• Anti-Bullying Week & Anti-Bullying Month;

• The Architect – The Tyranny of Oppressors;

• The Bullies;

• Brendan the Barbarian at his Masters command;

• The ‘Hardship Route’- The Choreography of Corruption;

• Brendan the Barbarian-0 WonderWoman-1;

• The Sunset Trail of Slime as the sewers of open corruption spew out of management doors of the LFRS.

It is singularly appropriate that part of this Chapter should be written at the commencement of anti-bullying week, in anti-bullying month.

There is no collective noun for bullies in the ‘OED’, but perhaps a ‘slime of bullies’ would be appropriate.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that this obnoxious trait originates with a particular type of child in the school yard but those who study such matters suggest that such abhorrent  misconduct is usually the by-product of a dysfunctional home where awareness of human dignity and a sense of fair play have never been taught to a child, and whilst that may be the initial case, firm discipline at home and school with caring corrective treatment usually sets the child on the right path for life, but not always.

If neglected, not corrected, or successfully challenged,  bullies (OED-coercing others by fear), for there can be no other word for them, simply over time grow into being accomplished serial intimidators and coercive predators who prey on the weak as they see them, often mistaking politeness for weakness; and who with accomplished field craft and human cunning regularly back away from a confrontational challenge using a plethora of falsehoods as their natural tools of defence.

This is how they survive to terrorise another day…

The Editor of the Bugler  was a Member of a Board of Visitors and a Member of the Parole Board at one of Her Majesty’s guest houses for some 5 years or more. The interviewing of some 20 to 30 parole applicants a month provided an invaluable insight in the criminal ‘mindset’. 

Recidivists, those who regularly re-offend, reach a point in their minds that what they are doing is actually not terribly wrong or exceptional; they, by rote, regularly excuse themselves and habitually lie about their actions which actually they know to be wrong at heart.

Bullies fit this profile exactly. This coupled with their arrogant cavalier attitude to civilised sensible behaviour and reasonable authority leads them to even have a disdainful attitude to the Courts of Law as we shall eventually see with Warren and others.

Coersives regularly corrupt the easily misguided, indeed target them to use them for their ulterior motives which are never seemly.

Managerial power provides the foundation and fuel upon which many bullies like Hamilton and Warren regularly feed.

Usually mature appreciation of one’s sense of power and a personal sense of decency act as chilling counter effect which constraints any form of abuse.

But all of this presupposes that every person in a managerial position has such desirable human attributes and admirable qualities and if the reverse is true and these chilling constraints are not present in a dysfunctional adult then it is inevitable that coercive bullying of the perceived weak and misguided will occur.

It is sometimes one of life’s unfortunate coincidences of fate that from time to time a conflux of bullies occurs at a particular point and place in time either by accident or design . Such a conflux inevitably feeds on itself, in effect ‘I am a greater bully than you’, and bullying simply slips into a collective Tyranny of Oppressors who exude oily unspoken hostility, allied with sinister intimidation, and amoral manipulation.

Usually such metaphorical ‘dogs’ serve inadequate whispering  ‘masters’ who are themselves dysfunctional in terms of personal courage or the finer traits of male or female humanity. These ‘masters’ have the innate tendency to lurk in the undergrowth of life, sometimes described as ‘creatures of the night’  whilst their ‘dogs’ do their dirty work eventually receiving the opprobrium they richly deserve because as recidivists they are all at this stage of their human under development simply beyond redemption.

In looking at and investigating such a scenario, for example in the LFRS, one should always look at those who are ultimately responsible for letting these predators loose. In a strange, almost evil way, these ‘masters’ draw a vicarious delight when, at a suitable ‘hands clean’ distance, they enjoy the distress of others supposedly placed in their care. It perplexes the human heart why anyone would enjoy such suffering but, with their ‘dogs’, they do.

The infamous excuse was, and remains… “I was only doing my duty” …heard regularly at Nuremburg.

These ‘masters’ keep their malignant intents well hidden under a cloak of apparent respectability whilst clinging to the vicious mantra of why ‘keep a dog and bark yourself’.

