• Retrospection;

• Democracy at Work?

• Who created this scandal?

• The First Step – The Origin of the Journey of Truth with disabled FSV-DH;

• The Second Step – Disabled FSV-DW (Deceased) ‘Experience’;

•The Oppression of a Dying Officer and his Widow;

• The Role Models of Decency ?

• The Role Model of Corruption ~ the Hemorrhaging of Freemasonry;

• Widow ‘C’ has her say ~ The Inhumanity of the LCFA ~ No Pastoral Care;

• The Pogrom of Hate ~ Racial Discrimination ~ Defamation ~ Gratuitous Inhumanity ~ Indignity ~ Oppression.

Readers frequently ask the questions when, where, and how  this LCFA pension debacle first arose?

It is to answer those questions that Chapters 1 & 2 of the ‘Journey of Truth’ have been written in retrospection simply because either the LFRS and its perennial version of the truth was being evasive as usual at that time, or because editorial time constraints and simple ‘catch up’ volume of work did not permit time for the original publication.

This Chapter also to helps new Readers to begin at the logical beginning.

Since all this began 15 years ago on Monday 27th November 2006 some of the protagonists have moved on or have been sacked with bag fulls of surreptitious cash a ‘reward’ for their criminality by none other than the  Labour Chairman of the Combined Fire Authority CC Frank DeMolfetta but they remain firmly in the Bugler’s thoughts, for good, or ill.

CC Frank DeMolfetta  who strides about with such self assurance but about whom history and the facts will record that he is simply a brass necked corrupt politician through and through.

Sadly within the ‘trusty’ band some have passed away but there will always be those, as ever, prepared to step forward to man the thin red line…

It was only after a curious delay of some 7 months that this debacle was finally first reported on Wednesday 27th June 2007 by the inestimable LCC pension ‘expert’ Ms. Julie Wisdom of slippery recollections and economy of truth to disabled FS~DW who raised his original honest enquiry.

Of course, the equally inestimable Mr. Warren the Lancashire Firefighters Pension Scheme manager was never very far way  but as always just far enough to avoid the limelight and the responsibility which had been delegated to him.

By an equally slippery Holland the LFRS Chief Fire Officer at that time with a criminal record. This was the very first time when this infamous clerk closely linked to Holland in a direct falsehood claimed to have ‘discovered’ his own maladministration though he did not put it quite like that to the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority in September 2007.

Contrived deliberate delays, and the automatic use of mendacity by rote, is usual  in the LFRS reporting of such matters to those who are supposed to politically scrutinise such issues, but lazily do not.

These deceitful techniques became notable features of the modus operandii of cover up of these pension ‘experts’ in Lancashire as we shall see over the years, nay decades,  that have followed.

Political laziness is why criminals like these are allowed to succeed.

In the event it was reported/alleged in September 2007 that 167+/- individual ‘overpayments’ of pensions had occurred and when the corrected figures (all of them) were finally released to the Bugler, 17 individual underpayments had also occurred and been identified not, in another falsehood, the 8 as publicly reported.

Alleged Overpayments which ranged from £75,000.0 to Underpayments of £45,000.0.

These two irrefutable facts simply confirm what the Pensions Ombudsman was to state later in 2015 that in effect there cannot be ‘Overpayments’ or ‘Underpayments’ without the inescapable conclusion of maladministration.

Thus these 167+/- facts cannot be misconstrued or manipulated as other than a bald statement of gross ineptitude and pension maladministration by these LFRS/LCC pension ‘experts’.

The Statutory duty for pension management and the protection of Members’ benefits always lies with the Fire Authority, not an individual FSV.

The Scheme Member always becomes the accused victim when these pension administrators’ errors are exposed, though in practice more likely reported by Pension Scheme Members themselves.

Thus began a Journey of Truth …aut viam inveniam aut faciam… I will find a way or I shall make one…which continues today with the timeless resolve to achieve the goal of a just and fair resolution for all those disabled FSVs and Widows who have been short changed and have yet to be informed of that fact or even had the suggestion of back pay with compound interest considered.

Many journeys are beset by the unexpected but rarely in this 21^st century within a democracy has such a Journey of Truth been assailed from all sides by those whom Parliament has set in authority to guard and protect the rights of those they serve.

These include politicians of all Parties, or none, aided and abetted in their collective criminality by civil servants both at local and national level (the servants of the People?) who unreservedly in gross breaches of trust  scandalously embraced corruption and institutionalised obfuscation in all its sleasy forms when it suited their devious self-serving purposes of a cover up.

Trust never flies on the broken wings of betrayal, deceit, or broken political promises.

It is clear in the exposés which have followed that the moral compass of those, particularly within Lancashire, who are placed in trust in the administration of such matters as pensions, see themselves above the law.

