Welcome To Zelo Street!

This is a blog of liberal stance and independent mind

Friday 8 June 2012

Not Such Close Protection

[Updates, three so far, at end of post]

As I observed earlier this week, there was plenty of selective reporting of the affair of the Jubilee Pageant stewarding, with the right keeping schtum after two of those stewards complained about being dumped in London at 0300 on Sunday morning and forced to sleep – or maybe that should be try to sleep – under London Bridge. Then those involved fought back, and the right began to sound off.


Not in this, or any other part, of Salford

Yes, only after the firm at the centre of the row, Close Protection UK, which claims to have an office at the University of Salford, but actually works out of premises in the Wigan suburb of Hindley, fed three remarkably upbeat testimonies to the Daily Mail, did ConservativeHome and the Guido Fawkes blog wake up. The latter merely cut and pasted from the Mail.

The flannelled fool Henry Cole then cut and pasted the Mail testimonies to the comments section of a post on Political Scrapbook, telling “I know something about the Jubilee stewards. Most of them it seems had a pretty good time and are happy for the chance of a job”. CPUK supplied around 220 stewards. So in the make-believe world of Master Cole, 3 out of 220 is “most of them”.

But, by merest coincidence, as more bad news about CPUK began to emerge, the Fawkes blog clammed up again. And not only is their hate figure Tom Watson on the case, but “Shagger” Prescott has also joined the fray. So what is the bad news? Molly Prince, director of CPUK, has left a trail of dissolved companies in her wake (seven thus far) and has a criminal record.

And I don’t mean a Des O’Connor album: Ms Prince was handed a twelve month suspended sentence for perverting the course of justice. Yet CPUK has supposedly been given “due diligence” and she has an SIA (Security Industry Authority) licence, which latter is not normally given to those with criminal convictions. Perhaps her conviction was a long time ago and has been judged to be “spent”.

If that’s not setting alarms ringing already, there is also the thought that “Close Protection” means bodyguarding, not stewarding, and certainly not jobs like fire marshals. Why should that be a problem? Well, CPUK has won a contract – good old competitive tendering at work – to provide just that service at the upcoming Olympic Games. Two hundred of them, in fact.

None of this appears to have caught the eye of Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, though, who has been getting a little cash from the Telegraph to help pay off the magazine’s latest court fine by laying into Prescott, beginning his piece by smearing anyone finding adversely on CPUK as “outnumbered enemies of the monarchy”. What originality. What élan. What a complete prat.

This whole affair stinks. Yet the right is burying its head in the sand.

[UPDATE1 1620 hours: Political Scrapbook has made another revelation regarding the circumstances of Ms Prince's conviction, which followed a man being beaten into a coma at a pub that she was running at the time. The weapon was provided by her then boyfriend.

Meanwhile, John Prescott has brought the news that Ms Prince has retained the services of the great Cliffus Maximus to deal with PR matters on her behalf. One has to admire Max for taking on what might not be the easiest of gigs.

Sadly, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer, the flannelled fool Henry Cole, are stuck in their rut of trying to implicate Tom Watson. Come on lads, give it up before one or both of you disappears up your own arses]

[UPDATE2 11 June 1900 hours: just as Max Clifford may have thought he had got the situation under control, CPUK is back in the news after the Indy reported that a minibus taking stewards to Weymouth, in what may be another Olympic related contract, went out of control on the M40 and crashed. The driver was then arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving - not easy when no other vehicle is involved - and not having the necessary licence to drive the thing.

So Clifford was back in action with a suitably worded and calming slice of spin. And John Prescott is still doggedly pursuing his quest to get an answer as to whether CPUK was subjected to "due diligence" checks. It would, let's face it, have been an embarrassment to Governments of both stripes. It just confirms the suddenly accident prone nature of the Coalition that it's gone off on their watch]

[UPDATE3 13 June 2050 hours: just to put the lid on CPUK, it has now been revealed that the SIA is investigating the firm following the Prescott letter to Theresa May. The letter detailed a potential breach of SIA Approved Contractor Status, and asked of Locog how CPUK was awarded that £850k fire marshalling contract. There is more to come on this one]

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

On Digital Spy

” Let’s not forget that the director of the Tomorrow’s People “charity”, who sent the young people on this course with taxpayers money (run by Close Protection UK), is Tory peer Baroness Stedman-Scott.

Tomorrow’s People were one of the main culprits involved in the Major era Project Work pilot programme, it seems that they haven’t changed their tune much. There’s an awful lot of money to be made out of taxpayer funded free labour for companies. Especially companies owned by politicans and those that bankroll political parities.

Tomorrow’s People also work under CDG in East London & Prospects, Rehab and JHP Training in two of the South West areas

Recently, Newsnight revealed that Tory Baroness Stedman-Scott, earns £100,000 for her role at the “charity”, and employs no less than eight others on £50,000 a year.

Molly Prince, the director of Close Protection UK contributed to a book about the nature of the ‘security’ industry, along with such notables as Dave Courtney, a well known English gangster.

Molly Prince also seems to be known as Mary Prince or Mary Jane Prince on many of the company records. She so far has set up no less than 5 companies, all 5 of which has been struck off by Companies House using powers under the Companies Act — having failed to submit any accounts whatsoever: She has set up a couple more limited companies this year, as Molly Prince, with the same address as the security company. They are called Vision Lifestyle Ltd and Commitment Fitness Ltd, with little sign of them having done anything yet.

And yet the governemnt are satisfied that this is a “one off”.

This whole thing stinks to high heaven.
Additional information that has come to light:

The director of Close Protection UK, Molly prince, — the company responsible for the Jubilee stewards fiasco — received a twelve months suspended sentence for perverting the course of justice. The conviction relates to a family dispute which resulted in a man in coma.

It goes far FAR deeper than “people forced to sleep under a bridge” and “some people enjoyed it”, and could result in the same corruption that was seen in the “expenses scandal”, where political MPs and Peers are profiteering out of Taxpayers cash, invested into companies with close links to notorious gangsters, whose Directors are convicted criminals.

I hope the lid is blown right off this thing. ”

Tom Watson MP said on Twitter that a little part of Michael Fallon’s soul must have died today and he can’t wait to meet him on the Daily Politics show , on his blogs he says Tory Central Office had organised a distraction fight back ………… Lord Prescott on Twitter says the whole thing is beyond parody ….then there’s the little matter of G4s at the Olympics being tainted .

Johnny Void has done a very interesting WordPress Blog about the Tory Donar business links to Tomorrows People ….not much nepotism as incest ?

There’s been more sleaze and corruption with PR Dave Snooty and his braying toff pals in the last two years , than in the 18 yrs of Thatcher and Major and the 13 of New Labour with Blair and Brown .

Over to you Cicero …never mind Molly ..or Mary Jane Prince ….there’s a TV career on Daytime TV talk shows for you ….or you could tell all about your alleged extensive plastic surgery and how allegedly you gave all those ex criminals with spent convictions work out of the goodness of your own heart in supermarket magazines – a journalism career awaits !

Anonymous said...

Yet CPUK has supposedly been given “due diligence” and she has an SIA (Security Industry Authority) licence, which latter is not normally given to those with criminal convictions.
--------
Perhaps the SIA is compromised by one of its directors also being on the board of a company called Close Protection World - any relation?

Unknown said...

A bodyguard is a person hire to guide and protect another person. Bodyguard makes sure that his or her client stays safe by identifying possible dangers. This post is very helpful and I appreciate you sharing the info.
Close Protection London

Stuart Spindlow said...

I really like you post thanks for sharing it with us.

Contego Officium