Witness Statement

This statement (consisting of 6 page(s) each signed by me) is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and I make it knowing that, if it is tendered in evidence, I shall be liable to prosecution if I have wilfully stated anything in it, which I know to be false or do not believe to be true.

I wish to make formal complaints against Sussex Police.

The specific officers that I wish to complain about are:
1. the sergeant who refused to allow me to make a statement after I had been assaulted by an ex-policeman in 2002, though as I have already complained about him to the PCA this may not be allowable;
2. PC Francis, who is unfit to be a police officer, unless his behaviour was largely determined by orders from above - responsible for making a wrongful arrest and distorting evidence;
3. PI Brown, who had been given ample evidence of the harassment to which I had been subjected for years, as any examination of my correspondence with him will testify, but was "satisfied that all relevant procedures and processes were followed";
4. CI Matthews, who on the advice of the IPCC had been sent a succession of complaints from me, yet on 22/03/055 seemed completely ignorant of most of them, except "Firstly the alleged damage to your property and secondly that you are seeking our views on the information you propose to publish";
and blameworthy probably to a much lesser extent, unless they were consciously colluding in what I take to be low-level corruption:
5. PC Wilkinson, who described problems between myself and a neighbour as like two children quarrelling in the playground, and
6. PC Satchwell, who asserted that a crime had not been committed when a neighbour cut down vegetation in my front garden and threw it on a flower bed because "grass is not property" -
(PCs Wilkinson and Satchwell are not responsible for the selection and training of police officers);
7. Sergeant Boughton, a custody officer who erroneously recorded that I did not ask to see a doctor.

My complaints comprise:
1. Wilful blindness on the part of Sussex Police
2. Gross prejudice on the part of the Sussex Police
3. Wrongful arrest
4. Neglect of proper procedures when I was in custody
5. Illegitimate use of a caution
6. Withholding of important evidence
7. Contravention of human rights
8. Negligence, incompetence and misuse of seized property.

I outline the circumstances giving rise to my complaints as follows:

1. Wilful blindness on the part of Sussex Police
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.

1st Occasion Mr Mabry, my next-door neighbour, an ex-policeman, fenced off a 1.5 metre strip of my front lawn in November 1998 in order to widen his drive. When my Land Registry documents belatedly arrived in January 1999, I was in a position to ask Mabry to remove his fence. Mrs Mabry immediately called me a "neighbour from Hell", and Mr Mabry was furious. Part of the fence was removed, but a policy of harassment began a few days later, starting with verbal abuse, and - presumably from the Mabrys - a stream of parcels and other materials through the post or by courier, totalling more than four hundred items. These deliveries were investigated by a police officer on I think two occasions, and by two men I remember as detectives on one occasion. In 1999 Mabry twice threatened to beat me up, the first time threatening to put me in need of intensive care in hospital, the second time threatening to beat up me and two builders who were visiting me to quote for a wall. The onset of arthritis in 1999 and an attack of shingles in August 1999 may be attributable to the stress under which I was living at the time. Both threats were reported to the police, to whom I gave the name, address, and telephone number of the builders who had been present when I was threatened the second time.

At a hearing on Friday 22nd March 2002 (EA101669), District Judge Robinson agreed that I could remove what remained of Mr Mabry's fence on my property. On the morning of Saturday 23rd March 2002, I removed two short sections of fence by unscrewing the bolts which attached them to my wall; as I did so Mrs Mabry came out and said that I was doing "criminal damage". In the afternoon of that same day, having mowed the lawn in front of my property, I was using a light broom to sweep blades of grass from the drive of the Mabrys' property when Mr Mabry arrived home, leaped from his car, ran at me, punched me repeatedly, and knocked me to the ground on my drive. I do not think that I could have done the sensible thing and run away, as the previous month I had had to be carried to an ambulance and taken to A & E, my leg muscles having seized up painfully because of deficiencies in my diet.

In response to this assault I telephoned 999. A few minutes later a car arrived and a person I took to be a police officer went into the Mabrys' property. Then another car arrived and two officers also went into the Mabrys' property. A third car arrived and two more officers went into the Mabrys' property. Some time later a sergeant and constable visited me. The sergeant took my name and date of birth and arranged for the constable to visit me on Monday to take a statement. I think that it was on that occasion that he said that he could have been visiting the scene of a rape instead of wasting time with me. The constable arrived unannounced on Sunday morning. It was apparent to me that the constable had been told what my statement was to say, and when I declined to agree that there had been an argument that led to a fight, the constable left.

