allegations of £80,000.00 fraud, fiddled and our exaggerated expenses / overtime claims at Northumbria Police - Martin McGartland request
Martin McGartland
02 January 2018
Dear Northumbria Police,
This request relates to allegations of an £80,000.00 fraud, fiddled and our exaggerated expenses / overtime claims, from public funds and which has been published in press (see below Fyi).
Under FOIA 2000, and in the public interest, I am requesting;
1. copies of all correspondence between Northumbria Police (including its chief and senior officers - head of PSD) and the IPCC (including Commissioner Carl Gumsley.
2. copies of all correspondence between Ronnie Campbell, Labour MP for Blyth and Northumbria Police (including its chief and senior officers - head of PSD).
This request is for copies of all correspondence which relates to this matter, that already reported in the press. Please disclose copies of all original documents.
Yours faithfully,
Martin McGartland
Journalist condemns police force's 'appalling' refusal to comment on £80k fraud allegations
A freelance journalist and lecturer has described as “appalling” a police force’s refusal to comment on allegations of serious financial impropriety.
Nigel Green has been told by a source that a sergeant from Northumbria Police has been sacked and a constable disciplined over an £80,000 expenses fraud.
Green sent a list of questions to Northumbria Police under the Freedom of Information Act.
The force declined to answer any of six questions, claiming it was the policy of the National
Police Chiefs’ Council that information relating to investigations would rarely be disclosed.
They also cited section 30 of the Freedom of Information Act, which states that information can be refused if it has been held as part of a criminal investigation.
Section 30 is a qualified exemption and Northumbria applied a public interest test but used Human Rights legislation as one of the main reasons for refusing to answer.
Green said: “I was not even asking for names, so I don’t see how this could be a breach of the officers’ privacy.
No related posts.
“All I was asking the force to confirm was the basic facts. I had been tipped that this involved around £80,000. Obviously that’s taxpayers’ money that has allegedly been fiddled.
“It is my understanding that no charges have been brought or will be brought.
“It is appalling that a police force can rule it’s not in the public interest for people to know anything whatsoever about this case.”
An IPCC spokesman said: “The IPCC is investigating the quality of an investigation previously conducted by the Professional Standards Department of Northumbria Police.
“That PSD investigation was initiated following allegations of exaggerated expenses/overtime claims by a Northumbria police sergeant.”
A spokesperson for Northumbria Police said: “We can confirm that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) are conducting an investigation. Due to their involvement we are unable to say anything further on the matter as this time.”
In 2011, Northumbria refused a Freedom of Information request by Green regarding the case of an officer who was jailed for life for raping vulnerable female prisoners.
The force admitted making errors in the initial investigation into PC Stephen Mitchell and Green asked if there had been an internal investigation into the handling of the case.
Initially, the force refused to release any information, claiming it would breach the privacy of those involved.
After a front page story on the refusal appeared in The Sunday Post, Green contacted Ronnie Campbell, Labour MP for Blyth, about the force's refusal to release further details.
Campbell, who sat on the select committee which drew up the Freedom of Information Act, vowed to raise the case in Parliament if the force did not release the information.
Northumbria Police then released a statement confirming officers involved in the original investigation had been “given advice” over their “failings”.
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)
Thank you for your email received today in which you make a request for information that Northumbria Police may hold in accordance with the Freedom Of Information Act 2000
We are in the process of dealing with your request and a response should be provided to you by 30/01/2018 which is in accordance with the legislation.
To note - we are taking only the below as your request:
This request relates to allegations of an £80,000.00 fraud, fiddled and our exaggerated expenses / overtime claims, from public funds and which has been published in press (see below Fyi).
Under FOIA 2000, and in the public interest, I am requesting;
1. copies of all correspondence between Northumbria Police (including its chief and senior officers - head of PSD) and the IPCC (including Commissioner Carl Gumsley.
2. copies of all correspondence between Ronnie Campbell, Labour MP for Blyth and Northumbria Police (including its chief and senior officers - head of PSD).
This request is for copies of all correspondence which relates to this matter, that already reported in the press. Please disclose copies of all original documents.
