The South Tyneside Council CCTV Case of 1999 – a detailed account.

A true account of gross dereliction of management, lies, conspiracy, false accusations and a sham cover-up by South Tyneside Council and  UNISON. 

In this section and in the coming weeks we will reveal:

• How UNISON via union funding took over the privately commenced legal case against South Tyneside Council by three of the people named and involved in the matter and invited three other members of staff ‘on board’ – who had not made any personal attempts at investigating the matters nor had pursued justice themselves. They then refused legal funding for one of the original complainants.

• How UNISON’s solicitor changed the target of impending legal action from South Tyneside Council to Northumbria Police despite protests – and lost the case.

• How one of the arrested and suspended suspects used the union appointed solicitor (Mr. M. Laffey – Thompson’s solicitors) for a personal matter against one of the original three complainants, creating a sham and avoidable ‘conflict of interest’. The ensuing unavailability of this important evidence cost the case.

• How the actions and lies of the Warden Services UNISON steward and an arrested and suspended UNISON member – (an official police suspect) cost the case for all of the pursuants involved – preventing essential case evidence from North Tyneside Council to be used in the legal actions against Northumbria Police and South Tyneside Council.

• How UNISON officials repeatedly denied all knowledge of the conspirators and lied to the original three complainants (Messrs BF, JS and KE).

• How, upon realising his identity had been discovered regarding the 'CCTV tape theory', an arrested and suspended staff member began a nine year spree of rumour-mongering and false allegations to staff members and former staff members. Also covered is the car chase in 2001 through South Shields between K.E and the employee in question - and the attempted removal of Mr. E's member profile from the 'FRIENDS REUNITED' website during 2007-8 - as it 'upset' the guilty parties. They lost, despite several attempts.

Be Seeing You

An Introduction.

Alarmingly, the CCTV Case of 1999 was not only a product of the minds of management, but, as it turned out, was aided and abetted by the devious minds of two former work colleagues from South Tyneside Council.

One of them still holds a position of UNISON representative whilst her male accomplice is still a UNISON member. Both of them also still currently work for the authority - although the intention of this website is to change that and seek justice.

The male conspirator was a close working colleague of all three of us and a close friend of Mr. E - the person who he, along with his union representative, directly accused Mr. E of a serious criminal act, and cost him his livelihood as a result.

The simple reason? The conspirator himself was a valid police suspect, and he decided to take measures - at whatever cost to others - to divert police attention from his suspected involvement. He took the bizarre and bogus advice of the Warden Service union representative, traded off his friendship, and from that day onwards has been the steward's 'dancing monkey' - doing whatever she deems necessary to keep their secrets at bay. Too late - the secret is out.

Read all about these two scumbags as the story continues.

Preface.
Since we jointly began our peaceful campaign against the powers-that-be at South Tyneside Council in 1999, we are the first to admit that there has been, over the following years a substantial change in the Directorship, management tree and personnel.
We are confident that our relentless campaigning has resulted in, or partly responsible for, the changes of higher management who oversaw a raft of dismissals and disciplinary meetings, and eventually; in their eyes what must have been their ‘finest hour’, the CCTV case.

We are therefore pleased to announce that the two main management figures from the period 1997-2003 (approx) found themselves to be ‘surplus to requirements’ during a massive shake-up with the departments and management structure at South Tyneside Council.

During this shake-up, the Director of Community Services, Mr. Frederick McQueen and his Assistant Manager, Mrs. Norma Richardson, found themselves on the employment scrapheap.

Poetic justice indeed.

We genuinely hope, for the sake of all public service employees, that Mr. McQueen (now a Rotarian – doing “good deeds for the community”) and Mrs. Richardson never again secures such a position of power.

However, below is our account of the events during their period of office – which resulted in the biggest local authority scandal in many years.

The information provided is accurate and proof of the same has been retained.

Watch the Tyne Tees Television News coverage for yourself:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=neo5cv88W6U

The CCTV case 1999.

The CCTV Case – How it all began.

Because the Central Control Unit/Warden Services was a ‘living and working’ 24/7 control room in monitoring elderly clients via the Community Alarm systems it was decided that the Unit should also monitor the CCTV system that was to be installed in South Shields town centre and later expanded to surrounding areas. As one can imagine the majority of staff was forlorn at this decision; a care worker, for want of a better term and that of a security officer are not compatible occupations and require employees of entirely different attitudes and values.

