Monthly Archives: February 2014

PANTO HORSE GATE: THAT LAUGHABLE LAWYER’S ATTEMPT AT A THREATENING LETTER IN FULL!

Following on from our shock story EXPOSING the attempt to CENSOR The BRISTOLIAN, here is the full (“NOT FOR PUBLICATION”) text of the letter sent to The BRISTOLIAN‘s web hosts by city centre legal eagles Burges Salmon on behalf of HorseWorld Trust’s bosses in their risible (and inaccurate) attempt at gagging a newspaper…

Our response to some of the claims in it can be found at the bottom of the page…

BURGES SALMON
One Glass Wharf
Bristol BS2 0ZX
Tel: +44 (0) 117 939 2000
Fax: +44 (0) 117 939 4400
email@burges-salmon.com
www.burges-salmon.com
DX 7829 Bristol

For the attention of XXXXX

By Special Delivery Post and By Email:

XXXXX@XXXXXX

Our ref: 41135.1 Your ref:

14 February 2014

URGENT – NOT FOR PUBLICATION

Dear Sirs

Notice of hosting Defamatory and abusive content at <http://thebristolian.net/>

We act for Horseworld Trust (“Horseworld”), a charity based in Staunton Lane, Whitchurch, Bristol BS14 0QL.

Horseworld is a small UK charity caring primarily for horses ponies and donkeys. It rescues, rehabilitates and rehouse animals that have been abandoned, neglected of ill-treated. Horseworld is funded entirely through public donations and relies on public support.

1. PURPOSE OF THIS LETTER

1.1 We understand from DNS records that you are the host of the website http://thebristolian.net/ known as “the Bristolian”. The Bristolian is publishing unlawful defamatory material about Horseworld at this URL.

1.2 The purpose of this letter is to inform you of the unlawful material on the Bristolian and request that you remove or disable access to the website immediately in order to avoid any legal action being taken against you.

1.3 It is regrettable that a relatively small charity is being forced to take action but the Bristolian appears to be intent on a vexatious, abusive and defamatory campaign against Horseworld, its management, trustees and finances.

1.4 Given the public support required for a charity to operate, the continuing operation of the Bristolian is causing serious harm to the charity and it has left Horseworld with little chance but to pursue legal action to protect its reputation.

2 DEFAMATION

2.1 The material on the Bristolian’s website concerning Horseworld is voluminous. Just some examples of the defamatory material are below:

(i) Abusive comments about Horseworld’s management and trustees, in particular the Managing Director, Mr Mark Owen. Amongst other comments, Mr Owen is called an “incompetent twat”, a “crap boss”, a “dunderhead” and compared to the “back end of a panto horse”.

(ii) Untrue allegations that Mr Owen has “forbidden [staff] from doing the very work they’re employed to do: rescuing animals in need”.

(iii) Untrue allegations that the charity is “being ridden into the ground”.

(iv) Untrue allegations that Mr Owen forced staff and “demanded” that they write to Bath and North East Somerset Council in support of Horseworld planning application.

(v) Untrue allegations that senior individuals at Horseworld have lied and “didn’t seem able to tell the truth” and that trustees have “vested interests”.

(vi) Abusive user-generated content that is in some cases linked to other feeds that publish further abusive and defamatory content.

2.2 The above is just a flavour of the content of the Bristolian and we refer you to the website for more details.

2.3 A public vexatious and defamatory website such as the Bristolian has a serious impact on a small charity that relies on public support. As well as the website itself, the untrue allegations are picked up by other media and supporters of the charity.

2.4 Serious harm is being done to Horseworld by the website’s unlawful content and continued operation.

3 NEXT STEPS

3.1 The Bristolian is hosted by you and this letter gives you actual knowledge of the unlawful content that you are hosting.

3.2 Please therefore remove or disable access to the Bristolian immediately and remove its content from the public domain. Please confirm that this has been done by 5pm on Monday (17 February 2014).

3.3 If you fail to remove or disable access to the Bristolian by 5pm on Monday, then our client will hold you jointly liable as a publisher and Court proceedings are likely to follow.

