Nothing to fear, nothing to hide

Written By: - Date published: 2:55 pm, March 21st, 2017 - 14 comments
Categories: national, newspapers, same old national, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags: ,

The police file relating to the investigation into Todd Barclay has been released and it appears that he may have been less than forthcoming in helping the police with their investigation into his actions involving a recording device that may have been placed secretly in his electorate office.  I blogged about the details here when Todd’s problems first arose.

A police inquiry was conducted and Todd, for an as yet unexplained reason, chose to be completely unresponsive to requests from the police for the chance for a talk about what happened.

From David Fisher at the Herald:

National MP Todd Barclay refused to cooperate with detectives carrying out an investigation into allegations he had secretly recorded staff in his electorate office, according to documents released from the official police investigation.

Instead, Barclay did not return phone messages left for him by lead detective on the inquiry and had a lawyer contact police to say he would not be making a statement.

Barclay had earlier told the Otago Daily Times: “If they do contact me on any matter, then I will co-operate fully.”

The police investigation was into whether Barclay had breached a section of the Crimes Act around “use of interception devices”.

The NZ Herald approached Barclay for comment today and he declined.

It appears that as far as Todd is concerned “co-operate fully” means say nothing.

The background is a troubling relationship that Barclay had with a former Parliamentary Staffer who worked in his electorate office.  Her belief in what Barclay did set out in the latest article.

The inquiry began with a complaint to police by his electorate agent Glenys Dickson, who had worked for English for 17 years. Electorate agents are employed by Parliamentary Services but work closely with MPs and often act on the MP’s behalf during a politician’s absence.

On February 29 2016, Dickson told a detective sergeant at Gore police station she had been asked to stand down as manager despite a positive performance appraisal. At the same time, she had heard discussion in the community about a “breach of confidentiality”.

She contacted an employment lawyer and said she was told it was a case of “unfair dismissal”.

The lawyer then approached Parliamentary Services to put forward conditions around leaving the job and severance pay.

“They also told her about the recordings that Todd had,” she said to police. The lawyer contacted Parliamentary Services for further discussions and was told it had changed position on her exit and her initial offer had been accepted.

“It seemed strange they had changed their decision so quickly within a day,” she said.

“I have real concerns some of my private conversations have been listened to and recorded. My expectation is that I would have been able to make private and personal calls from my office without them being listened to.

I guess that National will be pleased that one of  its MPs has avoided the possibility of a trial and conviction.  But this cannot be the higher standards that John Key talked about when National gained power.

14 comments on “Nothing to fear, nothing to hide ”

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  1. jafapete 1
    21 March 2017 at 3:03 pm

    To help people join the dots, this from the police statement that it would not prosecute Barclay, “After consideration of all relevant information and the Solicitor-general’s prosecution guidelines, police has determined that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute,” a statement from police said yesterday.”

  2. McFlock 2
    21 March 2017 at 3:16 pm

    Obviously they launched an armed raid on his residence to find evidence, lol

  3. Keith 3
    21 March 2017 at 3:17 pm

    He told those who asked that he had not spoken to police. What he left it was the very crucial reason, he refused to cooperate.

    One take on his response and the most logical is he made it sound like this matter was so insignificant that the police just never got around to speak to him. Nice one Todd!

    Your reliability and credibility when you open your mouth again, Mr Public Servant, is now zero!

    Born to rule Brat NAT.

  4. adam 4
    21 March 2017 at 3:47 pm

    He’s been re-selected already.

    Well the good people of Clutha-Southland could just vote for New Zealand first. Ron Mark should stand.

  5. tc 5
    21 March 2017 at 3:54 pm

    Excellent go Todd yay hide behind your lawyers…..wonder if he’s paying ?

    Let it run baby so everyone knows what a classy bloke you are who takes responsibilty and has nothing to hide.

    • AB 5.1
      21 March 2017 at 9:04 pm

      Right wingers talk a lot about ‘personal responsibility’ but seldom display it themselves.
      Mostly when they talk about personal responsibility they are accusing others (e.g. poor people or benes) of failing to demonstrate it and therefore of being unworthy of help from the state.

      I think there is a word for this – starting with “h”.

      Actually what it shows is that they really aren’t interested in personal responsibility at all. They are interested in finding ways of denying any responsibility towards others – and accusations that others are failing to show personal responsibility is a damn good way of achieving that.

  6. Tamati Tautuhi 6
    21 March 2017 at 5:41 pm

    Evidently NZF doing very well in Southland a lot of National Party members switching sides.

  7. Michael who failed Civics 7
    22 March 2017 at 12:08 am

    The Police could always ask Hekia Parata to have a word with her Toy Boy.