Croydon Council has back-tracked over releasing documents, despite a direction from the Information Commissioner, but not before some vital details were made public.
By STEVEN DOWNES, Editor of Inside Croydon
Jo Negrini, Croydon’s controversial former chief exec, had legal staff from the cash-strapped council spending their valuable time monitoring this website’s reports for at least six months before her ill-advised, and failed, threats of libel action, all part of a co-ordinated attempt to close down this website.
‘Undermined’: Jo ‘Negreedy’ Negrini, the former £220,000 per year council CEO who used public resources to pursue a campaign to close down this website
According to council correspondence seen by Inside Croydon, senior members of their legal team expressed concern that this website’s articles “appear at the least to be… undermining of the CEO”. Poor dear.
We have been unable to find any record of the offence of “undermining” ever being on the statute book of English law.
After a year-long battle to obtain the correspondence between council officials and London solicitors Harbottle and Lewis, some documents were eventually, grudgingly, released under a Freedom of Information request.
Despite the council’s legal department’s strenuous efforts to block the FoI request, enough material was released to show clearly that Negrini and Tony Newman, the discredited former leader of the council, had their threats of libel action facilitated and paid for by the council – despite the law specifically forbidding public money being used to try to defend the reputations of councillors and council staff.
Inside Croydon reported last week that Croydon Council paid £25,000 to the Queen’s solicitors, Harbottle and Lewis, after they had sent letters threatening dire consequences over this website’s coverage of Newman and Negrini in late 2019 and early 2020.
Inside Croydon completely rejected all claims made on behalf of the council chief executive and leader, which we characterised at the time as a clearly co-ordinated effort to try to shut down the only independent news site in the borough.
But other documents obtained by this website show that council officials under Negrini were conducting a trawl through the website’s archives going back for at least two years, with an email to Harbottle and Lewis from September 2019 highlighting those articles which might have “undermined” the CEO.
Cover up: Tony Newman
All the articles mentioned in the solicitors’ complaints which were sent on behalf of Newman and Negrini remain published, unaltered, on this website.
In the case of our reporting of Newman’s failure to go to the police over a violent sexual assault against a young woman by one of his councillor colleagues, this website had a public interest defence prepared and was ready to give evidence in the High Court.
The council’s legal work was carried out under the direction of Jacqueline Harris-Baker, then the council’s most senior in-house lawyer, and Sean Murphy, effectively her deputy.
In using the council’s legal department’s time and resources, and by hiring Harbottle and Lewis, it seems very likely that Harris-Baker and Murphy, together with Newman and Negrini, were all acting in contravention of The Local Authorities (Indemnities for Members and Officers) Order 2004, article 6 (3).
Since 1993, it has been the law that local authorities are not allowed to sue for defamation.
Yet documents released to iC under the FoI show that Negrini’s staff were under direction to monitor this website’s output for months before the first Harbottle and Lewis letter was despatched.
One email, dated September 30, 2019, was sent to Harbottle and Lewis under the subject heading “Confidential – Enquiry regarding new instruction”.
The email as released under the FoI is, like most of the documents provided by the “open and transparent” council, heavily redacted,with large sections blocked out.
‘Undermining’: One of the heavily redacted documents which were released under FoI after the Information Commissioner’s intervention, before the council had a change of mind
It refers to four attachments, which the council failed to provide. And it included what appeared to be a list, which the council also decided to withhold.
But when pressed, Nicola Thoday, the council solicitor handling the FoI request, later provided the list of articles which Harbottle and Lewis had been tasked with checking.
Inside Croydon has always taken great care over the accuracy of our reporting, and also sought to expose the frequently questionable actions of senior council figures.
Take a look at the list of articles provided to Harbottle and Lewis two years ago and consider why Negrini and her senior colleagues might have felt uncomfortable about the information within them being in the public domain:
The Godfather: Croydon official hired friend on £787 per day
Council CEO confirms ‘The Godfather’ paid chum £787 per day
Private Eye makes a 999 police call over ‘The Godfather’
Negrini ‘misinformed’ over data security says whistle-blower
And Muslims excluded from Croydon’s Remembrance service
Some might consider it odd that the council lawyers didn’t ask Harbottle and Lewis for their expert opinion on an additional article…
Suffice to say, Inside Croydon has never been contacted by Harbottle and Lewis about any of the above articles which, thanks to council whistleblowers, unearthed a massive scandal within Negrini’s operation. Negrini’s council’s immediate response was to try to track down the whistleblowers, rather than to take disciplinary action against Cadle and his two mates who profited hugely at the Council Tax-payer’s expense.
The documents only became publicly available following a direction from the Information Commissioner to release all correspondence between Harris-Baker, Murphy, Newman, Negrini and Harbottle and Lewis.
Sean Murphy: council lawyer blocked release of documents which showed his part in hiring libel solicitors
In an email from solicitor Nicola Thoday, dated February 11 this year, it was admitted that the council had been over-zealous in deliberately withholding – and redacting – information that properly should be released as part of our Subject Access Request.
“Although sometimes this information could be privileged, in this case, given the age of the email and articles, the public interest in release outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.
“A key consideration when analysing this situation is that I (on behalf of Croydon Council) am keen to show that the council should be transparent and accountable in all matters, especially in the current financial and political climate,” Thoday wrote at the time.
“To date, the council has made mistakes when handling your requests and I hope that this Subject Access Review will be a step in rebuilding a positive relationship with you.”
Two weeks later, Thoday wrote again, promising to provide a third batch of emails and documents that had been compiled and prepared ready for release.
