From: Michael Dawson
Date: 23/10/2020 (11:58:37 GMT)
To: Emma Lewell-Buck
Cc: Angela Hamilton

3 Attachments:
8DLL.pdf (108 KB)
Dissection of Response 14-Jan-20.pdf (58 KB)
Threat Exposed 3-Mar-20.pdf (120 KB)

Dear Emma,

On January 8th I received an email from Simon Buck:

Good morning Mr Dawson,
I wonder if it is possible to have your telephone number, I will then pass this on to my colleague Keith Palmer who will call you later today.
Kind regards.

Simon Buck
Office Manager for the
Office of Emma Lewell-Buck MP.

After a bit of thought I responded, 9th Jan, gave him my home phone number and said:

Dear Simon,
Sorry, I do not look in my mail every day and it may be better to use my personal email box daw50nmdj@hotmail.co.uk unless Keith wants to talk about corruption at the Town Hall, UK Docks etc.

Lunchtime, Monday 13th I noticed I had missed a call from your office on Westoe Road and was happy to return it but realised immediately that that Mr Palmer was only interested in closing down all dialogues concerning UK Dock and corruption.
He had therefore got my home number under false pretences and as you can see, and I thought I would put you in the picture that evening:

Dear Emma,
I answered a call today from a Mr Keith Palmer on 01914271240 and we spoke about UK Docks. Judging from the email address he gave me, I guess he must be your office manager in South Shields and from our conversation I gathered he did not wish to consider any further correspondence from me and suggested that because I now lived away you/he would not be able to deal with correspondence because of parliamentary rules. You and I both know this to be nonsense as the shed is on your patch.
He hinted at, expensive litigation, vexatious complaints and presenting new evidence to the LGO which shows he has been warned off helping me by an official at the Town Hall which in turn goes back to the attempt by the CLP to deselect you.
What I really needed from you was your support and Mr Palmer has indicated by our exchange over the phone that he is not prepared to give it. At the end of the day the Council are misusing the Ombudsman’s Office to hide malpractice then use their findings to deflect any enquirers after the truth.
I understood from Mr Palmer that this was no longer a matter for Parliament but I think it is. Only Parliament can make it a criminal offence to lie to the Ombudsman. I have attached a copy of the letter from my Solicitor for Mr Palmer’s perusal and he would do well to read the email to Customer Advocacy 03 September 2016 at the foot of the trail below. Incidentally it was passed back to Mrs Johnson and was not dealt with by Customer Advocacy. If it still exists it is lying unattended on a file.
In future, shall I just copy Mr Palmer any correspondence about UK Docks so he can place it in the file for reference?
Kind regards
Michael

It looks as if though this email was deleted without you ever seeing it as Mr Buck responded to the one below.
Logic does not appear be Mr Palmer’s strongest suit. I write to you twice and get a response from Mr Buck referring to a phone call – see attached dissection. What gave the pair of them away was that I had copied my email to Mr Palmer not to Mr Buck and yet it was Mr Buck who replied.
I have reattached the letter from Mr Tilbury and I suggest that you ask Mr Buck to read it. I have also attached a criticism of his empty threat of the 26th Feb and until I get apology from him, I will not let the matter rest. Mr Palmer is careful not to put anything in writing so I would not expect one from him.
I know you have more pressing business in Parliament, and it is a shame that you and your fellow MP’s (Bradford West and another, I did not catch the name of her seat) pleas for free meals fell on deaf ears but there is another issue which should be addressed and I will write separately about that.
For the near future, I will just keep you and Angela informed by putting you in the Bccs along with the other protestors like Julie, Melanie and Paul. At the end of the day Council’s like South Shields will continue to abuse the office of the Local Government Ombudsman until something is done about it and it looks like we will have to wait for Parliament to collapse or Dominic Cumming be deposed before there is any chance of that happening.
I notice from Nicola Robason and Stuart Reid’s letter to Cllr Malcolm that bullying is rife in South Shields Council and I suspect Mr Palmer’s actions are not unconnected. By the way who was Mr Palmer<mailto:palmerk@parliament.uk> working for?

