Which councillor received a court summons for non-payment of council tax?

The answer is: I don’t know. And although Tower Hamlets council recovered the arrears by deducting the cash from the member’s annual allowance, it is now citing data protection laws  to keep the name secret.

But someone knows who it is and I’m hoping you, my dear readers, can help. Comments naming people will not be approved unless there is copper-bottomed proof, but you can always email me with tips or leads.

Yet again, the Tories deserve credit for unearthing this little gem. Here’s their Freedom of Information request, and the council’s response:

Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, I am requesting the following formation:

• Whether any currently serving councillor has received a court summons from the local authority for non-payment of council tax?

• If so, which councillor and what was the result of the action against them?

Can you please include in the response any relevant answers to previous requests and please may I be sent receipt of this request complete with a reference number.

I can confirm that one currently serving councillor received a court summons for non-payment of council tax in the financial year 2012/13

An attachment to allowances was issued to recover the arrears.

The exemption under Section 40 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act applies to the Personal Data of a third party; this information is exempt if its disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles in the Data Protection Act 1998. This serves as a Refusal Notice in respect of the individual’s name.

Tory leader Peter Golds assures me the culprit is not one of their seven councillors, so that leaves 44 from this list to choose from.

It might well be that the non-payment was some bureaucratic oversight: perhaps the councillor had moved home (out of the borough even…?) and the warning letters weren’t delivered. But if there is no reasonable explanation, then I think most taxpayers would have little sympathy for the member remaining in office.

Which brings us to the question of leadership. Peter Golds has asked his members for assurances, so I’m sure the other group leaders and their deputies will do likewise.

We’re all very much looking forward to the replies to that question from: Mayor Lutfur Rahman (who is not a councillor, remember) and his deputy Cllr Ohid Ahmed; Labour’s mayoral candidate John Biggs and his deputies, the new group leader Cllr Sirajul Islam and Cllr Rachael Saunders; Cllr Stephanie Eaton of the Lib Dems (she doesn’t have a deputy); and Respect’s Cllr Fozol Miah and the genuinely delightful Cllr Harun Miah.

In any case, once the council is legally obliged to open its 2012/13 accounts for public inspection later this year, I’m certain we’ll at least then identify the new Councillor X.

[By way of further explanation, I drafted this post on Monday afternoon but then decided to email every councillor to ask whether they would like to come forward before publication. Only three members replied, Shahed Ali, Stephanie Eaton and Anwar Khan, all of whom ruled themselves out....tonight, I hear one member has resigned the Labour whip. Whether it's connected to this or not, I don't know.]

 

The Rob Marchant “death threat”: Lutfur’s email to police

Remember the dastardly death threat against Mayor Lutfur Rahman that, er, wasn’t quite that?

Hugh Muir of the Guardian ran the story here and here.

On March 24, during what former Labour party manager Rob Marchant described as a “bored Saturday afternoon”, he had a Twitter conversation with a couple of friends. The topic of Tower Hamlets came up, then the question of whether Lutfur would ever be readmitted to the Labour fold.

Rob tweeted that were that to happen: “Makes mental note to keep revolver well oiled.” Then: “I will load the revolver and we can all take turns.”

Now, in theory it is possible to infer that Rob does have a revolver, and that it would be used not for an actual game of Russian Roulette but rather for a genuine act of murder–but such a theory could only be held by sado-masochistic fantasists, the illiterate, the humour-free, or the plain trouble-making.

The only reasonable inference was that the remarks were a joke about shooting themselves, ie “if Lutfur is let back in, we may as well all pack up”. Rob later explained it all here.

Obvious, right?

No. Lutfur, a qualified solicitor, saw the remarks as a genuine, imminent threat against his life. So he reported them to the police.

And incredibly, the police, who clearly had no burglaries to solve that day, actually launched an investigation.

Here’s what borough commander Chief Superintendent Dave Stringer said:

I am satisfied an appropriate police investigative response has been put in place and the matter will be subject to regular review … We do not discuss the details of an ongoing investigation.

And unsurprisingly, following some exceptionally tenacious detective work, the police later concluded there had been no crime.

The Observer journalist Nick Cohen criticised Lutfur for acting like a bully and for wasting police time, to which the Mayor had this response: 

Unsurprisingly, as a prominent Muslim figure, I frequently receive abuse and threats — mainly from racist extremists of the EDL-ilk. That and the sheer violence of Marchant’s language in discussing me (‘I will load the revolver and we can all take turns … [makes mental note to keep revolver well cleaned and oiled]’) should explain why I acted when the tweets were drawn to my attention.

