Will no one rid me of this turbulent policeman?

You are the Archbishop who was made by the King; whom he set in your place to carry out his command. You are his servant, his tool, and his jack, You wore his favours on your back, You had your honours all from his hand; from him you had the power, the seal and the ring. (Murder in the Cathedral, TS Eliot)

In a recent Hansard, Paul Le Claire reported the following exchange:

Not long after Deputy Andrew Lewis took over as the Minister for Home Affairs I walked through the Chamber to the top of the stairs and in his company was the former Chief Minister, Mr. Frank Walker. They were discussing the former Deputy Chief of Police, Mr. Lenny Harper. The Chief Minister at the time said: "Why did you not get rid of him?" I found that a little strange at the time for that to be expressed but I entered into the conversation by standing with them and partook in the conversation. The response - which I think is the important thing, the key thing - from the Minister was: "We were going to get rid of him but he only had a week to go so we thought it best just to let him go."

The exact date I am afraid I did not record. It was shortly after, if not the day, that the announcement was made that Deputy Lewis had taken over as the Minister.

Now this has been seen as evidence of a conspiracy to get rid of the Deputy Chief Office, Lenny Harper, particularly as Deputy Hill has noted that the only one able to remove the Deputy was in fact the Chief Officer, not the Minister for Home Affairs. So in order to remove Lenny Harper, it would be necessary to remove his Deputy. But if the only way to get rid of Lenny Harper was to suspend Graham Power - which would allow someone else to take over as Acting Chief, and suspend him - then why was Graham Power suspended after Lenny Harper had left? And who was the someone else? David Warcup didn't get sworn in as Deputy Chief until the day after Lenny Harper had left, so he wasn't in a position at the time to take over as Acting Chief Officer. The logic of this conspiracy simply doesn't work out properly.

Senator Ian Le Marquand commented on this, and I don't know if his words carried a sarcastic tone, but they are certainly there in the transcript (which I think is unduly unfair to Deputy Le Claire's honesty):

Of course we all waited today with baited breath to see what Deputy Le Claire would add to the situation. What would his evidence be? Would that change things? With great diffidence he told us that what he had overheard was a conversation between 2 States Members, he says, the Chief Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs at the time, in relation to why action had not been taken against the Deputy Chief Officer. Frankly, this is no evidence whatsoever in relation to conspiracy. There is no evidence of the sort of conspiracy alleged. What there is evidence of is that there were concerns some time before and those concerns had been transmitted from the Acting Chief Officer via the Chief Executive to the Minister for Home Affairs of the time.

In fact at that time, David Warcup was not Acting Chief Officer - until the suspension, he was only Deputy Chief Officer. According to the Le Marquand narrative, then, there was no conspiracy but only "concerns" - but Deputy Le Claire saw no evidence of what I would call "concerns" - "Why did you not get rid of him?" doesn't sound much like a concern to me, but rather a discussion of definite action which might be taken. I don't think simple "concerns" were on the table; the Le Marquand narrative simply ignores the personal equation and downplays it, and that just doesn't hold up either.

It is also clear that Mr Walker was involved in the discussions about the suspension of Graham Power as well. As Napier comments:

There was a meeting on 3 November, attended by Mr Ogley, Mr Walker and Mr Crich. At that meeting there was discussion of the possibility of suspension [of Mr Power] when he was on holiday.

And it is also clear from Napier that relations between Mr Power and his Deputy had deteriorated, and Mr Walker and Mr Ogley were already critical of Mr Power:

It is clear to me, in the light of the investigations I have carried out, that the criticisms of Mr Power, made by implication in the Interim Report and, separately, in the report of Mr Warcup, found a receptive audience when they came to the attention of Mr Walker and Mr Ogley. That is, however, a very different matter from accepting that they (with or without the knowing participation of Mr Warcup) were plotting to find a way to have Mr Power removed from office, and were using suspension as the first stage in achieving their objective.

So why was Mr Power removed? What advantages were there to doing this after Lenny Harper had left?

For David Warcup, the advantages of Graham Power's suspension would that he would have a free hand to conduct the investigation and court cases in the way he deemed necessary, without fighting a continual battle with his Chief on how it should be done. There must have been (as seems to come through in Napier), a considerable degree of frustration, especially as Lenny Harper had clearly had much more control over the media strategy, while Graham Power was happy for him to do so. Now David Warcup wanted to shift the media strategy in a different direction, and Graham Power was resisting this change. So the benefits to David Warcup was not that he would get the Chief Officer's job (which he would anyway on Graham Power's retirement), but that he could conduct the investigation along the lines which he thought were better.