Additionally, as per your other two request received today, this one will be aggregated with those, FOIs 001/18 and 003/18 refer. Any subsequent requests on this subject matter will also be open to the same considerations.
Yours sincerely
Information Management Unit
Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
Thank you for your e mail dated 2 January 2018 in which you made a request
for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of
access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority
(including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
This request relates to allegations of an £80,000.00 fraud, fiddled and
our exaggerated expenses / overtime claims, from public funds and which
has been published in press.
Under FOIA 2000, and in the public interest, I am requesting;
1. copies of all correspondence between Northumbria Police (including its
chief and senior officers - head of PSD) and the IPCC (including
Commissioner Carl Gumsley.
2. copies of all correspondence between Ronnie Campbell, Labour MP for
Blyth and Northumbria Police (including its chief and senior officers -
head of PSD).
This request is for copies of all correspondence which relates to this
matter, that already reported in the press. Please disclose copies of all
original documents.
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I
provide a response for your attention.
You have submitted 3 requests on the same day for information regarding
the misconduct of police officers/police staff. As per our
acknowledgements to you for FOIs 003/18 and 001/18 , we advised that, as
your requests were on the same subject matter, Misconduct of police
officers or staff, your requests would be aggregated due to cost/time
constraints .
I can advise that when considered together, your 3 requests far exceed the
permitted 18 hours and therefore Section 12 is applicable. Both FOI
003/18 and FOI 001/18 in their own right exceed the permitted 18 hour
threshold.
As per our comment in FOI 001/18, the reason for each refusal will be
dealt with separately, and with regards to this request I respond as
below:
To provide a response to your whole request would require us to search,
retrieve, examine and consider the content of all email accounts, and any
other locations where correspondence including, faxes and letters that
might be held. There will be a considerable number of emails sent between
Northumbria Police and the IPCC. Bearing in mind we currently have an
approximate total of 4679 police officers and police staff, which we would
also have to consider them in checking their personal mailboxes as well as
checking departmental mailboxes. We have estimated to do so would far
exceed the permitted time constraints for e mails alone. Additionally,
further time would then be needed to search through other routes where
such correspondence may have taken. As we have estimated that to extract
this information would take over the permitted 18 hours, Section 12(1) of
the Freedom of Information Act would apply. This section does not oblige
a public authority to comply with a request for information if the
authority estimated that the cost of complying with the request would
exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, equating to £450.00
You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the
Act for that part of your request.
When applying Section 12 exemption our duty to assist under Section 16 of
the Act would normally entail that we contact you to determine whether it
is possible to refine the scope of your request to bring it within the
cost limits. However, from the information we have outlined above I am
unable to suggest a refinement that would bring the request within the
cost threshold to provide a definitive response.
Additionally we have reached a point where we can no longer justify
continuing to allocate public funds to dealing with your requests. You
have submitted numerous requests of a similar nature in a short period of
time relating to allegations, complaints and disciplinary processes made
against Northumbria Police. Each response is met with a further request or
a request for an internal review. It is apparent that you have an ongoing
grievance against Northumbria Police. FOI is not the correct route to air
such grievances, and is a misuse of the Act. We therefore feel that we
have justification to make any further request on this subject
vexatious.
Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a
specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an
indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another.
Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the
procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses
between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative
purposes.
The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual
property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be
strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as
amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not
re-use this information for any commercial purpose.
You may be interested to know that Northumbria Police routinely publish
information via the Disclosure Log. The aim of the Disclosure Log is to
promote openness and transparency by voluntarily placing information into
the public arena.
The Disclosure Log contains copies of some of the information that has
been disclosed by Northumbria Police in response to requests made under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Whilst it is not possible to publish all responses we will endeavour to
publish those where we feel that the information disclosed is in the wider
public interest.
The Disclosure Log will be updated once responses have been sent to the
requester.
I have provided the relevant link below.
[1]http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...
How to complain
If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have
handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue
informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our
complaints procedure, attached below
[2]http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...
If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and
reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information
Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain
whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.