Laws, which are to be ‘invented’, manipulated, or disregarded on a decadent and sneering whim.

The truth gets ignored and trampled upon and even the most basic courtesies and decencies are flagrantly marginalised.

It is indeed the implacable face of oppression.

It is a fact that ‘The Morning Bugler’ receives website visitors from all over this Planet.

How embarrassing it must be for this government and the UK for these visitors to read of rampant corruption in the form of demonstrated self-evident falsehoods; malevolent devious political manipulation in complicity with civil servants to ensure that those who honourably served this nation and were permanently injured in the process are treated so disdainfully and disrespectfully and in the process simply defrauded.

The virtuous simply get cast aside and no one in authority seems interested enough to care, perhaps because there is no personal financial gain for them?

All of this inevitably leads to political alienation and disillusionment with any form of so called ‘democracy’.

Today public cynicism is the ‘King of the Cesspit’ created by corrupt politicians abetted by their equally corrupt civil servants.

It is upon such demonstrated high  ‘principles’ recorded in the Morning Bugler that international opinions are shaped and moulded in youthful minds far away who one day may be our friends, or indeed our enemies, to whom we display our corrupt weaknesses.

This is the self-same government and nation who declares ad nauseam  to  those  it  perceives  as  the  ‘lower orders’ residing in ‘banana republics’, or to those who corruptly

command autocratic regimes, that this is the home of the  ‘Mother of Parliaments’ and thus by allusion a leading shaper and moulder of modern healthy democracy in the 21^st century.

This stance is simply rampant self-indulgent hypocrisy.

One should always be suspicious of such trumpeted high moral virtues.

Such splendidly hollow words sarcastically condemns those, who are less ‘fortunate’ than the electorate of the UK and who clearly live in such a democratic Shangri la; to live a life of political poverty and despair when with applied logic they could well emulate and engage in this great British activity called ‘democracy’; that they would be so foolish…

Perhaps judging on the unchallenged corrupt misbehaviour which passes for democracy in Lancashire one wonders why they would want to do that when given some thought these ‘ubers’  would be well advised to stay ignorant of this Pyrrhic Lancashire Utopia called ‘democracy’. 

The solution to this hypocrisy is quite simple.

Before this government and this nation once more puts its lips to another pompous moral bugle call to those whom it sees as ‘politically oppressed’ it might well consider removing the mote from its own eye, firstly by putting its own house in order?

It is another matter of reality that the Editor did not in fact instigate this Lancashire pension scandal nor did a single Fire Service Veteran either.

The recipe for embarrassing failure was there all the time.

All those who the taxpayers paid handsomely to supervise and account for their conduct simply abandoned any semblance of acting responsibly whilst rejecting any sense of fair play, or ‘old’ values of common humanity and decency.

But this is not a story of incompetence because by definition there had to exist competence in the first instance, and in the second instance, competence is only ever attained by training and qualification leading to the accumulation of professional experience in a chosen field, in this case Fire Service pensions.

Neither is this a story of pension maladministration because to have maladministration assumes existing competent administration by qualified and accomplished administrators.

This predictable pension debacle was in fact the product of gross mismanagement of the Lancashire Firefighters’ Pension Fund by the ‘expert’ staff of Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service(LFRS) and its pension contractor the LCC ‘Your Pension Service’ (LCC-YPS) within which the seeds of its own destruction lay dormant for decades nurtured  by institutionalised ineptitude.

Gross ineptitude which had gone completely unnoticed and unrecognised by these ‘experts’ whose Statutory duty it was (and remains) to robustly administer the public monies and the FSV’s pension contributions which had been placed in their trust.

This is a story about a public scandal involving the mishandling of substantial amounts of pension Scheme contributions allied with the receipt of millions of pounds of taxpayers money which until the moment of the investigation of these affairs by the Audit Commission under the National Fraud Initiative operating in Lancashire has lain hidden from the public view and has been defended with enthusiastic mendacity in an accomplished cover up, deliberately withheld from publicly elected

Members by the palpable dishonesty of the very the Lancashire pension scheme managers set in place by the law to safeguard against such venal misbehaviour.

This exposé is based of factual documents and records within the public domain and upon reports obtained from the LCC and the Audit Commission.

The Morning Bugler having investigated this scenario on a wider plane it seems as though Lancashire is an exemplar of all that is wrong and unaccountable in public occupational pension Schemes throughout the UK which in summary is unacceptable, though one imagines not uncommon.

That this appalling tardy criminality, was incongruously brought with difficulty to the attention of all these ‘experts’ and to the gaze of the public by an honest retired Station Commander (disabled FSV~DW-now deceased) who in November 2006 did not want to receive monies to which he believed he was not entitled and  who raised a routine inquiry regarding a matter of DWP payments to his wife; actions which speaks volumes of personal integrity and honesty.