3.4 This is a serious matter and we recommend that you seek independent legal advice.

3.5 In the meantime all rights are reserved.

We look forward to hearing from you by 5pm on Monday.

Yours faithfully

BURGES SALMON LLP

: Laughable “threatening letter” from HorseWorld’s legal hacks-of-choice, Burges Salmon (page 1)

: More from Burges Salmon’s ‘How Not To Write A Kosher-Sounding Letter’ (page 2)

Firstly, let’s just cover the specific allegations in section 2.

(i) Abusive comments about Horseworld’s management and trustees, in particular the Managing Director, Mr Mark Owen. Amongst other comments, Mr Owen is called an “incompetent twat”, a “crap boss”, a “dunderhead” and compared to the “back end of a panto horse”.

Yes, we have called Mark Owen ”an incompetent twat” (“Well, insiders retort, it’s certainly unsustainable to retain this INCOMPETENT TWAT on £80,000 per year (plus 28k company car)” – see PINOCCHIOWEN’S LAST STAND? THE ‘CUNNING NEW PLAN’ OF HORSEWORLD BOSS, 17 December 2013) and a “crap boss” (headline, LONG FACES AT HORSEWORLD AS CRAP BOSS PREPARES TO SACK STAFF, 6 January 2014).

In our 20 November 2013 story HORSEWORLD PLANNING APPLICATION, TAKE TWO: A BIT OF A PANTOMIME? (OH NO IT’S NOT!) OH YES IT IS… we also said – in reference to the whole senior management team driving the development issue – “Apparently that will suddenly make them all financial geniuses and not the same dunderheads who created a massive black hole out of the generous donations and bequests from animal lovers keen to see abused donkeys, horses and other equine beasts rehomed.”

And yes, we did caption a photo of Mark Owen with the legend “management skills of the back end of a panto horse” – not once, but three times!

In context the first three are clearly fair comment – robustly articulated opinion, even. The fourth instance cited is based on Owen’s own adventures running for charity dressed as, umm, a pantomime horse, as publicised on HorseWorld’s own website and by the BBC!

However, we are happy to concede that we don’t know 100% his precise position within said costume. If it will make him happy, we will naturally make an appropriate correction, and amend the text to “management skills of the front end of a panto horse”.

(ii) Untrue allegations that Mr Owen has “forbidden [staff] from doing the very work they’re employed to do: rescuing animals in need”.

This simply isn’t an accurate quotation, despite the impression given by Burges Salmon in the letter.

We in fact said: “Meanwhile, while his new car’s engine purrs, HorseWorld staff complain they are forbidden by Owen – for financial reasons, of course – from doing the very work they’re employed to do: rescuing animals in need. That costs money, of course. Something that HorseWorld pleads it has none of” (CHARITY BOSS RIDES HORSE CHARITY INTO THE GROUND, 8 May, 2013). We have reported complaints by HorseWorld staff that financial constraints imposed under the management regime overseen by Mark Owen have prevented them from undertaking what they consider to be their primary work – animal welfare.

(iii) Untrue allegations that the charity is “being ridden into the ground”.

Again, an inaccurate quotation, which apparently refers to the TEN MONTH OLD HEADLINE referred to above! And clearly the very same financial situation that is leading Owen to threaten redundancies can be viewed as the charity being “ridden into the ground”. It’s certainly not a perfect clearance, is it?

(iv) Untrue allegations that Mr Owen forced staff and “demanded” that they write to Bath and North East Somerset Council in support of Horseworld planning application.

And yet again, an inaccurate quotation! (Did Lionel Hutz prepare this letter for Burges Salmon?)

What we actually said, in an article titled HORSEWORLD REVISITED: M.D. MARK OWEN & HIS MAGIC STAFF WRITE-ATHON (published on 21 October 2013), was that “ever the resourceful spiv, Owen hatched a cunning plan to win over the BANES Planning Development Committee, which meets this Wednesday (23 October) to consider his planning application… DEMANDING staff must write to the council with letters of support for his plan! No ifs, no buts, that letter had to be penned. Only they mustn’t say they’re connected to HorseWorld, lest they undermine their case.”