As a result of the obvious and expected increase in the workload - spanning two entirely different occupations under one roof - a number of relief staff was required to assist in the duties and the day-to-day running of the unit. These extra duties necessitated more staff and resultant “pool” staff was employed to bridge that gap. Relief or ‘pool’ staff was temporary, ‘as and when required’ employees.

Before the CCTV incident

Mr Starbuck, as mentioned earlier upon this site was an employee in the relief pool of staff and had been in the employment of the council since 1996. The new pool staff’s training was to be personally supervised by the CCU Manager – or as he claimed at the time. Original staff soon nicknamed a selected group of this new pool staff (which evidently included Mr Starbuck) as ‘The ‘A’ Team’, as they appeared to receive preferential treatment.

Team Leaders were often informed of new developments and working protocols by this pool staff as they were privy to information given directly to them during their cosy chats with their Manager. Therefore he himself did not follow operating protocol, Team Leaders were unable to verify that a change of protocol was correct, when unexpectedly informed by a pool worker on shift work when managers were not present. As stated before, the Management Team only worked 9 to 5, Monday to Friday).

The ‘A Team’ was endorsed by the Manager to spend a good part of their working shift (surely a ‘misuse of council time’?) sitting in his office chatting and sharing jokes with him. Bear in mind, this was time away from their work. In September-November 1997, Mr E’s charges of gross misconduct included charges of being “one minute” late – therefore an officially recognised ‘unauthorised absence’ from work.

The Manager failed to follow council disciplinary procedures. A prime example of this was that he should have reported Mr. Starbuck for a disciplinary hearing after receiving numerous complaints about him; some of a sexually harassive nature.

There were a number of very grave and serious complaints made against Mr Starbuck. The current UNISON shop steward for the Central Control Unit will be able to confirm and is still duty-bound to testify about these officially recorded and well-known matters.

Before the CCTV incident occurred, in fact in August 1997, Messrs KE, GB and BF reported on a number of separate and independent occasions that Starbuck had amended shift rosters to give himself additional shifts or extra working hours. He should have been dismissed for these openly fraudulent acts, which could have been construed as Gross Misconduct. Direct Management had been given physical evidence in the form of the original time sheets (duty roster sheets) and the version amended by Starbuck, including the witness statement by no less than three Team Leaders and two relief staff, Ms K.D and Mr John Fleck – who had both made complaints.

No action was taken. 

Mr E, during his eight year term of employment at South Tyneside Council’s Warden Service had made numerous formal complaints against Starbuck between 1996-97, yet no apparent action was ever taken. He was repeatedly warning management about this man’s behaviour, yet no-one was listening. 

Starbuck was not an individual that could be depicted as of sound character. An alarming number of female staff had made complaints about his behaviour.

Had Starbuck been disciplined for Gross Misconduct at this time – as he should have been – then the CCTV Incident quite simply could not have occurred. (See section entitled ‘Management Failures’).

SITO (Security Industry Training Organisation) Certification.

During 1998 all of the current staff (at that time) and management attended a SITO (Security Industry Training Organisation) course; this was a nationally recognised CCTV course and was lectured and explained by Mr John Pond.

After receiving such training, and realising that there was in fact numerous discrepancies in the running of their CCTV monitoring as opposed to SITO’s recommendations, Team Leaders expressed their concerns about the operating protocol of South Tyneside Council’s CCTV system at a meeting with their manager. As well as voicing concerns about staff reviewing CCTV tapes on behalf of Northumbria Police - without any police presence - staff also had concerns about the legal implications in respect to the disclosure of evidence and therefore the ‘continuity of evidence’.

Refusing to implement SITO recommendations, the CCU Manager stated:

“SITO is not Law”.

Mr B Fox complained to his Manager only two weeks before the incident that during his shift there was no one manning the CCTV system; the duty CCTV operator Mr Starbuck was reviewing tapes on the preview suite. Mr Fox contested that police should at least be present when tapes were reviewed, as per SITO recommendations. Concerns were expressed that anyone convicted by CCTV evidence could have their case ejected from court because of “Continuity of Evidence”. This refers to the official ‘path’ in which the tapes must be secured. For instance, tapes kept in a cabinet with open access, no record of tape movement, tape reviews, who has reviewed the tape and why, etc. Simply, the movements, use and whereabouts of the evidence tape must all be on irrefutable written record.

