This Editorial at a Glance:

• The Gang of Four(or more);

• The LFRS Firefighters Pension Debacle;

• Driver’s Fire Service Pension Antics ;

• The Lancashire Evening Post;

• BT & LCC Partnership in Privatisation;

• The Former LCC CEO Mr. P Halsall;

• Remedial Action? – Too Little too Late

• The Lancashire Constabulary Investigation;

• The Defence? Bluster, Huff Puff & more Thuggery;

• The Chief Constable & CPS Chief Prosecutor;

• Councillors Responsibility and Consequences;

• The FSVs Pension Question still Remains the Same.

Dear Readers,

it is time once more to get reacquainted with Conservative County Councillor Geoff Driver CBE (the Leader of a Conservative LCC who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory), and his Gang of Four(or More).

On early Monday morning 22^nd May 2017 Driver and his 3 comrades in ‘trading’ were arrested by the Lancashire Constabulary and conveyed to Skelmersdale Police Station in Lancashire where they were arraigned before the Custody Sergeant and subsequently all were charged with “suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and witness intimidation.”

Under Caution those charged were:

Lancashire County Councillor Mr. Geoff.DriverCBE(nearly Council Leader on Thursday 25^th May 2017);

Former LCC CEO Mr.Phil Halsall;

Former One Connect Managing Director
and CEO Mr.David McElhinney;

Mr Ged Fitzgerald Liverpool City CEO,
former CEO of the LCC;

More will surely follow…

Later they were all to be bailed until 19th June.

On the 28^th January 2008 CC Driver visited the Bugler’s home by invitation. CC Driver was the Bugler’s divisional County Councillor and the Conservative Party leader in opposition at County Hall.

The Labour Party were in power at County Hall under CC Harding CBE  and the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority  were under the dubious ‘Chairmanship’ of CC Wilkinson a former Firefighter who came under the Bugler’s Watch command at one point in time a Station E77 Heywood(Manchester).

If ever there was a case of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse then this was it.

Wilkinson was always shifty and lazy on the Watch and needed the Bugler’s constant eagle eye and as such was fully ‘pre-qualified’ not only to be a politician but yet another lazy crooked one at that.
It was on his political watch in September 2007 that the storm about the so called pension ‘overpayments’ broke when it was reported by an honest disabled Fire Service Veteran now deceased.

The LFRS debacle was handled by the ever deviously mendacious clerk Warren and his bent cronies at the LFRS HQ.

Wilkinson was forgetful enough never to ‘declare an interest’ at all the meetings he chaired on the Pension issue.

He failed to recall  that  he had been compulsorily retired from the Lancashire County Fire Brigade on an ill health pension and was in receipt of DWP ill health benefits acquired as a consequence, he claimed, of an on duty ‘ service injury’.
This he claimed was ‘acquired’ at the time on the football field representing the Brigade.

But the Chief Fire Officer of the day was having none of it and rejected his false claim, much to his chagrin.

Nevertheless, he still managed as a closet Freemason and a good Fire Brigades Union man to leave with a full service ill health pension with DWP benefits which he was finally forced to admit receipt of by the Bugler and the(truly) disabled FSVs with whom he had served.

Wilkinson set the high tone of political corruption which was to follow.

Meantime Driver, who as the Conservative Party leader in opposition at County Hall, was eager to grab power once more in the May 2009 local elections.

He listened carefully to the Bugler’s briefing on the developing LFRS pension debacle and gave personal assurances that he would investigate the matter and then unsolicited he declared that he was not a Freemason nor was he a member of any other organisation which held secrets from the Public’s purview.

This declaration was of course a blatant falsehood for no one is likely to be awarded a CBE unless they were in a position that automatically brings this buggins award and/or they were also a Freemason.

Though to waggishly cover the extremely odd exception to the ‘rule’ of these establishment ‘conditions’ the CBE has been (printably) referred to as the ‘Complete Blithering Eejit’ award… needless to say Driver has been so recognised…

One wonders when all this grinds to a gory conclusion on the floor is he going to give it back?

In the Election event it being buggins turn Driver and his Party were finally returned to power in 2009 determined to follow the Thatcherite dictats of their Party.

In 2009, post-election, the Bugler and disabled FSV-RB subsequently had a meeting with Driver in the ‘Leaders’ suite at County Hall.

During this meeting Driver made endless promises of which, needless to say, he never fulfilled a single one.
A classical politician which he was to demonstrate continuously for the next number of years both in and out of power.
A leopard has yet to change its spots.

As a ‘professional’ politician his modus operandii seems always to be his egocentric assumption that political power brings with it natural intelligence and whilst it clearly brings cunning, this is hardly the same philosophical ‘quality’, is it?

Driver’s ‘activities’ on the pension front have already been well documented on the MB, most particularly, in the Journey of Truth Chapters 4 & 7 and in Current Affairs 2014 in Volumes 1 & 4.

