Understanding the difference between Fact and Fiction – a response to some groundless allegations against me
We seem to have the absurd situation in the CBWRA where one person (the Chair) can arbitrarily decide that someone else (someone who is critical of some of their decisions and performance and who is standing for Chair) is ‘misleading’ residents (despite all evidence to the contrary) and summarily and permanently close their CBW app account.
This is something you might expect in a dictatorship but not in a democratic society. While I am forced to be absent from the CBW app, the Chair (Mr Thompson), has repeatedly made statements about me which I feel are defamatory and are completely untrue and unevidenced. I consider these wild and groundless statements make a fair election impossible. My solicitor has written to Mr Thompson (5.2.23) and offered him the opportunity to draw a line under these matters by a simple retraction and apology on the CBW app – unfortunately Mr Thompson has refused to do that and hence I am writing this post in order to defend my reputation. I am not able to reply on the platform where the accusations against me were made as my CBW app account is closed. Mr Thompson enjoys legal insurance as the Chair of CBWRA, which residents are paying for, and which in my view is being seriously misused.
Below I reply to numerous instances of what I consider to be defamation by Mr Thompson since May 2022, and clear up various other claims by Mr Thompson which in my view are not true.
| Claim/evidence | Notes |
|---|---|
| That I ‘harassed Mr Thompson and the committee for 3 years’ Evidence provided : None | The committee has only existed for 2 years and there is a complete electronic record (zoom recordings, emails, phone calls) of all my interaction with it as I never met them in person. No accusation of harassment was ever made against me at any time while on the committee or afterwards until January 2023 (just before Chair elections!). Residents challenged Mr Thompson for the evidence when he made these allegations on he CBW app and he said it was ‘available on request’ but in fact he was unable to supply any evidence at all to those who requested it .In fact I have had to report Mr Thompson to the Metropolitan Police on two separate occasions for persistent unwanted contact on my personal email/phone (crime reference 0327582/21 December 2021, and crime reference 0301574/23 January 2023) and on both occasions Mr Thompson was spoken to by the Police and asked not to contact me again except for any essential official communications via CBWRA. Mr Thompson claims to have reported me to the Police in January 2023 but my understanding is that this was not a crime report – he simply emailed a police officer saying that he was unhappy about my website. This was never followed up by the Police and they never contacted me as there was no crime to investigate. The Met Police have confirmed (13.2.23) that I have not been the subject of any complaint or investigation at any time. |
| That I am ‘well known to the Police’ Evidence provided : None | Literally the only contact I have had with the Police in the last 10+ years is to make complaints about Mr Thompson. So in that sense I am becoming well known to them perhaps, but only as a victim. |
| That I ‘have a history of misleading residents’ Evidence provided : None | No evidence was provided. I have never misled anyone. I can identify several instances where Mr Thompson/CBWRA have at the very least misinformed residents see https://tinyurl.com/267a4fsa |
| That I have published libellous material on my website Evidence provided : None | My solicitor wrote to Mr Thompson some time ago (5.2.23) and asked him to identify any material on chelseabridgewharf.org.uk that he considered libellous and offering to amend if evidence of inaccuracy was provided. We have had no reply (at 13.3.23). |
| That I was ‘got rid of’ from the committee because of my behaviour/bullying Evidence provided : None | I resigned from the CBWRA committee in Oct. 21 because I was given an ultimatum to take down my petition against Rendall and Rittner or leave the committee, two days after Richard Daver of Rendall and Rittner had complained about said petition in an email to Mr Thompson (16.9.21) and because of the ridiculous and failed policy of developing a ‘collegiate relationship’ with Rendall and Rittner and not carrying out a management audit of them, partly in order to preserve this supposed relationship. My resignation letter (Oct 21) https://tinyurl.com/4myk9x83 also references; lack of progress on Right to Manage/denial that RTM was possible; lack of consultation with residents and no progress on producing a constitution for over 6 months. All of these issues have pretty much continued up to the current time. After I resigned, my CBW app account was then closed (1st closure!) and unevidenced allegations of bullying by me were made by Mr Thompson. He claims he contacted me the day before I resigned (29th October) to have a ‘private discussion’ (the implication being that I resigned because of allegations of bullying) but when asked by my solicitor he was unable to provide evidence of this contact. My app account was re-opened following protests from residents but closed again in November 2021 (2nd closure) after I posted a letter showing that the claims of bullying by me were total nonsense https://tinyurl.com/bdkn9nwa. I have still not received a reply to this letter and no evidence of any bullying has ever been presented. In a recent letter to my solicitor Mr Thompson appears to have partially withdrawn the claims of bullying and now only claims (letter to my solicitor Nov 22) that I was ‘abrupt in an email on one occasion!’ (his original claims included that I had ‘bullied 5 members of the committee!) so you may draw the obvious conclusion about the credibility of Mr Thompson’s claims about me or others. |
