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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 03:38 
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You'll remember this:

SafeSpeed wrote:
I got this very nice letter from Mr Callaghan:

Image

Can I please remind everyone to afford CSCP personnel the courtesy that they deserve?


They have applied pressure to our US hosts resulting in suspension of the forum service between about 9pm and 11pm on Monday.

I agreed to temporarily move potentially contentious posts to a private (administrator only) area. This has been done and 14 entire threads are presently held in private. I regard this action as vandalism of information and shall use every means at my disposal to put it right.

If some people can't stand the heat, perhaps they should just stay out of the kitchen? Especially since it's about to get a whole lot hotter...

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The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 03:54 
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There were no new posts on the BBC response page to the Inside Out program today either.
I had submitted one, and know of at least one other.
See here. I dont suppose they have been got at. :(

Mr Callaghan [Pinocchio emoticon temporarily removed under duress, apologies :ss:] must feel that we are in danger of acheiving something he has fought against for so long - allowing the public access to the TRUTH.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 06:56 
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Scandal!

Abuse of position!! Did I not read somewhere that scamera partnerships are not legal entities therefor have no legal responsibility. Therefor how can they be hurt or offended by comments. Oh, hang on - Steve Callaghan is making this issue from a personal standpoint.

SO WHY THE HELL IS HE USING POLICE LETTERHEADED PAPER TO DO IT???

Steve - you really are a bully.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 12:25 
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What a pity they are not so effective at getting paedophile sites closed down. This, it's said, is virtually impossible.
As soon as there is a site which exposes the obfuscation of Callaghan, he uses Cumbria Police resources to fight it, instead of just answering it himself. But then, he never was much good at answering proper questions.
I feel a letter to the Chief Constable of Cumbria coming on, copied to the media, complaining about Mr. Callaghan and his methods, his versions of the truth and his abuse of police stationery. How in hell can he use a Cumbria Police letterhead to make a pesonal statement.
He's well out of order!
Paul, maybe you should make a formal complaint to the PCA regarding your receipt of a letter claiming to be from Cumbria Police with a threatening tone, but written by someone who is not a Police Officer and who seems to be acting as a private individual.
Let's take an analogy. Suppose I did some consultancy work for the Police and a supplier to me owed me some money from this work but seemed slow to pay and called me an idiot. Would I be in order if I used a Police letterhead to 'encourage' payment and to threaten him. I think not. Where's the difference? Callaghan is not an employee or a member of Cumbria Constabulary, so why is he passing himself off as such by using their letterhead? It's inexcusable.
A disciplinary matter, one might think.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 13:36 
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During this temporary interruption in normal service, readers may wish to get some idea of what they've missed here.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 14:05 
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Impersonating a police officer is a criminal offence.

If this person is not employed by the constabulary concerned, the act of using that constabulary's letter head and therefore leadgin the recipient to believe they are receiving an official police notice could be considered an offence.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 14:17 
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I am also sending the following complaint to members of Cumbria County Council, details here

__________________________________________________________

Dear Councillor,

I write as a concerned taxpayer and member of the public, although not a Cumbria resident, to you as a member of Cumbria County Council. I believe that the Council is a partner in the Cumbria Safety Cameras Partnership ("CSCP") and I wish to complain about the behaviour of its manager, Steve Callaghan.

Over the last year or two, Mr Callaghan has posted messages on a number of internet forums defending the role and actions of the CSCP, always under an alias and, in the case of the SafeSpeed forums, mostly using an account established by his colleague, the CSCP data analyst. As a result of his postings on SafeSpeed and elsewhere, he has brought down on himself some fairly harsh criticism, possibly unjustified but I cannot say that for certain. He has recently taken exception to certain specific comments posted on the SafeSpeed forums by a Cumbria resident, whose identity is easily ascertainable. Mr Callaghan (it appears) considers the comments to be actionable for defamation. Instead of taking action against the individual, he has used CSCP resources and written with the implied authority of the Chief Constable of Cumbria Constabulary in order to apply pressure on the SafeSpeed forum owner and its hosting organisation to remove the 'offending' messages by threatening a libel action against the host. In addition to the threads which contained the comments he originally objected to, one of the threads which has now been removed, as a direct result of Mr Callaghan's threats, included the following, being the text of an email message I sent to Mr Callaghan and posted on the SafeSpeed forum after I had learned of his action.