Yours sincerely
Michael Cleugh
Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor
Direct Dial: 0191 2956941
[NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED]
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References
Visible links
1. http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...
2. http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...
Martin McGartland
23 January 2018
Dear Freedom of Information Mailbox,
You claim; "I can advise that when considered together, your 3 requests far exceed the
permitted 18 hours and therefore Section 12 is applicable. Both FOI
003/18 and FOI 001/18 in their own right exceed the permitted 18 hour
threshold As per our comment in FOI 001/18, the reason for each refusal will be
dealt with separately, and with regards to this request I respond as
below: To provide a response to your whole request would require us to search,
retrieve, examine and consider the content of all email accounts, and any
other locations where correspondence including, faxes and letters that
might be held. There will be a considerable number of emails sent between
Northumbria Police and the IPCC. Bearing in mind we currently have an
approximate total of 4679 police officers and police staff, which we would
also have to consider them in checking their personal mailboxes as well as
checking departmental mailboxes. We have estimated to do so would far
exceed the permitted time constraints for e mails alone. Additionally,
further time would then be needed to search through other routes where
such correspondence may have taken. As we have estimated that to extract
this information would take over the permitted 18 hours, Section 12(1) of
the Freedom of Information Act would apply. This section does not oblige
a public authority to comply with a request for information if the
authority estimated that the cost of complying with the request would
exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, equating to £450.00
You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the
Act for that part of your request. When applying Section 12 exemption our duty to assist under Section 16 of
the Act would normally entail that we contact you to determine whether it
is possible to refine the scope of your request "
I can confirm that I will refine the scope of those requests to this request only. The information relating to this request (which relates to up to £80,000.00) will be held within your PSD and should be known to them.
I am clear that NP are using (and abusing) Section 12, in this case, to avoid difficult questions. / requests , such as this. NP must act in the public interest, not in their own, and disclose details relating to this request. There is a strong public interest as this request relates to issues that go to the heart of public trust and confidence in the police. Also, the taxpayer is entitled to now how public money is spent. NP have an obligation to to account for all monies spent/ And to be transparent with the pubic it serves.
Yours sincerely,
Martin McGartland
Dear Mr McGartland,
With regards to your email below. You have said the following;
'I can confirm that I will refine the scope of those requests to this request only. The information relating to this request (which relates to up to £80,000.00) will be held within your PSD and should be known to them.'
Can you please be specific as to what you are now asking? It is noted that we were not able to advise what could be extracted within the time limits, your refinements may therefore still not avoid this exemption. It should also be noted that other exemption may still be applicable.
Once we receive clarity, we may be able to offer a response.
Regards,
Information Management Unit
Dear Freedom of Information Mailbox,
I have already listed, above, the documents and information I am requesting;
This request relates to allegations of an £80,000.00 fraud, fiddled and our exaggerated expenses / overtime claims, from public funds and which has been published in press (see below Fyi).
Under FOIA 2000, and in the public interest, I am requesting;
1. copies of all correspondence between Northumbria Police (including its chief and senior officers - head of PSD) and the IPCC (including Commissioner Carl Gumsley.
2. copies of all correspondence between Ronnie Campbell, Labour MP for Blyth and Northumbria Police (including its chief and senior officers - head of PSD).
This request is for copies of all correspondence which relates to this matter, that already reported in the press. Please disclose copies of all original documents.
PLEASE NOTE: The information I have requested is for that which was held by NP at the time when I made this original request. I say this because I am aware that NP have a policy which means they can delete records, documents and conceal the information elsewhere . I refer to the latest Sunday Times, Daily Mail story relating to former ACC Vant, the arrest of his son and all records of the arrest being deleted deleted from NP logs.
Yours sincerely,
Martin McGartland
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)
Thank you for your email received today in which you make a request for information that Northumbria Police may hold in accordance with the Freedom Of Information Act 2000
We are in the process of dealing with your request and a response should be provided to you by 23/02/2018 which is in accordance with the legislation.
Yours sincerely
Information Management Unit
Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
Thank you for your e mail dated 25^th January 2018 in which you made a
request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria
Police.
