Go to Middlesbrough and get something!
"Haven't you got to send him a copy of this?"
Recently it was thirty years since Kevin Keegan’s legendary outburst on Sky Sports. In the spirit of that and the claims made by certain Principal Officers in the West Midlands Fire Service that “outsiders have been silenced”, allow me to pay homage to the former Mags Manager and let the Brigade know that “We’re still fighting for this.”
As the non-RIPA authorised surveillance of me no doubt continues, let me set out my terms, as they’re really quite simple. My grievance is rooted in the knowingly false accusations made against me by the late WMFS CFO Wayne Brown, supported by the temporary, seconded, acting DCFO Joanne Bowcock. That, in turn, led to a wrongful arrest, unlawful charge, targeted misinformation/smear campaign against me, death threats, malicious prosecution and ultimately the CPS and Police had to admit there was nil evidence to justify any of it.
The costs of that are not only the legal fees, investigators fees, Barrister’s fees, but the significant detriment to my business, personal reputation and effective removal of my livelihood as a consequence. There have been personal health consequences too, which my close friends are aware of.
They went down in my estimation when they did that!
Now the starting point for damages is always “to restore the claimant to the position that they would have been in had this not happened.” That cannot happen now, because of the damage incurred. I had spent decades building a professional reputation, writing pivotal textbooks and training firefighters globally (alongside my co-author Shan Raffel) and developing a successful domestic fire & safety consultancy business. Funnily enough, being publicly labelled as a racially motivated “murderer” has made me “persona non grata” within the relatively small fire industry. The lack of clarity and coverage of my acquittal and the facts of that, of Brown, Brackenridge and Bowcock’s wrongdoings, alongside the misinformation campaign have made that impossible.
What do I want?
An apology from WMFS and public acknowledgement that my concerns were raised legitimately and were justified and the response to them was inappropriate.
Acknowledgement that Wayne Brown was committing a multi-million pound value fraud (with taxpayer money), and by extension misconduct in public office, as were Joanne Bowcock and Greg Brackenridge regarding the MBA/Assistant Commissioner claims, the Law Degree claim and the Stolen Valour/claimed Royal Marines service respectively.
A commitment to providing confidential counselling or relevant assistance and therapy to those who were affected by Wayne Brown’s bullying, notably those who bought notice of being sexual assaulted (by Brown) to the organisation’s attention.
Restitution, to where I should have been had this not happened, and appropriate compensation where this is obviously no longer possible, accounting for all factors.
It isn’t a difficult thing to do and the first two of those points cost nothing but the pride of those who were taken in by, or promoted various myths about all of the players in this badly acted farce. The third point is something that shouldn’t have to be asked for, and the last can be sorted by lawyers and some demonstrations of good faith.
Now, I hope that this can be achieved, because if we go to the High Court, then I shan’t be throwing away a 12-point lead like Kevin’s Entertainers in 1996. I will beat them, and I will… love it!
Until next time.