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THIS SEPTIC ISLE
 ONE
OF the reasons REBECCA is moving to annual membership and a rolling
programme of releases is the size and complexity of some of the
investigations being undertaken.One example is our inquiry into Anglesey County Council. This has been dogged by scandal ever since it was formed in 1996. The REBECCA investigation is already two years old. The components of the probe, which lays bare the responsibility for the culture that has brought the island to its knees, are shown in the panel on the right. These articles are currently in preparation. 
REBECCA believes that, although they may have been well-intentioned, they failed to solve the fundamental issues that face the authority. The following article is a brief extract from the REBECCA inquiry. BOWLED OUT IN 2009 the Welsh Assembly Government finally lost patience with the Isle of Anglesey County Council. After a procession of scandals, local government minister Brian Gibbons stripped the authority of the right to appoint its managing director.  He forced the council to appoint a high-powered trouble-shooter to hammer the island into shape.Bowles costs £1,160 a day — making him one of the most expensive public servants in Britain. With the cost of travel and accommodation, the figure rises to over £1,300 a day. Anglesey is the smallest council in Wales and one of the poorest in Britain. Bowles is a tough administrator who made his reputation when he was chief executive of Lincolnshire County Council from 1999 to 2004. The county was dominated by a Tory Leader who Bowles quickly decided was running the authority as a personal fiefdom. Bowles fought back. It was a campaign which saw Tory Leader Jim Speechley sent to gaol for corruption. The Tories never forgave Bowles and he left the authority with a massive £400,000 “golden goodbye”. He was given a standing ovation by staff when he left.
On paper David Bowles was just the man to deal with the island’s political problems. But Bowles started his reign on the island with one of the most jaw-dropping moves imaginable. He went to stay at a property owned by John Arthur Jones who REBECCA believes embodies everything that is wrong with the island’s political culture. In this single act, Bowles triggered some potent memories and aroused doubts about his credibility. John Arthur Jones is a truly remarkable character. A clever, charismatic figure, he gives the lie to the expression that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. For he has blighted Anglesey on two separate occasions. In the mid-1990s, as the council’s director of housing and property, he drove the authority onto the rocks. His department was damned by the District Auditor. The council set up a committee to assess the District Auditor’s findings but before its work could be completed another committee was set up and abruptly sacked him. He was apoplectic with rage. He told HTV that he was being persecuted in the same way that the Pharisees treated Jesus.
Six years later after he was sacked, he was elected to the council and it didn’t take him long to create his own party. Soon he was the leader of the junior member of a new coalition. In a couple of years his party — just four members strong — were being accused of driving a coach and horses through the island’s planning regime. Critics said they were bending planning rules to generate millions of pounds worth of profit by granting planning permission for housing on land where permission was virtually impossible to obtain. Once again, the council’s external auditors were forced to intervene. Finally the council changed the constitution to stop the rampage. It was too late to save the ruling group and it was swept away in the elections of 2008. John Arthur Jones was one of those who lost his seat. In 2003 he purchased a disused Welsh Water depot in the centre of the island, near Llangefni, and obtained planning permission to turn it into a holiday destination called Parc Cefni. The development was widely welcomed. But he was determined to sweep away the restrictions on its use as a tourist destination with short-term guests and turn it into a colony of holiday homes. This would have increased the value of the site by over a million pounds. All his attempts met with failure … In 2006, by which time he was a councillor and vice-chairman of the planning committee, he was told by a planner that he was in breach of the conditions on the site. He’s always insisted that he did done nothing wrong and the issues were resolved.
It was into one of these chalets that troubleshooter David Bowles moved into when he took up his post on the island in October 2009. Bowles had spent eight days on a fact-finding mission before starting his job. The cost of this exercise was more than £10,000. In that time he failed to watch the 18 programmes made by the ITV WALES THIS WEEK current affairs series, many of which featured John Arthur Jones. If he had seen these videos, he would have realised that eleven of them had flagged up the controversies surrounding Parc Cefni.