But what of Senator Walker, and the reported conversation. As Napier reports, the situation between Graham Power and Senator Walker had deteriorated to the point of hostility. While there was no conspiracy as such, there must have been considerable frustration at meetings with a Chief of Police which were confrontational, and he would have known that both he and Mr Ogley were on the same wavelength as David Warcup and relations would be immeasurable smoother if Mr Warcup was in charge. The general media strategy had gone astray, with fiasco after fiasco, from Newsnight, the Parish Hall Press Conference gate-crashed and ruined by Senator Syvret, the Liberation Day speeches badly received by the public, and criticisms of the Jersey establishment and judiciary by Lenny Harper, as well as the continual sniping by Senator Stuart Syvret, which with unsuppressed feeling, he termed "the vile blog".

It would not have been unreasonable to suppose he must have surely felt a degree of anger and resentment, rather like Henry II on Thomas Becket. He had brought in this Chief of Police, and now couldn't work with him. Henry is supposed to have exclaimed, in the presence of four knights, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?", but how the Latin account actually translates is perhaps far more appropriate:

"What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?"

Henry didn't actually conspire to remove Becket, but the expression of his attitude certainly pushed events in a particular direction when others (also sympathetic) were aware of it, and took it upon themselves to do something about that.

And in conclusion?

For two years we have been told that the decision to suspend (the then police chief) Graham Power was taken after a report was received on 11 November 2008. We now know that preparations were being made months before that, in a series of secret meetings and exchanges; some of which did not even involve the minister. It also appears from the Napier report that the key letter from Mr Warcup used to justify the suspension was altered before it was used, and that. Mr Warcup. denies that he was the person who made the changes I know that Mr Napier says that he did not find evidence of a conspiracy, but firm evidence such things is hard to find.

However what he did find was evidence which contained many features of a conspiracy, including secret meetings; the suspicious alteration of a key document and the disposal of another key document. Whether we call that a conspiracy or not, what nobody can call it is good-government .or conduct. It also shows the lack of judgment of the heavily conflicted acting police chief whose surprise resignation shortly before the submission of the Napier report can now, be seen in a different light. It is now up, to the Chief minister to make a statement confirming that he will not only address the immediate issues arising from Napier; but will put an end to the secretive and seemingly sinister way of conducting government business that this report describes. It is important that Islanders can trust their government: The revelations in the Napier report destroy much of,, that trust, Firm action and leadership are needed if that trust is to be restored.

(Deputy Bob Hill, Letter to the JEP 13 October 2010, print edition of paper only)

The episode of "Yes Minister", entitled "The Greasy Pole", is particularly instructive with regard to the Napier report.

A chemical factory is being set up, and it is producing "meta-dioxin", an inert compound of dioxin. After the hazards caused by dioxin in Italy, Jim Hacker is under political pressure to turn down the application for the factory, but Sir Humphrey sees this as the wrong decision. The final decision is based on Professor Henderson, who is producing a report, which appears to be in favour of the chemical. Henderson is "a brilliant Cambridge biochemist, chosen with some care."

Jim Hacker decides to take matters into his own hands, and "coincidentally" arranges to bump into Professor Henderson, and tells him that the report "leaves some important questions, unanswered"; "some of the evidences are inconclusive", "the figures are open to other interpretations" and "and that some of the main conclusions have been questioned.". He then tells Henderson that if anything were to go wrong, that the press would be merciless, and it would be a millstone around the Professors neck, a black mark on his career.

Henderson: I don't know what to do! I can't alter the evidence, the report says it's a safe drug.
Hacker: Quite. I see you have no choice.

Another University don, Lord Crichton, supplies Henderson with his solution:

Lord Crichton: Stop talking shop. Our Professor of Economics is dying to talk to you.
Henderson: You're not worried about this report?
Lord Crichton: I've done lots of these things. It's the phrasing of the conclusion, that's all the press ever read.

Lord Crichton: Now... how does it end? "On existing evidence, the committee can see no reason not to proceed." Well, it's just a question of a tidy bit of re-drafting. "While the committee feel there's no reason not to proceed on existing evidence, it must be emphasised that metadioxin is a recent compound, and it would be irresponsible to deny, after further research, its manufacture might be proved to be associated with health risks."
Henderson: Yes, that seems perfectly fair.

Now we know that there was an earlier draft of the Napier report, which we might call Napier 1, which was produced earlier - there seems to have been one present by the middle of July - and this was subsequently sent off to "persons whose conduct was or might be seen as the subject of criticism" and amended accordingly after that:

In accordance with normal practice in investigations of this nature, a draft version of this report was made available to persons whose conduct was or might be seen as the subject of criticism. Comments and observations were made, and the final version of the report takes these replies into account. .

What we don't know is how the draft (Napier 1) was altered into the final version (Napier 2). However, as is well known in historical source criticism, evidence of changes often leave their mark because of odd inconsistencies, and the phenomenon known as "editorial fatigue" where an alteration is not consistently carried forward.