The sergeant then telephoned me and arranged to visit me that afternoon. As the sergeant dictated my statement for the constable to write down, he 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. I was allowed to correct a few words in the statement. The sergeant then tried to get me to agree to a sentence which said that I did not wish to take the matter any further. Having been subjected to harassment for more than three years by Mabry, I did not agree to this. The sergeant immediately accused me of being 'obstroperous' (sic), and refused to let me sign a statement. Dissatisfied with the action of the police, I made a statement through the Police Complaints Authority and I was subsequently visited by Acting Inspector Barrasford. The inspector only asked me if I wanted the sergeant punished, but did not tell me that the police record that I had been involved in an "altercation" would remain unaltered.

The refusal to see the assault in the light of Mabry's previous behaviour allowed the seriousness of the assault on me to be downplayed, and no doubt encouraged Mabry to believe that he could continue to harass me with impunity, culminating in a second attack on me in my own back garden, after forced entry, by Mabry and two of his friends.

2nd Occasion On 24th July 2004 I was renewing the weatherproofing on a shed at the end of my back garden when Mr McCombie started shouting abuse and threats from his garden next door. For a time I ignored him, but then told McCombie how I had referred to the McCombies on my website. This was my only reply to the verbal abuse that I had been subjected to for years. Mr McCombie called to "Clive" [Mabry], my side gate was smashed open, six people invaded my back garden, and three of them - McCombie, then Mabry, then Mrs McCombie - assaulted me. I was threatened with further violence unless I vacated my property.
The following day PC Francis visited me. PC Francis was critical of my behaviour without having investigated the grounds of my complaints (cf. Complaint 2). On inspecting the bolt and part of the latch on the ground as a result of my side gate being smashed open, PC Francis that this was not evidence that the people who invaded my garden did so as the result of forced entry.
When PC Francis telephoned me on 1st August 2004 to say that he might visit me on 2nd August to take a statement from me, I wrote my own statement and drew an accompanying plan, as I had not been allowed to make a statement after the first assault. PC Francis, accompanied by PC Wilkinson, arrived the next day. At the outset, before starting on the statement, he said that he was recording that I had been involved in an "affray" (cf. Complaint 2). When I was trying to explain what had happened, PC Francis ordered: "Keep quiet and listen to me". I commented on this, as the sergeant who dealt with the first assault had used exactly the same expression. 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.

This officer had spent four and a half hours interviewing two of the people who had assaulted me, taking into account previous incidents, including a preposterous claim that I had walked in their back garden - the other side of a six-foot fence - at 2 a.m. Nevertheless, PC Francis refused to take into account past instances of five and a half years of harassment of me by the Mabrys, and three years of harassment and infringement of my rights by their friends the McCombies, who acted in collusion with the Mabrys.

2. Gross prejudice on the part of the Sussex Police
After the first occasion on which I was assaulted, when interviewed, I was initially supposed to accept my assailant's version of events, and was subsequently not allowed to make a statement at all as I refused to not pursue the matter further, and despite my having made a statement about what actually happened through the PCA, the lie that I had been involved in an "altercation" remained on record, and could well have influenced the police's response to subsequent reports by me of criminal behaviour by my neighbours, as officers have cited this record of an altercation on two occasions since 2002.

After the occasion on which I was assaulted by three people, the investigating officer failed to act impartially: he started his investigation by declaring that I had been involved in an "affray", distorted my interview in his text version, and he may also have been responsible for the grossly prejudiced Case Summary. Despite my attempts to secure the tapes of my interview, requests to the investigating officer, local PI, local CI, local CC, custody centre, solicitor allocated to me, and CPS have failed. I have a right to those tapes "as soon as practicable", and must presume that the police think that they have something to hide.

3. Wrongful arrest
On 12th August 2004 I was woken by the arrival of PC Francis, who seized my two computers and my two digital cameras. I was ordered to get dressed, was handcuffed, and taken to Eastbourne Custody Centre where I was consigned to a cell.

