Jasna Badzak is a former member of UKIP.

She has a conviction for fraud (of a month’s salary and travel expenses) for the MEP for whom she used to work, Gerard Batten. She protests her innocence. She had no prior criminal record, had a high-level security clearance and was of good character as determined in court.

So far, so clear.

Ms. Badzak is also a cardiac patient.

On 4th November Ms. Badzak was arrested by a Detective Sergeant in the Major Crimes Unit at Westminster for the alleged crime of harassing Gerard Batten MEP. Despite her cardiac condition, the unusual decision was taken by the DS concerned to force her and her lawyer to attend the police station in person to be arrested.

He stated that this was done after consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service.

I understand that the criminal offence of “harassment” with which she was charged constitutes RTing a blog by the socialist former deputy Mayor of London Lee Jasper, and over an article allegedly published in the Sunday Times.

The blog contains Mr. Jasper’s impressions of Ms. Badzak’s various accusations against Batten and UKIP and how the police dealt with them. While I certainly cannot endorse all it contains (simply because I have no knowledge of various matters) Jasper is clear that he describes allegations, rather than facts. I read the blog carefully. It is more about alleged corruption in the Met than it is about Mr. Batten, whom it mentions in passing. Nowhere does the blog make threats towards Mr. Batten. Nowhere does it use racial or religious slurs against him. It is not in the league of actual online harassment against a politician such as that leveled against Stella Creasy MP or Luciana Berger MP.

Furthermore, the arresting officer has arrested, for harassment, ONLY Ms. Badzak. He has not contacted Lee Jasper, who wrote the blog, or Michael Crick of Channel Four News, who earlier RTed the blog. Mr. Crick called the DS in question and asked if he should present himself for arrest too, having also RTed the blog, and earlier than Ms. Badzak did. No reply was forthcoming. I have asked the arresting officer to explain what Major Crime has been committed; why Ms Badzak was required to attend in person given her medical condition; and which of his superiors in the Met knew the grounds on which Ms. Badzak was arrested.

I have obtained, as a journalist, some evidence of threats made by specific Metropolitan Police officers against other journalists – for clarity, not myself, Michael Crick, nor Lee Jasper (qua blogger), but a separate journalist.

As I believe that a great abuse of power is being committed here, and that there is evidence of deeply troubling and improper collusion between some officers of the Metropolitan Police Force and politicians to act against a private citizen, I shall be submitting the evidence I hold to the following people and bodies:

The Home Affairs Select Committee

The IPCC

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe

and the Electoral Commission.

However, as the emails I have obtained appear to involve improper actions by police officers, there must be transparency. Complaining to police officers about police officers does not always, alas, produce the results one would wish.

Therefore I am now going to type out the exact content of the email sent to a journalist by a Met Police officer. I am leaving out everything that could identify any of the parties involved, including the date, the location, the names of the publications, the recipient, or the sender. But unredacted evidence will be sent to those parties I have identified above. The email was sent to a journalist at a national publication.

Dear Sirs

It has been brought to the attention of the Metropolitan Police, that in recent days journalist [sic] from [publication – redacted] and [publication – redacted] have been provided material by an unknown source about the political affairs of Mr. Gerard Batten MEP. An ex-employee of Mr. Batten’s  has [redacted] been charged with numerous dishonesty offences [sic] and is currently awaiting trial at Southwark Crwon Court [sic]. Part of the bail conditions for this ex-employee is not to contact directly or indirectly Mr. Batten. This condition is in place to prevent any further publication of articles which the Courts have deemed to be untruthful and concerning to Mr. Batten.

Any articles published which are linked to the subject may result in further arrests being made. I request that while these ongoing Court proceedings are underway that you thoroughly check the sources of the information, prior to contacting either Mr. Batten or going to press.

regards

[signature of the officer. The officer lists themselves as being a “Financial Investigator”]

The journalist replies that they have attempted to contact the officer by phone but failed to reach them. I am omitting this in case it offers identifying information. The journalist’s reply goes on

I spoke to Gerard Batten about his alleged links to far-right groups such as [redacted].

I fail to see how this is relevant to a serving Met officer investigating financial crime. Why have you chosen to intervene in this matter on Batten’s behalf, copying him into our exchange on his private email address?