Now, all this is old news of course, but I was intrigued as to who might have encouraged the Mayor to go to the police.

His paid media adviser Mark Seddon, the respected investigative journalist, broke the story to the world via Twitter on March 26 at 7.52pm, thus:

Extraordinary. Rob Marchant, former Labour Party Manager, reported to police for tweeting death threats to Mayor Lutfur Rahman.

That tweet seems to have since been deleted from Mark’s timeline.

So I submitted an FoI request asking for all emails concerning the Rob Marchant tweet sent between Lutfur and any of his advisers or council officers.

The council says it doesn’t have any.

But it does have the email sent to the borough commander reporting the suspected crime. Here it is (the council has redacted the name of the sender):

From:

Sent: 26 March 2013 16:03

To: xxxxxxx@met.police.uk’

Cc:

Subject: Death threats to Mayor Lutfur Rahman on Twitter

Importance: High

Sensitivity: Confidential

Dear Chief Superintendent xxxxx,

I have just been alerted to the attached threats made on Twitter on Mayor Rahman’s life by ‘Rob Marchant @rob_marchant’ and am reporting it as a crime.

I’m sure you will agree the serious nature of these threats and urge you to investigate as a matter of urgency.

We would be happy to assist the police with any enquiries as part of the investigation.

Kind regards,

Executive Mayor’s Office

t: 020 7364

“I’m sure you will agree the serious nature of these threats and urge you to investigate as a matter of urgency.”

As Mark Seddon quite rightly says….Extraordinary.

What strikes me from all this and other recent events is that there seems to be a tactic among Lutfur & Co to resort to the Standards Board, libel threats and the police in attempts to silence or discredit their critics.

And it’s also a little disturbing that Chief Supt Dave Stringer seemed so eager to please the Mayor that he ordered an investigation instead of just ringing him for a friendly chat to say, “Are you sure about this, pal?” I wonder how many silly (and clearly targeted) death threats are simply brushed off every day by the front desk at Bethnal Green police station.

Clearly, the borough commander is in a [small p] political situation (and he will surely think less of the mayor for being used like this), but Andrew Gilligan worried here about the relationship between the Met and the Tower Hamlet town hall. This episode gives more weight to that theory.

Council uses “health and safety” to block details of councillors’ cab journeys

Hole.
Digging.
Stop.

Rearrange those words and you get Tower Hamlets Council.

After being embarrassed by our ruling councillors’ use of taxis, the council is now using the Freedom of Information Act to prevent further full disclosures.

But as it’s Tower Hamlets, they’ve even managed to cock up the cover up.

A few weeks ago, the Tories submitted a request for details of all cab journeys booked by Mayor Lutfur Rahman, his councillors and his advisers between July 2012 and January just gone.

The final response was sent to Tory leader Peter Golds last week. It said:

The cab firm used for the bookings below was Com.Cabs. The journeys taken from July 2012 to 31st January 2013 are set out below.

Information provided in this response excludes a number of journeys (13) which are currently under dispute with the taxi firm.

The address details on a number of journeys are also provided by postcode only due to concerns regarding Health and Safety, and Section 38 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is applied.

This email acts as a refusal notice under the FOI Act in respect of this data.

Ah, that old Health and Safety chestnut.

Firstly, anyone familiar with the FoI Act will spot how inept this reply is. Section 38 is a qualified exemption and can only be used once it has been subject to a “public interest test” that weighs the pros and cons of disclosure/redaction. No details of this test have been provided, so it will be interesting to see how they justify the redactions.

Anyway, let’s look at the final reply.

Yet again, Cllr Rabina Khan, the cabinet member for regeneration who is paid £23,000 a year for her council duties and who complained loudly about being exposed last time round in March, is the most prolific cab user; many of them are between E1 and E14.

But what on earth are those addresses deemed so sensitive they jeopardise the health and safety of our precious councillors?

Er, well, “E14″ in most of the cases is the town hall in Mulberry Place.

I’m not sure whose health and safety the council is trying to protect by keeping their presence at the HQ, but it surely can’t be theirs. Maybe the regime is now so toxic that the council’s overworked FoI department is worried about people knowing they work in the same building.

But how do we know “E14″ is Mulberry Place?

Well, just a few days before it published that redacted information, officers uploaded the original, uncensored data onto the council’s own website.