Indeed at one early point after taking over County Hall Driver instructed O’Toole the Tory Party Whip and thief taker of expenses and, by now,  the new incumbent Chairman of the CFA that he wanted this pension debacle rapidly ‘sorted out’ but later the Bugler was informed from a reliable inside source that  Driver ‘made promises that he knew he never could deliver’.

It is noteworthy in a 2009 secret email, also published in the MB, from clerk Warren to CFO Holland (of rather Goonish Wandering Sid Rupole fame) intended for O’Toole/Driver in which Warren discusses the provision of a document which O’Toole would ‘help’ find its way to Driver and no doubt in turn ‘help’ Driver to find his way from the darkness.

clerk Warren states…

“I undertook to provide a synopsis for any future meeting that is arranged of the contradictions and alterations in Burns position (with a view to the document or a separate document finding its way to cc Driver to show the lies that have been presented to help CC O’Toole’s position- I did not say so to David) .

I am mindful that this is tricky territory but an agreed Service/CFA position might be useful to then follow up with Thompsons/ FBU /Individuals.

A document in which he undoubtedly, not only denigrates the Bugler and his ‘associates’, but underpins his own position in which he says that as the person responsible in law for the Lancashire Firefighters Pension Scheme he inherited  this massive pension management debacle, which he further stated, occurred fortuitously before his time(lie), and of which, he was completely innocent of responsibility(further lie), but he was doing his level best to rectify this horrifying situation(true), because this was to save his own neck.

For the full document of pure corruption. Go Here. 

As we have seen recently clerk Warren is ever keen to volunteer his secret services, for example to the foolish Durton the current CEO of the LCC, but for purely self-preservation career reasons rather than acting with the solicitude of a decent local authority civil servant.

History records that Driver swallowed the ‘document’,  hook, line, and sinker, thus confirming his lack of political acumen and the illuminatingly poor level of his personal nous and was later, via one of his many nomes-des-plumes in the Lancashire Evening Post, in a typically snide triumphant remark stated for the Bugler’s benefit, that the Bugler got a ‘final solution’ to the pension debacle, but it was not necessarily the one he desired.

Unfortunately for Driver this publicly revealing remark simply confirmed his pre-knowledge of a Court result to come which also confirmed his complicity in matters judicial amounting to yet more lawlessness when he clearly colluded with Judge ‘Nelson’ Butler in their joint and embarrassing ‘final solution’ to the pension issue which blatantly ignored the Statutory pension law; the Limitations Act; and the laws governing Contempt of Court by misuse of electronic devices; and suborning of a Witness under Oath.

Butler will no doubt agree it was and will be the sorriest of days he ever allowed himself to get caught up with self evident criminals operating in his own Court.

The Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice are unlikely to look kindly on such Judicary damaging lack of poor judgement to say the least of these escapades.

As we shall see in an exposé in the not too distant future they and their associates will all commence trudging down their own ‘hardship route’…the arrest of Driver et al sets the tone of serious matters to come…

On the 1^st February 2014 the Bugler wrote an extensive analysis of the Lancashire Evening Post(LEP) and its craven adherence to its ‘golden’ boy Driver.

In May 2017 a particularly apt sentence jumps off the page…

“Blatant partiality, manipulation, gagging, and censorship is simply a one way ticket to bankruptcy as thoughtful readers(the ones who usually buy a daily rag) depart seeking a more balanced view or opinions with which they can engage or discuss.

Nothing has changed since that time and the LEP continues its dance with the corrupt into commercial oblivion.

The LEP, this politically partial rag, which lacks any form of corporate integrity, or street credibility, confirmed by the closing of their printing press, the downsizing of its Preston office, allied with their ever diminishing sales figures, has for years been allowing an easily identifiable Driver and his political chums to exercise their ‘political grooming thoughts’ via the LEP comments columns under a plethora of laughable nomes-des-plumes commencing with the truly hilariously  transparent ‘Girl-in-Finance’.

The Editor Gill Parkinson(now Editorial Director North West) simply cannot deny her knowledge of her involvement in, and approval of these political misrepresentations, nor the associated politically ‘grooming’ capers which are , as history  confirms, very simple democracy corrupting steps on the pathway from democracy, to autocracy, to right wing extremism, to thuggish brown shirts, to the finality of fascizm, because Parkinson knowingly authorises and controls the use of the nomes-des-plumes by these mostly illiterate sinister clowns.

Lately the LEP was driven against its demonstrable editorial policy in favour of Driver and his criminal cronies to have to report his and their arrests.

My how that must have hurt though cynically it seems that in the end income won the day against Lamplighter loyalty, but this is only the beginning of the end of Driver who will in ultimate defeat drag down all those he has corruptly contaminated …

The Public of Lancashire cannot rely on a partial LEP reporting this story in full, or in truthful detail either now or in the future, and should save their penny subscription to an LEP which will plead sub-judice to the point of boredom.

But the Public can always rely on the free press MB presenting the firm evidence of political corruption as the tide of it swills down the steps of County Hall on its way to the sewage farm of politics.