Kind regards,
Mick Dawson

----- Forwarded message -----
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 07:37:08 +0000
From:mick.dawson@theharbourview.co.uk
Subject: Fwd: Automatic reply: Complaint: 248789 - Unplanned Development on River Drive
To: Emma Lewell-Buck MP <emma.lewell-buck.mp@parliament.uk>
Cc: Keith Palmer <palmerk@parliament.uk>
Nicola Robason <Nicola.Robason@southtyneside.gov.uk>
Mike Harding <mike.harding@southtyneside.gov.uk>

Dear Emma,
I gave my phone details to you partner to pass to a Mr Keith Parmer,
he has them and I spoke to him yesterday on 0191 4271240.
Is it safe to assume he is your Office Manager in South Shields and we
should write to him on any issues we have with UK Docks?
I am Michael David James Dawson of 51 Church Street, Amble, Morpeth NE65 0DY.
The case ZA4803, please see attached, and it has been with you for
many years although it was passed to Anne Marie Trevelyan MP while I
was lodging at 5 Second Avenue, Amble. 70 Greens Place was on the market for about 4 years and I did not sell
it until 2019. I was resident back there when UK Docks extended their
shed in August 2017. I complained to you about the conduct of
Councillor Anglin at that time and you suggested that I take it up
with the Monitoring Officer, Mike Harding, and although I have not
raised that issue with him I have discovered that he does not even
acknowledge the receipt of any letters or emails let alone go any way
to resolving any of the issues raised. I discovered this when I tried
to raise a similar complaint with him at the back end of 2018.
Nicola Robeson does respond and she has confirmed that UK Docks were
not given permission for their shed retrospectively which makes one
wonder why they told you and Angela that they had.

Yours sincerely
Michael Dawson

From: mick.dawson@theharbourview.co.uk
Date: 26/03/2020 (12:03:46 GMT)
To:   Emma Lewell-Buck MP
Cc:   Cllr Angela Hamilton, Cllr David Francis

1 Attachment: MPemailsDec19Jan20.pdf (40 KB)

Dear Emma,
Two months ago I gave my home phone number in Amble to your husband in good faith to give to a Keith Palmer whom I assumed was your new Office Manager. When I returned his call he made it very clear that he was determined to suppress the truth about UK Dock’s shelter on River Drive. He said that any future emails from me to your office would be ignored, just filed away.
That was not what I expected to hear and I wrote and told you about the call in the evening of 13th of January only to discover his threat had been carried out when I got the auto-reply. This is the standard response to new enquiries by email to establish a contact address but I am not a new contact so it looks like Mr Palmer had used it to suppress communication. As you know I have been corresponding freely with your office for some time now, initially via Rebecca, and now mostly via Cllrs Hamilton and Francis.
I attached a copy of the letter from a solicitor supporting my claim that the Council had misled the Ombudsman and because the charges I made against him were fairly serious I copied Mr Palmer the email and it so he could respond if he so wished. It was to give you the main idea of what I was trying to put to Mr Palmer over the phone, that the Council were misleading the Ombudsman to cover over misdemeanours in Planning. The ward Councillors were copied in as a warning to be similarly cautious in their dealings with Mr Palmer.
I needed to establish whether it was incompetence rather than malice that my email to you had been suppressed so I wrote to you again the following morning, giving my address etc. and received another auto-reply suggesting it was not incompetence but a deliberate action.
In the second email, I had attached the Case Papers ZA4803 from 20-Oct-16 to give Mr Palmer some background to my links with your office. It shows that since we met at a Labour party meeting about three years ago I thought I had established a good working relationship with your office. No-one except Mr Parker had said or even implied that it was a vexatious one until I returned his call on January 13th.
I also took the opportunity to repeat “Nicola Robeson has confirmed that UK Docks were not given permission for their shed retrospectively which makes one wonder why they told you and Angela that they had.” Mr Palmer will have seen that even if you have not and it might be instructive to get his view on it.
I had not copied Mr Buck into either email yet it was he who responded, 14-Jan-20, defending Mr Palmer in no uncertain terms. It appears that the entrapment has hauled in Mr Buck as well as myself. What looks to have been a set up arranged by the pair of them has now backfired.
Mr Buck had neither been copied the letter from the solicitor nor the brief history of my dealings with your office yet he says that: “Mr Palmer correctly informed you that MPs have no influence over the Local Government Ombudsman, and he suggested that a possible course of action may be to complain further to the Local Government Ombudsman and suggested you take legal advice.”