(SEE - CCTV b Evidence Court. jpg)


SITO recommendations included a Preview Log Book being provided (so anyone viewing a tape had to sign an official book), a police presence when reviewing tapes, the tapes being bagged and sealed in appropriately secured ‘evidence bags’ and videotapes being held in secured storage. 

No such book was provided at South Tyneside Council at the preview suite to verify who had viewed what, on who’s behalf and/or why. 

If SITO recommendations had been followed they would have assisted in identifying the culprit, prevented confusion about a copy tape and probably prevented the whole incident from occurring. The CCTV operation was in absolute jeopardy due to the dereliction of management in ensuring that recommended procedures were in place and SITO officially recognised recommendations were followed.

The SITO website can be found at: www.sito.co.uk

The Incident and subsequent events.

On Saturday 22 May 1999, Starbuck – working as CCTV Operator - reported to the police that he had observed and recorded a young Caucasian male, attempting to break into a locked vehicle in the South Shields area on the CCTV monitoring system. It was therefore automatically recorded on the monitoring system’s Video Cassette Recorders.

For those who have never worked in such an environment – such recording takes place on not one, but two video recorded monitors. Without getting technically bogged-down, they are referred to as a ‘spot’ monitor and a ‘multiplex’ monitor. The result is that no less than TWO videotapes should contain the same footage.

The tapes, although police had been immediately informed, lay in a cabinet (varying from secured to unsecured) from 22nd May 1999 when it was recorded until the 27th May 1999 when it was viewed by PC Natasha Ward. Documentary evidence and witnesses confirm that PC Ward’s first visit to the Central Control Unit after the 22nd May 1999 was the 27th May 1999.

Five days had passed since the incident was reported to the police.

In his own statement the CCU Manager maintained that he had just returned to work after taking time off because his wife was ill and was greeted upon his return by the police investigating the CCTV incident.

In fact PC Ward had visited to view the videotape on 27th May 1999, but finding a technical problem with the videotape had then left, verbally stating that she had asked Mr DR (the duty CCTV Operator) to rectify it. Mr R then, for reasons unknown, contacted Mr Starbuck, who was on a shift as a Mobile Warden – dealing with elderly clients - to assist him.

D.R and Starbuck went to see their Manager at the town hall (subsidised) canteen where he was on his lunch break. Management, in another apparent display of favouritism asked D.R and Starbuck to assist him in the initial investigation of the tape. 

The CCU Manager, after conducting his initial investigations with his preferred staff, then decided that a crime of sorts had been committed. It was then that he contacted Mrs Norma Richardson (The department ‘Number 2’ – but in reality she was running the show) and in turn Mr Bede Wood, Chief Internal Auditor. Only after this was the police were called in to investigate.

All staff working at the Central Control Unit/Warden Service had access to these videotapes; the keys to the cabinet were freely available to all staff even when it was occasionally locked. On some occasions when it could be technically described as ‘locked’ – some incompetent had usually left the key hanging in the door lock.

Detective Sgt Richards (Northumbria Police) stated in an ensuing court appearance that they (understandably) regarded the CCU Manager as their “on site expert”.

We pause only for laughter here.

The Manager confessed later that the police were completely lost and didn’t have a clue what was going on or how to solve the case.

Therefore management themselves must have realised that the police would take notice of, and act upon, the advice, personal suspicions and guidance he had directly given them.

PC Ward stated that the Manager assured her that the tapes could not have been wiped accidentally; in which case this appeared to be a potential criminal matter of Perverting the Course of Justice.

When asked at a subsequent management interview between two members of staff (Mr JS and Mr BF) and management, what information had been passed to the police, the Manager stated that he only passed over the working shift rosters so police could establish who had been on shift, and when. Further interrogated over the matter he then stated that he was interviewed for two and a half hours but he didn’t talk about his staff.

In our opinion this was a complete fabrication of the true events. 