It should always be borne in mind that in the County Hall of the Oppressed and  Coerced, a gloomy workplace, those individual decent employees of courage are still to be found because they find such brass necked corruption by the likes of Driver and his ilk an affront to their natural values and beliefs in the support of the rule of law and a democracy in which they live and profoundly believe…

Within the last 24 hours even a politically cowed and controlled LEP was driven, in the briefest of terms, to register its horror at the ultimate perversion as the Lancashire Tory Party’s re-appointed  ‘Leader’ Driver as they assume office at a time when their ‘Leader’ is under arrest just 3 days ago for perverting the course of justice and intimidating witnesses to his criminality.

It was not for nothing that PM May was driven to describe her own party as the Nazty party.

The question is as ever very simple why would ‘Leader’ Driver, axiomatic for ‘Fuhrer’, find it necessary to pervert the course of justice, or intimidate anyone as the CPS states, and least of all witnesses to his activities at County Hall, if he is perfectly innocent?

Years ago when the Lancashire County Fire Brigade Control and Mobilising centre was due to digitalise its operational response British Telecom appeared on the scene at County Hall and County FB HQ with many commercial and personal inducements at a time when ‘Sid Rumpole’ Holland was rambling around as the Deputy Chief Fire Officer.

‘Sid’ was the officer responsible along with another ‘character’ called Livesey who was embarrassingly and publicly greedy. As the original Sid Rumpole might have sagely observed two grubby pigs but not a big enough trough…

The air was heavy with rumours of X5 BMWs, freebee jaunts, ‘sponsorships’, and other such encouraging inducements.

In the event history records that, surprise, surprise, BT were the successful Contract bidders and it is certainly a coincidence that ‘Sid’ seemed to have an affinity for the X factor thereafter, for he was seen in one for many years to come.

So when Mr.McElhinney of BT appeared on the scene once more at County Hall, now under the control of Driver who, shortly after taking power coincidentally appeared in his very own new 4x track, no doubt Mr.McElhinney’s pockets were still full of their usual inducements with the aspiration to talk to a Driver who wished to implement the privatisation of certain LCC services, including IT communications, vehicle fleet management, and  most particularly the transfer of the very wealthy Local Authorities and Firefighters Pension Schemes to BT with an estimated annual working value in the region of £10.0mil+ .

It was at this point during which the LCC formed a new partnership, called One Connect Ltd( a direct adjunct of BT),  under the CEO ship of Mr.McElhinney that  the Bugler sat up and paid attention once more. Of course such a partnership, set up in 2011, was intending to ‘save’ Joe Public £440mil over 10 years. A partnership which will always involve well remunerated seats on boards,generally

structured at ‘arms length’, and described as non-executive directorships(but not when the remuneration comes round) all of which are a deliberate ploy to deceive accountability with the Tax & VAT man, but least of all the general tax paying Public, the Sheeple.

The LCC Pension Service under the admirably unqualified Mrs Diane Lister and her chum the also admirably unqualified Ms Julie Wisdom were  hosts to 200+ pension schemes including the LCC Constabulary and  two other Local Authority County schemes all to the value of £4.0mil+ excluding annual government supplements in the region of £6.0mil+  which were hastily moved out of County Hall into splendid new offices in Guildhall Street Preston where the previous facility of pensioners to meet with their Scheme administrators was rapidly dropped as this renamed One Connect pension service adopted a new fortress like mentality free from any scrutiny though LCC scrutiny was parlous to say the least anyway, a sub-committee which included DeMolfetta which says it all.

One assumes Lister and chums were suitably remunerated for their enthusiasm with new and enhanced conditions of service and salaries bringing with it the self-evident personalised car numbers plates, etc, which are all perks for these humble clerks.

The IT comms was not a particularly difficult transition for BT but the LCC Central Vehicle Maintenance Unit(CVMU) rebelled and started picketing and parading, providing all the usual tedious problems  for a Tory administration set on dismantling and downsizing the labour force of a notably well managed facility. Driver, in his wisdom backed off with fatter financial fish to fry in One Connect.

For a short period all seemed to go well as Labour recovered from their defeat and Driver et al with BT forged ahead but once more the air became heavy with rumours and intrigues concerning these cosy commercial arrangements with BT.

It is a fact of life that if one is not included on the gravy train that disenchantment, nay jealousy, breeds and as ever in that wonderful Lancashire phrase it all ends with … ‘trouble at mill’…and so it was.

It seems that Halsall, who was heavily involved in all this criminality with Driver, proved to be reliably  pivotal. Indeed he followed the LCC motto, in Consilio Consilium (‘in council we council’-the cabalistic trick to keep secrets from Public scrutiny), though he seemed to think that the trough was both wide and deep enough to accommodate both his, Driver, and Mr.McEihinney’s snouty avarice and thus he became a willing servant to his master Driver and paymaster to Mr.McElhinney though we can be sure it required ‘faceless others’ to make it all work.

We can also be sure it will be the ‘faceless ones’ that the Police investigation will be focusing on right now.

