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Post by fretslider on May 1, 2020 4:38:49 GMT -5
Tower Hamlets in East London was run by a Bangladeshi gang under Mayor Lutfur Rahman - until he was officially removed for electoral corruption.
His fame was dwarfed by the next scandal. Enter Islamic State:
Faulty Towers
Radicalisation, Issue 1520
THE Labour council responsible for safeguarding “jihadi bride” Shamima Begum “covered up” a network of financial corruption and mismanagement in its youth and counter-extremism teams when the schoolgirl fled to join Islamic State, according to internal documents obtained by the Eye.
The cache of reports from Tower Hamlets council in east London, which it fought to keep secret (Eye 1504), were disclosed on public interest grounds by a judge overseeing an employment tribunal. They reveal corruption in the youth services department and Prevent, a Home Office-funded initiative to tackle the radicalisation of vulnerable young people.
Begum and two other schoolgirls aged 15 and 16 went to Syria in February 2015. They were part of a wider radicalised group from the same school, the first of whom had joined Islamic State two months earlier.
According to a whistleblower: “There was heightened sensitivity in the council after the girls had left that they may have been radicalised by groups linked to and funded by youth services. The council didn’t want the full corruption picture from coming out. [Data management firm] 15billionebp was asked to erase the names of the three girls from a database and replace them with unique numerical identifiers to neutralise any media requests under the freedom of information act.”
A lawyer for Begum, who was stripped of British citizenship last year and remains stateless in a Syrian refugee camp, blames Tower Hamlets for allowing her to be “groomed”. The council denies this but admits wiping the databases. “Heightened interest in the disappearance of these girls at the time meant it was necessary as a safeguarding measure to shield their identities on a number of council systems including the database operated by 15billionebp,” a spokesman said.
Death threats
THE internal corruption probe into youth services started in July 2014 in response to anonymous emails alleging fraud, corruption and cronyism. Andy Bamber, a former Metropolitan police borough commander who headed the council’s safer communities team, led the investigation, assisted by Mark Edmunds, a former Home Office investigator.
The employment tribunal heard that in April 2016, Bamber resigned suffering from “enormous stress” having received numerous “death threats” and feeling that political obstruction rooted in Labour’s reliance on the Bangladeshi vote was hampering his efforts. The following year, Edmunds brought a discrimination claim on the grounds he had been sidelined before the investigation was completed. In his witness statement, Edmunds said the council wanted to “cover up to avoid political embarrassment to the Labour party, whose members were involved in both the initial corruption and later the control of the investigations”.
Bamber and Edmunds initially targeted Dinar Hossain, head of youth services. But the probe “mushroomed” to a group of more than 60 men associated with 19 organisations that had received council grants and money from the Home Office Prevent budget.
Some of the recipients were “fictitious” companies; others were connected to youth workers already employed by the council to do the same training. Others in the network had criminal records and were “linked to organised crime”, including drug dealing, according to Edmunds’s statement.
“There was concern that some of the fraudulently obtained money was funding political causes that could be regarded as extremist,” said one source. “The concerns grew when a covert examination of work emails discovered evidence several youth workers had briefly entered Syria. The information was passed to the Met’s counter-terrorism command.”
The investigation also looked at Nojmul Hussain, co-ordinator of the council’s Prevent strategy, which shared responsibility for safeguarding Begum and the other schoolgirls from Bethnal Green Academy. An external audit by accountancy firm Mazars concluded in October 2015 that Hussain should face immediate disciplinary action for “conflicts of interest” in the awarding of Prevent grants, including to “organisations the Home Office does not wish to fund”.
Separately, Hussain abused his position to help a senior council official in a legal battle over access to his children. Documents show he tried to influence the court by sending an official Prevent letter that wrongly claimed the children attended schools regarded as “extreme”. The incident was kept from the Home Office. But when an official found out, he wrote an email to the council describing Hussain’s conduct as “shocking”. The official said the Home Office would no longer share sensitive information with him. Hussain admitted writing the letter and resigned in November 2015 with a settlement package and a reference from the council that did not disclose the misconduct issues. He did not respond to messages.
‘Culture of fear’
DINAR HOSSAIN took voluntary redundancy during the investigation. A council spokesman told the Eye: “At the time of his departure, Mr Hossain was not being investigated for any matters relating to fraud, nor had any previous investigations found against him.”
However, evidence from Edmunds’s employment tribunal hearing last year contradicts this. Bamber told employment judge John Crosfill: “I’ve no doubt that Dinar Hossain was involved in everything.” He added that Hossain had obstructed the corruption investigation and was “managed out”. Hossain did not return messages.
Bamber accused Labour mayor John Biggs, elected in May 2015, of fostering “a culture of fear and a culture of ‘if you don’t look you don’t find and you don’t have to deal with it’.” The former senior policeman also criticised the Met for its “reluctance” to launch criminal investigations.
In a statement to the Eye, the council said there was “no evidence to suggest radicalisation” in the youth service. “Eight staff were dismissed, another faced internal disciplinary action and a further five resigned. Since then we have entirely remodelled the youth service and how it operates. The culture of the council has been transformed since 2015.”
A ruling in the Edmunds employment case has been delayed by the coronavirus lockdown.
www.private-eye.co.uk/rotten-boroughs
It's interesting to note that Ken Livingstone supported incumbent Lutfur Rahman in 2010, but shifted his support to Biggs when things got a little hot. Livingstone remained supportive of Rahman during the rigged local elections. I doubt an old trooper like Ken - who staged a successful putsch in the old GLC - was in the dark.
That's the Labour left for you.