Most people would interpret it as an attempt to warn me off writing about Batten. This, I believe, is a potential abuse of office.

I’d be grateful if you could respond to the following questions by 7pm tonight:

Who asked you to contact me? Was it Batten or somebody else in your unit/team who knows Batten?

What is your relationship to Batten?

Are you a member or supporter of UKIP?

Are you a member or supporter of [redacted] or any other [redacted] organisation?

The reporter then signs off. I have also seen an email from the reporter to Mr. Batten.

….but I wanted to know why you asked [name of officer] at the Met Police to get in touch with me about something to do with a fraud case when I spoke to you [redacted] about something completely different, i.e. your relationship with [redacted] and [redacted]?

You’ll be familiar with this exchange as [name of officer] copied you in and stated my recent contact with you had been “brought to the attention of the Metropolitan Police” – clearly by you or someone in your office – and then went on to allege that I had been “provided material by an unknown source” without any proof of this. [name of officer] – a financial investigator – said it was all to do with your “political affairs”. So what’s it got to do with him? He even suggested I could be arrested if I published an article about you.

I’d be grateful for your explanation as I have some concerns about such an intervention by the police on behalf of a politician.

I am redacting the rest of the email, but there is nothing further substantive to it.

You will note that in both cases here, an officer unconnected to the appropriate department appears to be taking unwarranted actions against Ms. Badzak, and in favour of Mr. Batten. The one officer, whose emails I quote here, is a Financial Investigator writing about “the political affairs of Mr. Gerard Batten MEP”. The other officer, a different person, who required Ms. Badzak to attend in person for arrest on the charge of harassment for RTing the critical blog, is with the “Major Crimes Unit”. That officer’s response was to tell me to “go through channels” if I had questions for the Metropolitan Police. I do not have any questions for the Metropolitan Police (as of yet). I have questions for that specific officer. I told that officer so and I await that officer’s reply before escalating the complaint.

Lee Jasper’s blog is an extraordinary read. It is important to say that I have no idea what in it is truthful or not truthful, but there is one thing in his blog I do want to verify from evidence that I have in my own possession. Here I am quoting sections of his blog on the existence or otherwise (!) of two Metropolitan Police Officers. (I cannot verify that what he reports they did or didn’t do is accurate; he is reporting what Ms. Jadzak told him.)

All of her complaints were being handled by a Metropolitan Police Officer, one Detective Sargent Shaun Reardon. Despite repeated requests for updates on what was happening to her complaints she had no response from Reardon.

…..She reported this intimidation [LM- referred to earlier in LJ blog] to the Met and was surprised to find out that yet again these complaints were being refereed to a Detective Sargent Shaun Reardon, the very same officer who had failed to investigate her initial complaints of UKIP racism and EU fraud.

Worried about escalating violent intimidation and seeking to cope with her own failing health, Jasna then seeks a restraining order court injunction against Batten in Feb 2012.

Met officer supports UKIP. 

Here’s where the begins to get interesting, MPS Detective James Galvin turns up at court, embraces Gerard Batten proceeds to tell the court that the MPS has no record of any allegations against Batten nor were there any current, active police investigation into him. That was a lie and, as the MPS has now admitted Galvin, had no authority to represent the Met or attend court. Her case was eventually dismissed as a result.

Gerard Batten, then formally wrote to the MPS on October 5^th 2012 reporting his fraud allegations against Jasna. He actually wrote his allegation on UKIP letterhead, which must constitute and attempt to politically influence the investigation.  The Met having failed to investigate any of Jasna serious previous allegations, then acted immediately upon receipt of Battens complaints. .

Jasna was subsequently arrested on 29^th November 2011, when surprise, surprise, Detectives Constable James Galvin and Detective Sargent Shaun Reardon both, attended her home. They wanted to arrest her there and then, but she Jasna was so ill, it was decided to take her to hospital instead.

The Met formally denies the existence of two serving police officers misleading the Prime Minister David Cameron. 

Subsequent to her eventual arrest and charging, Jasna wrote to the Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan Howe asking, why her many complaints to the MPS had not been investigated? This she pointed out, was in total contrast to the Mets swift and immediate response to Battens complaint.