In August 2013 with the advent of the May 2013 Local Elections the change of Watch Bell rang for these short term fraudsters and Labour once more took power with the LibDems at County Hall when at last the ‘books’ would be thrown open to them for some sort of amateurish scrutiny.

Halsall, it ought to be remembered, was an award winning deputy Finance Officer(accountant) risen to stardom and thus will be entirely capable of burying the evidence, so he thinks, but there is always a smarter creature in the jungle….

Clearly Halsall would not play ball with Mein and Winlow and provide the necessary answers which the new administration demanded from him and as a consequence in August 2013 he was suspended.

The Labour Leader Mein and her counterpart LidDem Winlow both displayed abysmal ignorance and transparency for Public accountability when they first discovered the magnitude of this great breath taking scam by Driver and One Connect, and at its most charitable, they were both probably incapable of reading Halsall’s  ‘imaginative’ balance sheets.

They were then clearly ‘encouraged’ probably by the likes of Ian Young the County Solicitor(who will have questions to answer) to  bury this huge LCC embarrassment by the expedient setting practice, continued until the end on their current tenure of office in May 2017 which was simply, or so they thought, to do as DeMolfetta did recently at the LFRS with Hamilton and  Gardiner, to buy the silence of  the guilty man/men holding the secrets  by paying them off by the fraudulent  misuse of Public funds.

Halsall, whilst smirking, said later that the decision to leave the LCC “had not been an easy one”, which came after an investigation was launched into his

and Driver’s ‘irregularities’ in Contract tendering during  which  the LCC CVMU fleet maintenance contract for £5.0mil was ‘awarded’ to BT an action which ultimately involved the Lancashire Police; at this time BT was also running the Lancashire’s One Connect IT network.

All of this was mirrored at the BT sister ship at Liverpool City Council’s Liverpool Direct (LDL) where the councillors, like Lancashire, had not the foggiest notion what was going on.

Part of the disciplinary investigation being conducted into Phil Halsall also focused on who authorised payments to LDL boss David McElhinney, who was also acting as CEO at One Connect at Lancashire, at one and the same time.
One of Driver’s favourite expression in his Nomes-des-Plumes in the LEP was … “you couldn’t make this up if you tried…”

In what can only be described as bizarre blatant theft,  McElhinney then billed the LCC and was paid by Halsall in two instalments for 4 weeks ‘work’ in June and 6 weeks ‘work’ in July of 2013, to a total value of  more than £600,000.0 because according to him he shared his work effort with both Lancashire and Liverpool, a fact only ‘discovered ‘ by Lancashire in September 2013, after they had ‘paid off’ Halsall in August!

No doubt Halsall thought to himself, what a bunch of mugs, as he chortled and clinked his pockets off into the sunset…but then… Hamilton and Gardiner later did exactly the same at the LFRS with DeMolfetta and clerk Warren’s assistance. This confirms that, as we suspected, criminals at the LCC/LFRS do engage in copycats embezzlement which to them seems a good idea at the time.

So it was in Halsall’s case that the first precedent setting practice whereby details of his ‘financial irregularities’ were carefully hidden from Public accountability by Mein and Wilmot and off went Halsall by ‘mutual consent’ with his early pension from his £190,000 appointment and his, until now, guaranteed silence.

A very gauche and gushing County Council Labour Leader Jennifer Mein even publicly stated “I would like to take this opportunity to wish Mr Halsall the best of luck for the future.”, after waving this swagman off on the front steps of County Hall.

There is one born every minute…

This belated ‘investigation’ by a bunch of moronic councillors at Lancashire subsequently, after muddying the waters, became yet another complaint for assistance from an already overburdened Lancashire’s Chief Constable in 2013. 

Next along came the LCC CEO replacement for Halsall, a Mr.Ged Fitzgerald, who was on his way home from Rotherham via Sunderland to Merseyside, who before the ink had dried on his appointment, was off again to be the CEO of Liverpool City Council where he was to become the new mover and shaker for the sister ship of One Connect in Lancashire, Liverpool Direct Ltd(LDL) .

In the interim in 2014 after the scrapping of the Driver One Connect ‘project ‘ the LCC promptly moved its Pensions Service back into County Hall.
One wonders did the increased emoluments which Lister, Wisdom et al had acquired in their enthusiasm for One Connect continue, or were they correctly reinstated on their reduced LCC terms and conditions when taking back up their original posts at County Hall?

In August 2013 to the relief of the workforce at LCC CVMU the BT Contract was called in and scrapped and the effective vehicle maintenance resumed business as usual.

Currently Fitzgerald has been removed from his CEO duties by Liverpool City Council whilst he is on bail and until the Lancashire Constabulary investigation into his activities both at the LCC One Connect, and at Liverpool with LDL, has reached its conclusions.

This Police investigation into his activities both specific and generally  may well all loop back to haunt him from his days at Rotherham Council where he was the CEO at the time of a child sex abuse scandal when he was in charge from 2001 to 2003 during which he faced questions, whether or not he may have known about the abuse and, if so, whether or not he covered it all up?

