Former Cllr Crabtree receives 12 week suspended sentence for phone call
Yesterday, former Cllr Crabtree received a suspended 12 week prison term (suspended for a year) and a restraining order for what he said during a phone call to Cllr Louise Reece-Jones last year.
I wasn’t there at the Magistrates Court yesterday afternoon to report on what happened, although there are some things I need to point out first.
In 2008 and 2012 I stood against Jim Crabtree in the election of a councillor in Bidston & St James ward. Both times, he received more votes than any of the other candidates and was elected as a councillor.
In 2012, I asked the High Court for permission for judicial review relating to the election of Cllr Crabtree but it was refused by a High Court Judge.
In that same year, in the Birkenhead County Court I was on the opposite side of a legal case not involving Cllr Crabtree, but a different Wirral Council councillor. Pressure was put on me to drop that case and it not to go a hearing.
The result yesterday, with the matter being so intertwined with politics, will have been one that the Labour Party wouldn’t have wanted to be aired in public. It is rare that a former councillor is put in a position where they have to explain themselves to the judiciary.
It is rarer to find a case involving two different people from the same political party on different sides.
There is a detailed write-up by the Wirral Globe as to what happened at yesterday’s hearing. The Wirral Globe has been independent in its reporting of Wirral Council matters and is it any wonder that Wirral Council launched a rival newspaper Wirral View to try to harm the Wirral Globe’s economic interests?
There is a mysterious figure of £19,000 referred to in the Wirral Globe article.
However, at the end of the article it implies that Cllr Crabtree won’t be able to stand as a councillor because of this suspended sentence.
Barring by elections, there are no elections to Wirral Council in 2018. However candidates are legally disqualified from standing if in the five years before they become a candidate they have received a sentence of three months or more (which includes suspended sentences). Jim Crabtree’s sentence appears to be a week shorter than this limit.
However the Crown Prosecution Service has been made aware of allegations involving candidates in the May 2016 elections that are about whether they were disqualified from standing as candidates and being returned as councillors. Jim Crabtree did not stand in 2016, nor was he an agent.
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Hi John, not only did this reach the daily Mail as well as the Mirror plus the most responses I have ever seen on Wirralleaks 28 at the last count, naming and shaming former Councillor Crabtree actions bring the Wirral labour group to a new low. Judging by Councillor Foulkes support his former college the are all tarred with the same brush disgraceful. The threat over the “£19k” will in the course of time will surface and will add further disgrace to an already torrid story.
Here’s a link to the stories in the Daily Mail (headline Ex-councillor sent drunken death threat to friend of Jo Cox hours after MP was murdered) and in the Mirror (headline Ex-councillor sent drunken death threat to friend of Jo Cox hours after MP was murdered).
A M E N
to
wirral BC
Hi John, maybe you or someone else in the know would like to update the Bidston Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidston
It is rather out of date! (Don’t know enough or I’d do it myself.)
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your comment.
I’ve updated the government section of the Wikipedia page you link to to take account of the results of the 2015 General Election and the 2016 local elections. I’ve also updated it with the current list of local councillors for Bidston & St James ward (as the existing list was from 2012).
And the aggregate IQ John is?
More than 19,000
Less than 19,000
G’day John
Tell me.
Does “Phil the Very Very Very Very Slimy, Elusive and Deluded Dill” ever speak freely and openly and actually answer questions.
He still hasn’t replied to “Highbrow’s question of 19 December.
He is more peevish and childish that my two year old grand daughter that is going through the terrible twos.
I notice last time he was “interviewed” on the radio it was just a statement that was read.
Has he ever had a good idea?
Is “Fartin Lobsterpot’s” job just to stop him talking to anybody on anything because the man is a peanut that they can all bully and please themselves.
Do you think the ilk of “Ankles”, Clowncillor Crispy Creme Doughnut” and “His Ugly Twin Brother with the Comb Over from Hell” would give him any respect whatsoever?
Talking of Comb Overs from Hell I see in the rubbish paper from over Kev and Stella’s Stinking Stagnant wirral Waters that Liverpool has at least one as well.
Is that what “Ankles” meant in their ex-rubbish propaganda sheet that the need for more diversity at wirral was to get more Comb Overs in so “The Dill’s Ugly Twin Brother from Hell” didn’t stand out like a dirty old mop?
The female version of the comb over also wrote in that article to tell people to get off their backs. yuk.
What has she done to her head?
Ooroo
James
G’day John
Remember the last Improvement Board that “Phil the Very Very Very Very Very Slimy, Elusive and Deluded Dill” walked out of in the middle of their public meeting when he didn’t want to listen to Martin Morton and crashed into AdderleyDadderleyDooLally the other liar at the exit.
Liars collide and collude.
The next expensive farce that they will listen to the bits that suit them in their ex-local propaganda sheet
Government troubleshooter who dealt with aftermath of Baby P scandal to lead rescue of Wirral children’s services
Oh John, Ecca came out of hiding or was it just like “The Dill’s” interviews?
A quote which was probably written by Uncle Joe’s “Fartin Lobsterpot”.
Ooroo
James
They don’t need an improvement Board John they need an honest “Blinking CEO” or ADMINISTRATION.
G’day John
I don’t mind if you leave this post up for the rest of the year.
I think his parting words to “Highbrow” and I were something like
Thanks for coming
Go see the cops
a ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
and
Ha
Ooroo
James
If it had just been an ordinary taxpayer it would have been
NO CASE TO ANSWER