An example of this comes with the "not wholly accurate" statement, which could well be an amendment made to tone down the criticism of Mr Lewis in the draft version Napier 1. We know from the next section that Deputy Chief Officer David Warcup had been briefing Mr Lewis on the conduct of the Haut de La Garenne investigation "who had shared with him his concerns about the management of the investigation under Mr Power".

Mr Lewis' statement made to Wiltshire Police as part of their inquiry, to the effect that he had no reason to believe before reading the letter sent by Mr David Warcup (the Deputy Chief Officer of Police) to Mr Ogley (the Chief Executive) that the police were not managing the investigation well was not wholly accurate.

Compare and contrast with....

These briefings [by David Warcup to Andrew Lewis] had contained not only criticisms of how the inquiry had been managed when DCO Harper had been in operational charge of it, but also criticisms of Mr Power's failure to engage with the attempts that were being made (by Mr Warcup) to put right mistakes that had been made.

But the most significant finding of Napier was that there was clear evidence of meetings being held and the ground being prepared, weeks before the suspension, for precisely that eventuality and no other - and when Mr Power was summoned to the meeting with Andrew Lewis and Bill Ogley, he had no forewarning of what had been going on behind his back and was completely unprepared.

If we look at what is being said about conspiracy, we find a very narrow line being taken:

Mr Power believes that Mr Walker then coerced Mr Lewis into taking the decision to suspend him. But I have to say that there is no independent evidence of such a conspiracy

But we know that Mr Lewis was being briefed against Mr Power by Mr Warcup, so why was coercion by Mr Walker needed? At the time, Mr Power clearly would not have been aware of the extremely critical nature of the briefings, so he was clearly trying to find an explanation for Mr Lewis' behaviour, and he was also aware of Mr Walker's criticisms of the investigation.

And so we come to the conclusion:

There was no conspiracy to act against Mr Power because he was seen as a threat to the political status quo and to the vested interests of people of influence within Jersey.

I have found no evidence of a "conspiracy" to oust Mr Power for some improper reason.

But there is clear evidence that (1) proceedings for suspension were proceeding apace, in secret; (2) there was clearly a private collusion between Mr Ogley and Mr Warcup; (3) while the "highest level of the administration", and that could possibly include Chief Minister Frank Walker took no direct part in this, they were most probably aware of this, and had no objections to it - which might be construed as deniability.

Mr Power confirmed in interview that he saw Jersey society as characterised by a lack of integrity and a dislike for openness in government. He described Jersey culture as being one where things are kept secret unless someone can force you to tell it, and where there was little support for what he termed "proactive enthusiasm" on the part of the police. That view of the status quo fits with the reports which the consultant took away after his meeting with him, and which were then relayed to Mr Ogley via Mr Warcup.

and consider the lack of "openness" with the preparations behind his back, the political pressure, and these statements:

Efforts were accordingly concentrated on preparing for that scenario, to the exclusion of other possible mechanisms for resolving perceived failures in performance

I am inclined to think that the answer is that there was, at the highest level of the administration, a belief that the suspension and the taking of disciplinary action against the Chief Officer was not only what was likely to occur (by reason of the decision of the Minister, after the changeover from Senator Kinnard to Mr Lewis), but also what should happen.

Mr Lewis mentioned that immediately prior to the suspension he was coming under a lot of pressure from fellow politicians about how the historic abuse enquiry had been handled.

Having set up a "straw man" of a political conspiracy pretty much by Senator Frank Walker, in his conclusion, Brian Napier proceeds to knock it down. But what we have is clear evidence of some kind of private collusion between interested parties behind Mr Power's back, preparing for his suspension (or resignation) as the planned outcome, and briefing interested parties (such as Mr Lewis) against Mr Power, without making Mr Power aware of the full weight or details of those criticisms, and certainly with the approval of "the highest level of the administration".

The well known "Duck test" says that "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.". Applied to Brian Napier's conclusions regarding conspiracies, and given the evidence he did unearth, this would run something like "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably isn't a tortoise".

It ignores what Deputy Bob Hill calls "evidence which contained many features of a conspiracy, including secret meetings; the suspicious alteration of a key document and the disposal of another key document".

Now I'm not saying there was any pressure put on Napier like that of Jim Hacker to Professor Henderson, but there was certainly feedback (not just factual) from interested parties on the draft report, and this may well have led to a softening of its presentation, the apparent contradictions between first and final draft, and the definitive nature of its conclusion - "no conspiracy" being able to be blazed across the media headlines. And the lesson from "Yes Minister" is certainly true:

Lord Crichton: I've done lots of these things. It's the phrasing of the conclusion, that's all the press ever read.

