2006/7/8         Who is behind this extraordinary protection of the neighbours and Carmarthen Council's planning officers? 


With such deceit and cover-up of planning 'favours' being given to these people, coming from Carmarthen Council's Head of Planning, and the cover-up by the now former CEO, the avoidance by officers to answer questions it begs the question what is being hidden here and why are we being stigmatised.

A still picture taken from the actual CCTV footage of AT coming onto our property.

Dai Thomas (ex Detective Inspector) from Police Complaints was visiting us regularly - on average three times per month over three years, and spent hours of his time with us.   Needless to say we got to know him very well and he knew us also, very well.  I have many quotes recorded in my diaries of his comments when with us, regarding police conduct and his commitment to us that all would be honestly acted upon and that his final report would be condemnatory of the police.   It absolutely should have been.


During these deeply upsetting times I had meetings with various Inspectors where I would produce clear evidence of bias towards us with police officers accepting obvious untruths from the Thomases where they failed to investigate, but I was always the one to be arrested.   When I made an allegation supplying video or cctv footage of criminal damage, even eye witnesses, staggeringly the Thomases were never arrested! It is eye opening as it would be obvious to all and sundry that unless these people were stopped from intimidating and threatening us, as they had done to others who had lived here before us, it was going to continue.  We were suffering dreadfully as we lived here on our own, two pensioners with no family around us, but the neighbours on the other hand were part of a large group of men and were extremely menacing.

The police also failed time and again to view the Thomases own CCTV, even though they always viewed mine.  Had they viewed their CCTV they would have witnessed the criminal conduct which should have put a stop to the harassment of us.  They didn't want to see it!.   The Police and Crime Commissioner had visited our cottage to see for himself  how isolated and cut off we were, which left us vulnerable to all manner of false allegations from our neighbours. He at least was sympathetic but had no control over policing matters. That was for senior police officers


These were very frightening times as with Carmarthen Council's officers treating us with disdain adding to our suffering - so did the police.  I will always believe someone senior in this council was abusing their power and using undue influence to have me discredited, and the more arrests of me, the less support I had, and with the obvious mear campaign raging against me by the council, with accusations of 'these people are troublemakers' 'these people are being malicious' these people are making unfounded complaints'  and more, coupled with exceedingly biased and strange comments from police officers themselves such as 'why don't you stop complaining then you wouldn't be arrested' and 'why do you put your sunchairs where the neighbours can see them'. and more... It was quite obviously discrimination and persecution of us.


The theory behind the false arrests was obviously to discredit me in order to invalidate all I was accusing the council of, but in reality it didn't work due to the filmed evidence I held which totally discredited their actions and eventually with the help of the media also, they were exposed for the devious means being used.  No-one has ever been held to account.


 I had meetings with the Police and Crime Commissioner to discuss how and why the police were ignoring our plight and defending the neighbours against all evidence that screamed abuse of us.  I didn't go empty handed, I always provided unambiguous evidence.  I never relied upon ' he said she said'.   There was a marked difference in how the police treated us and how they treated the Thomases, it was unmistakable.


 11th September 06   I looked at my CCTV as I almost always did in the morning, when I would normally see the five bar gate and the top of our driveway,  but all I saw was leaves.  I walked up to where the camera was and it had been twisted around now facing the hedge.  I ran the footage back to and was shocked to see Andrew Thomas entering our property at  5.52 a.m. and as he passed the small camera, pushed it sideways so that it was facing into the bushes.   This obviously meant we wouldn't have any idea how long he had been lurking around our property for, nor what he had been doing!

 

Dai Thomas happened to be visiting that very day, and when he arrived I duly showed him the footage.   As I hadn't put it onto disc yet, he viewed it directly from the camera. This meant it was as clear as a bell and it was plainly Andrew Thomas. He was rightly alarmed on our behalf and advised me to report it to the police - which I did. He also told me to report suspected criminal damage.  I still have the records.  Needless to say by now I knew that no matter what the Thomases did they were above the law and no action was ever going to be taken against them, and I said as much to Dai Thomas.


Let us remember I was being arrested on someones frivolous accusations with with zero evidence. (six in all)  It was deeply distressing, disturbing, and left me believing that no matter what the Thomases intentions against us were they would always be protected against the law.  I did ask how is it you can arrest me without evidence - the answer was  - if your neighbour accuses you of anything at all we can arrest you.  That was that then!  Strange it didn't ever happen in reverse. 

The protection at this level for the Thomases raises huge questions as to who was behind the targetting of us, me in particular.   Throughout 2006 I had reported countless incidents of severe intimidation.   There were no consequences for the neighburs leaving them to carry out more threats without fear of the law.


 January 2008    Civil case..............

