Power has previous when it comes to suing

Clameur de Haro? was mortified, on returning to the Rock after journeying briefly to sunnier climes in pursuance of business, to find that he had missed all the fun of the deplorable Graham Power’s attempts - much after the fashion of that also signally unlamented and very PC PC, Sir Ian Blair - to cling on, limpet-like, to office, despite his clear unfitness for it manifested by his inadequate management of the HdlG enquiries.

How ironic that in an earlier part of his career, it was Mr Power who exposed the shortcomings of the Grampian Police in their investigation into the murder of a 9 year old boy by a paedophile, leading to the resignation of that Force’s Chief Constable.

CdeH? cannot recall a time since Mr Power’s appointment when he has been so publicly active, having been distinguished since his arrival in Jersey by nothing so much as a constant near-invisibility and a silence of almost monastic proportions.

But we should not be too concerned that this apparent sudden enthusiasm for action represents a departure from the norm: for, as CdeH? and others note, Mr Power does, as the rozzers say, have previous form when it comes to threatening legal action against existing or would-be employers.

Before his appointment to Jersey, Mr Power had up to that time enjoyed a previous career most noteworthy for his attempt to sue the Northern Constabulary Police Board, the political authority of the Scottish Northern Constabulary, for racial discrimination - on the grounds that he was English – when it (wisely in the opinion of CdeH?) passed him over for the role of Chief Officer. Prepared to take the NCPB to an industrial tribunal, with the backing of the Commission for Racial Equality, he eventually negotiated an out-of-court settlement.

Clameur de Haro? suspects that the threat to sue here is merely the opening gambit of an attempt to secure yet another out-of-court settlement with a lucrative payoff – but wishes it success, despite the notion of compensating this man out of public funds for deserved loss of office sticking in the craw, because if it enables the island to draw a line under, and move forward from, the disastrous Power-Harper regime, it would be cheap at virtually any price.

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