Tuesday, January 28, 2020 - 11:27 Leo Olivero

There was generally, a somewhat disturbing response to our report yesterday where I revealed ‘the RGP were investigating an alleged connection between the Gibraltar Police Federation (GPF) and Panorama.’

At the centre of this investigation is the October 2019 article which this newspaper published where we reported on the GPF internal survey of officers. Where once again for the second year running it was highlighted that there were continuing serious ‘workplace bullying’ issues which in parts, surpassed the same survey result conducted in 2018.

The GPF responded on the Facebook page when they posted:

“How independent can the Gibraltar Police Federation be when it still falls under the umbrella of the Police discipline regulations and at the mercy of the Commissioner of Police. What message does this send out to officers on the ground when the Chairman and Secretary are being investigated for a ridiculous allegation. We will work to resolve this and support our members tirelessly with any issues they may have”

Yesterday’s reaction by the GPF was one of rightly questioning, the foundations of the Federation’s existence, or ‘how the federation could act as an independent body to support and look after the welfare of its members, if the Commissioner of Police embarked in conducting disciplinary investigations when there is negative RGP news in the public domain’. This was my understanding.

In this case, there was no leaked news passed on to the media, but a news report arising out of a legitimate GPF press release.

However, what I am sure, the GPF are quite rightly fearful of, is the fact that the Commissioner of Police can pick on any issue or set of circumstances and then order a disciplinary investigation as was the case in the current problem, where RGP senior command came to the wrong conclusion that the GPF Chairman and Secretary had encouraged me to negatively report in this newspaper on RGP senior officers. As I said yesterday ‘You Could Not Make it Up’!