An IPCC Whitewash

The published findings of what claims to be a complete review of my case start by listing seven of the eight complaints on my Witness Statement. My third complaint, of "Wrongful arrest", is omitted, though the report does have a paragraph on the subject; and for a reason I do not understand my complaints are usually referred to in the singular: "your complaint".

The last paragraph of the introduction states that the IPCC's casework manager has "reviewed Sussex Police's investigation". The report adds, "Sussex Police also provided further comments, as well as background papers."

On 7th Nov 2005 I told enquiries@ipcc, "I can of course provide you with copies of any particular documents that you need." On 18th Nov I emailed elizabeth.williams@ipcc with an offer to send any documents considered important, and an offer to write a one-page summary of the events which led to my arrest. On 19th April 2006 I said to neil.jasper@ipcc, "I have masses of documentary evidence in addition to anything published on my website, so please let me know if you need a photocopy of any particular document, an explanation of any particular point, or a page-length summary of relevant events 1998 - 2005."

No papers, background or foreground, were asked for from me. An independent reviewer would seek evidence equally from either side. Perhaps the IPCC found all the evidence that they needed from me on my website. The following analysis of the way they treat my complaints should show whether that is the case.

My witness statement, based on a pattern established by Sussex Police, complains of the behaviour of one unnamed officer and seven named officers. The IPCC report names none of these officers, and some are not even referred to.

My actual list of complaints is dealt with, so I am able to consider them one by one. The IPCC starts with the paragraph:

1) Wilful blindess
In your statement, you complained that Sussex Police have failed to investigate various incidents of harassment against you since 1998. These incidents notably include two assaults: one in 2002, from Mr Mabry, and another in 2004 from Mrs McCombie.

First sentence: Nowhere in my testimony about the circumstances of this complaint do I say that the police have failed to investigate various incidents of harassment. On the contrary, in the second paragraph I say, "These deliveries were investigated by a police officer on I think two occasions, and by two men I remember as detectives on one occasion." The substance of this complaint should have been clear to any unprejudiced person of normal intelligence. My first sentence reads: "On two occasions when I was assaulted, the investigating officer refused to take into account criminal actions which had led up to the assaults, including threats to beat me up." This is followed in my witness statement by further testimony about the two instances, which draws attention to itself by being the only material under the Wilful blindess heading that is printed in bold. The two statements read:

"he [the police sergeant] refused to take into account previous incidents which had led me to call the police: he said that he was only investigating the current incident;" and "PC Francis refused to take into account previous incidents which had led me to call the police: he said that he was only investigating the present incident."

The IPCC have not addressed my complaint of wilful blindness on the part of Sussex Police. In the first instance the sergeant refused to take account of two previous threats to beat me up. In the second instance, the constable refused to take account of five years' harassment by the complainants and their friend ex-policeman Mabry.

Second sentence: The notable incidents of harassment did not comprise only two assaults. It looks as if whitewasher Jasper did not even think it necessary to look at the evidence provided in my witness statement about the 2004 assaults. The notable incidents of harassment were many and varied, but included four assaults: two by ex-policeman Mabry, one by Mr McCombie, and one by Mrs McCombie. If pushing me in the chest before threatening to beat me up to the extent that I would need intensive care in hospital counts as assault, then the number of assaults by ex-policeman Mabry is three, making a total of five assaults.

Other notable incidents of harassment by Mabry (see mabrys.htm and mabrylog.htm) include more than five years of verbal abuse; five years of unwanted parcels (e.g. see britlog.htm) and other mail being delivered by courier or the postman; part of my front lawn being mowed by Mabry or his son; being told by Mabry that I could build a low wall adjacent to his drive only when the builders eventually arrived for Mabry to threaten to fill in any trench they dug, and on the same day removing a six-foot panel from the fence separating his back garden from mine in order to intimidate me; Mabry sending me obscene Christmas cards; Mabry shouting through my letterbox; Mabry appearing over the top of his six-foot garden fence to direct a hose on to my back garden and on another occasion with a saw in his hand threatening to cut off the tops of posts in my garden; Mabry trespassing on my property on three occasions to take a short cut from the McCombies' bungalow to his own; cutting grass in my front garden and throwing it on a flower bed; throwing a water bomb which missed washing on a rotary drier, exploded when it hit a glass door, and destroyed a saxifrage plant; pounding on my front door; Mabry telling me to put my property on the market and move out (followed by two threatening telephone calls with the same message); malicious telephone calls in the middle of the night as well as during daytime, and telephone calls from people who said that I had asked for an appointment for my furniture to be measured for fitted covers, or for me to be measured for underwear, or I had asked for a loan or insurance or a kitchen; stealing an LNB and bracket from a satellite dish in my back garden; blocking my drive with cars and a wheelie bin; letting visitors to his property trespass on my property, one of whom disappeared behind my garage, presumably to urinate on the alpine bed over which he had walked. When the McCombies moved in next door to me, Mabry enlisted their help in his attempt to drive me from my home.

