Investigation - Children in the care of Nottinghamshire Councils - Public hearing - Day 12

[article61]

Give something a snazzy title and folks will be hoodwinked into believing that the content is good. This is the case for most things in life but until now I have only ever thought this was done for things like trainers and food. Many of us are now aware that the packaging is often the only part of the product that holds any kind of meaning. Sadly, while watching yesterday's hearing, I have come to the conclusion that the police also use the very same marketing ploy. Here we have one of the biggest cases of abuse to ever come to light and the UK Police service offer up a product that falls far short of adequate. On the outside, the victims may have been fooled into thinking that the Police really cared and had intentions of cracking open this devilish operation of child sexual abuse. Unfortunately, the victims and anyone listening to these hearings will now understand that "Operation Daybreak" was just a fancy name that was given only to hide the fact that under the wrapping was a most rotten core and nothing of any substance.

This is Yvonne Dales, who was the senior investigating officer in "Operation Daybreak". Yvonne is undoubtedly a hard-working woman and I feel comfortable in saying that she tried very hard in her investigation. But this is as far as my compliments can stretch. Yes, she did work overtime on this case and she also felt real concern for the victims involved, but this was sadly overshadowed by her desire to be promoted to a higher position. Now, this isn't my opinion at all, this is, in fact, an admission given by Yvonne herself at yesterday's hearing.

After admitting that she had not wanted to leave her post, even though she was fully aware that it was underfunded and understaffed, and all because an operation failure would jeopardize any promotion prospects for herself(@2:09:40), Yvonne continued to enlighten all concerned that she was only tasked with dealing with this mammoth task for just ONE DAY PER WEEK AND WITH JUST 4 OFFICERS BY HER SIDE(None of them having any experience in child abuse investigations either)...
It was at this point that my anger towards Yvonne subsided and I came to the realisation, once again, that it is those above her who are pulling all the strings and scraping out the barrel until it is as hollow as the apologies given by Nottinghamshire City council. To cut Yvonne's story short, she has been thrown under the bus and given a poisoned chalice. From the beginning and all the way through Yvonne was in way above her head and this is something that was brought to her attention at the inquiry, to which she had little argument against.

Operation Daybreak was just the Police's way of, what I call, "polishing a turd". This title was given after many victims had already come forward and also after most of them had begun complaining about the service they were receiving from the authorities whose job it was to react. Yet again, the amazing Mr. Sadd probed and pushed in all the right directions and left us all with no doubt as to how Operation Daybreak failed.

This part of yesterday's hearing left me feeling very hopeful about what was to follow. After Yvonne left the stand, visibly shaken, it was then the turn of someone even higher up the chain of command...

2nd witness - Julie Balodis - Detective Constable, child abuse investigation unit for Operation Daybreak(later rebranded as "Operation Equinox")

Many things have become apparent to me while I spend time listening to the IICSA. One thing, in particular, is the fact that the higher up the chain we go the harder it is for the learned barristers to prize out the truth from the witness' put in front of them.

You may have noticed that I have gained a massive amount of respect for Mr. Sadd, even referring to him as "The amazing" Mr. Sadd whenever I can. This is a compliment I surprise myself in giving. I still hold my opinion that this inquiry is a paying lip-service to the victims and to the scandal we have uncovered. If it wasn't for "The Amazing Mr. Sadd this inquiry would be a complete waste of time, an insult that I am not surprised to give out. I say this because after listening to him, again, tear open a witness and prize out the finer truths I had hoped for more of the same. However, when the next witness swore her oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth I was dismayed to see that Julie Balodis would be cross-examined by Mr.Sadd's understudy.

This is Mr. Livingstone and he is the other learned Barrister who has been tasked with questioning the witness'. I mean no disrespect to this man when I say that he nowhere near as experienced as Mr. Sadd. Obviously, this is due to the age difference between the two barristers and while he does have moments of glory this is few and far between. While Mr. Sadd doesn't allow any witness to avoid the question he has asked them, the same cannot be said for Mr Livingstone. This became a very frustrating part of yesterday's hearing, when Mr. Livingstone was given the task of cross-examing a very high-profile witness. As I mentioned earlier, the further up the chain we get the more prepared they are for answering or avioding answering some of the more crucial questions. On many occasion I found myself shouting at my laptop, willing Mr. Livingstone to realise that his initial question had been cleverly avoided by the witness. This was more than just a shame as Julie Balodis had prepared herself for a tough battle and all of her answers came after a long and thoughtful pause. I have no doubt that if Mr. Sadd had been questioning the same witness we would have learned alot more and I would also have more information to reveal to yourselves. Instead, I am left with very little to tell you about how Julia's involvment in this disgraceful cover-up came about. All I have to share is my-own observations that this woman showed absolutely no remorse while giving her calculated and ice-cold responses. I even took the time to listen again to this part of yesterday's hearing, but all I could garner from this was how she finished her testimony by saying that she wouldn't do much different if she were tasked with this type of operation again. As Julie seems to have been drafted in to most of the operations by her superiors, I can see how this kind of statement could further her career, something we now are aware is a main priority for some officers of the law.

Other than this admission it was revealed that for a short while the Social care unit of the council were taken out of the police investigation and replaced with members from the NSPCC. Due to the fact that the social care workers were working alongside the police and supposedly helping to investigate their own employees(A point that was raised by Mr Livingstone as an obvious "conflict of interest") the change over to using members of the NSPCC was a welcomed change by all of the victims. Sadly, it was then revealed by Julie Balodis that, due to lack of funding, the NSPCC were soon to be replaced by the old-guard and normal service was resumed in "operation Equinox". Julie Balodis agreed that this was less than ideal but still went on to give praise to the fact that the most recent Police investigations work alongside a team of Social workers. Obviously, this seems to be a similar conflict of interest, as many of the victims have pointed out how the Social services have been ignoring complaints made by most of the victims. How Mrs. Balodis can now been reassured by this co-operation is beyond me and I was hoping that this issue would have been probed further by Mr. Livingstone. Unfortunately, Mr. Livingstone fell well-short in questioning this issue and, in my own opinion, falls well-short all-around.

I do hope that today'd hearing will not present the same short-comings and Mr. Sadd will be preffered when it comes to questioning witnesses of a higher calibre.

Thank you all for your support and I welcome any questions or additions to my post. I try to view as much of these hearings as possible but sometimes miss portions of the day, so any input would be more than welcomed.

Here is today's live feed and itinery for the day-12.

Comments

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