It is important in that which follows and with his Widow’s permission, to publicly examine and comment in detail on the pension affairs of retired Station Commander disabled FSV~DW.

In fact FSV~DW was one of the Bugler’s 10 Station Commanders.

An appalling affair which became public and common knowledge because when the magnitude of this pension ineptitude finally surfaced and it was only, in the years that followed finally grasped by these pension ‘experts’ who were actually responsible for this gross pension maladministration, until now a hidden debacle, that their knee jerk reaction of cover up and self-protection set the tone for the future years of individual and corporate deceit which continues to be employed in defence of the indefensible to this day.

Along the ‘Journey of Truth’ we will have time to outline the management structure and who was actually responsible for what; who failed in their duty; and who must now receive the appropriate penalties for their misdeeds.

It is important at this point to set a base time line for the Reader to understand who was who, and who did what,  when this pension scandal started to unfold publicly.

For personal pragmatic purposes  base commencement point is set at midnight on the 31^st January 1997 when the Editor was compulsorily medically discharged from the Lancashire County Fire Brigade but this debacle did not surface publicly until June 2007.

It is a matter of public interest that the Bugler’s pension had been calculated –  three times – by Ms.J.Drinkall MBE of whom we will hear much later.

By now Dear Reader you will understand that in Lancashire, one of the largest local authorities in the UK, the Lancashire FRS has a Contract with the Lancashire CC Pensions Services (LCC YPS) to ‘manage’ the 2000+/-pensions of its FSVs and 120 other Schemes.

Once more it is necessary to remind the Reader that the present incumbent LFRS Pension Scheme ‘manager’ Mr. Warren took office in April 2002.

It should be made clear that the Statutory duty and unavoidable responsibility for the efficient operation of the Scheme remains entirely with the LCFA and in particular with the Scheme manager Mr. R.Warren and his staff:

Mr. M. Winterbottom JP. DL – Clerk (Part time solicitor) to the Combined Fire Authority – Advisor to Elected Members of the LCFA on Pensions – no formal pension management qualifications – no specialist legal knowledge in pension law or practices;

Mr.R.Warren – Pension Scheme manager – no formal pension management qualifications – no specialist legal knowledge in pension law or practices;

Mr.B.Hamilton (currently between engagements) – deputy Pension Scheme manager – no formal pension management qualifications – no specialist legal knowledge in pension law or practices;

Ms. J. Hutchinson – Head of Human Resources and Pension Scheme office manager –  no formal pension management qualifications – no specialist legal –

knowledge in pension law or practices;

Mr. A.Harold – In-house solicitor and legal advisor to the Pension Scheme manager on Pensions – no formal pension management qualifications – no specialist legal knowledge in pension law or practices;

The Statuary liability for the efficient lawful operation of the day-to-day LCFA pension Scheme management rests entirely by Contract (Service Level Agreement) with the Head of the LCC YPS Mrs D.Lister and her staff primarily Ms.Wisdom by name and nature.

However where the LCC YPS do not act on the direct instructions of the LCFA and/or breach the common and Statue law the liability rests with the LCC YPS:

Mrs.D.Lister – Pension Scheme manager by Contract – no formal pension management qualifications;

Ms.J. Wisdom – Caseworker (the commonly acknowledged Fire Pension ‘expert’) – no formal pension management qualifications; she alleges she has a ‘degree’, note the case, in pensions …

In researching the facts, figures, and pension management capability of these associated individuals the Bugler has been forced because of implacable hostility and legally exploitative ‘stonewalling’ to regularly use the Court’s authority; the Freedom of Information Act 2000; and the Data Protection Act 1998 to obtain the necessary facts.

The Bugler is now in the position to have sufficient documentation (the tip of the iceberg) to paint an accurate picture of what has actually gone on behind these ‘stonewalls’ which is nothing more or less than character assassination; institutionalised fraud; cover up; and rampant corruption; all in complicit acts between staff at the LFRS and the LCC YPS to protect their ‘reputations’ and ‘careers’ to the detriment of not only the law but to defeat the legitimate objectives of the disabled FSVs to obtain the truth in transparency.

Their collective enthusiasm, which remains unchecked by a bovine collection of politicians of all Parties on the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority, who individually and severally know no boundaries for their corporate corruption and criminality.

The Journey of Truth actually commenced 20 years ago in Lancashire when a very young disabled FSV~DH (prematurely deceased) began asking questions about his pension and DWP benefits after compulsory ill health/injury discharge in 1996.

Two years prior disabled FSV-DH had received near fatal life threatening injuries during a mundane farm barn fire which unknowingly involved propane cylinders one of which exploded and scythed itself into FSV~DW disabling him for life.