This simply bolsters their own rather sick self-esteem in their own eyes but whose actions are roundly condemned and generally despised by all normal decent mortals.

In the LFRS the Architect of the original Tyranny of Oppressors was none other than Holland who after an exodus of decent Fire Service ‘family’ orientated senior personnel on retirement around and about the late ’90s he found himself sans key professional administrators.

Given Holland’s predisposition for various predilections which have caused him problems in the past one supposes his ‘shopping list’ would include those who would not only be loyal to him but would demonstrate their gratitude by vigorously defending what remained of his ‘honour’.

He it was who took this ‘opportunity of exodus’ to introduce Rottweiler types into the managerial structure of the LFRS at various levels. Holland seems to have been a good judge of dog flesh.

This was no mere accident of opportunism or necessity but additionally driven from underneath by other events of the day and by his overriding duty to the Lamplighter brigade in assisting and aiding its ‘brethren in distress’ in other authorities.

But did Holland have choices?

It is doubtful that Holland had any choice in ‘rescuing’ these individuals because when driven by personal greed (exhibited by his triple dipping) and whilst supporting his self-aggrandising drive to achieve, as he sees it, the same stature as his respectable  father Sir Kenneth Holland( which is increasingly unlikely as his embarrassingly corrupt past catches up with him) he had few options for refusing to help.

Thus having sold his very Soul in Rebirth, it was inevitable that the day would come when the favours of ‘patronage’ which he had personally received and directly benefited from would be called in from him in payback time.

Nothing in life  comes free or without a price…

But the Bugler must also ask who knew and thus bore responsibility for Holland’s corrupt actions? Go Here.

N.B The words Rotten Fuhrers in German simply means ‘Section Leaders’ but as we well know it suits in the context it was used.

In late 2001-2 the pay back ‘favours of patronage’ for Holland initially came in the form of  Warren who had left British Rail North West in Manchester under a cloud where he informs the world in his  published CV, which chameleon like, reverses it colours from time to time(of which more later), where he was Head of Human Resources responsible for 35,000 rail staff.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that he jumped before he was sacked. Either that , or the terms and conditions which Holland offered him at the LFRS were so extraordinary  that he  must have bizarrely regarded this enforced career move which placed him in charge of  a mere 1200 staff as opposed to 35,000 as incentivised career advancement ?

Clearly this was a much more attractive proposition than that which he was receiving with BR though the clincher must have been his self-penned grandiose title of Director of People & Development.

LFRS 2013/14 Annual accounts indicate that Warren was the second highest paid member of staff at the LFRS earning  £101k.

This is second only to Mattinson(though by no stretch of the imagination a bully-more an eager spineless spectator) who is Director of Corporate Services/Treasurer who awards himself £102k. Both of whom  earn well above the third highest salary of the current Chief Fire Officer Kenny.

Kenny was reported on a mere £75k, where ambition seems to have overwhelmed his sense of personal worth given this stall trader’s price, though some under his ‘command’ argue that he is more of a ‘Pound Land’ man.

In 2014 it seems the league table at the trough has been reversed with Kenny quoted as £150-154k;Warren as £95-99K; Mattinson as £95-99k.

But Money equals Power, and after a power struggle it seems that Kenny is at long last appearing to run the LFRS but with power comes accountability as he will shortly find out.

Nevertheless both Warren and  Mattinson must be, given the small number of staff they administer, pro rata, two of the mostly highly remunerated local authority servants in the land.

But of course big fleas have little fleas and ultimately

corrupt ‘favours’ will be required in ‘pay back’ from the little  fleas who have dead end futures, or as one of the Lamplighters succinctly put it to the Bugler… “Warren is going nowhere”… except one presumes the exit when his patronage has been paid back to the brethren ; or his usefulness has become an embarrassment to the LFRS; or when his time, they decide, has come…

But this is not about Warren, to whom we will return later and repeatedly, but about another corrupt individual called Hamilton also from Manchester, though originally from Ulster, which the readership of the Bugler may recall was reported upon at the beginning of September during the Special Chapter reporting the likelihood of Fire Authorities’ bankruptcy(which looms larger with every passing pension day) to which a large contributing measure was the corruption of the greedy Thieving Magpies and their associated various Scoundrels like Hamilton who Secretary of State Pickles commented upon with great ire in the Press.