At last. We were in court to have the maliciously erected gates removed and to have our Right of Way widened to a reasonable width.     Success would mean we would not be molested in this area any more, and hopefully much of the intimidation would also be stopped, not just against ourselves but also friends and visitors could also visit without being abused which often took the form of filming them or shouting across at them. 

The case was resolved via our solicitors without going into court.   The outcome was that the intimidation had to cease - the Right of Way had to be widened to a sensible width and the gates had to be removed.  We didn't manage to get the crash barriers removed., however, such relief!  At least part of our nightmare, hopefully, was over.  We could now drive in and out in relative peace.  

During these months Dai Thomas our Police Complaints Officer was continuing to visit us writing up his report on incidents whilst telling us that police officers were acting agsinst us and were clerly displaying bias towards us.

I would ask him why this investigation into our complaints was taking so long as our initial complaints were now almost three years old.    His explanation was that due to ongoing incidents between us and our neighbours meant his investigation would continue.   It was nonsense as we found out later.    Our solicitors were alarmed to say the least that this was dragging on for so long.  It was yet another ploy to keep us floundering, to use a way of denying us any justice for what was taking place here, to allow the Thomases to continue threatening us as they were never even spoken to, and he was part of that conspiracy as we later found out.  It became quite obvious that the police were just another arm of Carmarthen council.

I had absolute faith in Dai Thomas and would always ask him if I was wrong to assume the police were not carrying out their duties as I needed to know if I was being paranoid, not seeing things clearly as I should, as being under such a strain that could be possible, but each and every time he would assure me I was not wrong, the police were most definitely failing us and his report would be reflecting that fact.  He showed me how to make a log for myself in order to protet myself from lies and deceit from police officers, and gave me the entire list of 'storm logs' to enable me to put together a comprehensive very detailed trail of daily events involving all police officers who called upon us, time they visit, what they said, what they did, or didn't do, and the outcomes of all that had been logged.  It did ultimately protect me from the most appalling lies that did eventually surface.  He allowed me to see letters and internal emails that were relevent and were also damning of the police.  He spoke openly about other senior officers and how he viewed them. This of course gave us confidence in his support of us.

Was it all part of giving us false hope and confidence in him, or was he genuine and his report was finally written up by someone else?? 

Every step of the way the same pattern has been adopted.  Keep everything dragging on- keep paperwork mounting -keep their minds full of 'did they didnt they will they wont they' - but give no answers.  It has been the most horrendous phsychological abuse of one person against an army of artillery consisting of legal experts firing off deceit - police force persecution - CPSabuse of  power - and brute force from the neighbours.   This is what I've been up against for years, on my own.   All the while being threatened and severely intimidated on a daily basis with no intervention from any agency. We were on our own and at everyones mercy. Three years later in 2008 Dai Thomas's report finally came to fruition.   It was everything that was a betrayal of all he had been telling us over the three years he'd been visiting.  He'd found nothing wrong with how the police had behaved towards us in his report, even though the clear evidence spoke a different language.   

Worst of all he wrote an entire page on the incident of the neighbour coming onto our property at 5.52 a.m. in the morning.

If there is anything at all that would make anyone doubt that this report was a total travesty this was it.  

Where is the mop of white hair?

He wrote in his report- that it wasn't our neighbour at all as seen in the CCTV footage, going back on every word he uttered at the time,  that it was Eddie, and we had conspired and planned this whole episode.  We were devastated.  This was a man who knew the truth as he'd been coming here for three years, had lunch with us on many occasions, had invited us to visit him at home and more.  He had befriended us and we trusted him implicitly.  He had also viewed reams of footage on our neighbours activities and had seen my neighbour walking down this right of way countless times which meant, as a police officer, he would have noticed his gait - surely?  He knew the build of the man, the fact he had no hair on the top of his head only a band around the lower part, the clothing he wore, as it was the same blue kbhs t-shirt every single day - with the same trousers tied with a belt.  He also knew he walked slightly knock-kneed throwing his left out as he walked.    He'd seen this a hundred times in the years he'd visited us.

Eddie had exceedingly thick white curly hair, wore glasses, and his gait was entirely different. CCTV at night will make eyes glow as one has seen in animals caught on camera.  As my neighbour passed the camera the infra red picked up his eyes and Dai Thomas wrote this was proof it was Eddie as the person in the footage was wearing glasses and Eddie wears glasses. 

Where was the white hair, where were the glasses Eddie always wore.   Eddie would have had to have worn some form of head covering in order to cover up his mop of hair.  His glasses would have been very obvious from an infra red camera and so on, and if we'd plotted this whole charade, why would Eddie have even worn his glasses if petending to be Andrew Thomas who doesn't?  It was so preposterous and laughable, it read like something out of a childrens comic book.


