Acting Lincolnshire chief constable Alec Wood has 'no idea' why Neil Rhodes was suspended

“I've just received my council tax bill for next year; the largest percentage change of charges (2%) is against Police Commissioner.
If Alan Hardwick refrains from suspending the most expensive staff he has, without any justification, maybe the bills would come down.
Why are we hearing nothing from Mr Hardwick, is it because he's acted hastily or without cause? This long silence of his confirms to me we have a PCC who hasn't got a clue what he's doing!”

“The creation of PCCs was the centrepiece of Conservative proposals to reform the police in England and Wales. "Giving people democratic control over policing priorities is a huge step forward in empowering communities," the party manifesto claimed in 2010. This is the usual meaningless 'buzzspeak' that political parties put out of 'empowering communities and people' and promising greater tranceparency, when in reality it means the complete opposite.

Gordon Wasserman, now Lord Wasserman, was the architect of the Conservative party's PCC policy. A Canadian by birth, it was his experience of US law enforcement, in New York and Philadelphia, which shaped his ideas. He said "I want people to see their police commissioner in the street and say 'Hi Commissioner! How are you doing?'" I'm sure the people of Lincolnshire will tell him, but I suspect Mr Hardwick will be keeping a very low profile.”

“Stop Politicians Running Policing - if you look at the results on the BBC webpage, this is actually what the majority of those that voted in Lincolnshire actually were passionate about. See:

http://tinyurl.com/cznew7j

The election results are actually quite telling. With Conservative and Labour eliminated in the 1st round the natural home for their supporting votes would be for a neutral Independent. You would have thought no voter with a party bias would vote to keep the politics out of policing, but 7,741 did? Perhaps they did not have faith in Alan Hardwick's promise to bring "openness and transparency" to the force. As things have transpired given the lack of information from the new PCC, perhaps they were better informed than the rest of us?”

“Well wouldn't you know it a solicitor is in discussions with the PCC, discussing a compromise deal no doubt, nice big pay out for Mr.Rhodes, and the public never find out what happened, what suckers the tax payers are”

“I thought the idea of adding a comment was to express an opinion removing posts is like being "shut up"”

“Alec Wood knows whats happening hes the chief of Lincs Police, the complaint made against him, are the two connected I wonder?”

“The new acting chief says "I have absolutely no idea as to why Neil has been suspended. It is up to the police and crime commissioner to tell me and I am sure he has his reasons for keeping this quiet for now."
Does this mean the PCC doesn't trust our "new" chief either?
Should there be this sort of secret between these positions?
Or is The PCC going to operate in a "behind closed doors" manner where the whole force (and us the public) are kept in the dark as to what he's up to?”

“Nice to see the site operator has cut my comment again - another complaint from Mr Hardwick's office no doubt (a regular occurrence). Seems to me he seeks to immediately obliterate everything he doesn't like!!”

“We all know that whether your work for the police, NHS or local government there are always going to be people who make trouble and complaints will come in. The strength of any leader or manager in the public service is how they deal with them. Standing behind your staff until all the facts are are known is the norm.

So from this we can assume that Mr Hardwick either knows all the facts and suspended Mr Rhodes or he had another reason for doing so given that he has made no public announcement on the facts he had at his disposal.

My concern is still that his decision is politically motivated given that the CC position was up for review. this all seems a a little too convenient. Some might claim incompetence, I think it is more likely to be deliberate sabotage.

Am I missing something here? I thought the PCC was himself subject to scrutiny. Surely the Lincolnshire Police Panel have heard something?”

“This is turning into a farce and the judgement, competence and motives of Mr Hardwick have to be questioned.

We are told that the ipcc are not investigating the matter. If the issue is sufficiently serious to warrant the suspension of a chief officer, why not?

Furthermore, if the misdemeanour is sufficiently serious to warrant a suspension, why has new acting cc not been fully briefed. Is he not to be trusted?

Being on the receiving end of complaints and allegations must come with being a Chief Constable. What's the betting that this turns out to be completely unfounded or to have been a storm in a teacup and that we, the taxpayers, will end up up having to foot a substantial ( and justified) compensation claim.

For everyone's sake, not least your own Mr Hardwick this issue needs to be resolved.”