JERSEY'S HEARTLESS PARAMEDIC

Dear Readers,    

DAVID MOODY

Paramedics are the people who are usually the first on the scene of an accident. We rely on them to give us the best emergency treatment that can often mean the difference between life and death.

So you need some quite exceptional qualities to become one.

I’ll be mentioning them as I recount the story of one of them that will make you wonder how some people can perhaps start off on the right track and then go terribly wrong. (Note: This report is in two parts and concludes in my post Jersey’s Heartless Paramedic Part 2.) 

*A paramedic must have a caring and empathic nature.  

David Moody had been a paramedic in the Channel Island of Jersey since 1989 when my son Simon Abbott died there. At that stage David had the very responsible job of being an Operational Paramedic in charge of several others as well as support staff.

Towards the end of 2012 Simon sued eight people on the Island for libelling him on social media (See my posts DID CYBER BULLIES KILL SIMON ABBOTT; CYBER WOLVES HUNTING SIMON ABBOTT etc).

The bullying went on for some two years. And although the inquest Coroner Assistant, Viscount Advocate Mark Harris chose not to comment on this aspect, a lot of evidence indicated that Simon’s heart attack could well have been brought on by the relentless character assassination that he endured right up until the day he died aged just 47.

He was accused of being a con man and other dubious activities when there was absolutely no evidence to support the allegations. All he was trying to do was to raise money for a charity he started to help women with post natal depression.

AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT MY SON HAD TO CONTEND WITH

         He did this in memory of his sister Samantha, his only sibling, who died tragically in 2009 a few months after the birth of her first and only child. She too had been suffering from this affliction.

Even Ian le Sueur one of the main bullies showed how inane their campaign was when he admitted in an email that there is nothing to suggest to us, that other than circumstantial evidence he has, or is out to cause harm to anyone he befriends.



MORGAN'S self portrait

One of the people Simon sued was Maureen Morgan a tarot card reader and self styled witch who certainly lived up to this label. Among the others was Murray Norton a Radio Jersey presenter and his photographer friend Le Sueur. 

*A paramedic should strive to behave at all times in a manner that brings admiration, acknowledgement and respect to the profession. 

Undeterred by my son’s court action Morgan continued to attack him on social media in an effort to justify her slanderous behaviour. Even after he died she was still at it.

And Moody, who was evidently a friend of the witch, could not resist coming under her spell. 

*A paramedic must maintain a high standard of personal conduct. 

NOT PUTTING HIS WIFE IN A VERY GOOD LIGHT

On her Facebook page Morgan was busy telling the world about Simon Abbott and his Attempts to Sue me for Libel when Moody climbed on her broomstick with this revolting contribution on 26 May 2013.

I am not strictly allowed to say that Abbot (sic) is a con man but I am allowed to say that based on anecdotal evidence … and on the balance of probability…it does appear that Abbot (sic) May indeed be, inter alia a Tosser. 

The Witch added Nicely put to her toxic Facebook brew.

WHO KNOWS HOW MANY MORE SKELETONS
DAVID MOODY HAS IN HIS CUPBOARD

Tosser is vulgar slang for someone who masturbates or to be charitable to this compassionated paramedic and give him the benefit of the doubt it could also mean a stupid or unpleasant person. 

*A paramedic must behave with honesty and make sure that their behaviour does not damage the public’s confidence in them or their profession. 

My son died on 17 June 2013 after collapsing at a café in St Helier, the Island’s capital.

The WITCH at her hypercritical best

That was the trigger for another even sicker comment from Moody on Morgan’s Facebook four days later.

No longer a problem!! he told everyone. And having stuck his knife in up to the hilt he gave it this sadistic twist: RIP (Rest in peace).

I don’t know what the Witch had to say about this but I’m sure she would have loved it.

         Ironically Morgan is a member of the Tarot Association of the British Isles which aims to promote Tarot as a force for good and development in a person’s life. And its Code of Ethics expects Readers to be open-minded, honest and non-judgemental.

         The Witch is currently trying to cast her spell on the electorate in Jersey in the hope of becoming a member of the Island’s parliament. Informed opinion is that she hasn’t a hope in hell.  