The first indication of this was the use of abusive language. Soon after I had asked ex-policeman Mabry to remove his fence from my front lawn, he approached me by walking down my drive and initiated a verbal attack by saying, "You're a little shit". Soon after the McCombies moved in on the other side of my property, when I was in my front garden, Mrs McCombie twice loudly remarked to visitors to her property, "There's the little shit". There followed on other occasions derogatory exchanges between the two sets of neighbours shouted across my property, clearly audible to me though I was indoors behind double-glazed windows. A sample of the McCombies' abusive language, taken from a letter that I wrote to Eastbourne County Court, is available here.

Paragraph 2: With regard to my complaint that a sergeant "refused to take into account previous incidents which had led me to call the police", whitewasher Jasper says,

with regard to the alleged assault in 2002, I have received a copy of a page from the notebook of Inspector Barrasford. In this notebook, you signed a statement to show your agreement that no disciplinary action should be taken against the officer who investigated the assault.

I do not remember signing the notebook of Acting Inspector Barrasford, and if I did it is most unlikely that I would have endorsed the above wording. I was asked if I wanted the sergeant punished, and my answer was meant to convey that I was not the person who could or should decide that. Whether the sergeant was personally responsible for what he had said I did not know. The fact that exactly the same thing happened after the assault in 2004 when a different police officer said the same thing as the sergeant had done suggests that I was right to withhold judgement on who was responsible. In any case, whitewasher Jasper again ignores the point: what I wanted was for my account of the assault on me to be recorded, instead of which all that was recorded by Sussex Police as far as I have heard is Mabry's lie that I had been involved in an "altercation". Mabry is the most shameless liar I have met in my life: not surprising in view of what I have since learned about the metropolitan police, to which force Mabry used to belong.

Paragraph 3: Of "the alleged assault in 2004", Jasper says that the police "did not have enough evidence to prove which party acted in self-defence." This assertion shows either failure by the police to provide the IPCC with an important document, and / or wiful ignorance or shameless dishonesty on the part of whitewasher Jasper. A plan similar to the one that the police reluctantly accepted from me is available here. A copy of the text of the my signed statement about the attacks, also reluctantly accepted by the police, was available to the IPCC here. As I pointed out to the investigating officer, with six individuals available for questioning there was plenty of opportunity for uncovering the truth.

Paragraph 4: With regard to other incidents, such as parcel deliveries . . . the police must act on proof, and did not have evidence on which to prosecute any of your neighbours.

I gave the police a great deal of evidence, face to face, by telephone, by email, and by letter, some of which they did not bother to record. More evidence is available in letters that I wrote to Mabry's solicitors and Eastbourne County Court. Some of the evidence I gave to the police can be found on this page of my website. As to unwanted deliveries, the samples of handwriting that the police had in 1999 may have been lost or destroyed, but later I took copies of coupons and correspondence to Hailsham police station, where I was told that the police could do nothing because "money" was not involved. I later asked for the materials back, as I thought that the police might throw them away. Samples of the handwriting of one of the persons responsible for five years of harassment are available here. Handwriting has of course often been used as evidence in court, though another police officer said to me that "people can change their handwriting".