Scoundrels who instead of spending time setting a good example by leading and contributing with integrity to the FRS they were responsible for and employed by, spent most of their ‘industrious hours’ with their snouts in their local troughs up to their piggy eyes.

Presciently, the Bugler speculated that the Taxpayers would hear more of these blackguards  and scoundrels in the future and indeed they will because leopards have yet to shed their spots, and kleptomaniacs are not called kleptomaniacs in the context of political expenses and double or triple dipping salaries for nothing; they simply cannot resist regularly dipping their grubby fingers in the public cash register.

Hamilton, another ‘associate’ of the Lamplighters, is one of these scoundrels but of no particular note-a gopher-the Bugler has already previously reported upon his ‘activities’ as Greater Manchester Probation Trust’s Head of Human Resources.

Oft on a sunny morn we have all risen with the dawn to inspect our ‘demense’ and in this joyous rustic setting the blackbirds sing, the dew glistens, and the slugs leave their wondrous meanderings and looping trails until WonderWoman JI stamps her foot and the blackbirds decides it is time to dispose of this creature of unpleasant demeanour…

Thus it was with Hamilton who left quite a considerable trail of slime behind him on his journey to the LFRS but his end was similarly abrupt, anticlimactic, and distinctly squelchy. 

The first time that Hamilton crawled into the Buglers dawn light was when he and his ‘team’ associates Jayne Hutchinson, Julie Wisdom, and Diane Lister popped up on the Bugler’s radar in the pension debacle as ‘experts’ on all matters Fire Service pension.

In particular, with the exception of Lister, all the others were regularly present at early  ‘kangaroo courts’  of summary ‘justice’ as tumbril after tumbril brought disabled FSVs and their spouses  to a cruel ambushing ‘accounting’ for the alleged receipt of pension ‘overpayments’ and ‘underpayments’ which are of course the very antitheses of the effective administration of a Statutory pension Scheme.

Hamilton and his team’s collective intimidating and bullying antics are starkly recorded by a distraught and anguished disabled FSV- DA and his wife. Go here.

It must always be remembered that it is not how others in objective hindsight might perceive such misconduct which matters but how the victims themselves perceive its abusive emotional impact at the time, and in their future recollections.

Common gossip within the LFRS at the time records that Holland was well known by Lancashire Firefighters to spend regular amounts of his time visiting the Preston Moor Park premises of the Head of the Lancashire Probation Service. Was it just coincidental that around 2002 Hamilton was Head of Human Resources at the Greater Manchester Probation Trust in Trafford Park?

Later enquiries by the Bugler with the assistance of reliable sources within the Trust confirmed that indeed a distinctly feared and intensely disliked Hamilton had been employed by the Trust but because of his professional misbehaviour towards female staff, two in particular, which included bullying and sexual harassment the Trust were forced to insist that Hamilton resign as an alternative to gross misconduct dismissal.

When pressed by the Bugler and subjected to a Freedom of Information request the Trust’s head of legal services refused to be drawn on Hamilton’s colourful time with them simply confirming that Hamilton had left under a mutual non-disclosure agreement . Go Here.

This methodology of ‘bailing out’, also exercised by Warren, would be unlawful today and will no longer be available to Hamilton or his cohorts in his present self-inflicted predicament where he finds himself once more arraigned for simple thuggery.

Mutual NDAs are unlawful because in many cases in the past their use has led to the corrupt covering up of criminal activity which denied the victim(s) their lawful right to make formal complaints and make representations to the authorities in their pursuit of justice.

It was to prevent such future abuses and for these specific reasons that the law of Contract has now been amended.

In these particular cases at the Greater Manchester Probation Trust  two of the victims who have now left and are completely free from any constraints of employment to ‘blow the whistle’ in victim statements on Hamilton if they desire, or are encouraged to do so, as acts of personal ‘closure’.