Mr Graham Fells (Personnel Department) threatened to stop the interview as the CCU Manager was finding difficulty keeping track of his version of events (that’s being incredibly polite) and was becoming somewhat irate. Fells stated that it was up to the police how they used the information passed to them from CCU Management.

We have the actual audio recording of this interview as evidence.

What led to the arrests?

The Tape

The Police will naturally approach the manager for any information in the workplace where a potential crime has been committed. Consequently the police approached the manager of the Central Control Unit which encompassed Warden Service and CCTV operational systems.

Unfortunately for the investigation, the two Police Officers who were involved (Ward and Abdullah) believed everything that this manager told them.

 Well done, Plod.

They did not appear to verify any of his statements and simply accepted his personal theories. The officers were also under pressure from their superiors and the council to achieve a result. That, however, is no excuse for their  unmitigated misuse of  their official police powers which followed.

Council Management informed police that it was impossible to accidentally erase a tape. That statement is garbage. It is just as uncomplicated to do as on a domestic home Video Cassette Recorder. Simply press a single button marked ‘Record’ to record over a tape.

Choosing to ignore the logical conclusion that the tape had been rewound and then restarted in ‘Record’ mode, Management further chose to completely ignore the date/time stamp on the tape – which is a requirement upon all CCTV monitoring systems. They then informed the police that the writing on the spine of the tape in question differed from all the rest; wrongly inferring that ‘officially’ it should be the same handwriting on all of the videotapes. 

The Manager was evidently unaware of his own operating protocol. Tapes were regularly required by the police to be taken away from the unit for evidence. If a number of tapes were taken away, it was the CCTV Operator’s duty to obtain a replacement tape from their duty Team Leader. They were then required to mark this tape (with a number) on the spine themselves. Therefore only immediately after a complete tape replacement schedule (a new batch of videotapes to replace ageing tapes) would all the videotape spines be written by the same hand. In this case, it would be the handwriting of the Technical Assistant, Mr William Cooper.

As time progresses however, due to faulty tapes, removed tapes (for police evidence, etc) an increasing number of tapes would have different employee’s handwriting upon the spine.

So with ‘expert’ guidance from council Management a remarkable assumption was made that the tape was in fact a copy of the original videotape due to the differing handwriting.

The fact that he assumed that a tape could be tampered with, without being detected, is a wholesale confession that the Tape Management System did not work and the tapes were therefore by admission not secure.

At an interview with senior South Tyneside Council managers, on 25th May 1999 at the Central Library Building in Prince Georg Square, South Shields, Ms Sue Key of UNISON stated: 

“The police must have made decisions based upon what management had said”. 

The police had been wrongly advised by Management, thus allowing a relatively minor but important incident to escalate into a major criminal investigation.

Ignoring this identified tape – assuming then that it was a ‘copy’ - left the police with absolutely no evidence. They were looking for presumed ‘missing original’ evidence that did not exist.

 It was, in fact, in front of their very eyes.

The date/time stamp on this tape was the only evidence available and the key to discovering when, and therefore who, had erased evidence. Northumbria Police officers Ward and Abdullah could find no way to verify the tapes authenticity at this point and were even considering employing the services of an expert who was based in Stockholm.

Management could have called in an expert from the local CCTV maintenance company, ‘20/20 Vision’ at any time. The company ‘20/20 Vision’ were under contract to South Tyneside Council. 

But why bother? Management was on the case!

It was two months after the event before this '20/20' expert was contacted. Just by viewing the tape he was able to state that it was the original and therefore the genuine tape.

Evidently, the police had been wrongly advised and had been working on an incorrect assumption that the tape was a copy throughout the investigation.

The ‘20/20’ advisor was able to explain that the tape had simply been stopped, taken to the preview suite and set up ready to view the incident. The tape was then removed from the preview suite, rewound and the recording button pressed.

The '20/20' advisor then considered the automatic date and time stamp which is on all CCTV tapes and had always been there in full view. This time/date stamp determined which member of staff had been on duty and had the opportunity to go through the above sequence of operations.

Of course the CCU Manager claimed to have almost solved the case single-handedly by telephone doing a magnetic fingerprint check, which involved simply illuminating the ‘bounce’ of the tape when rewound to reveal the start time. This check also revealed the tape to be the genuine and original videotape.

