Nick yourself!!

We were amazed to read recent reports from the cops that due to funding cuts victims are now expected to INVESTIGATE CRIMES THEMSELVES. Including, we’re told, crimes like burglary and criminal damage Rumours of speedily constructed gallows in various parts of the city have yet to be confirmed. Although The BRISTOLIAN would be amazed if burglaries will not be investigated in Clifton or Westbury on Trym before we all start getting our balaclavas and gloves out. But this has been the case for many years in some areas of Bristol. Try getting police support in Hartcliffe, Easton or St Pauls. Give plod a ring because someone has torched your mini and see what happens: nothing normally. This reminds us of an old story. A young single mum living in the inner city phoned the police after hearing and spotting someone in her back garden. She was promised support within ten minutes. When it failed to arrive she rang again. She explained she was on her own in her house with two small children. More concerning the intruder had got it into the shed where the tools were. She was given further assurances … After another ten minutes with no sign of plod she rang back and said, “don’t bother, I’ve shot him”. Within two minutes an armed response unit arrived! They questioned her for several hours before departing. Needless to say, they had lost all interest in the theft from the shed. The BRISTOLIAN will keep its eyes peeled and will investigate incidents of fraud and corruption from Bristol’s high and mighty. We will then hand on the details to the Old Bill, and see what they do. If you know of anything, drop us a line and we’ll chase it. Lets turn their austerity measures around.

MS X: NOW THE COPPERS SAY “REHOUSE HER”!

Now joining The BRISTOLIAN and the sensible public at large in demanding the immediate rehousing of vulnerable domestic violence victim – Ms X – is the Avon & Somerset Constabulary.

We understand that police have this week spoken with Bristol City Council’s Housing Department and told them Ms X needs to be urgently relocated for her own safety.

It now seems like everybody, except those with the power to help, want Ms X rehoused as a matter of urgency. Indeed it’s beginning to look like Ms X is now being used as little more than a prop to shore up their fragile egos by Housing Department middle managers Paul Sylvester and Nick Hooper. They are refusing to admit, in the face of a barrage of evidence, that they have made errors and they are refusing to acknowledge the real danger Ms X is in.

Instead, in an effort to prove they are right at any cost, they have resorted to fluent bureaucratese insisting she is ‘Band 3’ and there’s no more they can do. This is bullshit. They could rehouse her tomorrow. They do it all the time. Why won’t they do it now?

The BRISTOLIAN continues to receive outraged emails from councillors on this matter, with some that are especially critical of Housing boss Hooper. The only people now actively supporting Sylvester and Hooper in their fool’s errand of refusing to rehouse Ms X is Zoe Sear, “right hand woman” of Mayor George Ferguson (Happy Anniversary!), and the mysterious, unnamed ‘Safer Bristol Domestic Violence Co-ordinator’ who apparently insists Sylvester and Hooper are acting correctly by doing absolutely nothing and leaving a vulnerable young woman in danger of her life.

Sylvester and Hooper have ignored a death threat; they’ve ignored a ‘substantial threat’; now will they ignore police advice too?

BRISTOL MAYOR’S AIDE ZOE SEAR – VICTIM BLAMER, ABUSE ENABLER…

Zoe Sear: sticking the boot into domestic violence survivors on behalf of Mayor George Ferguson

So step forward ZOE SEAR, Mayor Fergo’s “right hand woman” paid nearly a thousand quid a week for her problem-solving abilities. Obviously a working class Bristolian like Ms X who has been repeatedly battered black and blue is not the concern of a Very Important millionaire like George Redtrousers, so when this shitstorm erupted in public, it was passed to his smiling consigliere Sear to deal with.

After initially making lots of sympathetic noises, Sear is now conspiring with incompetent housing chiefs Hooper and Sylvester to COVER UP their mistakes – and blame Ms X for her situation.