On Merseyside at the Liverpool City Council there was considerable unease about Fitzgerald’s appointment as CEO in 2014 because he came with ‘baggage’ acquired at Rotherham and lately at the LCC.

So much so that the Mayor Joe Anderson was driven to bring the whole affairs out into the open. There seemed to be endless questions from active(unlike Lancashire) councillors who wanted honest answers to honest questions though it seems that until the present time uncertainty and suspicions about Fitzgerald version of the truth still prevail.

The Liverpool Echo(unlike its LEP counterpart in Lancashire) is committed to the concept of an enquiring untrammelled free press and sought to actively pursue the Fitzgerald question :

“Liverpool council chief executive Ged Fitzgerald has faced questions from Mayor Joe Anderson over his time in charge in Rotherham at the height of the child sex abuse scandal.

Mayor Anderson said Mr Fitzgerald had answered “honestly and fully” about events in the town where up to 1,400 young girls were groomed and exploited.

Mr Fitzgerald was in charge there from 2001 to 2003 and faced questions as to what he may have known about the abuse and whether or not there was any cover up of it.

In August – when a report revealed the scale of the abuse – he said he “abhorred” it and pledged to co-operate with any inquiries.

The Mayor said at the time he would question the chief executive and appointed University of Liverpool vice chancellor Sir Howard Newby to chair the meeting today, also attended by Green leader John Coyne.

Mayor Anderson said: “The chief executive answered an extensive number of questions from myself, Cllr Coyne and the Vice Chancellor and also questions which had been submitted by other councillors, which the chief executive had invited them to do.

“He addressed all the issues in an open and frank manner and provided us with useful context to his time at Rotherham.“On the basis of our discussions around the information which has been circulating to date about his time at Rotherham I am satisfied that the Chief Executive has answered honestly and fully. He reiterated his comment made in September that he would have cooperated fully with a public inquiry into the issue at Rotherham but the Government has not seen fit to call one.”.

Other city opposition leaders declined to take part in what they branded “a charade” after suggesting it should take place in public with the right to ask supplementary questions.

But they were told they would have to put written questions in and that the meeting should not be “interrogatory”.

Lib Dem leader Cllr Richard Kemp said: “The attitude has changed. It went from him (Mayor Anderson) demanding answers to being invited by the chief executive to ask questions.

“He has been blowing in the wind on this issue since it began. He was clearly uninformed when it broke and hasn’t been able to decide what to do since.”

Liberal leader Cllr Steve Radford added: “I have never had any invitation from the chief executive to a meeting. In emails I asked Joe was it his idea to do it like this or the chief executive’s and I didn’t get an answer.”

A statement from Cllr Coyne said he believed the approach had been “the right one”.

He added: “I am grateful to have had the opportunity to hear directly from the chief executive and I believe he was extremely open in his discussions with us and I now have much more information about the issues in question.”

There was no indication of whether the issue of Mr Fitzgerald’s role in Rotherham is now closed”.

It seems at the conclusion of this ‘charade’ that councillors remained distinctly unhappy about the Mayor’s volte facia in moving from his correct Public accounting role to an obsequious request for information from Fitzgerald.

This, in the light or this week’s arrest of Fitzgerald, may well come back to haunt the Mayor for it seems that this matter is far from concluded.

Presumably the fact that Fitzpatrick is now under arrest and bailed until 19^th June 2017 will hardly come as a surprise to those vigilant councillors who rightly pursued Fitzgerald at the time though it seems the Mayor Joe Anderson was easily duped, or so it appears.

From the Bugler’s 10 years experience with characters of this ilk it should be said in the Mayor’s defence that people like Fitzgerald are extremely accomplished and well practiced liars, duplicitous dissimulators and their performance up close is to be seen to be believed.

They exude faux sentiments including honesty and decency. It is a well practiced black art.

These skills are built over a professional lifetime and meeting these smooth characters for the first time one is easily misled because of a reasonable high expectation that all civil servants should have high professional standards of probity and honesty which is never actually the case because they are accomplished confidence tricksters who rapidly identify and then exploit the characteristics of decency  and honesty they find in their potential adversaries.

That is how accomplished confidence tricksters operate.

During this decade of ‘experience’ of such characters the Bugler has slowly developed a theory from his interaction with these criminals.

There seems to exist an under current of pederasty to which the Masonic movement may unwittingly be playing host; a deeper movement which has clear lines of personal interlinking and activity which uses the cover of the Masonic movement to carry out its own agenda.

As the Bugler understands the etymology of paedophile and pederast, both mean child lover. Is there a difference in their connotation or practical application where young women are concerned?

Without doubt when each individual is observed and in turn their associates are tenuously linked to them, at that level, there is a distinct and constant whiff of Athenian pederasty which may well extend to other genders when studying the background of those presumed to be involved; a commonality of practice and purpose and indeed an instant recognition by those involved of each others role and what collectively they are all about.

Perhaps they use gay porn websites to communicate with each other, or other such similar organisations to dissimulate their unseemly philosophy and conduct?