The remaining victims at the Trust now have a similar lack of constraint by his departure but human nature being what it is perhaps they might be more inclined to now share their ‘Hamilton’ experiences with the current victims at the LFRS, or failing that, with the Bugler’s readership.

The Bugler will of course guarantee and respect their anonymity. It is regrettable but understandable that if these victims of Hamilton had pressed the issue at the time they could well have saved the current Lancashire victims at the LFRS. Perhaps their consciences might insist in making amends for this understandable, but nevertheless human failure?

What is beyond doubt is that a clear and corrupt cover up by a very senior manager within the GMPT took place to protect Hamilton from the effects such a departure would have on his future employability in the labour market and in addition  potentially have on the freezing of his civil service pension until the age of 67.

This corrupt act, probably ‘sold’ to the Trustees on the basis that in so acting the Trustees would protect the Trust’s good name would undoubtedly have drawn a gale of guffaws from  the inmates of Her Majesty’s Prison at nearby Strangeways.

This corruption not only allowed  Hamilton in deceit to seek further employment, aided and abetted by Holland, but to eventually transfer his pension into the LFRS local authority Scheme which he did. Thus whilst escaping the legal and criminal consequences of his predatorial actions he also escaped with his pension booty, to the absolute dismay of his victims.

The great irony of this situation was that when he arrived at the LFRS he was made deputy pension Scheme manager responsible for its day to day ‘management’.

One is bound to ask are these circumstances of engineered ‘escape’ from civil and criminal consequences likely to replicate themselves once more at the LFRS?

If they do then we must assume that the present Chief Fire Officer Kenny is just as corrupt as Holland, his forebear.

After his expulsion from the Trust Hamilton reappeared in the temporarily vacant post  of  Head of Human Resources at the LFRS and in time was permanently ‘appointed’ by Holland without having to ‘endure’ the necessity of the publicly advertising the vacancy as Equal Opportunities legislation required; the wading through of unnecessarily generated CV’s of hopeful applicants which also disenfranchised in-house candidates; or the boring necessity of arranging a short list interview panel thus saving the ultimate charade of  announcing a ‘successful’ candidate.

Total power corrupts totally, as Holland well knows.

Not only was this total corruption amoral and unlawful because Holland, in simply ignoring the law, but it left a legacy of slime behind him, when he departed to take up his appointment as the ‘independent’ Fire Advisor to this current coalition  government.

A slime of thuggishness in the form of Warren, Hamilton, and others ‘patronised’ by Holland, and as we all well know none of these predators can change their spots either.

It has been said that Warren recruited Hamilton to this post but that is simply a smokescreen provided for Holland’s image benefit (a person who constantly travels with a hand washing bowl) for in reality there was no love lost between these two thugs.

Hamilton believed that he should have Warren’s post and Warren disagreed, and given the present current  opportunity presented to him by Hamilton’s injudicious actions Warren will no doubt have enjoyed exerting his final ‘supremacy’.

If office gossip is the believed, Hamilton would commence each working day in the open forum of his department by announcing… “Who are we going to sack today?”

It is never wise to tempt fate for the person ‘they’ could be sacking today could well be himself.

When on rare occasions when challenged by a courageous/foolish Firefighter they would be rebuffed by the comment… “You don’t know how high I go?”… Really?

Was Hamilton referring to the Winterbottom?;  Lamplighters in general?; to Holland?; to his tribal past in Northern Ireland?; or to the ‘career’ gibbet of his own construction, the steps of which he will shortly find himself mounting?

But as is well known big fleas have little fleas and ultimately corrupt ‘favours’ will be required in ‘pay back’ from the little fleas who have dead end expendable futures and when this pension debacle arose Hamilton needed no encouragement to throw his weight about.

During the early days of the pension debacle, which both Hamilton and Warren as the day to day deputy and Pension Scheme manager respectively were responsible for, both failed to carry out even the most rudimentary root and branch examination of the Scheme for which they were responsible when they were first ‘appointed’.

