Monday, January 27, 2020 - 11:21 Joe Garcia

RGP Senior Command Through Their Decisions Provide Their Own Negative News

I purposely delayed preparing this report in the hope that an RGP senior officer would contact me or Panorama to hopefully confirm they have put a stop, to a simply outrageous RGP senior command decision to investigate top Gibraltar Police Federation representatives, which without doubt, can only be a misguided allegation by the RGP top senior brains, where it is alleged, Gibraltar Police Federation Chairman Sergeant Maurice Morello and Secretary PC. Leif Simpson supplied or encouraged me, to report in Panorama or criticise senior RGP officers!

The whole thing is simply preposterous, you couldn’t make it up. This is really why, newspaper reporters like me often do criticise the RGP senior command.

Why would I require the help or encouragement from any member of the police service, when I get all the material I need from regular poor and often controversial RGP senior command decisions. Like conducting this investigation, which is the substance of this report!

However, I also get inspiration, by the poor, visionless and inexperienced manner police services are locally led. The latter points, a disturbing situation, plain for all to see and also regularly criticised by the public, not only by us!

RGP Professional Standards Investigate the Allegedly Panorama Connection

Recently, I was contacted by an RGP Inspector from the RGP ‘Professional Standards Unit’ who I later met. He explained that he had been instructed to conduct an ‘internal disciplinary investigation’ as a senior police officer had reported, that both Sergeant Morello and PC Simpson had spoken with me (your reporter) during an unknown date in October last year. These officers it is alleged, encouraged me to write or report in Panorama negatively about RGP senior officers!

These allegations it seems, go back to last October, coinciding with the period, when the Police Federation publicly released its very damning internal survey of its members, highlighting once again, for the second year in succession, the very high levels of ‘bullying and plummeting force morale’ in the service. This obviously did not make positive reading. Well it wouldn’t, if I had been the Commissioner of Police or any officer of senior rank!