Here are the details, so compare and contrast (I’ve redacted the precise location of councillors’ homes):

Those marked with my asterisk on the right of the pages are the ones in dispute. They include an alleged £32 trip by Cllr Rania Khan (the culture spokeswoman) from Mulberry Place to Victoria Park for the Olympics Opening Ceremony celebrations on July 27. So much for the council’s exhortations to avoid the roads during that time…

Another dispute concerns a £64 fare allegedly booked by Rabina Khan on September 21 from her house in Whitechapel to the Albert Jacob House council office one mile away in Roman Road. It included 30 minutes of waiting time. No wonder it’s being disputed.

However, one good piece of good news: no taxis at all were booked in December and January. Which just happened to coincide with the beginning of questions about their use….which just goes to show that scrutiny and transparency does work.

Cllr Peter Golds has complained to council boss Stephen Halsey about all this. He wants to know why the information was redacted so heavily…and whether there was any political interference.

The (ab)use of spoken Bengali in the council chamber

A couple of weeks ago I made a formal complaint to the council about my job as a reporter being hindered by the frequent use of Bengali in the council chamber.

The press are there to report these proceedings to the people who pay for them, the taxpayers and voters in the wider world. But when some councillors switch from English into a foreign language (usually to barrack each other), it’s not only rude to the viewing public and against all rules of government conduct, it also renders those parts of the proceedings secret and inaccessible to all but a few. How on earth, for example, are full and accurate minutes meant to be recorded when not everything is understood?

I’m amazed that councillors have not been warned before about this by the likes of Isabella Freeman and the head of democratic services, John Williams. So the reply to my complaint will be interesting.

As it happens, someone else has complained, albeit for slightly different reasons.

At the full council meeting on April 17, we had one of those regular periodic bouts of uproar and outrage. Labour’s Abdal Ullah was on his feet making a point about something not terribly noteworthy when all of a sudden a word was hurled his way that made him lose his characteristic cool.

He alleged that Lutfur’s close friend, Cllr Ghulam Robbani, called him “Shurer batcha“, which means a “Son of a Pig”.

I’m told this is highly derogatory for Bengalis and Muslims at the best of times, given that pigs are haraam in Islam. But Abdal had not long returned from an Umrah to Mecca–as had Robbani, Mayor Lutfur Rahman and several others sitting nearby.

Robbani shook his head at the accusation but I’m told that Lutfurite councillor Maium Miah said he heard it, as did Ohid Ahmed and the Speaker, Rajib Ahmed. Even Lutfur sympathised with Abdal, I understand.

This row, and Abdal’s demand for an apology, was a significant moment in the meeting, but I doubt it will be ever officially recorded. Had the shouting match taken place in English, it would have been serious news, coupled with a complaint to the Standards bodies.

The following week, Abdal wrote to Robbani to say his “offensive outburst” had been “entirely unbecoming”, and that he had insulted his late father. He demanded a public apology both to him and his family by Friday, May 3.

He heard nothing.

I suspect he’ll be lodging his compliant with the Standards Committee within days.

A threat to sue me from deputy mayor Ohid Ahmed

I know the phrase “you couldn’t make it up” is used with justifiable frequency in Tower Hamlets, but the following email I’ve just received really does defy belief.

Subject: Asking to apologise for vindictive, inaccurate and one sided in your blog-

Dear Ted Jeory,

I have been deeply offended by claims made by you in your blog about me in recent days. While I am obviously pleased that as a result of the the intervention of the council’s chief legal officer, you have removed the claim that I have ‘stolen’ money for taxis from the Authority from your blog, I remain deeply offended by both the nature of the claims made by you and how you have chosen to report them.

I also wish to make it clear that the original claim made by in connection to me and my use of taxis in pursuit of council business is obviously potentially libellous. 

I am in discussion with my lawyers and would like to offer you an opportunity to correct this claim in a prominent position on your blog. I would also ask that you now aplogise for making this claim. It is quite clear that the claims you have made, have been taken up by other publications

There is and always has been a clearly established system for the booking and use of taxis in LBTH, as there is in every local authority in the country. In recent months, the Mayor has reviewed and tightened the system still further. The taxis that I used were in accordance with these rules. To suggest otherwise is to allege criminal intent. It would also suggest that the Local Authority has been complicit in criminal activity.

As a councillor, with many years experience of serving the community, I have not claimed other expenses and have continued to use my own car, at my own expense, in pursuance of the majority of these activities.