*A paramedic must ensure that his patient’s dignity and confidentiality are maintained. 

On 13 October 2013 Britain’s The Mail on Sunday, which has a readership of 2-million, carried a story headed ‘BBC man’s Twitter bullying campaign helped kill my son.’ Devastated father claims offensive comments contributed to son’s heart attack at 47.

 The following day Moody was at it again, four months after my son had died. This time on Murray Norton’s Facebook page.

I had dealings with the “complainant” with you all the way! was his contribution, which I believe could only have meant that he had treated Simon at some stage. 

Ian le Sueur likes this the photographer added callously. 

Flash IAN

The inquest was held on 9 December 2013 and the report of what happened gave me another stomach churning mystery to unravel.

Had Moody’s deplorable Tosser remark on Morgan’s Facebook page been the reason for Simon’s strange behaviour at the Welcome Centre Café at St Thomas’ Church after he complained of difficulty breathing?  

According to the Police an ambulance crew arrived at 12.15 after a 999 called had been made. Simon got into it and an ECG revealed that he had an insufficient blood supply to his heart.

Abbott then began to act aggressively towards the paramedics, the report went on. He was flailing his arms, accusing them of harassing him and attempting to leave the ambulance. They tried to calm him down without success.

He got out of the ambulance and went to lie down between two parked cars. The ambulance crew called the Police for assistance. Abbott would not communicate with the police officer who tried to help him, but would talk to two women who were there.

He began flailing his arms and said again the paramedics had been harassing him and to tell them to go away.

My son then had a seizure. Attempts were made to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at the General Hospital at 13.47.

WAS MOODY ONE OF THE PARAMEDICS WHO ATTENDED TO MY SON AT THE CAFÉ? 

         The story continues in my post JERSEY’S HEARTLESS PARAMEDIC Part 2.

         Regards,

         Jon 

JERSEY'S HEARTLESS PARAMEDIC Part 2

DAVID MOODY

Dear Readers,

Here is the final episode in the Moody saga that illustrates what a peculiar Island of secrets and fear Jersey is.

In an effort to establish if David  Moody had been one of the paramedics who attended to my son Simon at the café I contacted Mike Judge, Operations Manager, States of Jersey Ambulance Service, via the Coroner’s office.

He replied: I am not allowed to give my staff names out due to data protection. He was referring to the notorious Data Protection Law that has been used by Jersey’s elite to cover a multitude of sins, even to the extent of sending a former Minister of Health Stuart Syvret to jail for using his blog to highlight corruption that embarrassed the authorities.

Was Judge trying to protect Moody I wondered?

How different it was for Simon when he asked the London Ambulance Service (part of Britain’s National Health Service) for details, including the medical records, of what happened when his sister committed suicide in 2009.

In the letter he received from John O’Keefe, the Patient Experiences Officer he was told to please sign the attached form and return it in the stamped addressed envelope provided. I will then provide you with a copy of the records.

When I pointed this out to Emma Martins, Jersey’s Data Protection Commissioner, she told me: Jersey doesn’t have a Freedom of Information Law, unlike the UK. This may explain the different approach.

SEE THE P.S. FOR FULL EXPLANATION

She can say that again. Jersey makes the Freemasons seem like an open book.

Jersey is in the peculiar position of being a British Crown dependency just off the coast of France and is a self governing democracy. It is not part of the United Kingdom although the UK is responsible for defending it.

I asked Martins if the Data Protection Law prevented Judge from disclosing the names to me. She replied saying there was no easy answer as a balance needed to be sought between the public interest in disclosing the names and the privacy rights of the individuals.

Was I asking for a state secret to be revealed I wondered?

She asked for full details of why I wanted the names and I told her about what Moody had been up to. She undertook to pass this on to the Data Protection Officer for Health.

Do they have a Data Protection Officer for every Government department in Jersey I wondered?

She added that if the Facebook entries I had sent her did relate to an employee of Health she believed it is a conduct issue they should look into.

Meanwhile I had contacted the Minister of Health Anne Pryke who very sensibly ignored this Data Protection nonsense as a reason for not disclosing the names of the paramedics.