The charge was:
harassment of Mr and Mrs McCombie, two of the people who had assaulted me on 24th July -

• you set up a website which insults them I set up a website well before I had thought of including five words deliberately designed to insult the McCombies. Verbal insults had started with Mabry calling me a "little shit" in January 1999, had been reinforced by the McCombies when Mrs McCombie twice referred to me as "the little shit" in 2001, and apart from insulting remarks being directed at me, the two couples had shouted insulting comments about me to each other across the width of my front garden. I chose not to retaliate in person when I was called a "little shit", a "wanker", or "you mother fucker". I had complained to the police of the abusive language, but was told by PC Wilkinson that we have free speech in this country. I had complained about it to Eastbourne County Court (Injunction Application of 23rd June 2003, Case No. EA301003), asking "that the defendants refrain from using abusive language about the claimant in his hearing", but His Honour Judge Coltart said that abusive language was a matter for the police. Retaliating in person might have started an "altercation", so after three years of abusive language from the McCombies, in an attempt to deter them from continuing, I wrote on my website, "I think of McCombie as the poor henpecked zombie, and of his wife as a fat slob." Those five words are less insulting than some of the many insulting words they have directed at me, and in my police interview I stated the reasons for referring to McCombie as "henpecked". My use of such words was justified in the circumstances in which I found myself.

• [you have] sent letters to your neighbours and the council regarding them [the McCombies]
I sent one brief letter to the council about the erection of an FM aerial over my property, which does make one reference to Mrs McCombie: "I spoke to the householder as you suggested, but she was unsympathetic to my concerns". I sent one short letter to five or six neighbours, which was principally about Mabry and my website. The only mention of the McCombies occurs in a list of thirteen web pages, one of which is entitled /McCombies.htm. I sent this letter on 22nd August 2004 as an attempted safety measure, after I had been assaulted and threatened for a second time, and, with PC Francis in charge of the matter, it looked again as if nothing whatever would be done by the police.

• You have been witnessed on occassions (sic) taking photos of the McCrombies (sic) property
The only photographs I have taken of the McCombies' property were taken with a view to their possible use as evidence in court. Many copies of the photographs taken are filed in Eastbourne County Court, so the suggestion in the wording of the charge that this was a covert activity is absurd.

• have been seen several times late at night within the boundary of the McCombie's (sic) property.
McCombie's Witness Statement only refers to one occasion, asserting that I was walking in his back garden at 2 a.m. - simply preposterous as well as untrue. For what purpose?

The charge of harassment and wrongful arrest has led to the loss of my cameras and computers for more than six months, the destruction of one of my cameras, damage to an expensive computer case, loss of hundreds of computer files, interference with my computers to make them unworkable, and the rendering one of the hard drives useless. I believe that PC Francis is of somewhat limited intelligence, but I do not think he is so stupid as to really think he had a viable case against me. On my website I say, "I presume that one reason for my arrest was that it was partly punishment for continuing to bother the police with my problems, and partly an attempt to shut me up." If that was the case, and the local inspector was involved, I think that there should be a thorough investigation into the reasons for my arrest.

4. Neglect of proper procedures when I was in custody
The fifth of a series of seventeen questions I was asked at the reception desk reads, "ARE YOU SUFFERING FROM ANY OTHER MEDICAL CONDITION, ILLNESS OR INJURY? IF YES, PLEASE SPECIFY." The answer on the Custody Log is, "STONMER FROM BOWEL CANCER."

The penultimate question in the series is, "NEEDS TO BE SEEN BY, OR REQUESTS TO BE SEEN BY A POLICE SURGEON, DOCTOR OR AMBULANCE STAFF." The answer on the Custody Log is, "No".

I have a stoma, to which I had been able to give no attention whatever that day. I did not know for how long I would be held by the police. I would not be able to eat anything. In the recent past I had had to be carried to an ambulance because of deficiencies in my diet. Neither police officer present displayed any understanding of what the medical condition involved, so it is inconceivable to think that I would not want the police to be given an authoritative explanation of the problem. I was just outside the cell door when I asked a second time to see a doctor, presumably when PC Francis came to fetch me for interview. PC Francis ignored the request. I asked to see a doctor for a third time from inside the cell when a man in Reliance uniform came to ask if I wanted anything to eat or drink. He was going to pass the message on. I was not able to see a doctor, and neither police officer said anything whatever to me about whether or I or would not be allowed to see a doctor.

5. Illegitimate use of a caution
After I had spent more than five hours in custody, PC Francis tried to caution me. I refused to accept a caution. On 21/8/04 PC Francis telephoned me to ask whether I had changed my mind about accepting a caution from him. When I said that I had not, he added that he might want to arrest me again, and that he was seeking to have my website closed down.

Home Office Circular 18/1994, National Standards For Cautioning (Revised), Section 2, declares that "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. In order 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. In some cases, however, a Community Liaison Officer or Community Constable might be more appropriate, or in the inspector's absence the use of a sergeant might be justified. Chief Officers may therefore wish to consider nominating suitable 'cautioning officers'.