Both of the above checks were done together. Both the police (under oath in court), and the CCU Manager (at a meeting) lay claim to calling in an expert and finding the culprit. 

So which one of you were lying?

(SEE - CCTV c Royal Court Justice. jpg).

Staff kept uninformed. No staff were interviewed.

The police had at this time no evidence at all now the CCU Manager had confirmed/considered the tape to be a copy. PC Natasha Ward stated that on May 27th 1999 the police asked him to make the staff aware of the situation and also to conduct an internal investigation by interviewing his staff. He assured the police that he would interview all the staff on an individual basis.

The police took no action for a period of weeks giving him time to make his staff aware of the situation and conduct the interviews. Rumours were now rife. The staff was aware that something had occurred and there was a lot of speculation.

Management failed to notify union officials and failed to inform his staff about the problem, so the employees had no idea what was going on until arrests took place.

The current Central Control Unit UNISON representative confirmed this herself at Newcastle Crown Court.

At this point, no-one was yet aware just how much input this union steward herself had had into the complication of the entire case.

 
The act was undertaken on a weekend. 

As the police had been wrongly advised about the tape they were still working on the incorrect assumption that it was a copy ignoring the date/time stamp. This clearly meant that they still did not have a shred of evidence. 

Amazingly, by stab-in-the-dark investigation techniques, it was then assumed the tampering was done on a weekend.
From the 22nd May until 27th May approximately 30 employees, no less, had total and unrestricted access to the tapes.

It is unclear whether the psychic powers of Derek Acorah were employed here or stick-a-pin-in-a-map technology used to make this assumption. The only explanation given by the police was that they were assisted by the CCU Manager, enabling them to cut their suspect list in half.

We assume this assumption was made because of a management presence during the week; however management were only present on a basis of between 08:00 and 17:00. Therefore this theory was also fatally flawed as both late afternoon (backshift) and nightshift had no management presence other than Team Leaders during weekdays. However this assumption proved to be correct, despite all staff having access to the tapes for almost a full week.

But consider if you will the effect if this guess/assumption had been wrong?

Technical Knowledge is a factor. To know your job becomes a crime.
Everyone working in the Central Control Unit had the same level of training; therefore all 30 employees were potentially capable of erasing a videotape. There was even written operating instructions posted upon the preview suite to assist the less capable staff. And by God, there were some.

In fact the VCRs – manufactured by Mitsubishi - were remarkably similar to any domestic Video Cassette Recorder.

Again claiming with the guidance of council management, the police declared that they were able to further reduce their list of suspects down to 6.

PC Ward stated that she was unable to follow the shift rosters she had been provided as they had been amended numerous times and in any event proved to be inaccurate.

The police stated that council management had demonstrated to them how only six employees could have been responsible. Yet another assumption made by the CCU Manager when he pointed the finger of suspicion at the only six staff members he considered to be technically capable of the crime. How did he reach such a conclusion? Did he deliberately target 6 staff members based upon personality clashes? 

Management were blatantly unaware of their own staff’s capabilities; the vast majority of staff, with the exception of only a few, was eminently capable of operating the preview suite. 

Curiously, amongst his choice of staff he personally identified some staff members who were working outside of the Central Control Unit on Mobile Warden Duties and therefore had little or no opportunity to operate the preview suite.
You will note that once the original assumption was made that the tape was a copy; the Manager continued to perpetuate this by more and more assumptions, when not a shred of proof existed. 
Identifying just 6 persons who he considered were technically capable of this assumed tampering, was an admission that his staff training was wholly inadequate. 

But perhaps there was another motive behind this hit list. 

The Manager had already frequently stated that he wanted to “get rid of the dead wood”; the long-serving, 'Pre-"Management Team" ' employees who did not appreciate nor tolerate this incompetence and incapability.

The Conspiracy Theory of the Management and Police.

The first conspiracy theory to emerge was borne by CCU Management informing the police that there were always two persons on duty within the CCTV unit at any time and staff could always see one another. This led the police to believe that there may be more than one person involved - hence a ‘conspiracy’ theory.

The Manager knew that always having two persons in the control room all of the time was simply unworkable. 
Staff on a break had to go to a tea room which was some distance from the Control Room. Due to his own protocol it was impossible for staff to know exactly what the other people on duty were doing. 