This story was based on information from reliable sources, whose word we had no reason to disbelieve given their accuracy on other matters. At no point since that article was published nearly four months has Mark Owen or anyone else at HorseWorld come to us with any concerns over its accuracy. In fact, our subsequent report, in which we analysed letters in favour of the HorseWorld management plan sent to BANES council, offers circumstantial evidence that staff did feel pressure from their bosses to publicly support the development proposals, perhaps even regardless of any personal doubts.

(v) Untrue allegations that senior individuals at Horseworld have lied and “didn’t seem able to tell the truth” and that trustees have “vested interests”.

Without specific (and preferably accurate!) quotations and accompanying URLs, it’s difficult to counter this – but suffice to say we dissected what looks to a reasonable person a lot like dissembling by Mark Owen in an interview about HorseWorld’s problems on BBC Radio Bristol (HORSEWORLD BOSS GOES A BIT ‘PINOCCHIOWEN’ LIVE ON RADIO!, 21 November 2013). Can that embarrassing episode be what they mean?

And finally…

(vi) Abusive user-generated content that is in some cases linked to other feeds that publish further abusive and defamatory content.

This one is simply laughable. If anything we have made it clear, before it has even happened, that The BRISTOLIAN will not tolerate threatening comments – against anyone – being posted to the website. Neither Mark Owen nor the Burges Salmon legal interns badly C&Ping from our website can find any “Abusive user-generated content”, for the simple reason that it isn’t there.

Claiming it is would be what some in the legal profession would call a porkie-pie, right?

PANTO HORSE GATE: HORSEWORLD BOSS’S ATTEMPT TO CENSOR CRITICS

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In a SENSATIONAL development in the long-running HorseWorld financial mismanagement saga, bosses at the struggling charity have attempted to use legal threats to SILENCE critics – including your very own ‘Smiter’, The BRISTOLIAN!

On Friday 14 February we received our very own Valentine’s message from our web hosts, who informed us that they’d received a lawyer’s letter on behalf of HorseWorld Trust demanding that they “remove or disable access to the Bristolian [sic] immediately and remove its content from the public domain” by 5pm today, or… Umm… Else!

This follows similar pressure recently brought to bear on University of Bristol student newspaper Epigram and, we understand, the Chew Valley Gazette, as well as laughable attempts to shut down criticism on Twitter.

Sources close to managing director Mark ‘Not That One’ Owen’s Whitchurch Führerbunker have also told us that “legal threats and letters are being dished out left, right and centre” at HorseWorld, in addition to “face-to-face ‘discussions’ and ‘meetings’ with staff/ex-staff, insiders etc thought to be whistleblowing.”

We stand by the accuracy of what we have published about HorseWorld’s management in the pages of The BRISTOLIAN and online over the past ten months. In those ten months we have received not one single, solitary word of complaint – by letter, email, tweet or telephone – from HorseWorld, alleging any kind of inaccuracy or demanding any kind of corrections.

In fact, when a commenter pointed out a minor error in one of our HorseWorld stories, we immediately rectified it, in a transparent fashion.

No, instead it seems that Mark Owen or those around him have chosen to hire lawyers – at a rate of what we are reliably informed amounts to around £400 PER LETTER – to skulk around in the shadows, threatening any and all who question the direction of the charity’s leadership.

Now, if it looks like censorship, sounds like censorship and smells like censorship, then it’s probably an attempt at censorship.

For this reason, and because we want to continue giving a voice to all those low-paid workers at HorseWorld who have sacrificed so much to the charity yet who now face the chop whilst those who caused the problems keep their fat salaries, The BRISTOLIAN will NOT be removing any HorseWorld stories without good reason – at 5pm today, 5pm tomorrow or 5pm the day after.

If you want to waste yet more charitable donations trying to silence a newspaper which has been publishing accurate stories, fair comment and reasonable supposition, then go ahead. We’ll see you in court.

» See the lawyer’s letter used to try and gag us, and our response!