I certainly did not admit any offence. If a chief officer has nominated PC Francis as suitable for the role of a cautioning officer, he or she should reconsider his or her action. If the caution was recorded, then it will have been added to other seriously inaccurate and defamatory records that Sussex Police have created about me.

6. Withholding of important evidence
I was charged by the police with crime. Most of the evidence I needed for my defence was on the two computers the police had seized from me, in the form of emails, letters, and photographs. My attempt to retrieve copies of the relevant files from the police was answered by a very unhelpful letter from Inspector Brown (15th November 2004) saying only that "before the case is presented in court you or your solicitor will have all the evidence that the prosecution intends to use disclosed to you." Apparently Sussex Police prefers not to have evidence which they do not want to use themselves presented in court, if they have control over the matter. This makes a mockery of the "impartiality" which the chief constable claims that police officers display.

How far I might have eventually succeeded in obtaining the evidence I needed, if say a judge had deferred judgement until I had been given the evidence I wanted, it is of course impossible now to say, but what is clear is that the police do not want me to have the vital evidence of my taped interview: they only want me to have PC Francis's version of that interview. The story:

At the end of a police interview on 12th August 2004 at Eastbourne Custody Centre I signed a form entitled "Notice to person whose interview has been tape recorded". By right I should have been sent two interview tape copies "as soon as practicable". I asked PC Francis for the tapes in a telephone conversation. He said that I could not have them, so on 11th November 2004 I wrote a letter to Inspector Brown, to Chief Inspector Matthews, and to Chief Constable Jones asking for the tapes. Still no tapes. On 4th February 2005 I wrote to Inspector Brown at Hailsham and made a last formal request to be sent two cassette tape copies. That request having been ignored, on 24th April 2005 I wrote to CI Matthews saying, "If I do not receive these tapes very soon, I shall be making a complaint to the Home Office." Instead of writing to the Home Secretary, I wrote to the relevant region of HMIC, which led to my being able to write this document, but not as yet to having the tapes. I am entitled to copies of those tapes, and I still want them, to examine how accurate PC Francis's text version of them was.

7. Contravention of human rights
The Council of Europe's The European Convention on Human Rights, Article 10 declares:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers."

I think it was in contravention of the above that PC Francis caused my website to be closed down after I refused to change my report of a command by him - "Keep quiet and listen to me" - to a more polite request which included "if you don't mind", and to remove annotated photographs which showed that my side gate had been forced open, removing the whole of the bolt and part of the catch.

Part of the purpose of that website was to deter harassment and assaults by my neighbours. Sussex Police had failed themselves to protect me, and caused the protection that I had provided for myself to be removed. The removal of the website followed my refusal to change what I had written about PC Francis. PC Francis gave no reason for having the site closed, and a subsequent letter to the police asking what objection they might have to reinstatement of the site remains unanswered.

8. Negligence, incompetence and misuse of seized property
On August 12th 2004, police seized two digital cameras and two computers belonging to me. The cameras had no internal memory. On 6th January 2005 the Crown Prosecution Service issued a notice of discontinuance in order to abandon the case against me, and my attempt to have the case tried ended on February 4th when the CPS said that they were offering no evidence. My property was returned to me on March 2nd. None of it was in working order.

One camera has since been returned to working order, but the other was damaged when the battery tray was removed without releasing a catch, and as the tray has to be held under compression, the camera will never work again, unless the police are going to have it repaired.

According to Form MG 6C, "it was deemed by both the OIC and the Computer crime unit that no examination of the computer equipment be made." Yet, not only was an expensive alloy computer case damaged by breaking the hinge which holds the door to USB ports, but hard discs were removed, numbers having been written on two of them, and Molex connectors were similarly defaced. I tried, without success, to find out from the police what had been done to my computers, and why. A password had been added to one of the computers, and the other would not even allow me to access the BIOS. Even after initial problems had been surmounted, neither computer would recognise its hard discs. Even after I had bought a device for reading hard discs via USB, one of the discs could not be read, and the hundreds of files on it were lost. The other hard discs had to be reformatted, and it took me two and a half months and many hours of work to put them back into anything like the order that had been built up after years of work.

Footnote
There are many other documents relevant to this case, including the pages on my website (http://www.ggm11.plus.com), and emails and letters I sent to the police, to Eastbourne County Court, and to the McCombies. I am happy for the statement of truth which prefaces this document to be applied to these also, as even when my expression may appear forceful, it is not intemperate. This does not apply to police records of statements I made over the telephone, which were sometimes inaccurately recorded.