Moreover, "proof" was not necessary for Sussex Police to add to the charge against me, "You have been witnessed on occassions taking photos of the McCrombies property and have been seen several times late at night within the boundary of the McCombie's property." The photography allegation depends merely on witness statements (superfluous, as many of the photographs were filed in Eastbourne County Court as evidence); and the "several times" is not borne out by the single preposterous incident invented by McCombie and included in his witness statement (available, with my comment on it, here).

2) Gross prejudice
You have complained that the officer who investigated an alleged assault on you failed to act impartially, expecting you to accept your assailant's version of events. You have directed my attention to the words that the officer used to describe the incident when he recorded it; he describes it as an "altercation" and an "affray".

As you know, Mr Mabry and Mrs McCombie have made counter-allegations against you . . . a police officer would have to record the incidents using terms that were neutral, such as 'affray' or 'altercation' .

The IPCC's "the officer" refers to two different officers. After the first assault, in 2002, I was not allowed to record a statement, and the police recorded that I had been involved in an "altercation". As there was no altercation, "altercation" is not a neutral term. After the series of assaults in 2004, the officer said he was recording that I had been involved in an affray before he began his token investigation of the assaults. Later, when interviewing me after my arrest, he said that I had been responsible for an affray, so "affray" is not a neutral term. I suppose that Jasper could be a lawyer.

As to the assertion that I knew that Mr Mabry had made counter-allegations against me, "know" is much too strong a word. I did however link this assertion to DI Preddy's statement that "4 close neighbours provided statements of evidence against Mr. Madden". As I said in my report on the PSD report, "I only have three witness statements." As the fourth report appears to have been withheld from me, on 30th May I sent a letter of complaint to the Chief Constable and asked that the fourth witness statement be sent to me as soon as practicable.

Jasper ignores the fact that PC Francis had decided to accuse me of "affray" before his investigation started, and he ignores "the grossly prejudiced Case Summary".

The outstanding example of gross prejudice leading on to falsification of evidence became available too late for inclusion in the complaints considered in this report, as Sussex Police refused for more than twelve months to allow me to have copies of my interview tapes. My analysis of the tapes is available here.

3) Wrongful arrest
The IPCC refer to "defamatory comments . . . on the McCombies . . . on which your arrest could be justified."

Apart from spoken abusive language to me and about me which I have reported on in a number of letters, I have defamatory comments about me by the McCombies, Mabry, and their allies, in written form, which outnumber the five words which I used about the McCombies:

In a letter of 7th November 2001 to Eastbourne County Court McCombie made several defamatory and untrue remarks about me, including the assertion that I had "fallen out with every one of [my] neighbours over trivial matters", that I had "attempted to have the postman fired from his job over a very petty matter", and regarding plants in containers which had been fixed by the McCombies to a fence in my back garden, "I suspect that they were poisoned".

A letter to me of 14th November 2003 signed by Mabry but written by McCombie says, "the Sussex Police . . . have shown a great deal of interest in your strange and dubious activities. They have expressed their displeasure regarding your fetish for calling upon them . . . The rantings of a paranoid individual apparently suffering from mental illness does not rate very highly on their [the police's] list of priorities."

A letter I wrote to Mrs McCombie on 6th March 2004 was returned with my text crossed out, "RUBBISH" written across it in large letters, and the envelope re-addressed to "MAD MADDEN".

A letter to me from McCombie dated 6th May 2004 includes the following:
"Even an arrogant fool like you must see just how futile your actions will be."
"Should you insist on carrying out your ridiculous plan".
"You will conduct yourself in the manner of a normal adult human being, something you are quite clearly unaccustomed to."
"This fails to surprise me given your pathetic and inappropriate attitude towards most things in life."
"your arrogance and childlike behaviour does you no favours".

Witness statements by M. Curtis and T. Andrews, neighbours of the Mabrys, characterise me as "a strange man" and a "nutter", because they saw me photographing two cars. The witness statement of McCombie enlarges on the idea: " 'Tina' . . . said to me, 'Have you seen the rubbish that mad man has written about you' . . . he may have a mental instability , which may degenerate and cause serious harm to myself or my wife."

The police refused to hear the reason for the defamatory comments about the McCombies - to counter more than five years of abusive language directed at me by Mabry and the McCombies - or to hear the reason for my letters to neighbours, as an attempted safety measure after six people had invaded my back garden and I had been assaulted by Mabry and the McCombies, and it was quite clear that the police were going to do nothing whatever about it.