Senator Le Sueur evidently wants to "put the matter to bed", as he puts it, and certainly as far as the press are concerned, the conclusion - "no conspiracy" is an end to the matter. Wiltshire - or the selective redaction of Wiltshire - is seen as the final word on the competence of Graham Power and Lenny Harper, despite it being clearly only half of a disciplinary process that ran out of time. Whether "put the matter to bed" is the best phrase, or "sweep the dust under the carpet" might be a better one, I leave to the reader.

Handwritten Notes in Napier

The Chief Minister was forced to admit that States chief executive Bill Ogley - the most senior civil servant - had destroyed hand-written minutes of the meeting to suspend the police chief before Mr Power had agreed that they were accurate. Senator Le Sueur told the States yesterday that a typed transcript had been made from the notes before they were thrown in the bin. The transcript was subsequently signed off by the then Home Affairs Minister, Andrew Lewis, but without the original notes being shown to the police chief.

(http://www.thisisjersey.com/2009/02/04/top-civil-servants-under-fire/#ixzz11zqUUnqm)

Of this meeting with Bill Ogley and Andrew Lewis and Graham Power, Brian Napier's report says:

"Subsequent to the meeting, the handwritten notes of the meeting taken by Mr Ogley were destroyed. That, I was told by Mr Crich, was in accordance with normal practice. I have to say that, in all the circumstances, it is my view that it would have been wiser to have retained all that was available by way of record of that crucial meeting. But I accept Mr Ogley's account - that he transcribed the notes immediately after the meeting and that they were subsequently typed up for the parties to sign."

Now Bill Ogley is Jersey's equivalent to the Cabinet Secretary in the UK Government (and is probably paid almost as much). But when we look at what happens with the Cabinet Secretary in the UK, we find quite different record keeping in place The National Archive notes that:

"The Cabinet Secretaries' Notebooks are the hand written notes which the Cabinet Secretary makes when he attends Cabinet Meetings as the Senior Secretary. (1)

Of course, as I'm the first to admit, that doesn't apply to all meetings, only to important Cabinet ones, but nonetheless there are lessons there for the situation with the meeting at which Graham Power was suspended. This is because whether or not it is standard practice to destroy notes in Jersey, it is certainly questionable whether the written minutes were an exact transcript of the meeting. For example, returning again to the Cabinet Secretaries notebooks (the equivalent of Bill Ogley's hand written notes), the official British Archives site notes how these differ in important respects from the final minutes:

"Q. How do the notebooks differ from the official cabinet minutes?
A. The main difference is that the official minutes do not attribute views to individual ministers as the Notebooks do. Nor do the items necessarily correspond: the Cabinet Secretary did not note every item, but sometimes included incidental discussion not reflected in the official minutes."(1)

Minutes then may well represent a form of redaction, which the transcript (the raw data) does not. A situation depicted with humour in "Yes Prime Minister":


"It is characteristic of all committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them, and that every member's recollection of them differs violently from every other member's recollection; consequently we accept the convention that the official decisions are those and only those which have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials; from which it emerges with elegant inevitability, that any decision which has been officially reached would have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, and any decisions which is not recorded in the minutes by the officials has not been officially reached, even if one or more members believe they can recollect it; so in this particular case, if the decision would have been officially reached, it would have been recorded in the minutes by the officials and it isn't so it wasn't." (Yes Prime Minister)

A Tribunal on this subject further commented on the Cabinet Secretary's handwritten notes of a Cabinet meeting:

". the manner in which an individual takes contemporaneous notes is likely to be idiosyncratic and could well give a false impression as to the weight and importance that should be attributed to a particular part of the debate or the tone in which the points of discussion were expressed."

But the Tribunal also considered that there could be exceptional circumstances in which it was important to check the handwritten handwritten notes with the formal minutes:

"Were the handwritten notes to reveal something of significance which was not recorded in the formal minute, the Commissioner might take a different view. Each case, however, must be considered on its own particular merits" (6)

It is clear that this practice of handwritten notes was also not continued with the suspension review meetings under Ian Le Marquand where there are not minutes of the meeting but a complete transcript of the audio recording - Mr Crich's normal practice did not apply then, nor of course with scrutiny hearings, for which there is also a written transcript of the
audio recording.

One would have expected - given Senator Le Marquand's subsequent use of full audio transcription - for Brian Napier to have commented on how matters had been improved, or why matters had changed between Mr Crich's comments to him and the later meetings with Mr Power, and perhaps noted that this had been done precisely to avoid the accusation that the minutes distorted or omitted matters of significance.