South Tyneside Council's own protocol allowed the Team Leader to send the second person in the Central Control Unit out on an emergency call or to assist the on-duty Mobile Warden.

(SEE - CCTV c1 Instructions. jpg)

The practice was that anyone could go and review a tape. If questioned all they had to do was say the police had asked for a tape to be viewed. There were no other securities in place.

Requests to change the “previewing of tape procedures” to install a tape preview log book to comply with SITO recommendations had been ignored by management. 

The CCU Manager has verbally admitted that there were “Generic” problems in the Control Unit. See the sketch of the Control Room below, proving conclusively that staff would have been unable to see exactly what the other person in the Central Control Unit was doing.

Above: Sketch plan of the Central Control Unit, South Shields Town Hall during 1999. The plan clearly demonstrates that one operator could not oversee the actions of another whilst on duty. The unit has since moved to new premises. (Sketch kindly submitted by Mr. B. Fox).

The CCTV position had to be continuously manned, so how could someone watching these monitors possibly see the other person on shift, never mind see the images on the preview suite?

The decision to make arrests
The decision to arrest was based upon the following:-

1. The assumption that the tape was in fact a copy.

2. Management’s assumption that the only time a tape could be “copied” was on a weekend.

3. Management’s assumption that only six persons were technically capable.

4. The police stated that they assumed the CCU Manager had conducted staff interviews as he had maintained and achieved no results; stating they had waited some weeks and given him ample time to interview staff; also he had failed to contact them with any update.

5. The police state that as no person had come forward at these interviews (interviews which Management never conducted) they therefore ruled out their option of voluntary attendance and had to arrest people. 

6. The Manager's confirmation of the conspiracy theory, leading police to believe more than one person could be involved. 

7. In evidence PC Ward stated:

“Predominantly we took into account the discussions that we had with **** ******** with regard to duty rosters and location of operatives that were on duty”.

 We can only assume there are no meeting minutes available for these discussions with the police and contrary to standard council practice no notes were kept, so all evidence points to management confirming that the genuine tape was a fake, then another meeting took place where he put forward his assumptions and identified his suspected ‘guilty parties’.

8. The Police stated - Management supported and was in favour of the arrests taking place.

9. D/S Richards court statement claimed “Mr. ******** was firm that he wanted the matter resolving and that arrested parties would be suspended”. 

Leading directly to the decision to make arrests instead of conducting voluntary interviews, the police believed that council management had interviewed all staff individually and no results had been obtained.

The fact was that management did NOT conduct any interviews with his staff, thus determining the police decision to rule out voluntary attendance, consequently exerting the maximum amount of pressure.

THE ARRESTS 
During May-June 1999 six members of staff at South Tyneside Council's Warden Service/Central Control Unit were arrested for Perverting the Course of Justice, a crime which can carry a custodial sentence of up to five years.

Northumbria Police claimed they considered it prudent to arrest all six staff members at the same time as they suspected a “Conspiracy” due to council management's misinformation.

The nightshift of 16th June 1999 was the last shift worked by Mr. B.Fox for South Tyneside Council, the shift finishing on the morning of the 17th June 1999. 
Later that same day,after having had only a couple of hours sleep, Mr. Fox was arrested by police in his own home.
He was charged with “Perverting the Course of Justice”. At the police custodial suite in Millbank, Station Road, South Shields, the charge was repeated.

Although the arrests occurred on different days, the same pattern of police behaviour transpired with Mr. J.Stokoe.

The police had no evidence whatsoever. J.S and B.F were not even on shift when the alleged tampering with evidence occurred. After being searched then locked in a police cell for some time, they were interviewed by the police. During the police interview Mr. F was asked about an incident at work involving damaged tapes (these were damaged due to a cheap and faulty video/audio tape re-winding machine. The tapes in question were audio tapes from the ‘RACAL’ voice recorder).

Mr F had merely been doing his job. He had been checking to see if other tapes had been damaged by this faulty re-winding machine. This incident was reported to management at the time and they were fully satisfied.

So why was this information passed onto the police by management?