But in December 2009, David Bowles says he discovered who his landlord was. He told council leader Clive McGregor and “subsequently had reasons to be concerned about issues relating to the planning permissions for the site and restricting lettings for holidays only”. By mid-January 2010, after discussions with council officials, he decided to give Jones his notice. Two days later a local reporter was also asking questions about his decision to stay at Parc Cefni. One of these was that some councillors were concerned that John Arthur Jones might have tried to influence David Bowles. Bowles went ballistic. In an extraordinary letter, sent to all councillors in January 2010, he said: “I find these comments abysmal and an extraordinary and disgraceful attack upon my professionalism and integrity.” “This is a disgraceful example of an attempt to use an officer as the meat in the middle of the sandwich of personality driven infighting; even worse those involved see nothing wrong with dragging an officer’s personal and private life into these matters.” He also added: “Such a smear is an attack upon the integrity of all officers of this council and undermines the essential relationship of mutual trust and respect between officers and members generally.” In this letter, there wasn’t a word of criticism of his former landlord. It was to be another nine months before he finally publicly criticised John Arthur Jones. It happened when WALES THIS WEEK invited REBECCA editor Paddy French back to help produce an update on Anglesey and the programme-makers asked Bowles to comment on his time at Parc Cefni. Bowles told the programme: “I was surprised that Mr Jones … let the property to me in the full knowledge that he would be in breach of the planning conditions which limited lettings for holiday purposes only.” “Whilst I consider the Council has learnt a lot from past problems with planning, I regret the same clearly can not be said of Mr Jones,” he added.
He told WALES THIS WEEK in November last year: “I certainly haven’t considered it a problem then or now. I discussed with Mr Bowles and eventually Mr Bowles ceased residing at that address.” Last week he expanded on that statement: “I consider it to be a commercial transaction even though it was not the brightest thing for either party to be involved in considering the history of Parc Cefni and Mr John Arthur Jones.” “When I became aware of his [Bowles'] rented accommodation I made it clear that I did not think it was suitable and that he should instigate some enquiries regarding the legality of planning restrictions.” “It would have helped him enormously had he sought prior information before completing a tenancy agreement with JAJ.” McGregor himself has also been involved in business dealings with John Arthur Jones. He featured in the District Auditor’s report in 1997 which criticised John Arthur Jones’ handling of contracts without going through the proper procedures. One of these was with a company called Môn Investigations. A partner in this business was Clive McGregor who had retired from the North Wales Police in April 1997 In August 1997 John Arthur Jones decided to modify the way the council’s housing department was investigating benefit cheats. Up to that point, the council carried out the job itself and had been praised for the work it was doing. So much so, that the Department for Social Security awarded it another slice of money, worth £3,000 a week, to employ another fraud investigator to extend the work. But in August 1997 Jones decided that this extra cash would not be spent on employing another council fraud officer. Instead, he decided, entirely off his own bat and without going through any of the council’s standing orders, that he would give the work to a private contractor — Môn Investigations. District Auditor Ceri Stradling noted that “to our knowledge Môn Investigators had no prior experience of benefit fraud investigation.”
He’s still a councillor — and was later an Executive member in the coalition which John Arthur Jones had helped to create in 2005. Chorlton told us last week he had known nothing about the contract with Môn investigations. “What you must remember — the system has changed and at that time councillors had very little imput into contracts etc," he said. “All contracts of any kind stayed at officer level they made the decision and any discusions where [sic] few and far between, so no I knew nothing and the District Auditor never brought the subject up with me at that time.” REBECCA has researched the press cuttings of this period. These suggest that John Arthur Jones offered the contract to Môn Investigations after the Fraud Squad raided his housing department, armed with a warrant. Jones was also arrested shortly afterwards and charged with misconduct in public office, attempting to pervert the course of justice and two counts of witness intimidation. Ironically, the charges related to the employment of men who were working on the building of his home while receiving housing benefit. At the time he was the man in charge of tracking down housing benefit cheats. He denied he knew they were receiving benefits. The case collapsed in 1999 after prosecution witnesses talked to one another during the trial. The District Auditor said that Môn Investigations pulled out of the contract after Jones was charged. Clive McGregor has a different version of these events. “In about May 1997, I received a telephone call at my home address from John Arthur Jones (JAJ) who was then Housing Director for the Council.” “He offered me a job as a Benefit Fraud Investigator with immediate effect. I declined his offer on two counts.” “The first being that I was then in the process of setting up our partnership with lawyers and accountants, as David Winckle my proposed and subsequent partner was engaged on a EU contract in Hungary and Bosnia setting up a local Custom and Excise facility for the emerging EU states.” “The second point of my refusal to accept the post offered was that it was in breach of all employment legislation.”
