Letter to Right Hon. Jack Straw Minister for Justice, 3rd April 2009
We have been whistle-blowing for 6 years re corrupt acts against us by Revenue/VOA. We have been writing to you for over a year pleading, asking that citizens making complaints against government departments as in our case are in need of open courts to help circumnavigate the VOA corrupt complaints procedure as run by civil servants.
We have long struggled against these VOA deceits and find they are aided and abetted in their fraudulence by devious high-powered officials such as the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Adjudicators Office. So crooked had been the defence of the Revenue/VOA, that the Adjudicator Barbara Mills (previously discredited in a High Court) 'disregarded the rules of natural justice, concealing incriminating evidence, misrepresenting the facts, and upholding the actions of the inept VOA staff”.
Corrupt regulators; an injustice upon complainants, a crime against the state!
We have suffered similar injustice from the Parliamentary Ombudsman, you will know of this from our long-time protestations regarding being corruptly handled, not only by the Revenue/VOA, but the whole iniquitous public sector complaint procedure. When one reads all the signs over 6 years, one is astonished at the amount of effort and determination put in by officials from all levels in order to defeat our claims re ‘corrupt acts against us’. One questions the setting up of an enormous amount of costly legal clout where I eventually faced government barristers and lawyers at a Tribunal? My crime? I, an ex front-line soldier, who had done my bit by serving my country, a war pensioner had dared to complain against the lying, cheating, and seriously inept Revenue/VOA!
Our 6-year struggle against the largely dysfunctional and sometime corrupt Revenue/VOA was vindicated by a recent debate in Westminster Hall, where MPs castigated the calamitous VOA port business taxation chaos. Many MPs showed some desperation in combating the damage the severely incompetent Revenue/VOA was causing to English ports around the country.
Here are a few comments from MPs attending the debate:
One has to question the calibre of the Revenue/VOA Executive officers and staff, because the same stupefying mistakes have been continuous over a great number of years! They rely too heavily on lies and deceit, knowing the public sector cover-up culture as organised by senior officials will protect them, even if it means breaking every rule in the book.
Such a VOA culture of deceit, aided and abetted by fraudulent cover-up officialdom has produced a cesspool, where avoidance of public duty has been taken to great lengths. (These VOA incompetents held ‘judge and jury’ status over our case?)
It could be said, especially in our case, that the fraudulent VOA only survives because of its collusive powerful friends.
We have struggled against this VOA axis of evil for some 6 years. Not only has it got powerful officials ever ready with fraudulent protection, it is also in league with the Government, they both being ‘hand in glove’ deliberately covering up known errors in Council tax bands? Tammany Hall all over again?
One realises that the seriously inept Revenue/VOA is unique because it provides governments with bottomless pits of taxpayer money; therefore, its continuing errors of judgement must be hidden at all costs, hence the ‘hari-kari’ attempts to nullify or demolish its critics within a High Court.
This pin points the corrupt government machinery that honest complainants have to fight against. The inept Revenue goose that squanders the taxpayers golden eggs has to be defended by whatever it takes; lies, deceits, corrupt ‘put-downs’? The trampling down of many unfortunate critics, means they are forced to give up their fight for their rights, simply because they cannot cope with the deliberate long- drawn out decisions purposely mangled by despotic bureaucrats.
My continuous complaint to PMs Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, and the Ministry of Justice, the Standards Committee etc were never going to get off the ground. The Revenue/VOA are government protected! I, an ex front- line soldier was being corruptly handled by decrepit undemocratic officialdom, allowed by government to crucify any critic of the precious Revenue VOA, even if it means breaking every rule in the book!
Once the Revenue/VOA informed us they were holding a ‘proper’ investigation into our case, they came up with a crooked verdict claiming the VOA miscreant, who had corruptly handled our case, had done so with the “Best of Intentions”. Such blatant VOA deceit is the norm.
(1) In our case against the dysfunctional Revenue/VOA the Parliamentary Ombudsman, showed that she too was capable of being deceitful against victims of the public sector; capable of disregarding the rules of natural justice and capable of misrepresentation of facts, very much in the same mould as the Adjudicator, the error prone and much discredited Barbara Mills.
(2) Both of these despotic regulators are capable of upholding gross errors caused by inept Revenue/VOA staff. Such diabolical protection of severe incompetents does severe harm; it does little to improve the quality of government departments where crass errors by inept civil servants continue unabated.
Because of our early involvement with the Revenue/VOA we eventually saw it as suffering from stagnation and decay. At Westminster hall, MPs revealed much the same! Once in reply to our many criticisms the VOA Executive agreed the office had ‘serious deficiencies’?
VOA Executive and staff have to be amongst the most indolent and stupefying within any government department – the severeness of their unaccountability is quite beyond belief! These miscreants controlled and abused our insignificant appeal and turned it into a nightmare. Yet high-status government regulators regularly nurture this crooked regime with protective deceits!
We found this Revenue/VOA to be the basest of incompetents; their abandonment of public duty has been supplemented with a couldn’t-give-a-damn attitude, it is easier for them to tell lies than give an honest ethical account of themselves.
Prior to the port fiasco, in 1992 they were proved to be most unworldly and unprofessional when failing to act on information provided by a businesswoman. This crass VOA negligence led her to be notified much later than she should have been of revised rate liabilities. She was unable to meet her additional costs and had to close her business because of the Revenues/VOAs severe incompetence This severely abused businesswoman was later paid compensation and solicitors cost; but no ‘lessons were learnt’ by the Revenue, as shown within the ports tax fiasco.
There are squalid Revenue/VOA abominations all around the country, Lowestoft and Carlisle are worth studying for gross ‘couldn’t-care-less’ stupidity – despite its enormous cock-ups the VOA does not have the acumen to learn from its mistakes – its negligence is palpable. In Westminster Hall, MPs said that it is clearly irrational for a government to make businesses insolvent as a result of the failures of the Revenue/VOA…It was pointed out, that far worse was the VOAs attitude; that shows negligence in the extreme.
Public sector corrupters like the VOA should not be allowed ‘judge and jury’ status over the public, they are proven to be underhanded, neglect to correct errors and cover up their mistakes, wantonly destroying our system of justice and democracy.
We again ask the Minister for Justice for ‘open courts’ because very few critics of the Revenue/VOA can withstand such belligerence from government officials.
As an old veteran with guts, a war pensioner, what happened to governance?
AW & I Tanner cc PM Cabinet Office Committees MPs Media and all interested in governmental corruption! . ,