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of
access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority
(including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
This request relates to allegations of an £80,000.00 fraud, fiddled and
our exaggerated expenses / overtime claims, from public funds and which
has been published in press (see below Fyi).
Under FOIA 2000, and in the public interest, I am requesting;
1. copies of all correspondence between Northumbria Police (including its
chief and senior officers - head of PSD) and the IPCC (including
Commissioner Carl Gumsley.
2. copies of all correspondence between Ronnie Campbell, Labour MP for
Blyth and Northumbria Police (including its chief and senior officers -
head of PSD).
This request is for copies of all correspondence which relates to this
matter, that already reported in the press. Please disclose copies of all
original documents.
PLEASE NOTE: The information I have requested is for that which was held
by NP at the time when I made this original request. I say this because I
am aware that NP have a policy which means they can delete records,
documents and conceal the information elsewhere . I refer to the latest
Sunday Times, Daily Mail story relating to former ACC Vant, the arrest of
his son and all records of the arrest being deleted deleted from NP logs.
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I
provide a response for your attention.
This request is identical to the one you submitted on 2^nd January 2018 –
FOI 011/18 refers – to which we responded on the 22^nd January 2018 that
to search for all the information you were looking for in that particular
request would exceed the 18 hours and therefore Section 12 was
applicable. To avoid doubt your questions submitted at 011/18 and the
response we gave you to that request is provided below in italics.
This request relates to allegations of an £80,000.00 fraud, fiddled and
our exaggerated expenses / overtime claims, from public funds and which
has been published in press.
Under FOIA 2000, and in the public interest, I am requesting;
1. copies of all correspondence between Northumbria Police (including its
chief and senior officers - head of PSD) and the IPCC (including
Commissioner Carl Gumsley.
2. copies of all correspondence between Ronnie Campbell, Labour MP for
Blyth and Northumbria Police (including its chief and senior officers -
head of PSD).
This request is for copies of all correspondence which relates to this
matter, that already reported in the press. Please disclose copies of all
original documents.
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I
provide a response for your attention.
You have submitted 3 requests on the same day for information regarding
the misconduct of police officers/police staff. As per our
acknowledgements to you for FOIs 003/18 and 001/18 , we advised that, as
your requests were on the same subject matter, Misconduct of police
officers or staff, your requests would be aggregated due to cost/time
constraints .
I can advise that when considered together, your 3 requests far exceed the
permitted 18 hours and therefore Section 12 is applicable. Both FOI
003/18 and FOI 001/18 in their own right exceed the permitted 18 hour
threshold.
As per our comment in FOI 001/18, the reason for each refusal will be
dealt with separately, and with regards to this request I respond as
below:
To provide a response to your whole request would require us to search,
retrieve, examine and consider the content of all email accounts, and any
other locations where correspondence including, faxes and letters that
might be held. There will be a considerable number of emails sent between
Northumbria Police and the IPCC. Bearing in mind we currently have an
approximate total of 4679 police officers and police staff, which we would
also have to consider them in checking their personal mailboxes as well as
checking departmental mailboxes. We have estimated to do so would far
exceed the permitted time constraints for e mails alone. Additionally,
further time would then be needed to search through other routes where
such correspondence may have taken. As we have estimated that to extract
this information would take over the permitted 18 hours, Section 12(1) of
the Freedom of Information Act would apply. This section does not oblige
a public authority to comply with a request for information if the
authority estimated that the cost of complying with the request would
exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, equating to £450.00
You should consider this to be a refusal notice under Section 17 of the
Act for that part of your request.
When applying Section 12 exemption our duty to assist under Section 16 of
the Act would normally entail that we contact you to determine whether it
is possible to refine the scope of your request to bring it within the
cost limits. However, from the information we have outlined above I am
unable to suggest a refinement that would bring the request within the
cost threshold to provide a definitive response.
On the 25^th January you then submitted the same identical request as FOI
011/18, - FOI 121/18 now refers - and therefore our response to you is the
same as we gave to you at 011/18, that is the information requested cannot
be provided within the 18 hour threshold for the reasons already outlined
in your response to 011/18.