It can be said with certainty in some form of twisted mitigation or logic that neither would have known what they were doing in any event because neither has the remotest ability or qualification in matters pension.

Indeed when reporting to the CFA Committee Warren stated in his first report on his pension Scheme debacle that “it was all new to him”…indeed it was… and still is.

In 2007 a pension exercise laughingly referred to as a ‘review’ was subsequently carried out after the ‘discovery’ of this huge maladministration worth several millions, a discovery  which was actually brought to Hamilton/Warren’s attention by  an honest disabled FSV-DW(deceased).

Initiated by CC Wilkinson, then Chairman of the CFA(a retired Firefighter turned tricky ‘politician’) who with justification skewed the ‘review’ well away from his own ‘ill-health’ pension.

This ‘review’ in the initial trawl netted 160+/- FSVs with ill-health/injury awards with alleged overpayments and underpayments. This posed an immediate and embarrassing problem for the Holland and Winterbottom’s local Lamplighters because they ensnared, to their outrage and shock, a substantial number of retired senior ranks who also happened to be Lamplighters.

It is not known to this day whether tricky Bob (Wilkinson-who hoped it would all go away) was himself overpaid?

The question was how was Wilkinson(a former FBU trade unionist and closet Lamplighter) going to respond to this ‘difficult’ political question on his watch ? In this respect he was supported by the ever Mandarin whispering and watching Winterbottom, his shadowy Clerk to the Fire Authority.

In the event the electorate saved Wilkinson(Labour), by astutely ditching him at the local elections but collectively returned O’Toole a Conservative chum of Winterbottom as the new Chair of the Fire Authority.

The Chairs of the CFA who come and go may consider that they are the political masters of the CFA but they are simply deluding themselves. The LFRS in splendid isolated chicanery runs without them. In a regular and accomplished ritual County Councillors are simply paid obsequious lip service and having signed their expenses chitty they all trundle off back to their caves happy to be none the wiser.

Winterbottom, a man for all seasons where the establishment is concerned, is the choreography ‘master’ for all this ritual cant and nonsense. Though employed part time by the CFA Winterbottom is far from just an obsequious Uria Heap, a mere clerk, as these County Councillors are misled by him to conclude.

He is also a deputy Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire County sworn to uphold the law which he does not hesitate to obstruct, manipulate, or just plain ignore when it serves his devious purposes. To people like him, as he frequently demonstrated during this pension dispute, democracy and the proletariat are, as he views them, simply an anathema which can be dismissively brushed aside when it does not serve his purpose and it is he who is the permanent LFRS back door conduit to the local judiciary from whence it now seems come undisguised threats to the Editor of the Bugler.

It appears that messenger boy Warren in passing an uncoded message from the judiciary to the Bugler has the supreme confidence of judicial support which allows him to identify the source as none other than  the region’s Circuit Court Judge ‘Nelson’ Butler of  Bugler ‘trial’ infamy.

It is noteworthy that an initial private letter to Warren from the Editor of the Bugler, which demanded a private response on private notepaper, Warren in his ‘untouchable’ arrogance chose to use the official taxpayers letterhead and the resources of the LFRS to issue this threat.

Go here.

Winterbottom is the mandarin whisperer who is one of  supreme ‘masters‘ of the choreography of corruption within the LFRS and, like Holland, is consumed by power which has corrupted him totally. He has repeatedly attempted to misuse the laws of defamation in repeated threats against all dissenters in this dispute in particular the Editor of the Bugler, whilst as a solicitor and law officer himself, he knows full well, or ought to know because the Bugler has told him often enough, that the Law Lords 1993 ruling(The Derbyshire Principle) in matters of unbridled scrutiny and criticism where local authorities and their ‘agents’ are concerned, including himself. Go Here.

Later the Bugler will provide a more detailed expose on Winterbottom’s dubious activities and how he ‘massages’ the law when it suits him.