MARKET FARCES: HOW BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL’S ‘FRAUD-BUSTERS’ BELLYFLOPPED

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CAN’T STAND UP TO MANAGERS – CAN’T PROTECT WHISTLEBLOWERS…

Back in mid-January, another meeting of the Bristol City Council’s crap Audit Committee offered up yet more shocking revelations of FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT AND SLEAZE in the seedy corridors of corrupt power at Shitty Hall.

The committee’s in-depth fraud reports (which have proved to be a hugely embarrassing feature of the last few meetings), have been quietly ditched. But another report catches the eye. With the unpromising title of ‘Internal Audit Compliance with Public Sector Internal Audit Standards’, it reveals the extent to which our council has operated for the benefit of bent bosses and against the interests of whistleblowers.

The report identifies “a few specific areas…where currently Internal Audit arrangements do not fully conform with the public sector Internal audit standards requirements”. Or, in other words, areas where the committee and its FEEBLE INTERNAL AUDIT TEAM have screwed up.

Top of the list is, “The Chief Internal Auditor should report to an organisation level equal or higher to the corporate management team and must be sufficiently senior and Independent to be able to provide credible constructive challenge to senior management.”

So the Chief Internal Auditor should report directly to the council’s Chief Executive? This has never happened. The Chief Auditor always reports to the Head of Finance – a level below corporate management. Until recently, when he scarpered sharpish, Head of Finance was Freemason Peter Robinson, who SPIKED ANY INVESTIGATION into the Markets Service and did nothing to discourage the victimisation of a whistleblower there.

We know he also once spiked an investigation into the dubious procurement of a fleet of Mercedes vans. On that occasion he victimised – then attempted to sack – an investigator in Internal Audit who uncovered and produced a report on that particular procurement scam.

Chief Internal Auditors have been NEUTERED and left powerless for years – and it’s a fact they admit. Last year in an email to a senior trade unionist the head of Internal Audit’s fraud unit, Andea ‘Chocolate Teapot’ Hobbs, admitted that they “cannot provide any assurances as to how management will respond if a whistleblower makes him/herself known to management as a whistleblower (as happened in the circumstance I believe you are referring to).”

The “circumstance” referred to is the way that Tony Harvey and his bosses responded to whistleblowing by victimising and bullying the whistleblower out of their job – apparently under the nose of Ms Hobbs.

Let’s face it, if you’re unable to stand up to a soppy little Facilities Manager and stop them doing over a whistleblower, or to call that manager out for being unable to account for £165,000, then the idea you can provide “a credible constructive challenge to senior management” is laughable.

The reverse is true. Middle managers have been able to IGNORE Internal Auditors with impunity, stamp on whistleblowers and do whatever they like with our money for years.

What a shambles.

MARKET FARCES: HOW HARVEY OUTED WHISTLEBLOWER TO BOSS!

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An email from 22 May 2012 confirms Facilities Manager Tony Harvey OUTED A WHISTLEBLOWER to their boss, Markets Manager Steve ‘God Botherer’ Morris. This opened the door for Morris to start a campaign of bullying and victimisation against the whistleblower – which Harvey then did nothing to stop.

Oddly, despite outing whistleblowers being ILLEGAL, contravening council policy and being against all good practice guidelines, neither Harvey’s managers nor Internal Audit ever addressed the matter with him.

The whistleblower expressed concerns about VICTIMISATION at a meeting on 12 July 2012 with Andrea ‘Chocolate Teapot’ Hobbs, an Internal Audit manager who was allegedly investigating the markets. Internal Audit is supposed to have responsibility for whistleblowers and their welfare at the council, and should report to politicians on the Audit Committee.

Instead Hobbs attempted to outsource her responsibility for whistleblowers to the council’s Human Resources people – even emailing the whistleblower to say she had contacted H.R. for him but that whistleblowing “is something they are unfamiliar with and do not know how to deal with”! She then told the whistleblower to contact, er … Tony Harvey!

Yes, this really is how a public sector organisation deals with whistleblowers – like LOW-RENT KAFKA… Or what looks very much like an informal policy to victimise whistleblowers.