This also comes under the sphere of data retention policies, where requirements, especially for handwritten notes of substance (which can always be easily scanned as PDF images), can be important:

Document retention, especially the retention of electronic data has become a hot topic in the legal industry. In the 21st century business world, companies are creating and storing the electronic document and information at light speed. Electronic documents are not only found on desktops and laptops but also stored on the phones like Blackberry's etc. But for modern business organizations storing all this business information can be expensive not only because of the cost of physical storage of tapes but also because of the potential liability of keeping sometimes seemingly useless information for too long.

A document retention policy provides for the systematic review, retention and destruction of documents received or created in the course of business. A document retention policy will identify documents that need to be maintained and contain guidelines for how long certain documents should be kept and how they should be destroyed. (2)

Those notes are from India which is striving to comply with the data protection laws of the EU, and to which Jersey is also subject with its own Data Protection Law. On the subject of which documents must be protected, they note:

Temporary Records: Temporary records include all business documents that have not been completed. Such include, but are not limited to written memoranda and dictation to be typed in the future, reminders, to-do lists, report, case study, and calculation drafts, interoffice correspondence regarding a client or business transaction, and running logs.

They note that temporary records need not be kept as long as final records, so that - provided a minute is signed off by all parties as accurate, the documents from which it is transcribed can be destroyed. Regarding how long any documents - including written memoranda - should be kept, the matter is open - and this is the same position as in Jersey's own Data Protection Law. But note the caveat at the end, which would, in my opinion, certainly apply to the handwritten notes that were shredded:

How long should documents be kept? Only for so long as the law requires or for as long as you actually have use for them, and not a moment longer. There is no bright line number. In typical lawyerly fashion, my real answer is that "it depends." Any records management program must ensure that legally required documents are kept for at least the minimum prescribed time periods. But, are there circumstances under which they should be kept for a longer period of time? In my view there are two answers to that question. First, there may be records you think are critical to preserving historical continuity, for example, minutes of strategic planning meetings or of policy development sessions..... The second reason may be litigation or governmental investigations and enforcement actions... These latter circumstances will almost always out trump your retention and disposition schedule.

We can see that handwritten documents also feature in requests to the UK's own Information Comissioners Office. Two examples of this kind of request follow:

Case Ref: FS50113234: Date: 28/01/2008: Public Authority: Northern Ireland Court Service: Summary: On 29 November 2005 the complainant made a request to the Northern Ireland Court Service ("NICS"), for documentation, notes (handwritten, electronic or otherwise), telephone records received into and emanating fromNICS in relation to emails and letters sent by the complainant.

On 14 June 2006, the PA wrote to the complainant with the outcome of the internal review. It states that the reviewer was unable to find a request, prior to 27 May 2006, for the [handwritten] notes taken during the meeting between the inspector and the complainant but encloses them. It goes on to say that the single reference within the inspection evidence to the "difficulties" faced by the governing body does not provide an explanation of what those difficulties were.

Now I do note that it is common practice in offices for handwritten notes to be made and then destroyed after the minutes have been agreed; I also note that on occasions where I have been present, there may have been mistakes in the minutes that I've spotted (or others have noted), and these are corrected by feedback before the minutes are finalised. So - for a start - honest mistakes can be made. But these are meetings where all concerned are not engaged in any form of disputation, and it would seem - particularly in view of the audio transcripts instituted later (a new policy?) by Senator Ian Le Marquand - that such a practice was not appropriate for such an important meeting.

I would not say the minutes differed materially from the transcript although I would be interested in Mr Power's comments on how they differed from what had taken place. But without harking to any great conspiracy here, there may have been different emphases, or items of significance left out. One has only to look at the Minutes of States Meetings (still produced) and compare them with Hansard, or Hansard and JEP reports, or to try and produce a summation of the meetings with Dr Brain, Graham Power and Ian le Marquand to see that some selection and reduction must have taken place, even for a short meeting of 30 minutes.

And this begs the question, which Napier does not ask: why was previous practice deemed sufficient in view of the seriousness of the meeting? Shouldn't a Chief Advisor be aware that more stringent practice was needed, as indeed Senator Le Marquand obviously did later - after, of course, Mr Power had decided to contest his suspension?

Mr Power had part of the letter headed "Disciplinary Code" read to him and was shown the letter. He was then offered, but declined, an opportunity of one hour to"consider his position".

Trying to make sense of this historically, one obvious surmise, given the question about Graham Power "considering his position", was that the expected outcome of the meeting was resignation, rather than suspension, in which case the recording of the meeting would not have been as important as it subsequently became. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that suspension, which clearly had been prepared for, was not the only option, but was a fall back position in readiness in case Mr Power declined to resign.

In this hypothesis - and I am only putting it as an historical hypothesis, but one which would make sense of the facts, and the brevity of the meeting - that would be probably the real significance of the handwritten notes, rather than an audio transcription being made - normal practice of handwritten notes, put into minutes, was in place because it was not expected that there would be any subsequent meetings after Mr Power's resignation. There the matter would have ended.