You will note the curious 'memo' apparently written by Mr Bill Cooper. Is it not  suspicious that anyone named Bill writing a memo would write “Bill had returned the...”, rather than “I returned the...”. Was this memo produced in order to “cover” mistakes? Was this Memo actually genuine?
(SEE - CCTV e BC question. jpg)

NB:
The CCU Manager's statement: - he “did not talk about members of staff to the police”. 

Ms Sue Key (UNISON) on 25th May 1999 at a meeting with department managers stated:

“It isn’t true that management didn’t say anything; decisions by the police must have been based on their interviews.”

The police had used this incident to put pressure on Mr. Fox, accusing:

“You are the only person to have been involved in damaging tapes before”. 

The evidence concerning this damaged tape incident, which applied to audio tapes, was available to the council at the time of the arrest but the council refused to give it to Mr. F. 
After numerous requests and the council promising to comply via the Freedom of Information Act; South Tyneside Council stated that this evidence was “no longer available”. 

The circumstances of Mr J.Stokoe's arrest were very similar to Mr F’s so it has not been included in this account, but the notes and evidence of his arrest is held in our joint archives. 

After being interviewed by the police, they were both released on police bail. In a state of shock they were released at the police station doors.

BF and JS were released on police bail until 13th August 1999.

The police later admitted to using the maximum amount of legally authorised pressure during the arrests and interviews.

It should be noted that as well as being arrested on different days, arrests were made after individuals had completed their last working shift of their working week, in a rather complex shift system.

It is our suspicion that this was by arrangement with management, so that South Tyneside Council still maintained sufficient staff to run the service.

One suspect cited immediately by the vast majority of the arrested staff was none other than Mr Alan Starbuck. 

Council Suspension interviews: 21st June 1999. 
After the arrests of Mr Bf and Mr JS, they were then required to attend a Council Management Interview on 21st June 1999. Interviewed by Chief Internal Auditor Mr. Bede Wood and Community Services Administration and Finance Officer Mrs. Norma Richardson, a police-style caution was read out:
(SEE - CCTV f Caution. jpg) 

Alarmingly, this caution did not give B.F or J.S the right to any legal representation.

Questions were asked at this meeting relating to the ongoing police investigation.

(SEE - CCTV g No Legal Advice. jpg) 

At a later meeting on 3rd July 2000 Mr Graham Fells (Personnel Services), speaking on behalf of South Tyneside Council, stated any relevant information would have been passed to the police. They admitted that it was unusual to conduct interviews during an ongoing police investigation. 
Fells stated that the interviews were carried out under parameters set by the police. 

Mr. Fells stated: 

“…since you are not allowed to interview people until police have solutions, I was threatened with arrest”.

We taped this interview – and we have it as evidence in our archives.

This appeared to be as if the council were acting as agents for the police, enabling the police illegal access to a second interview – an underhand interview - conducted without the right of legal representation. 

Team Leaders who had been arrested were further informed that they would face disciplinary action if the tape was found to have been tampered with on their shift. As Team Leaders were unable to ascertain if a staff member was reviewing on behalf of the police (again down to Management’s catastrophic operating protocol) this was completely unfair and unacceptable.

You will note that the CCU Manager claimed that there were GENERIC problems with the Central Control Unit and had admitted that these generic problems prevented Team Leaders from carrying out their duties (In other words the Team Leaders could not be expected to supervise their staff properly. Remember – staff had been sacked for these reasons in 1997!). 

The council stated that the suspensions were a neutral act applied to any employee on police bail.
This statement was later retracted when South Tyneside Council were asked why they were breaking this ruling by allowing another council employee – from the same department, no less, on police bail over an unrelated matter to continue working. 

Astonishingly, Mr Graham Fells remarked at this meeting, although it does not appear in the ‘official’ minutes – though we have audio evidence - he verbally stated:

“I was almost arrested for interfering with a police investigation!”

Why would that be, Mr. Fells? Is this an admission that you were wilfully doing something you knew you should not have been doing? Did this have anything to do with interrogating Mr Js and Mr BF on 21st June 1999? 

The suspension conditions themselves, as previously covered in Mr E’s ‘Dismissal’ section were Draconian, IE: ordered not to enter any council building, talk to colleagues, or discuss the case with anyone.