Sear has attempted to use an appointment scheduling error by a support agency which meant that Ms X could not attend one meeting because she was at another one as a stick to beat the victim with – and FORCE her into taking a place in a refuge against her wishes. That is the same offer that Ms X explained that she couldn’t accept THREE MONTHS AGO. Sear and her housing department chums are now using the threat of withdrawing all support as a way of SILENCING a vulnerable victim.

As Sear contemptuously said to Ms X’s advocate, “I don’t have a magic wand – what do you want me to do? Take her home with me?”

No, Zoe – we simply want you, your boss and your council to do the right thing – by appropriately rehousing this woman and her child. BEFORE either of them is harmed.

A CLEAR & PRESENT DANGER: BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL ABANDONS VULNERABLE BATTERED WOMAN

Despite its LEGAL OBLIGATIONS to immediately rehouse her, Bristol City Council is FAILING to place a vulnerable victim of ongoing brutal domestic violence into safety, according to information passed to The BRISTOLIAN.

The woman in question – whom we choose to identify only as ‘Ms X’ – has been targeted by a predatory sexual sadist over an extended period of time, and has reached out for help from a number of agencies.

Yet in a harrowing tale of municipal hand-wringing, thanks to a combination of INDIFFERENT POLITICAL HACKS and LAZY SENIOR OFFICERS, and despite her acute need to be rehoused away from her abuser, she remains trapped and at the mercy of a very dangerous man.

Credible information leads The BRISTOLIAN to believe that unless Ms X receives the rehousing support to which she is legally and morally entitled within days she is in real danger of serious harm.

And what can be done?

Well, the politicians and council officers who have already been made aware of the precise circumstances facing Ms X could pull their fingers out of their arseholes and (i) acknowledge the detailed information sent to them about this matter; and (ii) ACTUALLY REHOUSE MS X. Not when she’s in hospital – or worse – but NOW.

Of course, given their failure to take seriously either this particularly grim individual situation, or the wider issues of domestic abuse, we have decided to start NAMING AND SHAMING those who were told about the case of Ms X – but who have DONE NOTHING – starting with the overpaid men at the top…

So get calling, get tweeting and get emailing to demand that they DO THEIR JOBS!

• GEORGE FERGUSON (Mayor of Bristol) – twitter: @GeorgeFergusonx; email: mayor@bristol.gov.uk
• NICK HOOPER (Strategic Housing Service Director) – tel: 0117 922 4681; email: nick.hooper@bristol.gov.uk
• PAUL SYLVESTER (Rehousing Manager) – tel: 0117 352 1601; email: paul.sylvester@bristol.gov.uk

Don’t let them sit on their hands until Ms X becomes that most unfortunate statistic of all.

* If within 24 hours of this post we don’t hear that practical steps have been taken to help Ms X, we reserve the right to leverage these – and other – complacent decision-makers even further.

** We are not naïve and realise that Ms X is not the only person at risk from domestic violence who is being failed by Bristol’s authorities. If you or someone you know is in a similar position as Ms X, and no one else can help, get in touch and we will see if there is anything we can do.

BRISTOL TOP COP GARGAN GETS THE FEAR OVER INTERNET PROFILE PIC!

Durston Fletcher – no powers of arrest

Are Avon & Somerset TOP COP Nick ‘Hurdy-Gurdy’ Gargan’s well-documented weekend trips to Glastonbury to wear his love like heaven and mellow out on the Tor to ponder, like, the sheer enormity of it all, man, impeding his professional judgement? Or did he ingest something other than an extra strong herbal tea infusion during his last visit, at the peak of the MAGIC MUSHROOM SEASON, to deepest Somerset’s hippy haven?

Coming up with the kind of deranged paranoid nonsense that only takes shape at two in the morning over a bowl of dry Rice Krispies and the LAST OF THE CUSTARD CREAMS, The Hurdy Gurdy Man issued urgent instructions one Monday morning, immediately after one of his Isle of Avalon trips, that the presenter of hit radio show ‘From Bristol With Love’ Durston Fletcher must remove his Twitter and Facebook avatar immediately as it “could be deemed to be impersonating a police officer”!