This lead to another key question, why had DC Galvin had turned up at the injunction hearing, defending Batten?

The answer, when it came, was as shocking as it was unexpected. The Mets Department of Professional Standards informed her that the Metropolitan Police Service employed no such named police officers. Shocked and alarmed she persisted and again she was told again that no such officers were employed by the Met.

She then wrote to the Independent Police Compliant Commission who after some time, wrote back, confirming, that after discussions with the Met, they too  confirmed that no such officers existed.

Jasna at this stage was completely frustrated and wrote to Mayor of London, Boris Johnson and Prime Minister David Cameron. Both men wrote to the Met and both were told, in writing, that no such officers worked for the Met.

The fact is the Prime Minister, the Mayor of London and the IPCC, were mislead and possibly willfully mislead, by the Met DPS about the existence of these two officers.

This begs they very important questions as to precise circumstances that led to two of the most senior Tory politicians in the land were provided with inaccurate and misleading information?

I can confirm in this blog that I have, in my possession, the following evidence:

1. A letter to Jasna Badzak from a third officer at the Met Police’s Directorate for Professional Standards saying that they could not investigate a complaint against officers Galvin and Reardon because they did not exist “the officers you have named as being officers of the MPS are not officers with the MPS. I have throughly interrogated all MPS systems and cannot find any trace of those officers.”

2. An email  to Jasna Badzak from the same officer dated 10 Jan, 2013, again repeating that these two officers, do not exist (following her astonished protests of disbelief, since these officers had actually shown up at her house and arrested her).

3. Firm evidence that, in a phone call to Ms. Badzak, a fourth officer – this time of the rank of Inspector, I think it is important to state that – spoke to her about this matter and stated

Insp: “In 2012, I understand you attempted to make a complaint about officers Fleming, Galvin and Reardon… you made a complaint.” Ms. Badzak said she had made a complaint to the Mayor of London and the Prime Minister, who, she said, wrote to Bernard Hogan-Howe, who, she said, passed it further down. The Inspector replied “Yes”. “And I got the reply which I got which said that these police officers do not exist,” Ms. Badzak responded. “Yes,” the Inspector replied. “We made an error, and I apologize for that error.” Ms Badzak exclaimed “You made an error!” The Inspector replied “Yes. They do exist. It wasn’t correct what we told you.” Ms B: “So why did you tell me that, then?” Insp “The officer who made that decision, and told you, is on a career break, he’s not in the country, I can’t ask him why. But it may be that he misread our database. You know – sometimes people make human errors. But the bottom line is we made a mistake, I apologize, we made a mistake.“

Again – Ms Badzak was arrested, November 4th, by a DS in the Major Crimes Unit, Westminster, for “harassment” of Gerard Batten, MEP, for RTing a blog in which these allegations are detailed.

Personally, I believe in transparency. I am absolutely confident of my evidence and I present it here in order that there be as little cover-up going forwards as possible. I am prepared to make my evidence available to the IPCC and other sources.

One officer threatening a journalist

A separate officer in the Major Crimes Squad arresting Ms Badzak for harassment

A third officer from the Directorate of Professional Standards denying the existence of Met Police Officers (twice, and in detail, and emphatically) that Ms. Badzak claims harassed her

A fourth officer of the rank of Inspector telling Ms Badzak that the officer who denied their existence was “on a career break” “out of the country” “I can’t ask him why” “It may be that he misread our database”

Clearly, this matter goes beyond any kind of politics to the very deepest, darkest abuses of our capital’s major police force against a private citizen. I am not an investigative journalist (thankfully, Mr Crick does have those credentials) but I recognize shocking abuse when I see it, and I hope I have enough of a sense of duty not to remain silent when I am confronted with hard evidence of injustice being done.

Share this:

• Press This
• Twitter217
• Facebook71

http://widgets.wp.com/likes/#blog_id=46778105&post_id=1414&origin=louisemensch.wordpress.com&obj_id=46778105-1414-545b5b90c6e29

Related

Could Douglas Carswell Oust Nigel Farage?In “UK politics”

Britain’s New Political Force Isn’t UKIP – It’s the SNPIn “goals”

It’s not child “porn”. It’s child rape.In “goals”