Finally, it is my opinion that far from trying to present an objective account of events on your blog, it is increasingly vindictive, inaccurate and one sided.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Ohid Ahmed
Deputy mayor

I’m not sure what intervention there has been from the council’s chief legal officer, nor what I’m supposed to have removed. I think he’s referring to this post in which I said, “Quite why going to a BME event allows you to steal from the taxpayer is anyone’s guess”.

I know Ohid’s spoken English is not the best, but I had hoped as someone who, according to his latest timesheet, claims to spend up to 40 hours a week reading council papers, his comprehension was a bit better. Maybe his inability to understand the subtle meaning of words and figures of speech is why he takes so long.

He also seems completely unable to understand the sheer crime of his taxi bookings. Yes, crime, Ohid. Crime against the taxpayer. He asks me to apologise. Perhaps he should learn from his colleague Oliur Rahman who had the political nous and decency to say sorry for his own cab usage.

So, here’s a reminder yet again of Ohid’s use of taxis (he lives in Oban Street).

Date	Fare	Venue	Comment
22.10.10	£17.17	Ocean Estate	Photocall
13.12.10	£52.13	House of Commons
15.12.10	£25.89	Cable Street
10.2.11	£121.71	House of Commons	Return to Mulberry
12.2.11	£106.43	Baden Powell House, SW7	Return to Oban St
22.3.11	£63.75	Brick Lane	Return to Mulberry
28.3.11	£50.61	Bethnal Green Tech College	Return to Oban St
28.3.11	£30.68	Bethnal Green Tech College	Return to Oban St, seems to have been charged twice – see above?
26.4.11	£59.44	Shadwell Childrens Centre	Return to Mulberry
11.5.11	£52.90	Ocean Youth Centre	Return to Mulberry
16.5.11	£86.14	London SOAS	Return to Oban St (1-way, Lutfur also went,returned separately, Lutfur’s total was £64.08)
14.7.11	£122.65	House of Lords/Shadwell centre	Oban St to House of Lords/House of Lords to Shadwell Centre
14.7.11	£3.30	Shadwell centre	Return to Oban St
2.8.11	£51.69	Pudding Mill Lane DLR	To and from Oban St
9.11.13	£22.18	Bethnal Green Police Station	From Oban Street
6.9.11	£36.11	House of Commons	From Oban St
9.11.11	£90.85	London Councils, London Bridge	To and from Mulberry
11/1111	£59.45	City Hall	To and from Oban st
12.11.11	£66.93	Mansion House	To and from Oban St
14.12.11	£140.89	Unison Centre, Euston Road	From Mulberry return to Oban St
28.3.12	£68.44	Government Hospital	From Mulberry return to Stepney Green
18.4.12	£33.97	Royal London Hospital
17.5.12	£32.74	The Royal regency, Manor Park	This seems to be a function/wedding type venue
17.5.12	£56.34	O2 Centre	Collected from the Royal Regency
14.6.12	£29.74	The View, E3	Collected from Oban St, returned (7pm) Chrisp St
TOTAL	£1,482.13

And as for his last sentence (oops, better be careful about using that word), this is a blog. It’s not Hansard.

So, if he wants to sue, bring it on. But please don’t steal any more taxipayers’ money doing so.

I don’t know who put him up to sending such a chaotic and feeble email, but they’re clearly taking the piss.

UPDATE – Monday, 9am

I understand that Ohid also threatened the East London Advertiser prior to the publication of this article (see below for Ohid’s quotes). Very stupid. It’s the kind of intimidation tactic that Trotskyites used to indulge in. Now, I wonder who in the Mayor’s circle is from that background… . Dan McCurry in the comments section of this post hints these bullying tactics are due to Labour’s plan to use the taxi business in their campaign next year. “Taxi for Mayor Lutfur”.

Councillors have come under fire after the taxpayer footed the bill for a £140 taxi ride for them to attend a birthday celebration with civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.

Tower Hamlets deputy mayor Cllr Ohid Ahmed shared a cab with Cllrs Shahed Ali and Kabir Ahmed from the town hall in Poplar to an event at trade union UNISON’s headquarters in Euston, triggering calls for an investigation.

Opposition members claim the function – organised by the Labour Party – is political, and have called on Independent Cllr Ahmed to reimburse the public for the trip.

In a letter to council chiefs, Tory group leader Cllr Peter Golds said: “There is no way this event could be considered as anything but political.”