If there had been as clear a reason for my arrest as Jasper supposes, there would have been no reason for my Case Summary to be falsified, for my taped interview to be transcribed in a criminally falsified manner, or for a witness statement by a fourth neighbour (presumably Mabry) to be withheld from the collection of documents entitled MG Forms sent to me by the police (logged May 30th).

4) Neglect of proper procedure when he was in custody
You have complained that you were not given a medical examination. No, I complained that I had asked on three occasions to see a doctor, and was not allowed to do so. The custody records indicate that you did not ask for medical attention. I know, that's what I am complaining about.

I shall not repeat here the evidence I adduced in my complaint, which Jasper ignores, as it is available on this page. Even the purblind DI Preddy concedes, "Had Mr Madden requested to see a Doctor then I can see no logical reason why PS Boughton would have refused his request, especially bearing in mind the complainant's age and medical history", though the implication here might be that I was lying when I said that I had asked three times to see a doctor, not that police officers' actions can be illogical or contrary to published procedures.

5) Illegitimate use of a caution
I can find also find no evidence that the offer of a caution was illegitimate. You contend that you had not committed an offence, and so the offer was inappropriate. However, the police were considering a prosecution against you on the basis of the comments on your website. In the circumstances, their proposal that you accept a caution, as an alternative to being brought to trial, was entirely appropriate.

I quote the whole of Jasper's report on Complaint 5, because it illustrates well how glib and spurious his method of procedure is. He starts with a Preddy ploy: "I can find . . . no evidence." When DI Preddy used it, I sent him twenty definitions of the word evidence. One will suffice here: "Information in the form of personal testimony, documents or objects filed in support of the issue in question."

Jasper needed to look no further than my Complaints witness statement for evidence. In that I quoted for evidence a document, Home Office Circular 18/1994, National Standards For Cautioning (Revised), Section 2, which declares that,

"to safeguard the offender's interests, the following conditions must be met before a caution can be administered -

"- there must be evidence of the offender's guilt sufficient to give a realistic prospect of conviction;

"- the offender must admit the offence"

Note 5A adds, "The officer administering the caution should be in uniform and normally of the rank of inspector or above", with some exceptions.

There was not evidence of my guilt sufficient to give a realistic prospect of conviction: on the contrary, when I objected to the CPS's notice of discontinuance, I did so because I wanted the trial to go ahead, as the police quite obviously did not have a case, and it seems to have been negligent of the CPS to initially suggest that the matter could go to trial. To accommodate my objection, the CPS arranged a brief meeting in court at which they said that they were offering no evidence.

In my complaint, I printed in bold type, I certainly did not admit any offence. To the IPCC, that apparently was irrelevant.

And the officer administering the cautions was not an inspector or above, but the dishonest Police Constable Francis.

The Home Office Circular declares a caution to be a "serious matter": it is outrageous that the IPCC should think Francis's behaviour "entirely appropriate". Home Office Circular 18/1994 Note 2B says, "A caution will not be appropriate where a person does not make a clear and reliable admission of the offence." Perhaps PC Francis's threat over the telephone the second time he asked me to accept a caution - that he could arrest me again - was also "entirely appropriate".

So writing on behalf of the IPCC, Jasper declares the procedure to have been "entirely appropriate". The police can simply disregard National Standards set by the Home Office to safeguard members of the public, and the IPCC will complacently endorse the actions of the police. My local police seem not to be the only public service to employ unprincipled scum.

Incidentally, as the Home Office Circular, Decision to Caution 2, starts: "A formal caution is a serious matter. It is recorded by the police; it should influence them in their decision whether or not to institute proceedings if the person should offend again; and it may be cited in any subsequent court proceedings", I wished to find out whether the caution had been recorded in my case. I requested the information when I paid £10 to the police to find out whether I could be given this and other information, only to find that I could not.

6) Withholding of important evidence
The IPCC comments on evidence on computers confiscated from me, and on interview tapes.