In the matter of the pension ‘review’ Winterbottom found himself with a very uncomfortable dilemma which was how to satisfy and calm his brethren, those trapped in the pension trawling net of alleged ‘overpayment’, whilst attempting to meet the demand from CC Driver, the new Leader of the Lancashire Conservative for a quick resolution.

It was at that time O’Toole’s(Lancashire Conservative Party Whip and new  Chair of the Combined Fire Authority)  private wish, contrary  to his new Leader’s instructions, to provide the authorisation for recoupment action to be taken against disabled FSVs, the Editor of the Bugler in particular, whilst organising the release of his brethren from the scooped net.

This as Warren put it at one point in a secret email was, ‘tricky territory’.

It is also oppressive discriminatory bullying  ‘territory’ or as the man on the Clapham omnibus would recognise it, ‘dirty work at the cross roads’. Go Here.

This was a manipulative challenge for Winterbottom which undoubtedly required all his slimy masterly ‘skills’ par excellence.

After the Party change over ‘settling in period’ this conundrum raised its head once more. How was Winterbottom, O’Toole, and Holland going to cover up this massive pension maladministrative failure and take the bad look of failure off appearances by requiring the repayment of all these embarrassing alleged overpayments(ignoring for the moment the substantial individual underpayments some in excess of £40k) whilst protecting the brethren who included Warren, Hamilton, and Harold.

But ensuring that  ‘the less than equal’ other disabled FSVs including the Bugler who were also ‘entrapped’ would be forced into repayment along what ultimately was to become known as the Warren ‘hardship route’ which in perjury in open court he denied authorship of.

Warren is poor originator of new ideas, most congenital liars generally are, but he first picked up the embryonic solution from Mooney(Ulsterman) at the DCLG via Hamilton(Ulsterman)  but firmed up the mechanism and authored its title.  Warren states so… “I have provided the guiding principles.”, ever eager to earn the brownie points , though in his case ‘principles’ is an oxymoron. Go Here.

What Warren ought to have added was that the ‘facilitator’ or ‘fixer’ was to be Hamilton though Hamilton might not have known this at the time.

In a divison of labour it became clear later to Hamilton that he  would process and facilitate the provision of the ‘get out of jail free cards’ to the brethren to release them from incarceration in the pension ‘review’ trawl net whilst bearing down heavily on those unfortunates who were decent innocent victims of Warren and Hamilton’s massive maladministration.

It was after all public money and ‘justice’ had to be seen to be done. Well if it was such precious money why did Warren and Hamilton lose it by gross incompetence in the first place?

Probably from Winterbottom’s manipulative standpoint it was simply time for Warren and more recently Hamilton to pay back the ‘patronage’ which had been extended to them by the Lamplighters during their periods in recent career ‘distress’, and though Hamilton had  little choice in this

Choreography of Corruption he nevertheless proved to be a willing acolyte.

Corruption by mere definition knows no morality and also by existence is always a soft step into the natural criminality of mass fraud which followed.

The relief and release of the ‘distressed’ brethren in the pension trawl net was achieved by simple and masterly corrupt deceit. Though even at that point in time it was uncertain whether those outside the circle like Lister, Wisdom, and Hutchinson at the LCC and LFRS pension providers actually knew what was going on, or the co-conspirator roles  they would be called upon to play in achieving this mass deception and fraud for the LFRS.

Later in a huge finger pointing standoff relationships collapsed to an all time low but the golden rule of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ soon drove them all back together again in the Court room as we shall see in yet another expose.

As the Bugler has written before you can put a wig on a goat but it is still a goat.

When the Bugler publishes an expose of the detailed activities of Lister et al it will be left to the Reader to decide for themselves how innocent or guilty they are but shortly as the published records of the Audit Commission and the LCC Minutes will confirm Lister et al do not seem to be inhibited where pension management failure, falsehood, and misleading spin are concerned when misleading her ‘politicians’ on the LCC Pension sub-committee including CC De Molfetta the current Fire Authority Chair.

Once more when the time comes the evidence should be allowed to speak for itself . Given that this evidence is plain for all to see in public records it is a small cock stride to the reasonable assumption that she and other named members of her staff knew precisely what they was being asked to do in complicity with Winterbottom, Holland, Warren, and in daily subterfuge with Hamilton.