ANNE PRYKE the voice of reason

She got Peter Gavey the Chief Ambulance Officer to give them to me.  There were three of them and he also gave me their email addresses. Moody was not one of them.

In an email I asked all of them why my son claimed that paramedics were harassing him shortly before he died.

Operations Manager Jason Hamon replied immediately saying he only arrived on the scene after Simon was unconscious. But I heard nothing from Gordon Hunt and Julie Rolland, so I asked Gavey if they were perhaps on leave.

Initially he said their work meant they spent a lot of time where there were no email facilities. Then he told me he had advised his staff not to give me individual replies as he wanted to respond to me personally to ensure that I got information that is clear, accurate and unambiguous.

He eventually explained that my son’s behaviour was probably because of his critic illness as nothing reported by the crew treating your son led them to believe he was fearful of them, rather he just wanted to be left alone.

This conflicted with the police report that stated that Simon was telling the paramedics to go away because he believed they were harassing him.

Gavey added that he was not aware that any of his staff knew about Moody’s Facebook postings and there was no record of Moody ever having had any professional contact with my son.

   But two days before he died Simon asked a friend if he knew who David Moody was and he was told that he was a paramedic. So that could be the explanation for Simon's reaction at the café because Moody had poisoned him against all paramedics.

Moody evidently ceased being a member of the Jersey Health Department at the end of last year. But if he retired or he was pushed the paramedic service is well rid of him.

He was recently appointed for a five year stint as a member of Jersey’s social Security Tribunal. This hears appeals regarding the awarding of Social Security and other benefits.

But with his kind of morality should he be doing this job I wondered.

I sent an email to the Minister of Social Security Francis le Gresley telling him about how Moody had maligned my son on Facebook. Richard Jones, the Risk & Quality Manger replied saying my email would be sent to the relevant area for consideration, whatever that means.

Emma Martins famously once said: We are all accountable for what we write and say in the online environment.

Not all in Jersey lady, only the ones taken to task by your Data Protection Law. And this certainly did not apply to Moody and the many bullies who attacked my son on social media for all to see.

People in Jersey are so fearful of being identified that at a guess 80% of comments that appear on the Island’s numerous blogs are from its most prolific family Anonymous.

Many of them also have a phobia about having their emails intercepted. Three of the people I dealt with in my efforts to unravel what happened to my son wanted to avoid emails by speaking to me on the phone or even contacting me by post.

Has Jersey changed much since the Germans occupied it in the last World War I wondered? 

Well the Jerries have gone but the Nazi type control of the populous lives on.

SEE THE P.S. FOR FULL EXPLANATION

It is said to be the richest offshore tax haven in the world. Its entire economy is founded on dubious morality.

Geoffrey Powell, Jersey’s former economic adviser, described a tax haven as the existence of a tax structure established to deliberately take advantage of, and exploit a worldwide demand for opportunities to engage in tax avoidance.

It is estimated that a trillion Euros a year are lost to European countries because of tax havens like Jersey.

So if I had to battle to get the names of the paramedics who attended my son you can imagine how closely they guard the names of the world’s billionaire scrooges who stash their fortunes on the Island to dodge paying taxes in their home countries.

Hopefully Moody is the exception to the rule and that paramedics are still a most admirable section of society who we can’t do without.

Regards,

Jon

P.S. I couldn’t resist lifting a couple of items from Jersey Toons which appears on Photopol.com  It’s a most amusing skit on the latest developments in Stuart Syvret’s battle with the Jersey authorities over posts on his blog. They got this former Minister of Health jailed under the Data Protection Law, but after being released he still wouldn’t removed them. Evidently they constituted a danger to the reputation of people in high places.

Now Google, the blog’s host, has been asked to do the Jersey Government’s dirty work. So if you look for it you are greeted with This blog is under review due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations & is open to authors only.

I am sure Google wouldn’t dream of suppressing Stuart’s freedom of speech if he was in the US of A.

So it’s not surprising that a lot of people have every reason to believe that Adolf Hitler is still ruling the Island of Jersey from the grave. 

Buy my book 'Where have all the children gone?' on Amazon.com

NATIONAL UNION OF JOURNALISTS' PROTECTION RACKET

Dear Readers,

MICHELLE STANISTREET

          The British media, that upholder of justice, freedom of speech and all that jazz, has one rule for everybody else and a very different, shocking one for itself.