Once more in the case of Fitzgerald questions arise and go unsatisfactorily answered but this tenuous link seems to be clearly there.

In the case of the UK Fire & Rescue Service Stonewall has in the past claimed that one  its most active LBGTQ movements lies within the LFRS and whilst the legitimacy of that movement might be beyond challenge one should ask can such a movement be easily hijacked and misused for other less seemly  purposes, purposes yet to be identified?

Time and further investigation will, as ever, tell its tale…

Firstly a digression to briefly paint the back ground picture of the logistics involved in carrying out such an investigation for those unfamiliar with its management.

Over two decades ago the Bugler, as a Statutory Discipline Investigating Officer, was ordered by his honourable Chief Fire Officer to carry out an investigation into a shameful and lamentable case of bullying, by uniforms on the uniformed.

Even working all the hours in the day, and then some, this investigation, which directly involved seniors ranks from the Lancashire Constabulary at a later point took around two years to complete when finalised, with the arraignment and successful charging of six personnel with 19 charges.

The point to be made here was not the detail of this investigation per se, which need not concern us here, but the of highways and byways the investigators and the number of sub plot cesspits they had to trudge through to bring this publicly well documented investigation to a conclusion.

The question always is where does one draw the line, which is not to say to ignore the cesspit sub plots, but to set them aside for another day’s work.

So in the case of the Driver Gang such an investigation will take time and resources particularly when , as usual, running up again a range of deliberate obstruction by vested interests with associated mild obfuscation ranging to downright rampant falsehoods.

That is called … ” perverting the course of Justice…”

When the final question is personal liberty, or not, the rule is one should never expect a willingness to talk whether under Caution or not.

In the case of the Driver Gang the interim manpower and costing quoted by the Lancashire Police  and Crime Commissioner(PCC) Mr.C.Grunshaw do not seem to be particularly unusual because such an investigation requires the unseen resources of pure administration.

The accused and consequentially further suspects will have to be interviewed under strict legal procedures and all the evidence accumulated has to be logged in and filed; it is quite a monumental though tedious task for which little recognition or credit is ever given.

All  Driver’s very suspicious wheeling and dealing behind closed doors at County Hall led to a compliant to the Police.

This was in time followed by a criminal investigation under the joint direction of the Lancashire PCC Mr,C.Grunshaw and the Chief Constable costing, they stated in late 2016, in the region of £2.0mil+ and using 22 personnel, a substantial number of whom one should assume, will be in direct administrative support for the reasons explained above.

All this expense and effort engaged with an allegation of the fraudulent misuse of Public funds by the Driver Gang.

No-crime no-outlay because an early scoping exercise will have determined whether or not there was substance to the complaint, sufficient for an investigation.

An investigation which continued day by day until on Monday the 22^nd May 2017 when it moved dramatically forward…

Perhaps the PCC, the Chief Constable and the new Chief Prosecutor of the CPS NorthWest Mr, Martin Goldman, ought to be minded to add Corruption and Misconduct in Public Office to the charges they will continue to consider?

One supposes that in considering that they would inevitably get caught Driver’s Gang decided, on balance, that where the money stakes are so high it is always as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb, as this rampant Public fraud on a gigantic scale took off in Lancashire and Liverpool City.

There is one interesting question(only one?), it seems that all these avaricious crooks like to live near each other. O’Toole the Lancashire Tory Party Whip and  LCC  thief of expenses lives in Ormskirk; the ever somnolent  LFRS CFO Kenny lives in Ormskirk; and Fitzgerald lives in Ormskirk/Magull.

Perhaps there is a coven of corrupt  fraudsters, if that is the correct term, which encourages them all to group up for self-protection? Clearly come the day they are all going to need it.

Meantime back at the LCC ‘ranch’ scrapping was the order of the day in mid-summer 2013 with it seems Driver and Winlow regularly  physically squaring up to one another though it seemed to be all rather school yard name calling and more huff than puff which is just about par for course for any politician at LCC County Hall in these hilarious corridors of power.

To think that we actually pay these buffoons, more fool us. They should count their lucky stars that none of these clowns are likely to ever meet a bunch of disabled FSVs up a dark alley some night when it will be rather more thud than puff…

Least Mein and Wilmot think otherwise they still have much to answer for when Public accountability, never mind the Police, knock on their political doors shortly as the torrent of corruption continues to pour out of County Hall.

These two politicians were also complicit in the knowledge of all these affairs.

Indeed by their complicity in paying Halsall off they are just as guilty as he in legal terms because they must have known at an early point that they were looking at criminality but they dithered about taking the Statutory action required by their personal Statutory duty.
Just as they dithered over taking Statutory investigative action against a corrupt CC DeMolfetta recently, who has clearly engaged in similar corrupt actions as Halsall/Driver et al.