“The next contact that I received from JAJ was about a month later in early July in which he said that he was keen to appoint our partnership and as Director he did not need to go to tender if the contract value was below £3000.” “With those assurances I agreed that we would undertake some work for the Council within the delegated sum at the rate of £20.00 per hour. JAJ confirmed these arrangements in writing.” “I was unaware that JAJ was under investigation by the Fraud Squad otherwise I would not have touched him with a barge pole.” Clive McGregor said he has never been a friend of John Arthur Jones. He admitted that “I was encouraged by both Gareth Winston Roberts and John Arthur Jones to stand for Council upon the retirement of William J. Williams". “My conversations with my wife and friends centered around why the two most questionable characters on Anglesey County Council wanted me to become a Councillor.” “I certainly would not have joined any group that contained either of them and I have made it clear from the outset that the ills of the Council are directly attributable to these two characters and the total lack of governance within both the Anglesey Borough Council and Isle of Anglesey County Council over almost three decades.” “My eventual decision to stand for Council came from the support of a number of local people who really wanted to change the behaviours within the Council.” John Arthur Jones was a man who was on friendly terms with another North Wales Police officer — Roy Gregson, a detective inspector who lived on the island. In the late autumn of 1997, when Jones had already been charged, D I Gregson and his partner, a civilian employee with North Wales Police, went on holiday with the former housing director. Gregson and his partner were given “suitable advice” from a senior police officer. This is one of the mildest forms of disciplinary sanction the force can impose. The force said neither Gregson nor his partner were involved in the investigation into John Arthur Jones but added “we do regret, however, that the detective and the civilian employee acted so unwisely.” When the news leaked out, the daily paper for North Wales did not name Gregson so it has taken fourteen years for his name to emerge. Clive McGregor told us: “I was aware that D I Roy Gregson and his partner Mrs Myfanwy Roberts Owen were personal friends of John Arthur Jones and his then wife. I have never been and never will be considered in that category.” “After JAJ had been charged, I had already left the Police Service so have no knowledge on whether any Police Disciplinary action was taken against Gregson for holidaying with a 'criminal suspect'." “They had certainly been on holiday together in the years since the friendship was formed.” After Gregson retired from the force, he joined John Arthur Jones in a housing and planning consultancy which was called Best Value. This was a dig at District Auditor Ceri Stradling whose reports had branded some of the contracts John Jones had awarded while housing director — including the one to Môn Investigations — as not being “best value” for the people of Anglesey. John Arthur Jones left Best Value after he became a councillor in 2004. David Bowles is on record as saying he found Parc Cefni on the internet. REBECCA asked him make available the email audit trail that would substantiate this account and so lay to rest concerns about how the man charged with solving the island’s problems came to rent a chalet from one of the men responsible for those same problems. David Bowles did not respond.
Last month Carl Sargeant decided that a new direction was needed. He replaced the elected Executive with a set of five commissioners paid £500 a day. David Bowles announced he would leave at the end of April. Almost immediately one of the commissioners, former Flintshire leader Alex Aldridge, was criticised because he’s a friend of Sargeant and for presiding over a series of scandals at his old authority. Another commissioner, former Cardiff City chief executive Byron Davies, was in charge when the council was rocked by a serious multi-million pound scandal over unlawful expenses paid to some councillors and officers. When the District Auditor wrote a damning report, the council mounted a long, expensive and unsuccessful court battle to try and over-turn the verdict. Davies was awarded an OBE for services to local government In 2008.  The REBECCA investigation continues… Editor Paddy French said: “Inquires like This Septic Isle are immensely complicated and take huge amounts of time. Because of the danger of litigation, everything has to be checked with great care.” “This article is published partly as an example of the depth REBECCA goes to but also because Bowles and McGregor leave soon. We wanted to say something about their time on the island before they departed from the scene.” “The closest definition to what we believe is wrong with Anglesey are Clive McGregor’s remarks about John Arthur Jones and the former Leader of the council Gareth Winston Roberts being the key architects of all that has gone wrong on the island.” “It is for this reason that a proper history of these two men — and the band of fellow travellers who have prospered by supporting them — is provided for the voters of Anglesey." “We hope that all those who care about the future of Anglesey and its governance will support the work of REBECCA by becoming members.” •R• |