He also wrote that the man in the video was wearing a beige coloured  t-shirt with dark trousers, held with a belt and he said Eddie often wore a light shirt with dark trousers and used a belt.  This was coming out of the mouth of an ex Detective Inspector.  How on earth could you tell from this footage the t-shirt was 'beige'.   As everybody knows infra red actually reverses colours. i.e. a dark shirt can look light and vice versa it also picks up on fabric and can distort light from dark accordingly.    This footage was in black and white.   This was such a blatant falsification of the truth this man should have been sacked on the spot. 
  
We actually made a reconstruction of this incident to show how Eddies hair could never be concealed, how his gait was entirely different and the clothes Dai Thomas accused Eddie of wearing in the film footage were in fact reversed from the colouring of the clothing A Thomas was wearing.  

It was the most shocking example of wilfull perversion of the truth by the police and a total betryal of us I have ever been involved in on a personal level.
  

Most importantly questions should have been raised as to who was behind this flagrant corrupt version of events to smear our names - again!.  Who on earth was behind this dirty business taking place next door to us, as it could not have been clearer this was everything to do with the protection of the neighbours and their involvment with Carmarthen council, and why this most perverse conduct by an ex Detectve Inspector who had pretended to be our friend. 

Needless to say I spoke with cctv experts and was willing to pay over a thousand pounds to have this verified as my neighbour.  They can look at the gait of a person and can take visual images of faces and determine it was most definitely not Eddie but our neighbour.   Of course, Dai Thomas knew that anyway.  What a despicable callous act to play out on two people who were already suffering the most appalling discrimination from those in authority, but he has to live with what he did. 

I never did have to pay to have the footage analysed,  as the video evidence was accepted as genuine by the Police Commissioner and the Chief constable.   Dai Thomas was never reprimanded over his blatant lies and his attempt at perverting the course of justice for falsely accusing us of plotting a scene that anyone would realise would be impossible to do unless you were a film maker and expert in infra red images.  It became  part of the apology I eventually received from Dyfed Powys Police. 

Dai Thomas is now retired thank goodness, as he can do no more harm to innocent people. It begs the question though how much harm  his lies may caused to innocent people over the years he has served as a police officer.   It is hugely frightening that such people are allowed to work within the police force.   It should never happen to anyone.

It was manifestly clear that something quite sinister was taking place against us.   It was more smear to discredit us. My question throughout this fifteen of deceit, lies, smear, conspiracies to thwart every attempt I have made to have the truth exposed, by people in positions of power and influence who we are led to believe we should trust, is WHY?  What has taken place at Blaenpant and with whom?  It has been and still is extraordinary! 

There will be more to come!

  

2007    Friends step in.......



The CEO and his Head of Planning might have put me on a gagging order but friends took up the gauntlet and continued advising them of the shenanigans and malpractice which was continuing to be ignored. 

The council had not achieved the silence they so desperately wanted as they still had to answer letters and questions from people who were not on their archaic policy. 

It would have been far easier for the council to admit their failings, follow procedures and planning regulations and take some form of action to curtail the industrial operations which should never have been allowed to begin in the first instance, but how could they; this would be an admission that officers were deliberately failing in their statutory duties, favouring a particular individual which according to their own Code of Conduct is corrupt practice.  Very serious. 

To give 'favour' to an individual is to be 'corrupt'.  That is written into officers Code of Conduct.  If  it is not favour when an officer is overlooking and assisting in wilful breaches of planning regultions, then what is it? 

Part of Officers Code of conduct       

13.0 Corruption

13.1 Employees must be aware that it is a serious criminal offence for them corruptly to receive or give any gift, loan, fee, reward or advantage for doing, or not doing anything or showing favour, or disfavour, to any person in their official capacity. Allegations of this nature will be investigated/dealt with in accordance with the Council’s disciplinary procedure.

Head of Planning E Bowen's rehearsed phrase would always be.....    a..... there is no evidence of haulage or anything else....... b.......I only saw one lorry......c.......I didn't see anything that was shown on your video footage  or  even if there were three or four lorries there , it wouldn't be expedient to take any action....

It is unbelievable!

It was perfectly plain for all to realise that shady deals had taken place and from that there is no going back.  During a chance meeting with E Bowen I pointed out to him that it was quite apparent he had taken a road of no return.      The deceit and flagrant lies coming from this council's officers could only be attributed to 'special arrangements'. 

On his site visits to Blaenpant E Bowen couldn't see any sign of haulage operations even tho our filmed evidence proved otherwise. He couldn't see thirty coloured horses in a shed which would have warranted a change of use  - he couldn't see any signs of maintenance on HGVs even though our filmed evidence showed otherwise - he couldn't see signs of quarrying even tho our filmed evidence showed otherwise, and according to him, the scrapped vehicles and other pieces of junk on another area of agricultural land was all 'agricultural equipment'.  