Dear Mr Callaghan,

You appear to believe that you have been libelled by messages on the SafeSpeed forums. You know the identity of the person who posted the comments to which you have taken exception; he has not sought to hide it, which is more than can be said for you. If you believe your reputation has been damaged, the correct and honourable thing to do is take action against that person. The actions that you have taken and threatened to take against Paul Smith, using your employer's resources and impliedly with your employer's knowledge and approval, are dishonourable and cowardly. The contents of this message, with my identity and address in clear, are being posted to the SafeSpeed forum. If you wish to take action against me for defamation, feel free.

Yours sincerely,
T R Spring
14 School Lane, Chalfont St Peter, Bucks SL9 9AU


As I said above, Mr Callaghan has brought the criticisms levelled at him upon himself. I am aggrieved that he is using his official position to stifle freedom of speech. There is nothing in my message to him that is other than fair comment on his actions and I object strongly to my freedom to comment being stifled by what appears to be the unauthorised use by a public servant of his official position.

My specific complaints about Mr Callaghan's actions and behaviour are as follows.

(i) He has used Cumbria Constabulary resources to pursue a personal agenda. Or, if it is not a personal agenda, how is it the lawful business of Cumbria Constabulary to pursue or threaten libel actions on behalf of its employees (and is Mr Callaghan an employee of the Constabulary anyway)?
(ii) His use of those resources (Cumbria Constabulary letterhead and the services of the CSCP communications manager, Kevin Tea, to write to the internet hosting company) imply that his actions have been taken on behalf of and are approved by the Chief Constable. If they are approved, that fact should be made public and substantiated by an official police spokesman. If not, Mr Callaghan has grossly abused his position.
(iii) His actions have resulted in the effective censorship of comments which I am wholly entitled to make under ordinary principles of free speech.

I request that you use whatever means available to investigate my complaint and I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Yours sincerely.
T R Spring
14 School Lane, Chalfont St Peter, Bucks SL9 9AU


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 14:24 
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Very nice letter Tim, I shall be writing something similar to the council and Chief Constable myself over the next couple of days because Steve's behaviour with regard to this matter is completely unacceptable.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 15:09 
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Just to add my voice to the growing numbers who feel the same way:

I too deplore this action and feel that Mr. Callaghan should be held to account for his use of his position and the Cumbria Constabulay name in this matter.

I can't help noting the irony of his comment about "free speech" in the letter!

Paul, the gloves need to come off now and this guy needs to be tought a lesson. I am more than happy to back you in any way I can if the matter ends up in the courts. In much the same way as he claims to have "put up with" the various comments that have been made on this forum so far, WE, the motoring public have also had to put up with his actions on Cumbria's roads. He has now had two (nearly three) years in which to achieve his aims and they have, to say the least, been ineffective.

During this time he has taken a great deal of money off motorists travelling in our County - maybe even livelihoods in some cases. In return for this he has NOT reduced the number of deaths on our roads - in fact they have INCREASED and his impact on the number of serious injuries has been marginal to say the least.

If I took so much money off so many people in return for some kind of service and then failed to deliver it, I would expect to end up in court!

So maybe it would be best if we WERE to end up there...


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 17:41 
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I am pretty disgusted by this behaviour, it would be interesting to see the content of the communications sent to the US hosts (not that I expect obviously). It is likely that any responsible ISP would be intimiated by police letterheads, whereas those from an individual would be more likely to be stored in the round filing cabinet.

Why doesn't he get his letterheads out and start court proceedings against those he feels responsible?

BTW Paul, try www.havenco.com for hosting run by some people who like to stir trouble with the UK gov't!

Gareth


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 19:20 
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Just for all your information... {I am not imersonating a police officer, despite the fact that as I recall many broadcasts start with that line :twisted: } The removed threads were removed intact rather than dissected for four reasons.

1) Time was of the essence. To hav dissected would have taken an order of magnitude longer.