The avatar in question is a picture of The Bill’s Reg Hollis as played by actor Jeff Stewart and so far, unsurprisingly, nobody outside of Hurdy Gurdy Gargan and his elite team of top TIE-DYED DETECTIVES has yet managed to confuse Durston with an actual copper.

However, to help out our confused top cop and the rest of his disoriented crew of addled Old Bill, Durston has now installed a new special message on his avatar: ‘I am not a copper’ it helpfully explains.

Hopefully this will clear matters up enough for the Avon & Somerset to continue with their duties and for Hurdy Gurdy Gargan to concentrate on realigning his chakras.

BRISTOLIAN GALLERY: ‘LOCAL TAXI DRIVER’ BY DURSTON FLETCHER

‘Local Taxi Driver’

Councillor Gary Hopkins, ink, 2013, Durston Fletcher

Our artistic odyssey continues, with Popular Local Radio DJ (it says here) From Bristol With Love‘s very own Durston Fletcher submitting this bold entry into our Best Gary Hopkins Portrait Meat Raffle competition.

Durston has been very busy of late thanks to a burgeoning feud between him and Bristol & Bumpkinshire Chief Constable Nick Gargan (see The BRISTOLIAN #4.7, out this week!), so big BRISTOLIAN thanks to him for taking time out of his busy arch-nemesissing schedule to make beautiful images for us.

NAZI LIST SHAME OF ‘POST’

That old Bristol Post masthead in all its spittle-flecked glory!

Oh my aching sides… Post editor Mike ‘No Balls Goebbels’ Norton and his crack news team (three interns plus his nephew on work experience) are backing an Avon & Somerset Constabulary campaign against ‘anarchists’.

It follows the £16 million-worth of ‘little local difficulties’ recently experienced at the PFI police gun shack near Portishead – currently just a smouldering heap – which led Gollum-like Chief Constable Nick Gargan and former pastie-dealing Police & Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens to announce a big crackdown on “DOMESTIC EXTREMISTS”.

The low-key announcement by the cops – buried in a single paragraph on page six of a 35 page presentation to the council – that they were about to wage war against “DE criminals” was just the greenlight Goebbels – who fancies himself as a sort of local version of Jeremy Clarkson by way of General Pinochet – needed to work up a good frothy rant.

Anarchists now join NIMBYs, cyclists, anti-supermarket campaigners, crusties, socialists, feminists, environmentalists, vegetarians, young people, drug users, clubbers, hippies, students, the jobless, the poor, the elderly, those with disabilities and anyone off a council estate on Goebbels’ growing LIST OF HATE.

It’s starting to look like his enthusiasm for football stadiums extends beyond an interest in sporting prowess.

It might be easier for Goebbels to state simply what he’s in favour of – or should he save himself the bother and just stick a swastika on the front of his newsletter?

RED AND BLACK SCARE!

Avon and Somerset Police force have been FAILING SPECTACULARLY to catch a group or groups of anarchists responsible for a string of arson attacks in and around Bristol for the last few years.

In the latest twist they’ve decided because they can’t catch the people responsible they’re going to pick on people not responsible and threaten anyone associated with anarchism, protest or recent riots. This RED-AND-BLACK SCARE has begun before police have even finished their investigation!

Well, our very own beloved riot-supporting Mayor Fergo was at the Bristol Anarchist Book Fair in April getting in to trouble. Will he be raided any night soon? Arrested for being posh in possession of red trousers?

The Post is of course backing the MAD WITCH HUNT. The ‘Tesco riot’, if you believe the police/Post line, is that the whole thing was organised by anarchists with a one-in one-out door policy. So the riot wasn’t anything to do with the cops invading a busy area full of drunken punters on a bank holiday during a heatwave? Why not evict the squat at 6 on Monday morning? Then you wouldn’t have needed the small army they had there that night either.