At least this time one of the bosses running this sick shadow policy topped themselves rather than a whistleblower.

MARKET FARCES: AN AUDITOR WRITES…

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A FORMER INTERNAL AUDITOR GIVES THEIR OPINION ON THE SO-CALLED CITY COUNCIL ‘INVESTIGATION’ INTO THE MARKETS SERVICE…AND IT AIN’T PRETTY

We have covered the FINANCIAL SCANDAL in Bristol City Council’s Markets Service for a full year.

Many in Shitty Hall attempted to gloss over the whole affair.

But then we received a LEAKED COPY of the council’s own ‘Internal Audit’ report. It made for interesting reading…

But don’t just take our word for it. We passed it on to a FORMER INTERNAL AUDITOR, and asked them to give their opinion on it.

Here is what they said:

Due to the seriousness of allegations and problems within the market, I would query whether this audit should have been carried out by the council’s own internal audit department as it may be considered that they may not be objective or independent.

For what it’s worth, the audit opinion is that “management can place no reliance” on the “weak” internal control of the market, resulting in an audit assessment of “poor – of concern”.

The auditors stated that they could not “form an opinion on the soundness and strength of the allegations or otherwise” because they were not presented with enough objective evidence.

The audit says that: (a) requested documentation was not made available and (b) there was a lack of willingness and urgency from market staff to resolve any issues. How any auditor worth their salt put up with this sort of response is beyond me. Imagine if a professional, independent, outside company had been brought in, only to be presented with a barrage of obstruction and apathy (let’s be honest – this is what it boils down to).

They would have presented a brief, damning report detailing how they had been given the run-around, declaring the market’s management and system unfit for audit and presented them with a large bill for wasting their time.

Some audit findings seem to imply that traders are being charged, ‘adjusted’ or let off on a whim, with no qualifying or traceable paperwork or adherence to any system. It is particularly telling that for some of the corrective action the auditors are suggesting that:

There is a problem

No one in current staffing has ability to correct the situation

Suggests that a fInancial person is appointed to the task

Recommends that they get instructions from the audit department (not management?) prior to implementing the corrective action.

Don’t they trust management to implement the corrective action, even after discussions and receiving the audit report along with all the “findings”?

I have been led to understand that, despite the audit laying down implementation dates for corrective action to be completed (Nov 2012 – Jan 2013) there has not been a follow- up audit to see whether the corrective action identified – and agreed – has been implemented.

“Imperative” and “urgent” are words from the executive summary, yet why still no follow-up audit?

I suppose at least the council has a piece of paper to wave under the noses of the uninitiated to tell them that the problems have been identified and corrective action – where necessary – is being implemented.

MARKET FARCES: THEY LIED! A ‘BRISTOLIAN’ SPECIAL REPORT INTO BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL’S FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT

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STARTLING LEAKED DOCUMENTS DESCRIBE A SICK CULTURE OF LIES, DOUBLE CROSSING, BULLYING, VICTIMISATION AND MORE.

The BRISTOLIAN has been leaked a copy of a SHOCKING Internal Audit report by Bristol City Council’s Corporate Services into the crisis-hit Markets Service.

The report, dated November 2012, sensationally proves that Mayor George Ferguson, his Green Cabinet sidekick Councillor Gus Hoyt (the man responsible for Markets), and even the council’s Press Office, have all LIED about what’s been going on in the department that had been the direct responsibility of Facilities Manager Tony Harvey.

Over the Summer of 2013 MAYOR FERGO and SIR HOYTY-TOYTY were both insistent that there was “no evidence of wrongdoing” and that “no money went missing as this was purely an administrative fault”. Meanwhile, in July 2012 the Press Office told the BBC in a formal statement that the council had “found no evidence to support any charge of fraud or dishonesty, nor that any cash had gone missing”.

However, there is nothing in the audit report that supports these conclusions. It actually states,

“It was difficult to form an opinion in respect of the allegations [of fraud, theft and dishonesty].”