Links
(1) http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/qanda195-19-may.htm
(2) http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l428-Data-Retention-Policies.html
(3) http://www.ico.gov.uk/tools_and_resources/decision_notices/2008_01.aspx
(4) http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/decisionnotices/2008/fs_50124420.pdf
(5) http://www.ico.gov.uk/global/search.aspx?keywords=handwritten%20minute&collection=ico&start=0
(6) http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/decisionnotices/2009/fs_50088735.pdf

Turning Over Napier's Bones

20 October - Wendy Kinnard resigns as Home Affairs Minister; Andrew Lewis takes over, with effect from 22 October.

11 November - David Warcup provides Bill Ogley with letter containing his report written at the request of Bill Ogley and referring to Interim Report received from the Metropolitan Police

Mr Lewis' statement made to Wiltshire Police as part of their inquiry, to the effect that he had no reason to believe before reading the letter sent by Mr David Warcup (the Deputy Chief Officer of Police) to Mr Ogley (the Chief Executive) that the police were not managing the investigation well was not wholly accurate.

Along with "economical with the truth", the phrase "not wholly accurate" should go down as one of the most weasel phrases of our times. Andrew Lewis made a statement, and either it was true, or it was false. Only in the weird logic of Edward De Bono, or Brian Napier, does a statement of fact have the odd attribute of being neither true nor false, rather like Schrödinger's cat. Actually, as it turns out, it is clear that David Warcup was briefing Andrew Lewis well before that letter came out. As Brian Napier's own report states:

The resignation of Senator Kinnard from her position of Minister for Home Affairs took place on 20 October 2008, and her replacement was Deputy Andrew Lewis. That was a significant development, as Senator Kinnard had been resolute in her defence not only of the police generally, but in particular in her endorsement of the actions of DCO Harper in conducting the investigation. Mr Lewis, who took over, was a man of different views. He was not inclined, in the absence of hard evidence to the contrary, to accept that there was a conspiracy against justice in high places within Jersey. Mr Lewis had moreover been in receipt of constant briefing from Mr Warcup during the latter's time on the island. As previously mentioned, these briefings had contained not only criticisms of how the inquiry had been managed when DCO Harper had been in operational charge of it, but also criticisms of Mr Power's failure to engage with the attempts that were being made (by Mr Warcup) to put right mistakes that had been made.

"In receipt of constant briefing" suggest not only that Andrew Lewis, was briefed that "the police were not managing the investigation well", but also - as it stems from the advent of Mr Warcup - these briefings clearly took place when he was still an assistant minister. It doesn't seem to me that Andrew Lewis's statement is "not wholly accurate"; from reading Napier's own report, it appears very much as if it was wholly inaccurate!

It certainly seems that Brian Napier is trying to give Andrew Lewis the benefit of the doubt, but the evidence of his own report does not stack up against that.

Turning now to the idea of a conspiracy, the notion that there was no evidence of any conspiracy is stated in his conclusion:

I have seen no evidence to support the claims (which, if substantiated, would certainly point to a need for further investigation) that these were part of some plot or conspiracy within the public service to frustrate police investigation in Jersey.

I have found no evidence of a "conspiracy" to oust Mr Power for some improper reason.

But look at the words carefully - "to frustrate police investigation in Jersey" and "some improper reason". What does Brian Napier understand by "conspiracy", in these phrases? He clearly means some kind of cover up of dark secrets, a kind of murky world not unlike that described in a recent play on Radio 4, "The Conspiracy of the Illuminati". There was some kind of devilish plot to get at Mr Power, and destroy the child abuse enquiry. I know some suggestions have been made of that.

But there are conspiracies of many sorts, and there is clear evidence that certain individuals were conferring together, behind Mr Power's back (and hence in secret) , and while this may have been from the highest motives, they were definitely intending to remove him from office, and were preparing the ground for this. This emerges again in the Napier report:

As early as 28 October there was in existence a document created by Mr Crich setting out a possible scenario for "Possible disciplinary proceedings against the Chief of Police". By this time Mr Lewis had taken over as Minister from Senator Kinnard. Yet no steps were taken Mr Lewis to try to resolve the differences that were seen as emerging, not only by him but by his senior advisers. My view is that an opportunity to attempt to resolve the issues relating to competence and capability that eventually lead to Mr Power's suspension on 12 November 2008 was missed when Deputy Lewis took over from Senator Kinnard.

The confrontation with Mr Power was seen coming by officials weeks in advance of 12 November, and I do not know why the opportunity to head it off (or at least attempt to do so) was not taken. I am inclined to think that the answer is that there was, at the highest level of the administration, a belief that the suspension and the taking of disciplinary action against the Chief Officer was not only what was likely to occur (by reason of the decision of the Minister, after the changeover from Senator Kinnard to Mr Lewis), but also what should happen. Efforts were accordingly concentrated on preparing for that scenario, to the exclusion of other possible mechanisms for resolving perceived failures in performance.