LFRS confidential internal emails show that Warren et al , in particular Hamiliton, revisited disabled FSV~DH pension issues with the DCLG in the period 2007-2009 by which time they were collectively aware of the appalling neglectful fiasco which had taken place on their watch in respect of the maladministration of the LFRS Firefighters Pension Scheme, and for which they were at pains to find victims, any victim,  to justify and explain  their complete pension management melt down Go Here.

A melt down which was publicly revealed to them in November 2006 by disabled FSV-DW (deceased) who innocently and honestly raised queries affecting his own pensions but who had the greatest difficulty in the following 7 months in getting someone to pay attention  or to act at either the LCC Pensions Service or the LFRS.

These emails are particularly fascinating documents because they reveal a snapshot of the institutionalised lackadaisical approach taken to the administration of Firefighters Pensions Schemes at the Home Office, then the DCLG, and once more, since January 2016, at the Home Office.

This collective negligence extended right down to individual Fire Authority pension Scheme management level of which Lancashire Fire Authority was a prime example. 

The spirit of the approach, to what is after all a Statutory duty, is best captured by Hamilton’s use of the word ‘drift’; Hamilton himself clearly knew little, if anything, about Fire Service Pensions and was seeking ‘advice’ from the (by now) DCLG in the person of Mr.A.Mooney who matched him in the pension knowledge stakes.

Mr.Mooney in turn sought guidance from his ‘colleagues’ within the Firefighters Pension Team in the persons of Mr.Hill the ‘team leader’ and his colleague Mr Borman both of whom took early retirement 6 months later taking with them the precious little knowledge that the DCLG had in terms of Firefighters pensions; a consultation which also included a dialogue with the Treasury Solicitors because clearly between all of them in 2009 they could not muster up a single correct answer.

In the case of disabled FSV-DH at the beginning, if anyone had cared to look properly, a final answer had already been provided  by  Mr.Layfaette  of  the  Home  Office  Fire Department to the LCFB in May 1997 with an answer which Hamilton clearly did not have either in the LFRS pension archives or  disabled FSV~DW’s Personal Record File, and if they are not there, why not?

The simple answer is more of the same management ineptitude by LFRS and LCC Pensions Services (LCC YPS)  and their corporate unqualified pension ‘experts’.

It is also clear from the records that, pending a reply from the Home Office the LCFB took an interim decision, which ultimately became permanent with time, to offer disabled FSV-DW the option to allow deductions, which he refused, or to wait with the LCFB until  the mooted legislative changes to the Firefighters Pension Scheme Regulations took place. When in fact, they never ever materialised.

Because of their own confused circumstances the (LCFB)LFRS cannot now claim that they did not know of disabled FSV~DW pension/DWP circumstances, nor can they claim that he ‘enriched’ himself in any surreptitious manner without their knowledge because of their clearly admitted errors but disabled FSV~DW can most certainly claim the protection of the law if the LFRS, in further publicly humiliating themselves, were crassly and legally stupid enough to attempt any form of financial recovery action when no doubt disabled FSV~DW will simply invoke the correct use of the Limitation Act 1980 in his defence citing Part 1 Paragraph 2 ~ 6 years limitation which is now long exceeded. Go Here.

Furthermore, following on the Pensions Ombudsman judgement last year that there can be no ‘overpayment or underpayment without maladministration’ by the LFRS in the first place. So it will be fascinating just where the LCFA thinks it might go with this in corporate stupidity?

However, as we have seen in the case of hundreds of disabled FSVs in Lancashire have in error for decades been paid a Rule B1 Ordinary pension in place of the correct Rule B3 Ill-health/B4 Injury pensions.

Thus the Lancashire Fire Authority has been enriching itself for decades by their known fraudulent mistakes, the Limitation Act 1980 in Section 32 Paragraphs 1~2 the limitation period is barred in the case of fraud, concealment, or mistake.

In which case disabled FSV~DW can at his leisure and time of his choosing seek his arrears (with 8% Statutory compound interest) from the LCFA.

All of this order, counter order, and disorder simply confirms the ineptitude of the then unqualified pensions ‘officer’,  Ms. J.Drinkall MBE of whom we will hear more in the foreseeable future in the County Court Witness Box in a fraudulent charade whilst being ‘assisted’ by her colleagues in Court from the LFRS Warren, Harold, and Hutchinson and from the LCC PS Lister and Wisdom behind the back of the Litigant~in~Person, the Bugler.

It was such pension ‘administrators’ that disabled FSVs blindly trusted and honestly relied on to deliver their correct pensions on completion of their service or their compulsory discharges.

Or so to coin Hamilton’s phrase the whole miasma of  pension ineptitude ‘drifted’ off into a black hole until November 2006.

This pension issue arose for a second time in November 2006 when a former Station Commander FSV~DW(now deceased) notified his pension provider the LFRS/LCC, with difficulty over the next 7 months, of changes affecting his DWP paid domestic care arrangements, in that, if they did not take the appropriate action, overpayments to him might result.