| That I refused to attend election hustings in 2022 Chair elections Evidence provided : None | Complete nonsense. There were no ”hustings” in any case. I withdrew from the election process because of what I considered to be an unfair process (which I think we have again this year) where the CBW app was used in a less than impartial way and that a contract was signed with Roger Southam, days before the elections were due to open. This would have tied my hands if elected, to pursue retendering the management contract which as I predicted was a complete failure and in my view wasted of up to £15,000 of residents’ money |
| That I claimed there had been ‘vote rigging’ in the 2021 or 2022 Chair elections Evidence provided : None | I never made any such allegation, What I did ask for was simply the number of residents who had been invited to take part in the vote – not unreasonable! It took at least a month to get this information as I recall. I personally did not claim there was any vote rigging, and never have, but I did not see the voting data in the 2021 election (as far as I am aware only Charlie Garton-Jones saw this). There should have been independent (non-committee) inspection in my view simply because that is good practice and increases transparency. I do not and have not alleged any vote rigging by anyone at any time Another candidate in the 2021 Chair elections DID make allegations of this kind and I have her messages about that on file. I did not endorse her view and she did not provide any evidence to support. I raised a number of other points re conduct of 2022 elections including that then (as now) the Chair had been allowed a free hand to defame me with unfounded allegations about bullying members of the committee and the CBW official app account was used in a partisan way (e.g. people supporting me were private messaged with claims that the current ‘regime’ would obtain my policy objectives., and by implication there was no need to vote for me). All very sad and I am sure it will be the same every year unless someone is able to put the CBWRA house in order and especially what is in my view the mismanagement of the CBW app. My manifesto was withheld for 3 weeks, and there was to be no campaigning period (manifestos circulated only when the polls opened). I have requested independent inspection of the 2023 Chair election results – I am not clear what the response is. The running of the 2023 election is clearly not fair free or impartial as anyone can see with one candidate banned from the CBW app without any due process or meaningful explanation and the same person being subjected to bizarre and unevidenced claims by the Chair and other committee members, in his absence. The voting form contains some bias (in the wording) which may not be intentional. |
| That a letter from Mike O’Driscoll and other residents to our local councillor about what we saw as poor governance and online bullying on the CBW app was dismissed by said councillor as being ‘no case to answer’ Evidence provided : None apart from a verbal account of the supposed position of the councillor which the councillor says is not correct (to put it politely) | In January 2023, a group of residents who were very concerned about lack of information on elections and not feeling safe on the CBW app, wrote a letter to a local councillor regarding CBWRA/The Chair of CBWRA. The councillor copied the letter to Mr Thompson accidentally but was asked not to publish it as the authors had not consented. Mr Thompson did publish the letter on the CBW app {although redacting most names} along with his comments. The CBWRA notes on this state that ”’ Vasundhara brought up the letter which Mike O’Driscoll send the local councillor and the allegations made against the RA Committee and its Chair. Stephen said the councillor had concluded that there was no basis for the allegations made and that the RA had no case to answer. The councillor had also agreed to confirm this in writing in a form that could be used should Mr O’Driscoll publicly refer to his allegations against the RA.” But when I (Mike O’Driscoll) contacted the councillor to ask if he had said this he replied that he had not said this and was very surprised that Mr Thompson would make such a claim. What he had actually said was that his ability to investigate was limited, and he certainly did not say there was no basis for the allegations. |
| That I have alleged Mr Thompson/CBWRA committee/CBWRA is a not acting in good faith with regard to Right to Manage (CBWRA May 2022 newsletter) | The CBWRA May 2022 newsletter states ‘A misapprehension has recently circulated claiming that the re-tender process is not being acted upon in good faith due to an underlying agenda to stand in the way of a change to the existing management arrangement with R&R. This was based on the assertion that, contrary to the information provided by the RA committee, there is, in fact, no obstacle to pursuing the Right to Manage (RTM) option.’ I have not suggested there is an underlying agenda to stand in the way of change to the existing management arrangement with R&R. I have merely pointed out what I think is a factual matter (and supported by expert advice) that First Port v Settlers Court is not, as claimed by CBWRA, an obstacle to Right to Manage at CBW. NB that this newsletter also states that . ” the committee explain(ed) on multiple occasions that the legal situation had changed subsequent to Mike’s meeting with Roger Southam” In fact no such explanation was given prior to the AGM in May 2022, as far as I am aware and I do not think that the ‘legal situation had changed’ because First Port v Settlers Court is not relevant at CBW, or at least not an obstacle to RTM at CBW, according to independent advice. My CBW app account was closed (as far as I can tell) for supposedly supplying the ‘misleading information’ that RTM is possible at CBW. But the committee now agree that it is possible. |
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