Hardly the sparkling clean bill of health we’ve been sold for the last six months, is it? And in a further twist, it seems that Tony Harvey and his line managers, with the full support of the council’s Freemason ex-finance boss Peter Robinson, SPIKED A FULL INVESTIGATION into the twenty-odd allegations Harvey had received from a whistleblower.

What's a £283k overspend to a millionaire mayor? King George weighs in on the markets accounts chaos

Did you say unsubstantiated George?

The report says: “Facilities Management requested that Internal Audit undertake an investigation into the markets management decision making processes for both financial and commercial transactions. To facilitate the above investigation a decision was taken by Internal Audit management to undertake an AUDIT REVIEW. It was considered that this would enable a sound knowledge of the systems to be gained prior to completing the INVESTIGATIVE WORK.”

However, “the INVESTIGATIVE WORK” never happened. Instead, Internal Audit’s work was “drawn to a close” and – in the words of the report – the allegations left “unresolved”.

How a non-investigation in which serious allegations are unresolved becomes “no evidence to support any charge of fraud or dishonesty, nor that any cash had gone missing” is a mystery.

It’s also a mystery why Harvey – with the support of his boss, Robert ‘Spunkface’ Orrett, and the Head of Finance, Peter Robinson – never went on to investigate the allegations, but instead busied himself (again, with Orrett and Robinson) TARGETING THE WHISTLEBLOWER for the sack.

What the report DOES tell us:

£2,500 in cash is unaccounted for
“Income may not have been banked intact”
There was “potential for fraud/ misappropriation”
Accounts had been “adjusted” and monies removed with no explanation
“No reliance can be placed upon the integrity of the detail recorded [in the markets’ accounts]”
The audit opinion was “poor”, financial control was “weak and management could place no reliance on it”
The Markets Service finance system was open to “significant risk, error or abuse”
It was difficult for the auditor to form any opinion as documents were withheld by Markets Service staff and managers – an act of gross misconduct
There was a refusal from staff to work with the auditor – an act of gross misconduct
There was a lack of transparency in both commercial and financial decision making
The expertise to sort out the financial mess did not exist among Markets Service staff once whistleblowers were given the boot by Harvey
No reliance can be placed upon the integrity of the markets’ accounts

This shocking report and subsequent EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS ITS FINDINGS by senior City Council managers (with the full knowledge and cooperation of the ‘fraud-busting’ Internal Audit team and the Head of Finance) call into question the financial integrity of the whole organisation.

Our money is not safe in their hands. There’s a cover-up here that reaches right to the top.

MARKET FARCES: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE CASH IN THE SAFE

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In July 2012, in the middle of a supposedly major financial investigation, a whistleblower in the Markets Service contacted Facilities Manager Tony Harvey regarding a LARGE SUM OF CASH – around £17,000 – that appeared to have been left to sit indefinitely in the markets’ safe for weeks.

Not unsurprisingly, the whistleblower was concerned about the SECURITY of this money. Council financial regulations state that no more than £5,000 cash should ever be left in a safe overnight – and there was no earthly reason why this money could not be banked.

Harvey’s response to this whistleblower? He immediately arranged to have their safe key removed so they could no longer observe the highly irregular brand of ‘management’ Harvey and his managers displayed towards large sums of the public’s cash!

It also meant that the whistleblower was unable to perform crucial aspects of their job – generally recognised as a characteristic of victimisatIon and BULLYING IN THE WORKPLACE.

The Markets Service Internal Audit report observed – when it was finally published – that there was £2.5K CASH UNACCOUNTED FOR… Or at least, that £2.5k never made it to a bank. Were these events in any way connected?

Some kind of misunderstanding over this odd series of events surrounding the markets’ safe appears to have been behind Councillor Gus Hoyt’s OUTING OF A WHISTLEBLOWER on Twitter – along with a spurious claim that they had stolen money from the markets safe!

A scenario so unlikely it has all the characteristics of a smear…

MARKET FARCES: WE PUBLISH THE SECRET INTERNAL AUDIT REPORT!

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As part of our in-depth investigation into the murky Markets Service money mismanagement affair, The BRISTOLIAN here presents the partially-redacted 2012 Bristol City Council ‘Internal Audit’ report.