It was, in his transparent honesty, to prevent such an occurrence that he  informed both the LFRS and the LCC Pensions Service of this potent situation because he knew from documents in his possession, which he had previously passed years before to the LFRS/LCC YPS that they were fully aware of his DWP benefit situation, or they ought to have been if they were doing their pension management job properly.

In this 7 month period,  between November 2006 and June 2007, Mr.Warren et al, the Pension Scheme manager and his staff in conjunction with the LCC YPS manager Mrs.D.Lister and her staff principally Ms Julie Wisdom the Firefighters pension ‘expert’  ‘discovered’ to their collective horror the parlous state of maladministration of the Firefighters Pension Scheme for which they held direct Statutory, or by contractual obligation, responsibility.

This issue was not immediately reported to the Lancashire CFA.

This deliberate delay by Warren and Lister then became a regularly used pact between them in this cover up ‘technique’ in the years that followed including up to March 2014 as the Reader shall see when an exposé revealed Lister’s questionable professional integrity and honesty.

This delay technique buys denial time and career protection time but with the ultimate intent which is to deceive Elected members on the CFA, or the appropriate LCC Pension Sub-Committee.

A regular cri-de-coeur of the LFRS/LCC PS is that they have a duty to protect the public purse by paying the correct pension and indeed this is their dual Statutory duty the other being their Statutory duty to ‘protect’ the benefits of their Firefighters’ Pension Scheme Members.

If they were proper custodians of the public purse then the LFRS/LCC PS would have taken cognisance of the impact of the Data Protection Act 1998(as amended) on its pension providing management but they  failed to do so.

In fact it was not until 2007, some 7 years later when it was forced on them that they recognised that it had any impact at all!

Until 2000 the LFRS/LCC PS  and the DWP could legitimately, without the knowledge of the FSVs, share individual FSV DWP benefit information legally. But with the advent of the DPA the DWP became Statute barred from sharing this information with any UK pension provider.

The management impact of the DPA should have been recognised at an early Parliamentary White Paper stage by the LFRS/LCC YPS but they failed to do so.

Nevertheless the LFRS/LCC PS, having missed the boat once, could have taken the necessary legislative steps in retrospection correction to construct a ‘legislative gateway’ of access to all their FSVs DWP ‘subject data’ in order (in compliance with their legal duty) to determine independently,  whether or not an FSV had reported their DWP benefit status to them though they have no Statutory duty to do so .

There is a litany of complaints from FSVs that they regularly did and just as regularly the LFRS/LCC PS took no action and thus failed to determine independently what the effect, if any, FSVs receipt of DWP benefits might, or might not have, on the payment of their (assumed) correct pension.

But because of Warren and Lister’s abysmal professional ignorance of pension schemes; pension law; new legislation and its impact on pension management; coupled with their total lack of professional qualifications such debacles will inevitably arise.

The Bugler will look more closely, again and again, at the ‘performance’ of these two well paid individuals citing supporting documentation which simply confirm not only their professional deceit of elected Members but their wilfulness in using these deceitful ‘techniques’ repeatedly to the present a day.

An early letter from Lister to the Editor encapsulates all her professional ignorance in that she states that without the help of the FSVs the pension system is “unworkable”.

Lister simply had not grasped until that moment some 7 years down the road the effect the DPA was having on her management of pensions and furthermore she had not the slightest notion how she would make it all work without bullying and forcing the FSVs to do something they had no Statutory duty to comply with, and if they would not yield

to her and Warren’s bullying then it was all entirely their fault, not even the government’s fault , but the FSVs fault. Go Here.

They were both sure it was certainly not either Warren’s or Lister’s fault and that the inevitable responsibility and blame lay elsewhere. It was on the simple basis of this joint concocted deceit with Lister that Warren finally reported to the CFA in September 2007. 

Warren’s deceit was more carefully constructed than just ‘it is the FSVs fault’ when the issue was finally reported to the CFA in September 2007 because by that time he had carefully constructed a smoke screen using a terminally ill man to ‘blind’ these lazy councillors on the CFA with the magic words, ‘substantial monies’ in conjunction with his then Chairman CC R.Wilkinson (A so called ‘disabled’ Firefighter) who would simply ‘buy’ anything, like many another, provided it did not tarnish his political ambitions.

Even at this early point in eventually reporting to the CFA in September 2007 Warren who expressed the view ‘that this was all a new one on him’.

This classical stance of corporate ‘shock’, ‘horror’, was pure deceit in which he is well practised is his modus operandii which will be analysed in depth when the Bugler looks at Warren and his regular machinations, particularly in respect of reporting matters to the CFA.