(i} Computer files: Not allowing me access to files on my computers was according to Jasper not "police misconduct" but "standard procedure". In that case, the police are habitually guilty of misconduct. Jasper says, "allowing you access to the items would defeat the object of confiscating them". That is untrue, unless that object was to prevent my having access to evidence which supported the case that I wanted to argue in court.

In a letter dated 11th November 2004 addressed to PI Brown, CI Matthews, and CC Jones, I wrote: "I said [to PC Francis] that I wanted copies of documents and photographs relevant to the case on the two computers that PC Francis seized from me on 12th August." What object does having copies of files defeat?

From the mass of documents available on two computers, I willl take just one topic for comment, the assault on me by Mabry on 23rd March 2002. I have recently been sent (fortuitously) data from the Crime Reporting System which contains a dishonest account of the assault, which could of course have been used in court as evidence. Under the heading "AGGRIEVED" and my details, the text reads, "DURING DAYTIME AFTERNOON IN ROAD KNOWN OFFENDER AND VICTIM MALE ADULT ARGUED OFFENDER THEN USED PHYSICAL VIOLENCE GRABBED AND PUSHED VICTIM . . . ." The assault did not take place in the road, but entirely on my property. There was no argument. I was not grabbed and pushed: I was punched repeatedly as I retreated halfway across one lawn, and most of the way down a second lawn, until I was knocked to the ground on my drive. The sergeant who dealt with the case, and I suppose may have written that dishonest police record, refused to let me make a signed statement because I would not agree to what he wanted to write. See here for a few more details.

As a result I wrote my own statement, and used the Police Complaints Authority as a means of filing it. The text of that statement was in a file on my computers, and I should have been allowed access to it. It is now available here.

Then earlier events relevant to the assault, which the police refused to take into account, are documented in a letter that I wrote to Mayo & Perkins, solicitors, dated 10th July 1999, which says that their client 'called me "a little shit" and various other obscenities, and advised me to see a psychiatrist . . . . Your client appeared, advanced towards me in a threatening manner, pushed me in the chest – perhaps to provoke some retaliation – and said he would put me in need of "intensive care".' In an email, on 23/7/99, I sent Mayo and Perkins an update: 'I have asked three builders with bricklaying expertise to quote for the relocation and extension of the wall. While the last of these, a local craftsman and his son, were inspecting the site of the work this morning, Mr Mabry appeared and threatened me or anyone I employed with violence if I went ahead with the work. I informed the police, and gave them the name, address, and telephone number of the two workmen present.' Both these documents were saved as computer files.

I again wrote to Mayo and Perkins on 17th May 2002. To explain why I was not prepared to do any work near Mabry's property, I referred again to the two incidents above, and added, 'On 23rd March 2002 Mr Mabry repeatedly punched me and finally knocked me to the ground. The police have not prevented Mr Mabry's criminal behaviour, and the Court shows as yet little sign of doing so either. I have been unable to do any heavy work since the attack on 23rd March. My right arm and shoulder were injured in the assault, and are still a source of pain.' This document was saved as a computer file.

I had many other documents on my computers relevant to other incidents with the Mabrys, and some documenting the link between the Mabrys and the McCombies, like a letter from me to Eastbourne County Court which relates how Mabry helped McCombie to put coloured lights in my front garden: 'Soon after, either entirely or partly by the agency of the defendants' friend Mabry (who assaulted the claimant on 23rd March 2002), some of the lights were put back on the claimant's side of the fence, and Mabry added further lights to a shrub which overhung the claimant's property.'

The IPCC's argument merely parrots the attitude of PC Francis (letter from me to PI Brown, CI Matthews, and CC Jones dated 11th November 2004 and saved as a computer file: 'PC Francis said that I could only have copies of stuff that the police wanted to use in court.') and PI Brown. I think that attitude indefensible as it provides a serious obstacle to a fair trial.

(ii) Interview tapes: Jasper says, "You did not sign the form." That is untrue: my signature is the only thing I did add to the form. Officers suggested that I had not filled in the form due to "inexperience with police forms": patronising rubbish. Jasper had access to my explanation here. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) CODE E stipulates: "4.19 The suspect shall be handed a notice which explains:
• how the audio recording will be used
• the arrangements for access to it
• that if the person is charged or informed they will be prosecuted, a copy of the audio recording will be supplied as soon as practicable or as otherwise agreed between the suspect and the police."