• Firstly he was implying that I had suggested that you should try and influence the Ombudsman. You know quite well that I have done nothing of the sort and I understood from Mr Palmer that this was not a matter for Parliament but I think it is;
• Secondly and this is very important. It appears that he had not seen a copy of the solicitor’s letter because he is suggesting I take legal advice!

We, and I in particular, have found in our dealings with the Town Hall that they always, if they want to ignore a complaint, respond to it with a denial or a non sequitur. Likewise Mr Buck in his defence of Mr Palmer has steered the conversation away from the fact that the Council have misled or lied to the Ombudsman to the implication that you could influence them, and on top of that, there is the suggestion that I take legal advice when Mr Palmer knows that I have already done it.
Unless Mr Palmer has a better suggestion, the only way to stop Councils using the Ombudsman to cover over the wilful lack of planning enforcement or any other misdemeanours they wish to obscure, is for Parliament to act. The best way, I believe, is for Parliament to make it a criminal offence to give misinformation/misrepresentation to the Ombudsman or Councils like South Shields will continue to do it.
My phone call to Mr Palmer put me in mind of the response I got from the Council when I complained to the Chief Executive that they had misled the Ombudsman and that was another reason why attached the letter from my solicitor to the first email. The response then, was to claim that I was an unreasonable and persistent complainant, as a way of avoiding the subject of the complaint i.e. giving misinformation/misrepresentation or misleading to the Ombudsman.
Firstly, it is a lie to say that one single complaint to the Council about them deceiving the Ombudsman is persistent. Secondly, when one looks at the evidence it was not unreasonable to claim that the shed was 3m taller than planned which is verified by looking at the evidence.
Thirdly, you will see from Mr Buck’s defence of Mr Palmer that the pair of them now want to add vexatious to that libellous list. Mr Palmer would have done well to have read my email of the 20th October 2016 and the copy of the letter to the solicitor before he persuaded Mr Buck to accuse me of being vexatious.
Mr Buck says he was listening to the call, and his comment that Mr Palmer was polite, informative and accurate implies that I was none of these. Mr Palmer did not tell me that Mr Buck was listening so you will have to take my word against the pair of them that I was not polite. Secondly he may have been accurate to say that you have no influence over the Ombudsman but so what, no-one ever suggested you had any. To put his email to me, 14-Jan-20, into context please see the top of page 4 on the attached file – MPemailsDec19Jan20.pdf.
If they recorded the call you will be able to judge for yourself whether I was polite or not. Again, if there is no recording, it is my word against theirs. All I can say that if the pair of them thought I was not polite then my sudden change in behaviour can only be attributed to Mr Palmer.
I’ve made no secret of my view that your deselection and Angela’s exclusion from the Council’s Labour Group were associated and driven by Executive at the Town Hall and the nature of Mr Buck’s response on behalf of Mr Palmer has all the hallmarks of the Council’s Executive written all over it:

Your email seriously undermines Mr Palmer’s, Emma’s and the Office’s integrity and it is a very serious matter. I am very sorry that Emma is unable to help you further with this case and I consider this matter to be closed.

Mr Buck is entitled to his own views about Mr Palmer but they are not mine and you should quiz the pair of them with reference to the attached file before you decide whether it is me or Mr Palmer that is undermining the integrity of your Office.
Kind regards
Michael