Now YOU can decide for YOURSELF whether GRABBER GEORGE, SIR HOYTY-TOYTY and the others were telling the truth when they said it gave the Council a clean bill of health…

» Bristol City Council Market Operations Internal Audit Report (REDACTED) (PDF)
» Bristol City Council Market Operations Internal Audit Appendix (REDACTED) (PDF)

MARKET FARCES: COUNCIL BOSS DEATH RIDDLE AS BRISTOL MARKETS SCANDAL TURNS TOXIC

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EXPOSED IN THE PRESS. ABANDONED BY HIS OWN BOSSES. WAS THE TRUTH FINALLY CATCHING UP?

TONY HARVEY, the manager at the heart of a botched effort to cover up a major financial scandal in Bristol City Council’s crisis-hit Markets Service, has KILLED HIMSELF.

It’s understood that Harvey took his own life in January soon after being told by bosses he was formally under investigation for his financial management practices.

Harvey was not just responsible for the Markets mess, which has been regularly covered in The BRISTOLIAN over the past year. He was also responsible for the council’s security services, which also hit our front page when significant sums of money from its cash-in-transit service went walkabout on Harvey’s watch.

Since Harvey’s tragic death, The BRISTOLIAN has been handed a large and very detailed file of documents about events of the past few years at the council’s Markets Service and we will be publishing substantial amounts of this.

These include a copy of an investigation report by the council’s Internal Audit service into Markets, dated November 2012.

This DEMOLISHES claims by Mayor George Ferguson and Cabinet Member Sir Gus Hoyty-Toyty – understood to have been based on advice given to them by Harvey and his boss Robert ‘Spunkface’ Orrett – that there was no evidence of any financial wrongdoing in the Markets Service was, at best, hugely misleading and at worst, an OUTRIGHT LIE designed to fool senior politicians and the public in Bristol alike.

The BRISTOLIAN has also obtained correspondence to the authority’s then-monitoring officer, Stephen McNamara. A letter dated July 2012 very clearly warns that if Harvey was allowed by bosses to continue to victimise whistleblowers – through his madcap plan to remove them from their jobs in order to hide his own role in the financial mismanagement of the markets – then this would be PUBLICLY EXPOSED.

This letter was copied to other senior managers as well as senior councillors – including Geoff Gollop, who now runs the city’s finances, Mark Weston (Audit Committee Chair) and Mark Brain (Chair of the Resources Committee).

It appears they collectively took a gamble to risk public exposure of the facts and let Harvey continue both to victimise whistleblowers and ineptly cover it up. In retrospect, this looks like a very reckless decision indeed.

And it may prove to have put blood on their hands.

PINOCCHIOWEN TRIES TO SILENCE CRITICS OF HIS ‘REIGN OF ERROR’ AT HORSEWORLD – BRISTOL UNI CAVES IN TO THREATS?

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What a curious development in the never-ending saga of management mishaps in the upper echelons of HorseWorld.

On Monday the Bristol University newspaper Epigram published an article about recent events at HorseWorld on its website. It covered many of the allegations which The BRISTOLIAN first brought to public attention.

Epigram’s HorseWorld article – TAKEN DOWN

By mid-morning on Tuesday, readers began telling us that the article was no longer being displayed. We attempted to contact Epigram and its editors, the Student Union, the University’s Press Office and the UoB management, to find out what had happened. No one got back to us.

Then a source close to HorseWorld MD Mark ‘Not That One’ Owen told us what seemed by now to be obvious: the article had been pulled after a furious Pinocchiowen was “straight on the phone to the Uni [yesterday] morning” to demand that the article was removed.

Google Cache version – WIPED OFF THE FACE OF THE NET

We then posted a link to a cached version of the article still available via Google.

Today that Google cache version has also been taken down.