          This takes the Pulitzer prize or whatever the British equivalent is if there is one, for deplorable double standards worthy of the best expose`.

         With a clear conscience it is happily maintaining that old maxim that a cornered journalist is no different from anybody else when it comes to covering up - he is 10 times worse.

         Fortunately I was able to get the inside story by hiring a retired reporter who had honed his hacking skills on the News of the World that was brought down by the kind of morality that is being fostered by Britain’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ).

         Of course I can’t reveal the information he got for me – that would be telling.

         But I can disclose how the NUJ, which claims to be the largest union of its kind in the world with 38 000 members in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the Channel Islands, protects its own rotten eggs. And as they are the main purveyors of the news they have been able to keep this scandal well and truly under wraps.

Not even a whiff has leaked out until now. The stink, however, is pretty overwhelming.

The NUJ’s website is full of moral wisdom as well as a code of conduct that stipulates how members should behave when dealing with the public.

Her are some examples:

Members should strive to ensure information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair.

They should differentiate between fact and fiction.

And anybody looking at its website must agree not to impersonate another person or use a false name to try to mislead others as to the origin of any communication

Publish or post defamatory information.

Threaten, harass or abuse others.

So it’s reasonable to assume that it requires all its members to abide by all these high ideals.

 In reality this is just window dressing.

This is what happened when I complained that Ian le Sueur a freelance photographer and Murray Norton a BBC radio presenter in the Channel Island of Jersey had relentlessly cyber-bullied my son Simon on social media. He died prematurely of a heart attack aged 47 (See my posts DID CYBER-BULLIES KILL SIMON ABBOTT? CYBER WOLVES HUNTING SIMON ABBOTT etc).

         They made him out to be a con man who was pocketing money collected for a charity he started when there was no evidence to support these allegations. Simon was trying to raise money for women with post natal depression after his sister committed suicide while suffering from this problem.

Le Sueur even admitted in an email that he hid behind a false name to do his dirty work.

       

NORTON

  An internet item showed that Le Sueur was a freelance member of the NUJ, but I could find nothing that indicated Norton was a member although it does accept broadcasters and he claimed to write for newspapers and magazines.



         However the Union is a secret society. I was told they could not confirm or deny that either of these two were members. And the punch line was the union does not take complaints from the public.

         This comedy became even more laughable when I persisted. It was only then that I was told to submit my complaint against Le Sueur while they still refused to say whether or not he was a member.  Under protest this is what I did.

         Weeks later when I asked what progress had been made I was told that as they only considered complaints from members mine had been passed down to the level of Le Sueur’s chapel to see if a member would sponsor it, but surprise, surprise nobody was prepared to do this. In my limited experience the people in the chapel would be the ones most likely to be his friends, making this even more of a charade.

         On my own initiative I contacted Professor Chris Frost head of the Journalism Department at Liverpool’s John Moores University. He chairs the NUJ’s Ethics Council and is a National Executive Council member.

PROFESSOR FROST

I told him that having been an NUJ member many years ago I was appalled to learn that the NUJ will only take complaints about an NUJ member from another member.

         That’s like saying nobody can complain about police brutality, corruption etc unless it comes from another policeman, I went on. It’s a protection racket that hardly goes with the media’s image of upholding justice, free speech etc. It makes nonsense of your code of conduct.

        He then made this astounding admission: I’m afraid we don’t have the resources, financial or human, to deal with complaints from the public. During the eighties we did take complaints, but the number soon headed into the hundreds and became impossible to manage.

         Its remedy was a laughable pretence at policing that would no doubt be the perfect answer to virtually eliminate complaints from the public in any organisation.

         We put in place the filter of complaints only coming from members, the Professor explained. We do pass them to branches or deal with them ourselves as the Ethics Council on occasion as this gives us the opportunity to take cases of significance. 

          How many NUJ members have been prepared to join the popularity queue by lodging a complaint again a fellow member I wonder? 

         What’s more the decision to effectively ignore the rogue members in its ranks doesn’t comply with the NUJ’s own rules.