This is absolutely unacceptable if your work colleagues were also your friends. Undoubtedly, this suspension regulation is a wholesale violation upon Human Rights.

The CCTV Tape Management system.

At the South Tyneside Council management interviews on 21st June 1999 both Mr BF and Mr JS, who were both on the same shift at some time at work, freely admitted that a tape from the system was “missing” the night before the CCTV incident was recorded. The interviewers (Wood and Richardson) immediately assumed this was an unusual and suspect occurrence. It was not unusual for tapes to be handed to the police and not replaced into the system by operators.
Management's own protocols did not provide any means of logging missing tapes and due to a dispute between two Team Leaders, the Manager had informed Team Leaders not to interfere with the operations or actions of another shift (any Team Leader who attended this meeting will be able to verify this).

The operating procedures state that the Technical Assistant, William ‘Bill’ Cooper will inspect the tape stocks weekly, replace tapes and locate tapes not returned by the police.
The tapes were kept in a cupboard that was as much open as locked; all staff in any case had access to the keys which were routinely left in an unlocked clutter drawer. 

There were numerous problems with the tape management system apart from the ones already mentioned.
(SEE - CCTV j TM 1.jpg, CCTV k TM 2.jpg, CCTV l TM 3.jpg, CCTV m TM 4.jpg)

However Management refused to listen or amend his “Tape Management System”. Memos were ignored and no answers given to questions relating to the problems with tape management. 

*to be continued when possible*

NOTE:

The CCTV Case, which will be covered in this section in extensive detail and in the general calendar date order as outlined on our home page, will take many months to upload due to the massive volume of information and evidence to edit – so please check back regularly for updates.

In the meantime, we have decided to jump forward in time temporarily and give you a prime example of what we believe to be one of the most bizarre, if not one of the most disturbing aspects of the behaviour of South Tyneside Council management. The following incident occurred on 1st September 2000. 

The ‘File Note of The Central Control Unit Manager’.

We will open this section by giving an account of an alarming incident which at first we were all completely unaware of, until we gained access to council records using the Freedom of Information Act.

On 1st September 2000, our colleague, Mr. K.E had an appointment to meet his solicitor at the office premises of Hannay & Hannay Solicitors of Beach Road, South Shields. The meeting was in fact with regard to the CCTV case and what had happened to Mr. E’s livelihood as well as the resultant communications/disputes with South Tyneside Council.

On the day in question, Mr. E left the premises of his solicitor’s office in Beach Road, South Shields, which is on a main thoroughfare. Across the road to the office is the Town Hall and civic offices – including (at that time) the Warden Services/Central Control Unit – Mr E’s former workplace.
Mr. E crossed the road, and walked past the building to make his way back to his car which was parked nearby. The thoroughfare involves passing the office windows of the Central Control Unit. As he continued walking past the windows – not stopping at any time - he glanced into the windows. The Central Control Unit manager, who was sitting in his office, decided that this was noteworthy of further investigation. After all, you can’t have a member of the public walking wherever they please, can you? 

He therefore made the following ‘file note’ and ‘eyewitness account’. It appears this manager has a lot of spare time on his hands.

 ABOVE: Copy of the Manager's 'file note'.

You will note a handwritten response to the end of the ‘file note’. This is a direct response from the Chief Internal Auditor, Bede Wood, requesting the CCU Manager to “…extract the relevant CCTV tape to corroborate his eyewitness sighting”.

Perhaps Mr. Wood would wish to comment further as to his behaviour in this matter. 


We think many of you will agree that the above actions from what is believed to be a rational, sensible and suitably qualified manager, truly deserves the ‘David Brent Award for Management Lunacy’. 

South Tyneside - 'Good Place. Good People. Good Grief'.

The ‘New Management Team’ of Warden Services/Central Control.

We believe the following chapter provides overwhelming evidence that the South Tyneside Council Central Control Unit/Warden Services Management were strangers to the truth, elected to use favouritism rather than fairness, policy or procedures in their dealings with staff and failed to follow Council and Management doctrine in managing the staff beneath them. Their frequent use of ‘bully-boy’ and ‘divide and conquer’ tactics was unquestionably the equivalent of executive gross misconduct. 

We provide below a chapter of cataclysmic Management Failures. The information, as ever, is factual and can be evidenced.