A state of affairs, if we are to accept an October 2013 Report of the Audit Commission sub department ‘The National Fraud Initiative’ which confirms that, yet again in spite of all that has occurred since, continuing maladministration continues under Warren’s management in spite of his on the record assurances to the Lancashire CFA in October 2007  that he had put ‘procedures in place’ which would prevent such maladministration happening again.

Only Warren did not use the word maladministration nor did he detail what these miraculous ‘procedures’ were likely to be?

The Audit Commission(AC) have a sub department called the National Fraud Initiative. Part of the function of the NFI, in the prevention of waste and occasional fraud, is to financially monitor the performance and fiscal efficiency of local authority statutory pension schemes and their managers, this includes Fire Authorities. It initiates this exercise every 2 years.

It was to report adversely twice on the LFRS/LCC YPS as the Morning Bugler recalls later.

In the case of the LFRS the final Statutory accountability rests entirely with Mr.Warren the Scheme manager; his deputy pension Scheme manager Mr. Hamilton, and his HR pension manager Ms. J. Hutchinson, even though the LFRS Scheme is ‘managed’ on a daily basis under Contract by the LCC YPS.

None of those named above held nationally recognised pension Scheme management qualifications though Mr.Warren who joined the LFRS in April 2002 as Director of People & Development stated under Oath in the Witness box in 2013, in misleading a Judge, that an MBA he claims to have from Lancaster University, of which there is no record; which he does not use in Post Nominals professionally; and which oddly he does not declare in his published biography, gave him sufficient expertise to ‘manage’ the Scheme.

We will hear more of his activities in Court when the Bugler deals with that in detail later which included conspiring with Mr. Harold the LFRS Solicitor and Mrs.Lister to suborn (coach) their primary and only witness Ms.J. Drinkall MBE (former LCFB pensions ‘officer’) in the Witness box.

Mr. Hamilton ignored an invitation from the Bugler to elucidate the formal qualifications and ‘expertise’ which he possessed which permits him to be the deputy pension Scheme manager, and when asked on what basis he had issued ‘get out of jail free’ cards during the pension debacle  to those he identified as being ‘more equal than others’ he referred the enquiry to Mr. Warren who of course ignored the request.

In the case of the LCC YPS accountability, which includes accountability for the LFRS and Cumbria Fire Pension Schemes to the current value of £15,875,482.0, rests with the Head of Services Mrs.D. Lister and her Fire Pension ‘expert’ Ms. J. Wisdom(neither of whom hold nationally recognised pension Scheme management qualifications),.

Indeed shortly after joining the LCC in 2002 from BAE Systems without any qualifications Mrs. Lister had what can best be described as a meteoric rise to Head the LCC Pension Services, an appointment which she still continues to hold today without any formal qualifications, pension or otherwise.

In the meantime we must return to disabled FSV~DW’s shameful ‘experience’ with the LFRS during his terminal illness period leading to his death in late August 2008.

The Morning Bugler holds, with disabled FSV~DW’s permission (given to the Editor before his demise) and his Widow’s full recent permission, his final words in the Bugler’s archives.

Disabled, and now deceased, FSV~DW must be permitted to tell his unique story when, in effect, he speaks from beyond the grave…

The march on this ‘Journey of Truth’ towards the light of truth, transparency, and justice commenced for the Editor of the Morning Bugler and others in October 2007 though unknown to them this pension fiasco had already been accidentally unearthed in November 2006 by disabled FSV~DW.

But  strangely it was not until late June in 2007 that this scandalous and deplorable debacle emerged from the LFRS and involved him directly during his terminal illness.

Disabled FSV~DW and his Wife ‘C’ and family became the first victims of the LCFA’s pension meltdown ‘cover up’.

Before proceeding to publish disabled FSV~DW’s 35 files with comment; files which will inevitably end up with the Director of Public Prosecutions; and files which completely supports this Journey of Truth, the Bugler must first pause to identify those in post and those responsible for this

‘cover up’ from November 2006 to this present day.

The Bugler ought to remind those involved and bearing responsibility, once more, that there is no statute of limitations where a crime or crimes have been committed especially, in this case, by those in trusted public and political office.

But first the Bugler, at this point in history, must ‘paint’ the domestic scene for the Reader in revealing the lives of an innocent and honest deceased colleague and his family and in so doing with tact and sensitivity whilst preserving their desired anonymity.

Immediately prior to this appalling pension burden which was inhumanly thrust on them without the slightest human consideration by the LFRS and it staff who never, at any point, actually met either disabled FSV~DW, his wife ‘C’ or a single member of his family, or even attempted to find out that they were already collectively struggling at a pivotal moments in their lives to come to terms with unparalleled human tragic events which can afflict any family, at any time in life…

Such is, and remains, the shameful and shameless pastoral care that the LFRS extends to its honourable Fire Service Veterans, their Widows, and Beneficiaries.