It would be interesting to know exactly what "the highest level of the administration" refers to in the report. It seems to be a fudge which avoids naming names. Bill Ogley? Frank Walker? One individual? Several? Note that the preparation for the scenario of suspension, because they thought that was what "should happen". Is that "planning" or "conspiracy"? There may have been no clear directives, but just because directives are not given directly doesn't mean to say that intentions were not clear, or else why else concentrate efforts on one objective.

Could this be described as engineering Mr Power's suspension? Obviously no one came together in a cabal, in secret, and put on a blackboard the words "get rid of him". Outside of fiction, no one really behaves much like that. But pre-planning one particular outcome - that of suspension - because it was believed that it "should happen", would certainly come close. One of the characteristic features of a short story is that if a shotgun is casually mentioned, hanging on a wall, the reader knows that the writer indents to make use of it later on in the tale - why else mention it? The pre-planning can be seen as akin to loading a shotgun, and why one earth would all that effort be given to something that was not intended?

Brian Napier exonerates Andrew Lewis from this pre-planning, assuming, of course, that Andrew Lewis' statement in this respect is more accurate than the one he gave the Wiltshire inquiry:

I do not say that Mr Lewis shared that view. He has confirmed to me that he was not at any stage planning with others to bring down the Chief Officer and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of that statement.

But what was the motivation? I certainly think there were "legitimate and reasonable concerns about Mr Power's performance", and I accept Napier's point that was part of the motivation. But another part was clearly motivated by personal reasons. There was already a clash of personalities, as is clear from the description of the meeting on May 2008:

Mr Power also refers to a meeting he attended around May 2008, together with Senator Kinnard, the Chief Minister (Mr Frank Walker) and the Chief Executive (Mr Bill Ogley). He narrates how, at that meeting, there was a strong difference of views between the Chief Minister and Senator Kinnard with regard to the conduct of the ongoing Historic Abuse Enquiry. Mr Power's recollection of that meeting was that the then Chief Minister berated the enquiry and complained of the damage it was causing because of the bad publicity it was generating. Senator Kinnard defended the enquiry but was, according to Mr Power, subjected to verbal bullying by the Chief Minister who stated that he was "under pressure to suspend both the Chief and the Deputy Chief." In recounting this event in the course of being interviewed, Mr Power made no secret of his dislike of Mr Walker, nor what he saw as his bullying tendencies.

The recollections which both the Chief Minister and the Chief Executive have of these meetings are quite different, both with regard to the content of the meetings and how they were carried out. Neither accepts that there was any improper conduct on their part. I am not in a position, having heard the competing accounts, to decide which version of events is accurate, or even which versions are more accurate than others. I mention these matters simply to draw attention to the existence of differences between Mr Power and two senior colleagues within the political and administrative spheres public sector of the States of Jersey (Chief Minister Walker and Chief Executive Ogley).

I'm not sure why the "content of the meetings" is debatable; I'd assume that minutes were taken, and if they had been signed off by all those present, this would surely provide some objective record. Of course, minutes are a précis, and in any compaction of data, there is bound to be a selection process on what is of importance, and how to present a disagreement.

But if there was any addition reason to take just suspension as one of several options, it is likely that personal reasons, even if unconscious to the participants, would have played a part. If they were aware of their dislike, they should have been self-critical of any actions, especially ones they wanted to take, but according to Brian Napier, these fed into the events which followed:

Key decision makers and advisers were, long before the events of 12 November, inclined to be critical of Mr Power. Perhaps because of that, officials were too ready to accept relatively weak evidence as sufficient to warrant the Minister taking the drastic step of imposing suspension on 12 November 2008.

It is not at all surprising that there were serious concerns on the part of Mr Ogley (and others) about Mr Power's role in the management and oversight of the historic abuse enquiry in the light of information that was becoming available in the autumn of 2008. In my view, however, these legitimate and reasonable concerns about Mr Power's performance led to the making of decisions which were, from a procedural point of view, unfair to Mr Power.

What is also interesting is the curious omission from Napier. You might expect he would have interviewed Wendy Kinnard, or stated if he was unable to do so.

In the course of my investigation, I held recorded meetings with Mr Andrew Lewis, Mr Bill Ogley, Mr Ian Crich, Mr David Warcup, Mr Graham Power and Mr Frank Walker.