I was not handed the form as I should have been. The dishonest PC Francis put it on the work surface and held it down with his hand covering the top part of the form and asked or told me to sign it. I think I made it clear at the time that I wanted the tapes myself and that I did not want them to be given to a solicitor. It is PC Francis who filled in the rest of the form and ticked one of the boxes.

It is dishonest of Jasper to say simply that officers "have agreed to send copies of the tapes to you." That was agreed by DI Preddy only after I had written numerous letters, including letters to the local custody centre, the local inspector, the local chief inspector, and the local chief constable, and those letters having not produced the tapes a letter to HMIC which led to my being allowed to officially file complaints against Sussex Police. Both the form I signed and PACE CODE E say that I should have been supplied with the tapes "as soon as practicable." More than twelve months after my interview is clearly nowhere near soon enough to be acceptable. Study of my analysis of the dishonest transcription of those tapes by the dishonest PC Francis should show why the police were keen to keep them secret. Further, the form I signed makes clear that if I had chosen not to have the tapes, "This does not prevent you . . . from requesting a copy at a later date." Further, the same note adds, "Requests for second or subsequent copies of the tape will be subject to a charge." Yet DI Preddy in his report had the effrontery to say, "Sussex Police normally only supply such tapes to solicitors for legal reasons."

That you, Jasper, are prepared to endorse the flagrant disregard by Sussex Police of codified procedures meant to protect people like me leads me to think of you, Jasper, as unprincipled scum. When I wrote to the HMIC, I told them that the quality of policing in South Wealden was "lousy". Since then, I have been enquiring into the reasons for that lousiness. My conclusions to date are that the Sussex Police Professional Standards Department is also lousy, that HMIC is weak, that the Sussex Police Authority is ignorant, and that the IPCC is lousy and 'not fit for purpose'.

Since I made my eight complaints and studied the two reports written on them, another instance of the withholding of important evidence has come to light, and shows the depths to which Sussex Police can sink. When I was sent a number of documents under the title of "MG Forms", which are still securely stapled together, three witness statements by neighbours were included. Yet DI Preddy's report says, "4 close neighbours provided statements of evidence against Mr. Madden," and the IPCC report says, "As you know, Mr Mabry and Mrs McCombie have made counter-allegations against you." I did not know of counter-allegations by Mabry, and suppose from this that Mabry might have been the person who signed the fourth statement, which I have not been allowed to see. I have written (30th May) to the Chief Constable in order to file a complaint about this, and have asked that I be provided with the missing document "as soon as practicable". I may want to add further comment on this when I receive a reply to my request.

I received a letter dated 1 June signed pp Registry Administrator - Executive Support Unit which said, "I will ensure that the matter you raised is looked at and that a full reply is sent to you as soon as possible." Three weeks later, I am still awaiting receipt of the missing evidence. P.S. This thread is now continued on a different page.

7) Contravention of human rights
When I refused to edit an order to me by the investigating officer and serial liar PC Francis to "Keep quiet and listen to me", and to remove from my website images and comments providing evidence about the forced entry into my property of ex-policeman Mabry and five others, PC Francis said that he would have my website closed down. Jasper says, "The police did not close your website, Tiscali exercised their prerogative to do so." Comments in his previous sentence are distinguished by their vagueness: "the police raised the contents of your website" - all the contents? which contents?, and "Tiscali ruled that the comments breached your agreement with them" - which comments? The only comments that I had been asked to change or remove had concerned facts that I related about PC Francis. That I had not been asked by Tiscali to remove any particular comments should be clear from my account of their incompetence and failure to answer my emails.

I have no doubt that PC Francis was responsible for having my website closed down, and I think that PC Francis was also responsible for saboting my computers, and for making the main hard disk unreadable, so that thousands of files have been lost. PC Francis was destroying evidence which had accumulated against him and against the other uniformed liar who had falsely logged an assault on me by an ex-policeman in March 2002, and refused to let me make my own statement about it.