2) It would have left very disjointed conversations, to which the deleter-in-chief would have had to make some comment to preemptively reconcile new readers.

3) In doing so the remaining one-sided threads would have left some seriously flaweed assumptions/statements effectively unanswered.

4) The result would have been irreversible.

Apologies to all caught in the crossfire.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 11:03 
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One thing not mentioned, and I must admit I'd not thought about it before is this. If you decide to post on a somewhat controversial web site forum, you do so entirely of your own free will.
Callaghan's postings were not, surely, a part of his job description or the official duties of his employment. They were entirely voluntary and the fact that he used someone else's registration to post here is another factor to be considered.
All his postings were of his own volition and he knew, from the now-defunct CSCP Forum, how hostile many other posters were to his organisation, it's unwillingness to answer questions and the lack of frankness it displayed. He was also aware that his organisation had failed to cut deaths in Cumbria.
Why, therefore, did he decide to join in the postings on here and then complain when he got some minor, though completely true, attacks on him and his integrity/honesty.
The fact that he then decided to issue to Paul what was meant to be seen as a letter carrying the approval and weight of the Chief Constable of Cumbria Constabulary because he didn't like the replies to his personal postings on here is the real disgrace. If he had originally posted as the Cumbria Constabulary and made it clear that his replies were the official position of the Cumbria Constabulary that would, possibly, be different. But he posted as "JJ". Is that how the Cumbria Constabulary identify themselves these days?
In addition, as a result of his voluntary postings turning to his perceived disadvantage he then tried to stifle free speech, invoking the apparent full and open support of Cumbria Constabulary to do so. Was this authorised by a senior police officer? If so, who was that officer? Another one for a disciplinary hearing, maybe.
Or did Callaghan just take a sheet of Police letterhead, type out the letter, sign it on behalf of Cumbria Constabulary (for that's what a signature on a letterhead is, it's a signature for and on behalf of the letterhead organisation) and mail it to Paul himself - a serious matter if this is the case.
Been a bit silly, hasn't he.


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 Post subject: Publicity
PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 12:57 
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Hi,
I just have to say that your Mr callaghan has given you wonderful publicity! You should thank him. I didn't know you existed and being the administrator of a similar site, but totally different subject, I have had threats but nothing in writing etc. and no real action. Brilliant stuff!

BBC radio Cumbria gave you some great advertising.

Well done and you now have another member!


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 13:09 
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Welcome to the site, I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay here! You'll learn soon enough that Mr Callaghan has a habit of um... how to say this without invoking a letter of complaint... putting his foot in things now and then, this being a classic case in point!

Can you give us the gist of the Radio Cumbria news story?

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 Post subject: Re: Publicity
PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 13:20 
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Burning Rubber wrote:
Well done and you now have another member!


:welcome:


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 13:40 
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Thank you for the welcome!
Quote:
Can you give us the gist of the Radio Cumbria news story?

The article is towards the end of the news bulletin, http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/radiocumbria/index.shtml
You can download it.

It will change because it is the news :wink: , I have a copy.

A forum is for voicing opinions and providing no one is abusive, freedom of speech is usual, so removing posts????? Anyway, I think it is great that you have been on the news every hour :clap1:

And your smilies are brilliant.

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Last edited by Burning Rubber on Wed Oct 12, 2005 13:42, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 13:41 
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Nice to know the word's getting around, and that it looks as though his antic's are beginning to work against him. :thumbsup:

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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 13:55 
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Can someone give me the gist of what the bulletin is about - access to radio stations is blocked here due to bandwidth issue :cry:


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 14:12 
Yes, A warm welcome, great advertising for bbc radio cumbria too :wink:


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 14:21 
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Quote:
Can someone give me the gist of what the bulletin is about - access to radio stations is blocked here due to bandwidth issue


The row started over the conflicting interpretation of statistics at camera sites and Mr. C said that some coments on the site were defamatory ands wanted the posts removed. The US hosting co. closed it for a few hours, effectively a warning. The shutdown has started its own comments.

That is basically what was said, I cannot type fast enough, so it is a "gist" and not totally accurate.

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