But for now we must look at how this trusting, innocent, and loyal lamb of integrity was eventually led to the slaughter…

Disabled FSV~DW(Deceased) was a highly respected Station Commander in Lancashire County Fire Brigade where he served for 28 years.

He was compulsorily discharged after 28 years service having been operationally injured twice; injuries which brought their inevitably extreme legacy of arthritis which is reasonably common in those disabled in the service of their communities.

There is, in these not unusual circumstances, a certain continuing courageous attitude of serendipity allied with sanguinity, such is life and we all must all fight on.

Ironically we now find that far from owing the LCFA money he has been underpaid by them with the wrong pension for 15 years from when he retired until the day he passed away.

Disabled FSV~DW was an honourable Officer and man who had acknowledged bona fides not only within his own community where he was a contributing Member of his local Masonic/Rotary Club but within the national Fire Service ‘family’ where he was recognised for his support of the national Firefighters Charity and with his involvement in youth activities, principally soccer both locally, regionally, and with the Fire Service National Football Team.

The latter was an interest he shared in personal friendship with then then Chairman of the Lancashire CFA, CC Bob Wilkinson a former Firefighter in the LCFB the progenitor of the LFRS and a person about whom the Bugler has both direct knowledge as an Officer who commanded Wilkinson on his Watch and as an opportunist politician.

Unlike Wilkinson there can be no question of disabled FSV~DW’s personal integrity which he continued to demonstrate in his final terminally ill days as he fought to protect his wife ‘C’ from the consequences of a scandalously complicit and corrupt LCFA who without any form of pity or humanity were cynically engaged both corporately and individually in covering up their total

failure in compliance of their Statutory duty to manage and protect disabled FSV~DW’s Firefighters Pension Scheme but also his personal pension benefits.

Indeed the LCFA perpetrated not only a major fraud on him, his wife, and his children but as serial fraudsters, led by their criminal commander (with a Police record) CFO Peter Holland (the present ‘independent’ fire advisor to the Cameron government) managed with his complicit staff to regularly ‘lose’ and ‘find’ disabled FSV~DW Personal Record Files.

It is particularly obnoxious to note that the then Chairman of the Lancashire CC Wilkinson  professed personal friendship for the dying FSV~DW yet was not prepared in any manner, neither in common humanity; personal friendship; nor comradeship, to raise a single finger to help him or his family.

Disabled FSV~DW’s wife ‘C’ was ‘just’ another wife who, unpaid,  ‘just’ carried the stress and strain of her husband’s profession which by its very nature invaded the tranquillity of their home during the wee small hours on constant ‘turnout’ during his 84 hours of work as an operational Station Commander whilst ‘just’ running her own job and their home, and ‘just’ raising decent children to be decent Citizens inculcating in them their shared clear and unequivocal sense of fair play and justice.

‘C’s’ letters speak with the passion of the ‘just’, and with the usual resilience of Service wives; ‘just’ sharing their joint cares, woes, and occasional triumphs; but rock solid when it really mattered at times of the greatest family distresses and whilst the spineless Holland’s of this world utter their mealy mouthed cant as excuses for their lack of moral fibre and  non-existent leadership, at least those who have served at the front on the real ‘thin red line’ will perpetually recognise the courage of those left behind to wait and worry, those who unlike the Holland’s of this world actually deserve a heartfelt salute…

It is long overdue for ‘C’ to express her views…

The UK Fire & Rescue Service is controlled by Freemasonry.

When in 1961 the Bugler and his Paternal family were, in penury, thrown off the 75 acre dairy farm by the progenitors of the today’s non-‘Listening Bank’ (The HSBC) the Bugler’s life finally washed up on the shores of the Fire Service.

Firstly at the Northern Ireland Fire Authority as an amateur with the title of Auxiliary Fireman and then secondly in 1963, professionally, as Fireman Burns P.P, Regimental No:392 one of the ‘Boys of the BFB’ as the Brigade song went, on Blue Watch.

Even more rarely as one of five Nationalists among 350 Unionist Planters about whom, with the exception of the usual 3 or 4 bigoted morons, the Bugler has not a bad word to say to this day.

It was a new world but not everything was entirely new; within the UK Fire Service it was, as it remains today, an unchanged and unchanging open sewer of corruption coupled with discrimination in all its forms.

This includes gender ‘glass ceilings’ presided over by Freemasonry which sees itself, with its agenda, as the WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) guardians of the old and expired British Empire but continuing as ‘visionaries of power’ behind the throne using their tools of ‘patronage’ and ‘discrimination’ against all comers who are patently ‘not one of us’.

Unquestionably theirs is a lost battle as the next flood tide of feminists shrieking ‘misogynists’ breach their racist/gender walls whilst forgetting that in the process they are branding themselves as misandrists (man haters) who wish only to be equal at the top.

Not halfway up or down like the Duke of Wellington; but never at the bottom.