But as Lister and her associates will ultimately find to their cost in jobs and unsecured pensions the tempting path to corruption can be both inviting and slimy with consequences.

But how was this collective deceit to be pragmatically achieved?

Using their own lists of the brethren and those generated during the so called ‘review’ Hamilton and Hutchinson  would issue verbal instructions on individual disabled FSVs to Lister, or more likely in practice her right hand case work managers Wisdom(their  ‘expert’) or Mackie stating that he had examined a particular individual’s pension records and that he was satisfied that after scrutiny and discussions that the individual  had no recompense to make; or that the individual was prepared to payback a nominal amount in reparation; or that full reparation was to be made and discussions were in hand with ‘innocent’ disabled FSVs or their Widows to force the point.

In this respect when a ‘deal’ was struck with compliant innocent disabled FSVs, they were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements under threat of immediate full repayment; non-disclosures which both Hamilton and Warren had recent personal experience and knowledge of.

The story line depends on who you listen to, or who you believe.

These manipulations are in general terms what individual brethren stated ‘off the record’ when challenged by the Bugler on the issue of restitution.

No record of these so called nominal fee payback arrangements was ever produced, or could, or would, be stated by the brethren contacted ‘on the record’. Nor were any records to be eventually to be placed before the scrutiny of the CFA Committee, or the 4 members of the  ‘packed’ jury of the CFA Injury Pension Sub-Committee.

So it is safe to assume that no monies were ever paid back by the brethren and no records exist to support the hypotheses that they ever will be.

Pity therefore, the decent unwitting disabled FSVs who had to pay for the LFRS pension ‘management’ mistakes and the ‘get out of jail free cards’ for the Lamplighters.

However, aside from the very first case where an alleged ‘overpayment of £30k was reduced to £14k (a comforting gesture never extended to any other dissenter) there is one other documented case on record of a disabled FSV-BB who challenged the whole issue including an alleged ‘overpayment’ of £3008 which after a year was eventually written off by Warren as ‘poor administration’.

One wonders why this ‘solution’ was not applied to other disabled FSVs? Were they ‘less than equal’? Go Here.

In this critical matter the ‘pay back flea’ of a corrupt Hamilton played his pivotal role.

Hamilton, allied with Lister et al,  his pension contractor, clearly worked for the advantage of the Lamplighter brethren but to the distinct disadvantage of the decent disabled FSVs, but failed when challenged about his corruption, to respond to the Public questions put to him other than in a curiously muted response to refer the matter to Warren . Go Here.

One would have thought that when a direct attack is launched by the Bugler on anyone’s integrity or honesty(always supported with evidence) that at the very least an indignant response could be expected accompanied sometimes by a less than veiled threat.

But with the exception of messenger boy Warren’s recent  threatening letter, these recidivists seem unwilling to share their thoughts with the readership of the Bugler, or even to exercise their right of redress which the Bugler has always provided.

It is inevitable that Hamilton will eventaully fall on his on sword.

When the real truth of the criminal machinations of these corrupt thugs emerges as a consequences of a Ministerial or independent Judicial Inquiry the incumbent CFO, Kenny, who is fully aware of all this corruption and yet fails to take positive steps to rectify and eliminate its symptoms and causes is unlikely to survive his tenure at the LFRS.

Perhaps the time is long overdue to run an unrestricted straw poll or ballot in the Bugler on a ‘Voice of the People’ vote of confidence by those who currently serve in, retired from, or pay for the LFRS on those on those who allegedly ‘manage’ the LFRS?

Do you have confidence in the political ,civilian, and uniform management of the CFA and the LFRS?

Yes or No?

Hamilton, known colloquially in Firefighter circles, with justification, as ‘Brendan the Barbarian’  was for a period this past summer, much to their delight, hors-de-combat having apparently fallen from a ladder(of all things) and broken his legs and hip.

As one serving Firefighter commented, perhaps it was Karma?