So in support of a free press unhindered by threats, coercion, fear or favour, we present for you here the full text of the article in question [not any more – see notes at the bottom of the page for further info!] – and call upon you, the reader, to decide whether it should have been pulled…

The BRISTOLIAN’s précis of the Max Miller Epigram article ‘Mismanagement rears its ugly head at Horseworld’

There’s a “scandal brewing” at the sixty year-old charity HorseWorld, with fears that it may have to reduce its activities and make more than 25 staff redundant after the failure of its bid for planning consent to permit the sell-off of land to developers. This is in tandem with reductions in income, a situation “mirrored by the fates of charities across the country” as donation levels drop off.

The article also notes that research by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Charities Aid Foundation shows that between 2010 and 2012 charitable giving were down £1.7bn (£2.3bn when adjusted for inflation) to £9.3bn – a plummet of 20% in real terms. This research into the donations nosedive was released shortly after an investigation by the Telegraph newspaper, which showed that the number of “executives receiving six-figure salaries at Britain’s leading aid charities, and those linked to them, rose by nearly 60 per cent from 19 to 30 over the past three years.” The article noted The BRISTOLIAN’s own coverage, in which managing director Mark Owen has been reported as having “played a part in Horseworld losing over £2 million in the last three years.”

The article then summarises some of The BRISTOLIAN’s claims about Owen’s management of HorseWorld, including his starting salary of £60,000 in 2008, his £28,000 company Audi, the hiring of consultants at £525 per day, and his blaming of others for the charity’s predicament. As the author notes, this “does not exactly scream out ‘competent management.’”

Next comes reflection on the overall shrinking of charity donations in the UK during recent recessionary times, pointing out how fundraising website Charity Giving shut down – with a loss of more than £250,000 in donations – and highlighting a report in The Independent which investigated the challenges faced by UK charities “battling not only the effects of economic downturn, but also theft, organised crime, fraud worries and accusations of pure mismanagement.”

The article then crunches some of HorseWorld’s numbers: its income fell by nearly £200k from £1.25mn to £1.06mn in 2010-2012, with voluntary donations dropping from £728,046 to £398,214 over the same period.

Next it is pointed out that Owen’s strategy for rectifying HorseWorld’s financial freefall – an all-or-nothing green belt planning gamble – was about as high-risk as you could get. The phrases “financial mismanagement” and “major mistake” are used.

Finally, the author summarises, suggesting that what has been happening in the management of HorseWorld “is a perfect [but extreme] example of what is happening across the country.” Ultimately, when a charity sees income drying up and managers not acting appropriately, it is the good work which suffers most.

Note 1: We reproduce this article unedited [this was before the events outlined in Note 2 below] and in its entirety in order to stimulate debate around the issue of censorship, and around the management issues at HorseWorld that the article refers to. We claim no copyright over the article, and will take it down at the request of its author, or when the original article is reinstated to the Epigram website. (12 February 2014)

Note 2: This morning (13/2/14) a person claiming to be Max Miller, the author of the article, contacted The BRISTOLIAN via the comments section to request that we “kindly delete this article and not publish it in part or in whole anywhere else on or off-line”, and that it ”was an oversight that led to its publication not censorship”. Having subsequently confirmed that this was indeed the University of Bristol student Max Miller, and the acknowledged author of the article, we have removed it.

In its place – and to ensure that the public record in this matter does not suffer – we have summarised its contents, paragraph-by-paragraph, below. We have quoted only a tiny proportion of the article directly (in red). We have also added links to other references (something not done in the Max Miller original), from which we have also included a few direct quotations (in green). We fully acknowledge that authorship of the original article lies with Max Miller; but further assert our own S.31 rights to fair dealing in our summary of that article. (13 February 2014)

Note 3: This afternoon (13/2/14) we spotted that Epigram had posted up the following retraction: “Epigram would like to retract an article published on 10 February 2014 entitled ‘Mismanagement rears its head at Horseworld’. The article was about the equine charity Horseworld and included allegations of mismanagement. The article was based on content from other sources and we regret not offering the managing director – Mark Owen – the right of reply before publication. We will rectify this by providing him the opportunity to respond in the following issue of Epigram. Meanwhile, Epigram apologises unreservedly to Horseworld and Mr Owen for the editorial oversight that led to the publication of this article.” (13 February 2014)