Jacqueline Harris-Baker: Borough Solicitor has faced no disciplinary action
Those documents were never sent.
Instead, Thoday was ordered to conduct a “review”, and six months later she would advise that no more documents will be released. So much for “rebuilding a positive relationship”.
Today, Thoday maintained that she has decided that all the requested documents are now “exempt” from release under FoI, under client privilege.
That’s the very same excuse for non-disclosure which was used when Sean Murphy was overseeing our Freedom of Information request – for documents which would expose that Murphy and his boss, Jacqueline Harris-Baker, had advised Negrini, the council CEO, to act in contravention of the law by getting the Council Tax-payers to foot the bill for their expensive libel lawyers.
Negrini, of course, left Croydon Council in August 2020 with a £440,000 pay-off, another Inside Croydon exclusive that the self-described “regeneration practitioner” probably regarded as being “undermining” of her.
Newman was forced to stand down as leader of the council he helped to bankrupt in October last year, ultimately resigning as a councillor, too.
Harris-Baker quit her job this year, and Murphy, too, has sought alternative employment.
None of them have ever been subject to any disciplinary action, whether for the roles that they played in the council’s financial crash, nor for their part in potentially abusing their power and positions to in contravention of the Local Authorities (Indemnities for Members and Officers) Order 2004.
Indeed, despite their departures, it seems that the same closed and secretive culture of cover-up remains at Croydon Council.
In explaining the about-face over the release of documents, Thoday, the council lawyer who six months ago had claimed that she was “keen to show that the council should be transparent and accountable in all matters”, is now responding with what might be seen by some to be a veiled threat.
“The council must reserve its position regarding any future action it may wish to take,” Thoday wrote.
Inside Croydon, meanwhile, continues to welcome insights and tip-offs, documents and leads on all matters relating to the running of Croydon Council and the spending of Council Tax-payers’ money.
Read more: Council paid £25,000 for legal threats against Inside Croydon
Read more: Council forced to pay (Sandwell) blogger’s £50,000 legal costs
Read more: Commissioner orders council to answer FoI over libel threats
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
- ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named the country’s rottenest borough in 2020 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine – the fourth successive year that Inside Croydon has been the source for such award-winning nominations
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The whole debacle becomes sicker and sicker, and we, council tax payers, foot the bill while the people concerned seem to get away with it. Nobody is ever brought to account or even questioned publically under the council transparency rules. Is it not possible, somehow, to take these people to court and even ask for recovery of money incorrectly, or is it illegally spent?
I’ve experienced the same thing – the Council refusing to release documents, directing me to online sources that do not contain the information and sending letters from the solicitor warning me off taking them to court.
Croydon owes a huge debt of gratitude to Steven Downes’ Inside Croydon for fearlessly researching and revealing the horrible truths about how our council has been run.
No other journalist or news source has dug into what’s been going on at our expense.
If the the municipal mafia had managed to hide the facts or nobody had bothered to lift the lid, Tony Newman might still be council leader, Jo Negrini might still be Chief Executive and their shit show would continue unabated.
The exposés serve as a reminder that councillors and officers are paid by us to serve us. They also act as a warning to anyone else who would like to try the same sorts of stunts – truth will out.
You’re confused here. Councillors are not paid to serve residents; they are given a payment to cover legitimate expenses and other costs.
Only 26% of councillors are in full or part-time employment alongside their council duties. Of this 26%, 81% are members of the Conservative Party.
In Spain councillors are given big salaries, it’s attracts higher quality candidates, constituents are served much better.
I once received a legal letter from a Croydon Councillor – a prime dumb fuck, in my opinion.
He was in breach of the Guidance on Local Government Association Model Councillor Code of Conduct that he had signed up to – Ie
Misuse of resources and facilities:
7.1 I do not misuse local authority resources.
7.2 I will, when using the resources of the local authority or authorising their use by others:
act in accordance with the local authority’s requirements; and (this is the important bit)
ensure that such resources are not used for political purposes unless
that use could reasonably be regarded as likely to facilitate, or
be conducive to, the discharge of the functions of the local authority or of the office to which I have been elected or appointed.
You may be provided with resources and facilities by your local authority to assist you in carrying out your duties as a councillor.
I reminded him he could use Croydon Council resources for
office support
stationery
equipment such as phones, and computers
transport
access and use of local authority buildings and rooms
It did not include defending his reputation, which was generally fucked and commonly accepted to be non-existent by this stage.
I heard nothing back.
I don’t live in Croydon. But what I learn from ‘Inside Croydon’ is often a useful warning about Haringey my own borough. (Where I was elected as a local councillor for sixteen years till 2014.)
One thing I’ve learned from Inside Croydon is confirmation that the so-called Leader/Cabinet model can enable a diseased dysfunctional culture to sprout. Maybe it’s not inevitable. And knowing this is a very real danger may help avoid it.
But as we know, power tends to corrupt. And from my experience in Haringey it’s easy to imagine some past Dear Leaders, their cabinet lackeys smiling broadly at one another and relishing their power. A few perhaps not unhappy about the risks of corruption.
From your latest report of Newman/Negrini saga and my own experience, I wonder how many local councils have a similar problem. Local public office now seems to foster a concentration of power. At the same time shrinking checks and balances. With power comes access to public funds. Without sufficient checks and balances those funds are easily abused.
It now seems this can happen without much risk of being found out. And even if found out, where are the sanctions?
Using public funds to purchase a very large pair of harbottle-nailed legal boots and attempting to stamp on one of the few remaining journalists seems like closing the circle.