As one of the people present at the meeting mentioned above who would have certainly been able to state whether she felt herself subject to "verbal bullying", it is strange that Wendy Kinnard was not interviewed. The rapidity with which Mr Power became exposed after her resignation makes me wonder if she was "out of the loop", or getting the same behind the scenes briefings from David Warcup that Andrew Lewis was. Now there could be quite legitimate and personal reasons why she declined to be interviewed, but it seems strange that she doesn't even seem to have been asked. The balance between legitimate concerns and a personal dislike of Mr Power is surely germane to any inquiry, and she could have thrown valuable light on that.

And finally, just as a codicil, Brian Napier seems unaware of the landmark decision concerning suspensions. He writes:

While suspension is of itself a "neutral" act, in terms of not imputing guilt of any putative offence, it was appreciated by all concerned that, in the context of Mr Power and the office he held, it was a step of considerable significance.

In fact, Mezey v South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, in 2007 (before Graham Power's suspension) dismissed the Trust's argument that suspension was "a neutral act preserving the employment relationship". Their decision was as follows:

"The Court of Appeal rejected that argument, at least in relation to the employment of a qualified professional in a function which is as much a vocation as a job. Suspension changes the status quo from work to no work, and it inevitably casts a shadow over the employee's competence. Of course this does not mean it cannot be done, but it is not a neutral act."

Pretty well all the sites on employment law and suspensions mention this; is it too much to ask that Jersey's personnel officers read up on it as part of their Continuing Professional Education?

Climbing Mount Improbable

Voice For Children (despite the carping of one blog in particular), has pulled off a remarkable coup, not only in following the continual delay of the Napier report, but also in bringing out the reply from Terry Le Sueur, which confirms to Deputy Hill that "the Napier Report will be published in a full and unredacted form", unlike the Wiltshire report.

Dear colleague,
As you may be aware, I have now received the Report into the suspension on 12th November 2008 of the (former) Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police ("the Napier Report").
Having read this Report carefully, I am of the view that there could possibly be grounds for disciplinary action arising out of the report. I am taking advice on this and considering it as a matter of urgency and anticipate making a decision on this shortly.
I have also sought appropriate advice about the publication of the Napier Report prior to any disciplinary proceedings which may, after consideration, take place and I am advised that publication might prejudice any disciplinary process which may be required.
Although I have shared the Napier Report in confidence with the Deputy of St. Martin, he has acknowledged that it is important for any disciplinary process that may be required to be conducted properly so that there can be no question of any impropriety. The Deputy of St. Martin has therefore agreed to continue to hold the Report in confidence.
I am grateful to the Deputy for his understanding in this matter and I hope that all States members will similarly respect the need to conclude any disciplinary issues prior to publication.
I confirm that on the conclusion of any disciplinary issues, the Napier Report will be published in a full and unredacted form.
Yours sincerely,
Terry Le Sueur
Chief Minister

What is obviously the key matter for speculation is who would be subject to any disciplinary proceedings. Clearly, as Graham Power is no longer an employee of the States of Jersey, he is certainly out of the frame, and Deputy Andrew Lewis is no longer in the States, so no action by PPC can be taken against him. This means, of necessity, that if there are "grounds for disciplinary action" - and let's note that this is not absolutely clear-cut, it must be a civil servant. I'm not going to speculate on this, suffice it to say that those present at the first disciplinary meeting, or those giving poor advice, are obvious candidates.

Of course, the good Senator has yet to make up his mind about what to do - whether to proceed with disciplinary action; he's only had the report since 13th September, which is only just over three weeks, so at the snails pace at which he seems to dither along, it would be quite remarkable if he acted with any speed. Given the speed of disciplinary processes in Jersey, the phrase "it will all be over by Christmas", which was used in 1914 by hopeless optimists at the start of the Great War, seems horribly appropriate.

Meanwhile, despite Senator Le Marquand stating on the eviscerated Wiltshire that "The versions now on the States website are in pdf and if downloaded as a document will be searchable", whoever updates the website has not done so, nor have they appeared in less redacted form, as was also promised back in July. Tardiness appears to be a disease of Government, spreading out to afflict its many departments.

The bulk of the missing pages are now being redacted. This is a big task and the departments involved have many other things to do. I think that the rest of what I can properly put out should be available by early September 2010. There are sections of the Blast report which will not be redacted because that would reveal the identities of the officers involved.

I can fully understand that time and pressure of the States Business Plan and the Comprehensive Spending Review, along with general departmental business can consume available, and cause delays. That is entirely understandable. But surely it is not beyond the bounds of simple courtesy and politeness to the voting public to say as much, and apologise for the delay, and just not be like one of those annoying people whom you ring up - if they owe you money - they say "they'll get back to you", and they never do, hoping that you'll forget all about it. It seems that the less redacted Wiltshire Report, like the cheque in the post, is still to arrive. It's a pity there's not a Government Report chasing agency.

Links
(1) http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.com/2010/10/napier-imminent-3put-upor-i-will.html