More from the news about Graham Power's suspension. Now there are two statements being made, which are contradictory. Someone is lying, or at the very least, seriously mistaken:
Graham Power - "my suspension did not follow correct procedure"
Andrew Lewis - "Oh yes it did"
In a way, it is a pantomime, and the same inaccuracies about the coconut get repeated ad nauseam. The lab concerned never said it was coconut, but they did say the material was so degraded it would need further tests to determine if it was human or not, and even then they might not be sure. But it had been ruled out of the inquiry by then at any case. Yet by dint of repetition, the coconut has acquired the status of "truth", and is repeated in newspapers worldwide. I sometimes despair at the critical faculties show in these cases. The coconut is fast becoming an urban myth.
And Lenny Harper, before he left, said it was very possible that it would be unlikely to have enough evidence of any sort (including burnt bones and teeth) to make a case for homicide. This was nothing new, although in a creative act of blatant spin, David Warcup's presentation tried to say that it was.
Now we are told, with the status of fact, by Frank Walker in his interview "that we now know the truth". I suggest a good hobby for his spare time would be to take an Open University Course in History, and he would see how difficult it is to establish "facts", especially given the lapse of time. I know at least one "fact" about the Occupation in Dr John Lewis "A Doctor's Occupation" which is completely wrong (that all diabetics in Jersey died) and can be proved to be so. But that is a rarity, and most often, all we can see is "on balance, at the moment, it appears very likely that..." With regard to Haut de La Garenne, that will almost certainly be the case, unless a huge number of records are unearthed, or somebody makes a deathbed confession. Politicians who are so certain scare me - a lot of dreadful things are done by people who know that they are right.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/jersey/7765040.stm
Officer's suspension 'mishandled'
The chief officer of police in Jersey has said his suspension did not follow correct procedure. Graham Power was suspended last month after concerns about the police inquiry into historic abuse at the former Haut de la Garenne children's home. Mr Power wrote a confidential account of his suspension for States members, which has now been leaked to the media. The document said his suspension was "mishandled", but this has been rejected by the home affairs minister.
Deputy Andrew Lewis told BBC News procedures were followed "to the letter". Mr Power's e-mail included a copy of the Disciplinary Code for Chief Officers, which states an officer must be informed in advance if there are concerns about his conduct. In serious cases the officer must have a hearing and be allowed to offer a report in his defence. Mr Power said in his letter that this did not happen. But Mr Lewis said the disciplinary code had been strictly followed.
The confidential document was e-mailed among several States members before a discussion in the States meeting on Tuesday. In the meeting the home affairs minister confirmed Mr Power had been suspended, but refused to offer more information. States members then went into a secret session to discuss the issue. Mr Power was suspended after a new police inquiry team said no-one had been murdered at Haut de la Garenne.
The former children's home hit the headlines in February when police found what they believed to be part of a child's skull and began a murder investigation. It later turned out to be a piece of coconut.
1901: Coumment j'm'y print
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*Coumment j'm'y print.*
Tan pus l'temps va et tant pus nou's'a di peine a trouvé galant. Y'a
malheutheusman ben pus d'filles qué d'garçons en Jerri;...
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"Someone is lying, or at the very least, seriously mistaken"
Or has a different interpretation of the evidence, to pursue your historical analogy.
But in this case, the actors are all still alive and the rules are written down, so an impartial judge (in Jersey?) should be able to conclude whether the procedures were correctly followed.
One purpose of deliberately spreading disinformation is to muddy the waters and put so much material into the public domain that no-one will be able to come to a definitive conclusion. Eventually, what really happened will be lost in a swirl of fact and counter-fact.
Which is why we will never know the truth behind 9/11 or the assassination of JFK - you can believe what you like. There's evidence to support numerous stories and in the meantime life has moved on.
'Facts are stupid things', said Ronald Reagan, but because all the actors were still alive (apart from many in Nicaragua and El Salvador), the Tower Commission should have got to the truth of the Iran-Contra affair if it had not been for the obvious fact that the "administration exhibited 'secrecy, deception and disdain for the law.'" (Tower Commission report)
It also helps if the administration firstly shreds all relevant documents and everyone says, "I can't remember" and "to the best of my recollection", which in Reagan's case was probably true - he'd been shot in the brain and probably already had Alzheimer's. The rest of them were just prepared to lie and claim amnesia.
I don't suppose anybody in the Jersey establishment would exhibit 'secrecy, deception and disdain for the law' though, would they?
While we are on the subject of history, it seems to be official establishment spin in Jersey to refer to the 'historical child abuse inquiry'. Both politicians and the media use this phrase all the time.
Examine it closely: is the inquiry historical or is the abuse historical? Well the inquiry is present so it must be the abuse. It's conveniently situated in the past so that it cannot tarnish the present generation.
Firstly, when does something become historical? After one year, five, ten, fifty? The police in the UK are reopening murder inquiries after fifty years and convicting people based on new DNA techniques. Does the fact that they are historical make them less serious or imply that people alive now are not suspects or that everyone currently alive is innocent? No.
Firstly, many of the abuses being investigated are very recent - within the last ten years, they are not in the distant past.
Secondly, even if the abuses were 'historic', they are within living memory - the victims are still alive and presumably many of the suspects. If there has been a cover up, the people who covered it up may still be alive and may even still be in power and still covering up.
So it's obvious that the use of the word 'historical' is a deliberate piece of spin and manipulation to give the impression that this inquiry does not touch on present individuals or institutions. Which is an outright lie.
Imagine your child had been murdered in 1960, for example. The case had been closed for lack of evidence but recently reopened on the basis of new forensic techniques. If the Jersey Evening Post referred to it as the 'historical murder inquiry', wouldn't you find that a strange expression?
It's a murder inquiry! Of course the events are historical - you cannot have an inquiry into something that is not in the past, unless you are in the film Minority Report.
Politicians and their friendly media outlets always want to control the story. They want to dictate the facts that get into the public domain and they want to manage the language used in order to manipulate the mental impressions of the public.
Of course the Jersey government wish this whole scandal would go away. But at the same time, they don't want it to tarnish the reputations of anyone alive or the government in general. But you can't have both.
You can't have a truly open, truth-revealing investigation into public institutions without heads rolling.
So what you have to have instead is a tightly-controlled inquiry that to all appearances fulfills the duties of an inquiry but without revealing anything unpleasant about anyone that matters.
In the meantime, you spread disinformation and muddy the truth, and denigrate your opponents, so that eventually everyone will give up on getting to the bottom of it. You can then say: "We spent five million pounds and interviewed five hundred people. We fulfilled our duty."
If that is justice, I'm a coconut.
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