to have been involved in child abuse and in its cover-up.

Jon cannot distance himself from his, well rewarded, co-operation with this system, for example, in getting Stuart Syvret's whistle-blowing blog shut down.

Equally, Jon's claim to have had sight of Rico Sorda's tax return would, if true, put him in a very privileged and intimate relationship with this corrupt administration.

So, Jon, an ordinary member of the public? My arse.

---

My aim in putting Jon's comments in a separate post is that those who wish to can "enjoy" them and those who don't can avoid them entirely.

I could go on here all night but I'll just finish with this comment from a perceptive observer of the Jersey scene.

What makes me so irate is that he is trying to portray himself as the victim. He has terrorised people online for years, not least Rico's ex-wife who has virtually no online presence herself. He is a nasty vindictive individual and if I, or any progressive Blogger, had acted the way he has (and does) we would be doing a ten year stretch by now.

Original post here

JON

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Jon Haworth lives in Jersey (CI).

He has threatened to kill a politician's landlord. He harasses victims of child abuse. He is a sick and twisted maniac.

Sam Mézec, States (Jersey Parliament) Member

This description of Jon issues from Jersey parliamentarian Sam Mézec.

Now you might think it a bit extreme. Jon certainly did and he made a formal complaint about Sam to to the Commissioner for Standards claiming that Sam had breached the Code of Conduct for Elected Members.

Paul Kernaghan CBE QPM
Commissioner for Standards

The position of Commissioner for Standards was established in Jersey in 2016. Previous to that the politicians investigated themselves.

The Commissioner appointed was Paul Kernaghan CBE QPM. Originally from Northern Ireland, he served in the Royal Ulster Constabulary before becoming Chief Constable of Hampshire. This was followed by a spell as Head of Mission for the European Union Police Mission for the Palestinian Territories and then as Commissioner for Standards for the UK House of Lords after which he ended up in Jersey.

Parliament already knew Jon's form and I take it that he thought he'd have a go with the new man on the block.

Now, that was Jon's big mistake, because Sam's description is true. The Commissioner effectively acknowledged that and so reported to the Jersey parliament which found that no further action was called for.

So the result of Jon's complaint is that both the Commissioner for Standards and the Jersey parliament have effectively endorsed Sam's description.

The Commissioner found as follows in relation to each element of the complaint:

‘I threatened to kill a Politician’s Landlord’

I am satisfied based on the newspaper coverage of a court case involving Mr. Haworth that he had been bound over to keep the peace in connection with a telephone call he made which involved a threat to the landlords of a Jersey politician. I find it significant that Mr. Haworth sought to explain his actions on that occasion, by stating that they were prompted by a social media exchange to which he objected.

‘That I harass Victims of Child Abuse’
I am satisfied that the JCLA letter dated 25 November 2015 provides justification for Deputy Mézec’s comment. I note that Deputy Mézec referred to other relevant evidence to justify his comment, but I felt it unnecessary to pursue these additional references.

‘That I am a sick and twisted Maniac’
Whilst one could deprecate Deputy Mézec’s choice of language in the light of the requirements of Article 5 of the Code of Conduct, I recognise that social media is a more informal media and that Mr. Haworth’s history, as evidenced in the report of the court case in 2011, may have led Deputy Mézec to feel his comment was justified. I do not believe it was malicious in intent.

There are two references in the above which need further elucidation, the 2011 court case and the JCLA.

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I couldn't find the official report of the court case. I have been told that the Jersey Evening Post have taken their original piece on the case offline. I am indebted to Ian Evans for the above copy of the JEP piece.

If you're interested you can hear what I take to be the phonecall cited in the courtcase here. Jon is threatening Stuart Syvret's landlord with death at the hands of Nurse M, a (so far, alleged) serial killer.

The JCLA is the Jersey Care Leavers Association which supports those adults who, as children, suffered abuse while in care. Their letter, referred to above, states that Mr. Haworth had made vitriolic attacks on the JCLA and claimed that he had said that victims of child abuse only wanted compensation.

Jon has since made a phonecall similar to the one above to a disabled Blogger who campaigns for Victims/Survivors of Child Abuse.

I must say, were I Jon I'd be very careful in attempting to pressgang a man as dangerous as Nurse M into service to do my dirty work for me. As we say in Irish Filleann an feall ar an feallaire. However, Jon seems to have survived this unscathed so far, apart from the court case.

Jon, in further phonecalls, has relayed threats against the wife of investigative journalist/blogger Rico Sorda. You can follow this up on Rico's blog.

In addition to all the above, the Jersey establishment is not above using disreputables for its own ends when it suits them. For example, Jon was used by former Jersey Data Commissioner (daughter of Bergerac) to bring, what I consider a spurious, case against Stuart Syvret which resulted in Stuart's blog being taken down.

I have to say that it gives me great pleasure to see Jon hoisted on his own pétard. He has threatened more than the one person cited in the report and he has harassed and trolled a number of people online, including myself. He is the sole reason I had to start moderating comments on my blog. You can get a flavour of Jon's comments in a separate post.

So I'll finish with the immortal words of Jon Haworth
addressed to myself at 9.39pm on 18 January 2017:

Yup, you're just one big thick Irish dickhead.

Original post is here