Answers needed urgently on Kensal Rise fake emails

Guest post by Meg Howarth

Muhammed Butt's late-night sneering tweet to Michael Calderbank claiming that Brent Council had 'provided all the evidence and police not pursuing' the fake email business fails to inspire confidence in the council's, let alone the NFIB's, handling of this grubby affair.

An official statement from the council on the matter is needed urgently. Brent was contacted by the police on 21 January. Does it take 10 days - and the shameless destruction of the pop-up at the Kensal Rise Library site - before the release even of this snippet of information - and, then, in this personally antagonistic and entirely unsuitable fashion? Bad news burying even worse news? Michael Calderbank was simply asking about progress of the email investigation. 

Some immediate questions that demand public answers are:

- Why have the police decided not to pursue the matter?

- Has the council probed this decision? If not, why not?

- Was Andrew Gillick interviewed by the NFIB (National Fraud and Investigation Bureau)? If not, why not? 

- Was the NFIB told of the apparent sub-letting of Mr Gillick's St Mary Mansions Paddington flat at the time a comment using that address was posted on the Barham Library planning application site? Two comments using that address appeared a couple of months earlier on the Kensal Library planning site.

- Was any attempt made to try and trace the fake emails, as Margaret Smith asks above? If not, why not? As a computer expert confirms: 'it could be very easy if...no precautions [were taken], and difficult or impossible in other circumstances'. This is surely where the occupancy of Mr Gillick's Mary Mansions flat at the time of the three planning comments could help resolve matters?

The computer expert went on to say: 'It's not very clever of Brent to collect comments via a system that is this easy to spoof. They could easily take a few precautions, [otherwise] this kind of thing will only become more frequent'. Fortunately, it seems that the council has now beefed up its system of online comment in the wake of this nasty affair. But

the the police decision not to pursue the matter hardly clears it up and any new [planning] application will be heard in an atmosphere of suspicion' (Martin Francis). Precisely. 

It seems that a further planning application from Andrew Gillick is expected to be lodged shortly.

The council's lax system enabled the email scam. The very least it must now do is publicise the reasons for the police's decision not to proceed and prosecute. Planning matters around the Kensal Rise Library building can only become even messier without the utmost transparency by the council.

Footnote: 'hippy' references, as posted in comments on this blog. also featured in the online planning comments supporting Mr Gillick's application. It's unclear whether they were found by the council to be amongst the fake emails passed to the police.

Library Planning fraud investigation still awaited as developer consults in a pub

Guest blog from a Kensal Rise Library campaigner in a personal capacity

Many people are asking when the police investigation in to the fake email support for Andrew Gillck’s change-of-use planning application for Kensal Rise Library be completed. It is, after all, three months since the council was first handed evidence of online fraud - an attempt to inflate local backing for Mr Gillick’s proposals. Brent later claimed that it had passed this material to the police.

Not exactly, alas. The council had simply forwarded its findings to the civilian-run national fraud and internet-crime reporting centre, Action Fraud. True, this is the first step in reporting electronic fraud and one which Brent was obliged to follow. Why the council didn’t tell residents that Action Fraud is a holding-centre only, not itself an investigatory body, and that it would take time before the actual police inquiry got underway is another matter.

So it transpires that it’s only in the last couple of weeks that Brent’s findings have actually reached the City of London Police’s National Fraud and Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), where they will be reviewed. How long it’ll take the NFIB to decide if there’s a criminal case to answer is unknown, likewise whether Brent is proactively monitoring developments or simply waiting on events. 

A report last month by Mark Smulian in the Local Government Chronicle quotes a Brent Council spokesman: ‘It is clear that a number of the emails came from bogus email addresses but, unfortunately, it is not so clear that this necessarily constitutes a criminal offence’ LINK

As an astute observer has commented, however: ‘It should be remembered that in addition to the fake email debacle, real fraud did occur - someone generated letters & emails of support using real addresses without their owners’ permission. It is these cases that I would imagine are the most criminally damaging’. The case of Kensal Rise businesswoman Kirsty Slattery is but one example reported in the Brent and Kilburn Times  LINK

What is clear is that Mr Gillick is currently revising his plans for the historic Mark Twain/Andrew Carnegie library - his original planning application was unanimously rejected by Brent’s planning committee in September. Sensitive to accusations of previously having failed to consult them and so hoping to win over local residents to his latest scheme, the developer recently held a public ‘exhibition’ of his new proposals in a Kensal Rise pub.

To date, though, it seems he hasn’t yet submitted a new planning application to the council, nor should any be considered by the planning department until the outcome of the NFIB’s investigation is known. Unfortunately, the council’s line is to repeat, mantra-like, that it ‘has a responsibility and obligation to consider any valid planning application that is put forward from any individual(s). It must consider each on its merits in accordance with its statutory obligations’ (Christine Gilbert, acting chief executive). 

Against the ongoing police inquiry and the possibility of prosecution for planning fraud, it would be absurd for Brent to pursue business as usual with respect to any further application from Mr Gillick for any Brent development - an apparent fake email in support of the Barham Library Complex appears directly linked to the Platinum Revolver/Kensal Properties Ltd developer - or anyone else for Kensal Rise Library. Meantime, it’s good to hear that the council has strengthened its ‘procedures...to require those who wish to make comments on–line to register and provide us with their contact details’, particularly as, according to a computer expert, ‘It’s [wan’t] very clever of Brent to collect comments via a system that [was] this easy to spoof’.