In FOI 011/18 we also advised:
Additionally we have reached a point where we can no longer justify
continuing to allocate public funds to dealing with your requests. You
have submitted numerous requests of a similar nature in a short period of
time relating to allegations, complaints and disciplinary processes made
against Northumbria Police. Each response is met with a further request or
a request for an internal review. It is apparent that you have an ongoing
grievance against Northumbria Police. FOI is not the correct route to air
such grievances, and is a misuse of the Act. We therefore feel that we
have justification to make any further request on this subject
vexatious.
We therefore are now advising that any further submissions made by you on
such subject matters will not be acknowledged or responded to as we are
now discharging our duties to do so under S14(1).
You are also aware of this decision as per our response to FOI 080/18
Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a
specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an
indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another.
Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the
procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses
between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative
purposes.
The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual
property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be
strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as
amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not
re-use this information for any commercial purpose.
You may be interested to know that Northumbria Police routinely publish
information via the Disclosure Log. The aim of the Disclosure Log is to
promote openness and transparency by voluntarily placing information into
the public arena.
The Disclosure Log contains copies of some of the information that has
been disclosed by Northumbria Police in response to requests made under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Whilst it is not possible to publish all responses we will endeavour to
publish those where we feel that the information disclosed is in the wider
public interest.
The Disclosure Log will be updated once responses have been sent to the
requester.
I have provided the relevant link below.
[1]http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...
How to complain
If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have
handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue
informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our
complaints procedure, attached below
[2]http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...
If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and
reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information
Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain
whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.
Yours sincerely
Michael Cleugh
Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor
Direct Dial: 0191 2956941
[NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED]
References
Visible links
1. http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...
2. http://www.northumbria.police.uk/freedom...
Martin McGartland (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
25 Years of Serious CORRUPTION by Northumbria Police - from the very Top down - in the Martin McGartland cases ....
Read more:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/dufferpad/v...
Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/search?content_ty...
Google: https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=h...
.............................................
Martin McGartland (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
These are just three (of the many cases) in which former State (Mi5, RUC / PSNI / Special Branch and Army) agents who gave their all in the fight against terror only to have been abandoned by those they so loyally served, MI5, RUC, PSNI, Special Branch, Army and State:
Case 1: Former agent Raymond Gilmour:
The RUC (special branch) and Mi5 - State - Do indeed forget about their former agents as soon as that agent has out lived his / her usefulness.
Case 1: Former agent Raymond Gilmour [who gave his all in the fight against terror] was abandoned by RUC /PSNI / Special Branch / Mi5 and State. Sadly Raymond has since died. See further informers here, below link; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F89TyMAj...
Case 2: Former agent Martin McGartland:
Former undercover agent Martin McGartland abandoned by Mi5 / RUC / PSNI / Special Branch and State.....
The RUC (special branch) and Mi5 - State - Do indeed forget about their former agents as soon as that agent has out lived his / her usefulness.
Martin McGartland has faced [Failed] attempts by MI5, Police and Special Branch to to stich him up as well as false arrests, malicious prosecutions and much more. Martin has been left permanently disabled as a result of his 1999 shooting by IRA (as a direct result of MI5, Police and state Vendetta and negligence and withdrawal of medical treatment ) .... See further informers here, below link;
https://youtu.be/i3O0CQPSKf0
Case 3 - former undercover Kevin Fulton abandoned by Mi5 / RUC / PSNI / Special Branch and State. The RUC (special branch) and Mi5 - State - Do indeed forget about their former agents as soon as that agent has out lived his / her usefulness. More information here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep2x7mDQ...
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Martin McGartland (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
Northumbria Police (NP) malicious / false ‘vexatious’ claims (their Lies) are nothing new. NP have been using and abusing same by to cover up their gross misconduct – and misfeasance in public office by their Bent officers who are (and were) involved in the Martin McGartland's cases. They having been lying about ‘vexatious’ for more than 7 years, see ICO 2011 decision notice in which they found that request was NOT ‘vexatious’,
https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...
NP, Winton Keenen will say (and do) anything to cover up their corruption in the Martin McGartland cases.