         Rule 17 states: Ethics Council: There shall be an Ethics Council charged with the responsibility for the promotion and enforcement of the professional ethical standards of the union, with particular reference to the enforcement of the union’s code of conduct and with research and debating ethical issues on media freedom and regulation.

         This Ethics Council has the following duties.

1.   To promote the unions code of conduct among the general public and to publicise its own work on ethical matters (How can it possibly be doing this if it doesn’t take complaints from the public and doesn’t mention this on its website or as far as I could see in its rules)

2.   To promote high ethical standards among the membership (Ha! Ha! Ha!).

3.   To hear complaints against members under the code of conduct (Only the very few if any that get through its own censorship system).     

     After a recent court case in Scotland the Union got good publicity by proclaiming that it has pledged to continue its campaign against online bullying of journalists.

     Its double standards were showing once again when it gave me a hard time trying to lodge my complaint against one or more of its members for doing something similar.



     In that case David Limond a football supporting yobo called Glasgow reporter Angela Haggerty Taig (a derogatory term for a Catholic or Irish nationalist) of the day because of her Irish heritage and scum of the day on social media. He also encouraged other people to abuse her on Twitter. This was evidently because of her coverage of the financial collapse of the Rangers club.

     This bullying had many similarities to the way Le Sueur and Norton attacked my son. But Scotland dealt with it a lot more efficiently than the authorities in Jersey. Limond got sent to jail for six months while the Jersey Police decided, after taking legal advice, that no offences had been committed.

DAVID every girl's dream

     In any event Jersey’s Data Protection law appears to be reserved for convicting and imprisoning people the Island’s hierarchy doesn’t like, not to stop the average person from being slandered on the internet.

         Here are quotes from the NUJ’s website and two of its most prominent members that make what it is doing on its ethics side look even more ridiculous. My comments are in brackets.

         We need firmer regulation from a body that is there to protect press freedom, press standards and ethics by listening to the public …. Professor Frost talking about proposals to change the way the Press is regulated in Britain.

         The Union does not back statutory regulation of the press. We support an independent system of regulation – independent from the industry and, crucially, from government (No wonder when the Union can’t even regulate itself properly). For long years the Union has campaigned for a more accountable press and for high standards of journalism (Yet it sets a virtually non-existent standard when it comes to disciplining its own members) .... Michelle Stanistreet the Union’s General Secretary.

         Journalism at its best uncovers the truth, secret courts hide evidence. The open Justice Project has teamed up with the Union to offer training on the Justice and Security Act, a law that conceals information from the public, denies independent media scrutiny and insulates the government from scandal ( Doesn’t refusing to take complaints from the public insulate the Union from scandal?) …. Union’s website.

         Not all is lost as far as my complaint is concerned. The NUJ just might redeem itself, but it looks as though it is a very big MIGHT.

         In the last email I received from it I was told the Council will have another look at it at our next meeting, but I’m afraid you should not assume from that that the Council will agree to pursue the complaint further.

         Now I know what it’s like being the mouse in a game of cat and mouse.

         That meeting is on 20 January so we will see what happens.

         Regards,

         Jon, the disgusted Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman.

CLICKS - stuck in a BAD SERVICE rut

Dear Consumers,

Clicks CEO

           Below is what I wrote in April 2012 under the heading Clicks Humpty Dumpty stock situation. But judging by this week's Sunday Times it is as Humpty Dumpty as ever. 
              It's odd the way some of these big companies can't change course once they are programmed to do something, even it is clearly bad for business. 
          Clicks, headed by CEO David Kneale started with health, home and beauty stores, but when it added pharmacies it seems to have forgotten that these require pharmacists. And as there is a great shortages of these qualified people Clicks is constantly rubbing its customers up the wrong way.
           Add to that the general poor service.

               This is what appeared in this week's Consumer Forum in the Sunday Times. The problems its readers had at the pharmacies mirrored my experiences of more that a year ago, although it's Healthbasics supply problem has improved.
           The second item headed And poor service at others refers to the Long Beach Mall branch which is in my area. I don't go there very often now but when I do I have found the service virtually non-existent.

            My wife and I now get our medication from the family owned Sun Valley Pharmacy which is in the same mall. Its motto is: A Passion for Caring and the service there is everything that Clicks is not.