The Head of Planning was carrying out site visits to this area (see picture) due to many complaints of a burgeoning scrap site and witnessed this huge pile of material being laid.   Instead of enforcing against the obvious, he just turned another blind eye allowing it to be laid as a hardstand on agricultural land; no questions asked of the landowner.  

This was agricultural land adjacent to a Special Site of Scientific Interest and undoubtedly required planning permission.  The evidence of scrap was unmistakable and given the council's own files housing many complaints of haulage, quarrying and lack of agriculture this required urgent action from the council's Head of Planning.  

Beginnings of a scrap yard.

He wrote - these pieces of metal were going to be 'pens for livestock'.    I personally don't believe these flimsy pieces of metal would hold any form of farm livestock and whats more there was no livestock at Blaenpant as he was fully aware. 

He wrote -  a scrapped fire engine was agricultural equipment because............."it can be used to hose down a yard area".  I had to point out to him that to use a fire engine to hose down a yard, it's tanks would have to be filled first and foremost by the 'very tap' on the yard, (unless you are going to attach the fire engine to your kitchen tap) which is normally used for hosing down the yard!!     He wrote the scrapped flo gas containers were for catching rainwater.   Again I had to point out that this would have required literally horizontal rain for these containers to catch rainwater, as their only small opening was at one end, not on top!! 

It is such shocking deceitful underhandedness coming from a Head of the Planning Department and warrants serious investigation.  His cover-up for all he allowed to take place is in my view criminal conduct.    Somebody else had to suffer for these abuses of the system and it was us!!!    For a supposedly intelligent individual to be spouting such utter nonsense proves beyond any doubt cover-up and duplicity.

A growing scrap yard

As we were now on the council's gagging policy 'reviews' should have been regularly taking place in order that we were not being treated disproportionately and prejudicially.   We absolutely were. We had valid complaints as borne out by two former owners of our property who had also complained about these terrible disturbances from Blaenpant and who had subsequently been driven out by severe intimidation and harassment.   As well as that several others had also complained to the council, before we had ever heard of Pantycastell Fach and Blaenpant.   It is clear that our complaints and evidence deserved action.  What was also clear was the council's lies and deceit.  We were being treated with utter contempt by this authority.

A Fresh Issue

My point of contact was Dave Gilbert (Director of Regeneration) who was ignoring all correspondence fro me.  However, according to CCCs gagging policy 'fresh issues' must be addressed.

Following two weeks of horrendous noise and the obvious creating of yet another very large hardstand - this time facing us, I wrote to my sole point of contact as I was deeply concerned as to what this area was going to be used for given that this was an unauthorised haulage yard with HGVs in abundance and zero agricuture.  I duly informed him of the engineering works and asked if planning permissions had been obtained.     No reply!      These works continued.  Two weeks later I reminded Dave Gilbert I had written to him on a 'fresh issue' and could he please respond.    No reply!.  This hardstand was by now practically finished and it was a substantial area and yet another eyesore for us.   I wrote again to my sole point of contact - the Director of Regeneration Dave Gilbert reminding him I had now informed him twice of this obvious 'fresh issue' and that according to his own policy it must be addressed and I needed to know if planning permission had been obtained.   His response was typical of how a corrupt organisation operates. He totally ignored the subject of my correspondence and simply wrote  'all issues had been addressed and there would be no further responses on this matter'. thus leaving me with unanswered, valid, questions and clearly this huge hardstand did not have the planning permission it obviously required.  Another 'favour'.

I tried asking him to elaborate on his ambiguous answer, but of course he wouldn't nor couldn't.  Honesty is not something one can expect from this council.     The corrupt planning continues unabated and unimpeded for my neighbour and we are watching on as our property becomes ever more blighted.

Another yard area with no planning consent.

Dave Gilbert should hang his head in shame - he is part of this culture of deceit and cover-up - and paid handsomely for being what he is!

(He went on to receive an OBE and became a member of the advisory board for the
Port Talbot Waterfront Enterprise Zone).

He was criticised heavily by the Ombudsman for his part in this charade.

The Ombudsman's advisor said (in report) 'the fact that enforcement action is discretionary and used only when it is expedient, should not be taken as condoning the wilful breaches of plannng control'. 

The life we had planned was in ruins and we were now existing in a most miserable, depressing and hopeless life that officers of this council had forced upon us, with no escape.   The abiding question must be...'why is this council's officers aiding and abetting so many wilful breaches of planning?


Lessons must be learned by all who knew our lives were in tatters due to their council's officers wilfully aiding and abetting a plethora of dodgy planning abuses.