The Post is now jumping at the chance to see some KIDS CHUCKED IN PRISON for 5 years in the wake of the scare as that’s all that what will happen. They wont get the arsonists. They’ll get any ‘anarchists’ to make us all feel safe.

The whole scare sounds like desperation. They’ve not had any evidence to nick the small arsonist cell so they’re opening up their investigation to anyone they can pin anything on in the last few years who may have stood near the word ANARCHIST.

‘Mad’ Mike Norton, editor of the Post, says we should support the police in their crackdown on ‘domestic extremists’. The BRISTOLIAN says support your local anarchists and troublemakers…

Otherwise it could be you next!

TOP COP CALLS FOR MARTIAL LAW AT ST. PAUL’S CARNIVAL!

On the eve of ST. PAUL’S CARNIVAL (or St. Paul’s Festival for our older readers) word reaches us that Chief Constable NICK ‘GRIPPER’ GARGAN has demanded that organisers flood the streets of the inner city district with FORMER SQUADDIES!

The top cop – whose SHADOWY time at the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and then later at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) is thought to touch on the ‘police spy’ scandal – threatened to pull Avon & Somerset Constabulary support from the all-day community event, unless ex-military security was used.

It follows similar STRONGARM TACTICS used by A&S to bully Carnival in previous years, including telling committee members that they would be held responsible for any trouble at the huge event, which draws scores of thousands from across Bristol and beyond – or even prosecuted.

Meanwhile in true nice cop/nasty cop fashion, on Thursday the force’s public relations gurus released a fluffy statement (entitled ‘Cops calypso at Carnival’) about how “officers and PCSOs will be enjoying the sounds, sights and smells of St Pauls Carnival with party-goers this Saturday.”

There was of course no mention of bully-boy Gargan’s behind-the-scenes attempts to militarise the streets of BS2, though Bristol’s finest bogling bobby, district commander Chief Superintendent Jon Stratford, was quoted as saying:

Carnival is set to be even bigger and better than ever this year. The sun is set to shine and carnival organisers have been working hard with us for months to make sure it’s a safe and successful event.

Well, that’s one way of putting it!

FERGUSON UNVEILS SHOCKING NEW ‘RIGHT RIOTS’ POLICY

At last night's post-Thatcher Death Street Party public meeting at Easton Community Centre, Bristol Mayor George Ferguson announced an unexpected new platform to his administration - COMPULSORY RIOTING. The millionaire mayor unveiled the policy after explaining that he's a big fan of Bristol's history of radical politics ("as long as it's not upsetting other people") - though not such a fan of anything that might actually change how things are now, unless it involves giant solar-powered inflatable vegetables. In the words of HIS ROYAL REDTROUSERS:

Riot at the right time, and in the right way.

George's statement last night has left many across the city wondering what would pass as an acceptable riot in our Glorious Mayor's libertine eyes. The BRISTOLIAN understands that he is not yet able to release a comprehensive 'riot guide' on appropriate disorder etiquette. In the meantime we call upon him to indicate on a 'right riot'/'wrong riot' basis which of the following chapters in Bristol's social history would meet his criteria for a FERGO RIOT KITEMARK?

• BRISTOL BRIDGE, 1793
• QUEEN SQUARE, 1831
• OLD MARKET, 1932
• ST PAUL'S, 1980
• SOUTHMEAD, 1980
• HARTCLIFFE, 1992
• STOKES CROFT, 2011
• NATIONAL RIOTS, 2011

At the meeting IL PUCE regretfully also railed against your favourite super, soaraway scandal sheet when questioned by audience members about his numerous business interests, at one point snapping:

I think you must have read that in The Bristolian - Don't believe anything you read in that.

We have been unable to confirm whether this slip of the tongue was caused by inappropriately-prescribed medication.