The seven mile journey would cost around £30-£40 in a black cab, according to online calculators.

Euston is also accessible from East India DLR station near the town hall in around 30 minutes on public transport, Transport for London estimates.

Cllr Golds said the fare could only be explained by the possibility of the councillors leaving the cab outside the event, which was in December 2011, with the metre running while they attended.

But the deputy mayor claimed it was his assistant who booked the taxi, and justified it because of his busy schedule that day.

He said: “There’s a huge BME (black and ethnic minority) community in this borough. When they see someone like Jessie Jackson they are inspired and they like it – it’s not a political thing.

“Because of the nature of council business, sometimes you just jump in a taxi because of the time pressure.”

Isabella Freeman sues Tower Hamlets council (but judge says her case is “feeble”)

Isabella Freeman, the council’s £115,000 a year head of legal, has been something of town hall phantom in recent weeks. Her presence has been felt in the colder and gossipy corridors of Mulberry Place, but as a physical form, she’s not really been seen.

This morning, however, as daylight broke over Anchorage House opposite the town hall, she reappeared–and the three large bags of files she was carrying gave us a clue as to what she’s been up to during her time off work on full pay.

It’s not unusual for a lawyer to be at an Employment Tribunal, of course, but this being Tower Hamlets, there’s always a catch. Ms Freeman, who has recently returned to work, is not defending the council against an aggrieved employee (and there have been plenty of those over the years): this time, she’s the one suing.

The exact details of her case are still unknown because today’s hearing, as Judge Jonathan Ferris himself worried, was “a public hearing in secret”. Due to what even the judge said was a convenient alliance between Ms Freeman, the council and their respective lawyers, the public gallery was barred from seeing any of the witness statements and other documents that were constantly referred to and read quietly during the three hours of legal wrangling.

It means I can’t tell you what Ms Freeman is actually complaining about.

That said, Judge Ferris, who has seen all the documents, sighed he’s pretty much none the wiser either.

“I’m struggling to understand where the thrust of the claimant’s case is,” he said in answer to a request by the council’s barrister John Bowers QC to have the case struck out.

Mr Bowers said: “The claimant is a senior lawyer and she is being advised by a QC. We were expecting some feeling of what this case was about. It should not go to trial because it’s chaotic.”

Judge Ferris: “I don’t know about chaotic, but it looks pretty feeble.”

Ouch! “Chaotic”, “feeble”? Anyone who’s had the pleasure of receiving an ever-so-measured and carefully proofed email threat from Ms Freeman will surely know that accusation is really, really just not fair.

And that’s what her barrister Peter Oldham QC said as well. “That’s not fair. We feel we have a strong case.”

Well, he’ll get his chance to improve it. Judge Ferris ruled against the council’s ‘striking out’ application and set a hearing date for late autumn.

So, what is the case all about? Ms Freeman feels she has been discriminated in some way and her complaint is very much connected to the incorrect legal advice allegedly given to the human resources committee during last year’s costly failure to appoint a new chief executive. A fuller account of that can be read here, here and here.

Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s team have claimed the failure to appoint regeneration director Aman Dalvi has already cost the council in excess of £100,000.

If Ms Freeman is successful, that figure will rise massively. As well as engaging John Bowers QC, who is regarded as one of the country’s top barristers in employment, the council has also hired the biggest (and possibly most expensive) name in employment law for local government: Mark Greenburgh of Wragge & Co solicitors (and a former leader of Buckinghamshire County Council). Talk about aiming howitzers at their own head of legal..

So, if Ms Freeman loses, she’ll face an almighty bill for costs.

Will she blink? (Come to think of it, can she?)

Now John Biggs’s taxi claims are revealed…

..you can see them on the City Hall website here. The details for his latest claims are here.

£5.

If anyone needs reminding of the fares claimed in that same financial year by his Lutfurite opponents, they can read all about them here:

Lutfur Rahman, including a £28.56 cab from McDonald’s in Commercial Road (total £2,789 + £70 a day chauffeured Mercedes).

Deputy Mayor Ohid Ahmed: here and here (total £1,482, including £140 to celebrate Jesse Jackson’s birthday).

Rabina Khan here (total £1,088, including £220 for a 1.5mile trip to the park).

Oli Rahman here (total £1,400, including trips to Channel S; so far he is the only one to apologise).

Now, if I were John Biggs, I’d be putting all this on an election leaflet. It’s the kind of thing that people understand.