            Through the Sunday Times Clicks assures readers that the issues will be addressed with the urgency they deserve.
                   I find this very hard to believe. My bet is that in another year nothing much will have changed particularly at the pharmacies.
                    Clicks had a 13.6% increase in turnover to R17.5 - billion in the year to August 2013. So no wonder it doesn't worry too much about giving bad service.
              But if it goes on like this:
              All Kneale's staff and all his men
              Won't put Clicks together again.

April 2012
Dear Consumers,

         It’s your Consumer Watchdog here and this time he was wide awake with all his senses on full alert. In the numerous gaps on the shelves he was able to get a whiff of what had been there, but even his keen nose was unable to establish how long ago this was.

         As he walked down the isles in the Clicks stores his tail was not wagging happily; it was drooping pathetically. You see us sniffer hounds have to have our daily vitamins for our coat to remain glossy and to be able to do our job properly.

         Alright he couldn’t check all the 590 stores across Southern Africa that include Musica and The Body Shop that are in the Group  and you might say that two in Cape Town are not a fair sample.

But they turned out to be just the tip of what the Group admitted had been a huge stock headache.

Things had not been clicking in the stores that include 280 retails pharmacies, which is the largest chain of this kind in South Africa.

         Funny how I got wind of this many months ago when I complained to  David Kneale that I couldn’t get any salmon oil capsules at the Long Beach Mall branch. He rectified this by having the branch manager deliver some to my house.

         But it seems the much wider problem of too many missing items went unchecked. Even Healthbasics, which is Clicks’ own vitamin brand, was often not there.

         In one isle alone in the Long Beach branch, which is not very big, I counted over 200 gaps on the shelves. And a lot of them had Out of Stock stickers on them for you shoppers, who are too stupid to realise what empty means.

When I continued to complain at my local branch the staff would shrug their shoulders as if to say We get the flack for something over which we have no control.

         This time I not only went to the Long Beach branch but I also visited the one at Constantia Village, which is in a very upmarket area and could be the busiest mall in the country. It was the same story there.

         So your Watchdog, who is always mindfully of the interests of the consumer, sent another barking email to David in his ivory tower at head office. He did what too many CEO’s do when they are contacted directly; he passed the buck to Amanda Graham, his head of merchandising.

         Don’t you think it would have been a far better public relations exercise if David had personally answered my email complaint?     

        We’ve had a torrid time with our private label (Healthbasics) and we’ve let the customer down, Amanda told me. They had moved to different suppliers twice in the last year and this had led to out of stocks for long periods of time, a situation which we are still experiencing.

         That’s pretty Humpty Dumpty don’t you think? If they had got nothing else right you would have thought that a large Group like Clicks that is quoted on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange would have made sure of getting adequate stocks of its own brand wouldn’t  you?

         Their lack of stock had been particularly bad in the vitamins and supplements section, Amanda went on. This was also due to unanticipated demand.

Humpty Dumpty is everywhere.

         The steps that are being taken to rectify the situation include, of all things, providing additional space. Would it be too much to ask for them to first make sure that the existing space is always full?

         I would like to take this opportunity to again apologise for the inconvenience you and your readers have experienced, were Amanda Graham’s commendable parting words.

         We’ll have to see if a real improvement actually materialises. But one thing is certain your Consumer Watchdog will continue doing his rounds; sniffing here and there and looking to ensure you consumers get the best service possible.

         NEWS FLASH: It’s 11.00 am, Sunday and I have just been to the Long Beach branch to collect chronic medication (that keeps you alive) for myself and my wife only to find that Humpty Dumpty had taken over the dispensary. It was securely fenced off because the duty pharmacist had not pitched. And we couldn’t get our medication anywhere else because Clicks have our scripts.
        NEWS FLASH 2: It's 11.00 am, Wednesday 2 May and the pharmacy is once again fenced off. What about people who need medication urgently but can't get it because Clicks have their scripts?

         So if the posts on my blog cease you’ll know why.
         Yours faithfully (like all dogs),

         Jon, the Consumer Watchdog with an excellent sense of smell, provided he can always get the necessary vitamins.