Recently when he returned to work it was the same old bullying and sexually harassing  ‘Barbarian’ at work as usual  but as they say every worm can turn and it is never wise to step on a such a worm, and every WonderWoman JL has her day…

Last week it seems Brendan Joseph attempted to forcibly gain access to the Occupational Health Departments Personal Record files during which a confrontation with the records keeper developed into one of his regular abusive tirades only this time he overstepped WonderWoman’s mark who promptly challenged his bullying and general thuggery and reported him.

Ever the creature of habit Hamilton has made use of this sacrosanct illicitly obtained medical information before in what can best be described as blackmail in terminating Firefighters’ livelihoods.

This by any standards is quite an iniquitous creature.

As an immediate consequence Hamilton, was frogmarched/escorted (depending on who is telling this delicious tale) from Fire Service HQ by Asst Chief Russel with Hamilton leaving behind his usual trail of slime, as off he slithered into the sunset.

One would assume that Russel was acting on the direct orders of the Chief and if not, why not?

Hamilton’s ‘chum’ Warren as his administrative head will no doubt, with a degree of wicked delight  have issued Hamilton’s Suspension Notice pending further investigation…

Is this going to be a case of the cunning fox Warren being set the task with a whitewash bucket of investigating WonderWoman’s hen-house ?

Details remain sketchy about the full and accurate circumstances but will be updated as further corroborative reports are received.

Hamilton undoubtedly, if he is of the ilk the Bugler knows him to be, will have been the harvester and keeper of many secrets for just such a day.

Such predators are nothing, if not cunning and farsighted.

How will he use his secrets which will threaten the security all those who are corrupt above him?

What sort of deal will he attempt to strike with them?

This time for the reasons the Bugler has outlined neither he nor the LFRS can invoke, in more corrupt practice, a departure under a mutual non-disclosure.

Or will the Lamplighters having exhausted their ‘patronage’ and having been repaid in corrupt kind, when it was needed, simply throw Hamilton to the wolves?

It is their usual modus operandii.

Will WonderWoman and her colleagues be satisfied simply with Hamilton’s permanent departure leaving other women in the future to experience what they have experienced from this serial predator?

Would that be decent or fair?

Or will they be sufficiently ‘cowed’ to retreat , thus just putting off their own revisited evil day?

The Bugler will watch and report on the activities of all those involved from the Chair CC de Molfetta and his CFA Committee, Winterbottom,  through Chief Fire Officer Kenny  to Warren, because of course there is far more to Hamilton’s downfall that just the mere matter of another bullying tirade.

Right now a ‘fall guy’ is desperately needed and Hamilton rather foolishly provided the ‘boys’ with the hatchet.

This is an interesting predicament of threat which Hamilton has placed them all in and this is what the product of corporate corruption and fraud looks like.

Bullies like Hamilton usually anticlimactically in the end self-destruct and are left in obscurity in bitterness to blame all those around them for their self-inflicted wounds. Holland and his sorcerer’s Apprentice Hamilton are the first two to depart from the LFRS but the suppuration of corruption continues to simply weep and ooze out of every level of management within the LFRS.

This is the inevitable consequences when the trails of slime lead into the front door of LFRS Service HQ.

When the real truth of the criminal machinations of these corrupt thugs emerges as a consequences of a Ministerial or independent Judicial Inquiry the incumbent CFO, Kenny, who is fully aware of all this corruption and fails to take positive action to rectify and eliminate its symptoms and causes is unlikely to survive his tenure at the LFRS.

This particular reign of terror is over but the corrosive cancer of the Warren’s of this world continue. Decent people will eventually find the courage to speak out and once more democracy and decency will commence to grow within the LFRS.

The Bugler predicts that these creatures will not be the last to slither off into the night to find a place among the winos, derelicts, and general ne’er do wells, if they will have them…

The second name on the ‘Fall Guy’ list is already emerging, Hamilton.

The Bugler wonders who will be next and how many? Because as we all know well that when the day cometh there is no honour among thieves, ruffians, and vagabonds…