8) Negligence, incompetence, and misuse of seized property
Taking his cue from CI Matthews, Jasper ignores the most important point - that my computers were deliberately rendered unusable, even though "it was deemed by both the OIC and the Computer crime unit that no examination of the computer equipment be made", and seizes instead on the much less important matter of possible compensation from the police claims unit.

As the damage to my computers is outlined in my eighth complaint, I shall not repeat it here.

As to compensation, after ignoring a number of complaints from me sent to him via Sussex Police Authority and then directly to him, in a letter of 22/03/05 CI Matthews said, "In relation to the property I would need to know if you will be pursuing a compensation claim from Sussex Police and would benefit from seeing any relevant receipts of purchase and an official quotation for the repair."

I was disgusted by the fact that Matthews showed no interest whatever in the malpractice in his command which had led to damage to my property. I replied to Matthews' letter on 26th March, and included in one sentence more than Jasper acknowledges: "I may well want to pursue a claim for compensation, but there are no receipts and official quotations for being deprived of my property for so many months without any proper justification - property which for various reasons I had to replace - or for the worry and stress caused by the indefensible conduct of your officers."

On 19th October 2005, DI Preddy wrote to me:
"Unfortunately I cannot progress the enquiry into your allegations that Sussex Police damaged your computer equipment and cameras which were seized on 12 August 2005. [actually 2004]

"I note that on 22 March 2005 Chief Inspector Matthews wrote to you requesting that you supply him with receipts of purchase and an official quotation for the repair of your equipment, but it appears you have not responded to this request. [untrue - see above]

"I cannot progress this aspect of your complaint as a misconduct matter as I have no evidence to prove that any damage was indeed caused."

My reply on 21st October included an appendix with twenty definitions of the word evidence. In the letter I said "If you have no evidence that the police damaged my property, presumably Sussex Police do not have any such evidence either, so my making a claim to the police for damage to my property by the police at this stage would in all likelihood be futile." I had already provided plenty of evidence myself, but my attempts to provide more by asking for information from the Eastbourne Police Property Store Manager and from the High-Tech Crime Unit were passed on to DI Preddy, and that of course was the last I heard of them.

My letter to DI Preddy did contain details of two invoices, and too much else to include here, so I will reprint the letter on a separate page.

My eighth complaint included the date on which the case against me was closed, February 4th, and the date on which my property was returned, March 2nd. The return was made only after I told PI Brown over the telephone that my property had not been returned. According to the IPCC, "evidence does not show that they were tardy in returning the items."

Much more seriously, Jasper says, "I must emphasise that if you refuse to substantiate the damage to your equipment, then harm cannot be established and officers cannot be held responsible." I certainly have not refused to substantiate the damage: I have tried over and over again to do so. DP Preddy's case worker has seen some of the damage for himself. Yet Purblind Preddy claims, "I have no evidence to prove that any damage was indeed caused." He has also thwarted my own attempts to gain information about how and by whom the damage was caused by having my requests for information referred to him, and then neither answering them nor acknowledging receipt of them.

When I telephoned the original case manager assigned to my case to try to find out when my problems with Sussex Police might be considered, I was told only that the report would have to be referred to "the commissioner." So Jasper's approach to my complaints cannot be seen as an individual aberration. "The Commission is the governing board of the IPCC," and "Commissioners oversee and take ultimate responsibility for IPCC investigations." The IPCC "reviewed Sussex Police's investigation", they considered "further comments" from Sussex Police", and they studied "background papers" provided by Sussex Police, ignoring my evidence that some members of the Sussex Police force are dishonest. Where is the evidence that the IPCC considered evidence provided by me? It does not feature in their report.

The IPCC has no right to call itself an independent body. In 2002 I found that the PCA was a virtually useless organization, as Sussex Police were able able to conceal corrupt activity within their ranks by making a merely token response to my complaints, and making no change to their inaccurate records. The IPCC, which inherited some of its staff from the PCA has gone one better than its predecessor: it simply sides with the police by relying on evidence which the police provide, and therefore required Sussex Police to make no further response whatever to my complaints.

Since I published my eight complaints, three other reasons for complaint have come to light, and have been referred to the current Chief Constable, the third of the chief constables to preside over dishonesty and malpractice in the Sussex police force since I moved to East Sussex in 1998. Further details are being added to a page devoted to these three.