The thundering on the early morning front door by the Boys in Blue is a wonderful emetic for Truth as is the clang of a cell door which these will all have heard by now but many faceless remain to echo their footsteps and hear the clang , but they will, by and by…

To paraphrase ‘Blackadder’… This is a crisis, a large crisis. In fact it is a twelve storey crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeted throughout, 24-hour porterage and an enormous sign on the roof saying. ‘This is a Very Large Crisis’…

Apparently Driver has been seen wandering around County Hall looking like a depressed hedgehog searching for a Very Large Leyland Truck…

It is inevitable along the way that the Drivers of this world would, and did, collect a host of opponents both large and small in his ego centric world.

Opponents, nay enemies, who he will find to his cost that when every dog has its day they can actually have a bite as well…

The golden rule still applies. It is always foolish to make enemies on the way up for one is sure to meet them on the way down.

Driver in his well publicised bluster and foul language was extremely foolish, as he now knows to his cost that to call for the resignation of  Lancashire’s Chief Constable following what he described as a waste of £2.0mil of public funds spent on investigating him and his nefarious activities..

This was not a riveting flash of inspiration it became personal.

Furthermore, he tells the listening world that according to the self-same CC he is completely innocent. Indeed one of the early lessons when sitting on a HM Prison Board is that every inmate is innocent.   

In fact Driver is so innocent he was arrested.

As the Bugler has reflected, Driver is not a naturally intelligent man, more cunning than bright, but he will need all of his instincts to extract himself from his own self created debacle of personal greed.

Driver also set out to viciously humiliate the newly appointed Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire the former LCC County Councillor Mr.Clive Grunshaw who by occupation was a former milkman.

This next vendetta was in all probability driven by personal and political dislike because the PCC was formerly a Labour County Councillor but does there have to be a reason for this thug?

Driver seemingly concluded that a bumpkin employed in such a menial task (the Bugler was a dairy farmer), could not  possibly be honest. But the fact of the matter was that Mr.Grunshaw was, and is, honest, as events and Driver’s driven investigation was to demonstrate and confirm, much to his vexation.

The Bugler might be forgiven for speculating that  the PCC, now in his second term of office, might well be minded to ensure that this Police investigation for fraud and one hopes corrupt practice in public office involving 22+personnel will run its true and full course?

That after all is what he is paid to do…

At the commencement of its arrest regime the Lancashire Constabulary made the following statement…

“The arrests are part of a wider long-running investigation into allegations of fraud, although none of these men have been arrested on suspicion of fraud.”..

The Police statement  makes a particular point of distinction in  which  it states  that although  this is a long

running investigation into fraud at the LCC, and other places, it specifies and quantifies the charges under which the 4 accused were arrested which is ‘for perverting the course of justice’ and ‘intimidation of witnesses’.

The distinction of a long running investigation into fraud should not be lost sight of nor should the wording of the charges of ‘perverting the course of justice’ and  ‘intimidation of witnesses’ be treated casually.

The words in law mean much more than they actually say and every word in law has a meaning within its context.

Whilst it might be amusing to speculate this appeared to be a carefully timed ‘ambush’ by a departing Chief Constable who retires on Wednesday 31^st May 2017 it was nevertheless sanctioned with the full knowledge and support of the PCC and the new Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West Mr.Martin Goldsmith on Monday 22^nd May 2017.

It cannot have escaped their diaries that two days later, on Thursday 25^th May 2017, Driver was officially due to take up his office as Leader of the LCC.

This was an exquisite demonstration of “revenge is a dish best served chillingly cold” and with it, it brought its intended ‘shock and horror’ down on the heads of the newly elected Conservative Party councillors who had then to decide in these, for them, appalling and brief circumstances whether or not to re-elect Driver as their Leader.

They did not choose thoughtfully or wisely.

At the same time the CC will now pass the poisoned chalice into the hands of the new and inexperienced incoming CC Mr.Andy Rhodes who will have no other option but to follow this through to the very bitter end particularly in view of the fact, set against all this background, that not only is such a demand now lying on his new desk from the Lancashire PCC and the Chief Prosecutor of the North West CPS but also from the  incoming new Minister of State for Communities & Local Government for a Ministerial Inquiry into the LCC and the Combined Fire Authority the latter which is politically staffed principally by LCC councillors.

Interesting times lie ahead which have little to do with actually running Lancashire for the benefit of its Citizens.

Indeed demands will lead from these escalating circumstances of rampant Corruption in Public Office both in Lancashire and Liverpool to support the absolute need for a Royal Commission to enquire into this aspect of these local government agencies the LCC; the LFRS; and the Liverpool City Council which during their operations have politically failed to routinely monitor the regular brass necked use of corrupt practices by both staff and councillors to avoid Public and fiscal scrutiny leading to the detriment of the Public Purse…

The current charges the ‘Gang of Four’ are held under are of course simply holding charges.

The ‘perverting the course of justice’ charge can be interpreted to mean that Driver et al thinks it is rather clever (this is hardly boys caught scrumping in an orchard) to maintain their collective camaraderie of silence under repeated Police interviews, but they should know in the real world it does not work like this.

There is in all likelihood already an ironic element of intimidation between the Four and it can be imagined where principally the impetus for this comes from?