The current attack on the Judiciary is a prime example, not that it is not long overdue and needed, in the 21^st Century.

As we saw in 2019 the Brethren under Sir George Ian Duncan Smith (IDS) another delusional ‘leader’ even organised a successful putsch, a coup d’état, in the political vacuum generated by yet another overgrown revolutionary (beyond delusional) called Jeremy Corbin who terminally damaged the Labour Party; another ‘leader’ who ought to have spent some time in the Soviet to get a grip on the reality of Communism which the Bugler saw for himself at first hand whilst otherwise engaged.

The Freemason institutional concept attempts to operate on the theory that the astute will recruit the more astute when in reality morons simply recruit even greater morons in a downward chandelle to the level of the unintelligible.

If one needed proof then just look at the ‘management’ of the ‘Covid’ pandemic; though when studying individual Brethren there seems to be an individual and fundamental lack of self-confidence underpinned with a range of all the human fallabilities; including professional laziness; greed for promotion without justification ; a perpetual adverse reaction to accountability and responsibility; and the basically greedy who need a ‘leg up’.

In practice the theory is easy to apply but there are recognised side effects starting with the recruited individual.

The individual identifies within himself his own short comings which are usually usually a lazy lack of intelligent

application to acquire the necessary professional skills to  discharge a particular function but all culminating in the essential need to expose his ‘breast and leg’ for reasons which entirely bemuses the ‘ordinary’.

When contemplating such an individual a test question usually goes thus… “how in God’s name did this clown get to this position of authority”…the answer is usually self-evident.

But as we shall see the Brotherhood also has a very sinister side to its operations when a Brother steps out of line, or fails to follow what he might see as unpalatable, immoral, or criminal instructions all the while failing to recognise there is always a ‘pay back’ for all this handy ‘leg up’.      

When the Brother sells his Soul for a penny roll, there is always a price to pay ultimately.

In ‘business as usual’ it is a simple requirement that a power holder put there by the Brethren is required individually, or on a promotion panel, to give a ‘leg up’ to the chosen candidate regardless of what the post might demand or the Members ‘qualities’ and what the law may require…so thus the slide into criminality begins.

Having digressed to a byway its time to return to highway of reality where the Bugler was born into institutional discrimination in the ‘North of Ireland’ and remained a ‘black man’ for all his working life initially flagrantly displayed in the ‘engine rooms’ on the Belfast Fire Stations where forthcoming promotions were openly discussed along the lines of which of the candidates’ Orange Lodge (Read Freemasons) had the most ‘pull’ at the City Hall.

As barefaced as that…

As an avowed Irish Democrat, a European, and a non-member of any political party it should be repeated once more that as such the Bugler has a commitment to support those principles in that every mortal person has the lawful right to be a member, or brethren, of any lawful society which holds and practices its own secrets, providing it uses those attributes for the good of all…

However, when the application of these principles diverge and these ‘collectives’ use their secret acts to impinge on, directly obstruct, or erodes the democratic and lawful, if not God given, rights of others in such matters as personal advancement in their chosen discipline, and/or the application of malignant curtailment/obstruction of any manner of ambitious freedom; then such acts are both corrupt and unlawful as we are currently seeing at the Court of Appeal in this underpayment pension saga since 1992.

In the late 60’s and early 70’s due to falling membership which continues today as Death and youthful disinterest  hemorrhages the Brotherhood and in the early 1980s as a consequence of the challenge of the recruitment of female Firefighters the ‘family’ (as they describe themselves to each other) decided to intensify their control over almost every function within the FRS.

Such Fascism is easy to achieve as Hitler demonstrated.

Every appointment or post which held or applied power was targeted and over a short period of time this target was not only achieved but retained to this day, though ‘gesture politics and quotas’ coupled with cynical amused toleration by the Brethren continues to be is applied to all ethnic minorities.

To believe otherwise is to be a fool.

But let ‘C’ share her own thoughts in her own Truths in her own words…Go Here.

‘C’ was not alone in being subject to a pogrom of hurt. Others were subsequently subject to much worse, if that was possible. In this frantic cover up of massive maladministration, malfeasance, and fraud.

They were subjected to, as we shall see from Court ordered released internal secret emails, an approved policy of hatred, racial discrimination, defamation, gratuitous inhumanity, and indignity; but who approved these unlawful actions?

Conservative County Councillor David O’Toole ~ a Freemason and a Thief ~ was the Chair of the LCFA at that time and has recently been reinstalled as the current Chair once more of the LCFA; one wonders if he will consider paying back the £44,000.0+ he stole from the TaxPayers in the fraudulent mileage claims and subsistence he submitted on his official duties records which were released under FOIA and which the then Chief Constable of Lancashire found no case to answer?

For the Secret internal Emails released to the Bugler by the former Solicitor of the LFRS, Harold… Go Here.