This is a new world for the accused with which they will become more acquainted as time advances because they have already brought great humiliation on their innocent families and what remains of their discredited good names.

To visit such ignominy on their homes is the epitome of greed driven selfishness a world in which they will also have confirmed to them that there is still no honour among thieves as the Bugler learned in his years on the Board of HMP Wymott and the Parole Board.

One of the accused under family pressure, usually a conceited deep cynical self-preservation thinker lacking any kind of fibre, inevitably break ranks.

The prospect of prison after existing in the privileged well heeled society that they have existed in until now, with its attendant neighbourhood shame is simply too horrific to contemplate.

It is just a question of time.

The puerile notion that in maintaining their collective silence by reflecting on the age old tactic that it is better to hang together than to hang alone went out with Ned Kelly.

Either way they will still metaphorically hang …

Ned Kelly ruminating on the scaffold stated … “that’s life is it?”…indeed it is.

It is also clear that the Driver gang have been flexing their muscles to intimidate into silence those potential witnesses who will in the right protected circumstances sing like canaries and the Police warning and bail conditions of Driver and his cronies reflect this and should be clear to them.

It is most unusual in this type of case, it is hardly the Krays is it, for such a charge as … “witness intimidation”  to be applied in effect as a bail condition speaking volumes, as it does, of the Police concern in this respect.

It is a warning to the accused not to go there; that this is not a game; and should they choose to step out of line in this respect they will be immediately re-arrested even though on bail  without the slightest prospect of further bail in the future.

Perhaps Driver and his chums do not understand what all

this means in pragmatic terms because they are not yet ‘old lags’ who know the score.

Indeed the unnatural development whereby a re-elected Driver now has unrestrained access to County Hall with its potential pool of witnesses should provide food for thought and further action at the CPS.

Driver and his cohorts ought to be re-called from bail and re-bailed with additional conditions which prevent Driver in particular having any physical access to, or contact with County Hall, its occupants or employees.

Driver had the civilised opportunity by his choice to stand down on Thursday 25th May until this investigation is completed  but significantly he chose not to do so and even more significantly his ruling Party did not do it for him.

Clearly Conservative councillors are unwisely supporting Driver’s thuggish challenge not only to the CPS, the PCC, and the Chief Constable but unilaterally to the general rule of law and civilised behaviour in Lancashire.

It is a startlingly stupid strategy 12 days from a General Election and at the commencement of a new term of office which may well contribute substantially to the Conservatives losing more ground locally, or indeed the entire General  Election.

Driver clearly has a proven propensity for violence and clearly poses an above average threat to witnesses especially when, as now, he is cornered and like many another rat he can behave viciously, erratically, and unpredictably.

This is situation best avoided for the sake and safety of all…

All of this predetermined action by the PCC, the Chief Constable,  and the CPS will allow them time in conjunction  to flex their collective evidential gathering muscles with the hope that it will impress upon these four accused the extreme gravity of their deteriorating situation.

Three of the four of the accused hold, or held, positions of Public trust in respect of substantial Public funds directly under their control and responsibility.

The Judiciary have an established and rather fearsome reputation for severely punishing such breaches of public trust usually with jail terms.

The stark line is that they all face imprisonment.

These four will have to quickly convince themselves, in their previously narcissistic world, that right now as mere mortals they are just the same as all the rest of us which requires them to comply with the spirit and practice of Statute law which we set up and which we require Parliament to enact for us and which the various Constabularies enforce on all our behalf.

One hopes that the consequences of all this are not lost on the responsibilities that every councillor just signed up to this month on his/her induction as a councillor though already it seems to be lost on LCC Conservative councillors.  

Responsibilities which carry with them respect for and implementation of the Statute law.

An ethos which they must implement and an example which they must set and police right down to the merest clerks at the LCC and the LFRS and for whom they have ultimate political and personal responsibility in law, and when evidence of wrongdoing is presented to them they have a Statutory duty to both investigate and, if appropriate, promptly report the results to the Police .

If, as individual and corporately, councillors fail to so act after clear evidence of wrong doing is presented to them then in complicity they are not only condoning such criminality but they are quite wilfully engaging in fraudulence and corrupt malpractice in Public Office themselves.

In spite of all this self evident lawlessness and in stepping back for a reflective moment the LFRS pension issue still remains unchanging for the affected disabled FSVs , their Widows, and Beneficiaries.

For 10 years the LFRS have refused to examine the Statutory Fire Service Pension Law or to even have it independently examined by an independent Queens Counsel specialising in Fire Service pension law.

The question remains both quite simple and unequivocal.

Why does the LFRS insist in paying disabled FSVs a Rule B1 Ordinary( time served) pension when this very Statutory Rule states and expressly prohibits the payment of such an Ordinary pension if a disabled FSV has been compulsorily discharged by the decision of a Fire Authority under Rule B3 which provides an enhanced ill-health/Rule B4 Injury pension, expressly for that purpose?

Finally, this is how all this is meant to work under the rule of law in a democracy…