IN A LETTER to Council Chief Executive Ian Westley, Dyfed Powys Police have confirmed that NO prosecutions will take place in relation to the Commercial Property Grants scandal affecting Pembroke Dock.

The scandal revolved around the gross misuse of European grant money to build bedsits in Pembroke Dock instead of regenerating the town’s commercial centre, which was the schemes’ supposed intention.

The scandal came to light when Councillors Mike Williams and Mike Stoddart raised a series of inquiries into the scheme’s administration and the purposes to which it was being put. Cllr Stoddart and Pembrokeshire’s Best Magazine continued to pursue to the matter, uncovering a web of company ownership involving a single person, Cathal McCosker.

The magazine dubbed Mr McCosker ‘The Baron of the Bedsits’.

Mr McCosker and his companies had cornered the market in obtaining grants from the Council under the Commercial Property Grants Scheme. Suggestions of cosy links between Mr McCosker and prominent councillors and council officers were vigorously denied.

However, after a stormy Council meeting in December 2013 and a visit to locations in Pembroke Dock which had purportedly been the subject of extensive renovations using public money, it became clear that – at best – works claimed for had not been done. Had any inspection by council officers who signed off the works actually took place, the situation would have been obvious.

In one property, the former Chemists shop at 29 Dimond Street, it was obvious that no material changes had taken place in the commercial premises – even the original shop’s racking was still in place – and that grant money had been spent developing bedsits to the property’s rear.

An examination of documents by three councillors, current Council Leader David Simpson, Cllr Jacob Williams, and Cllr Mike Stoddart led to the discovery that different Bills of Quantities had been provided to different firms. Mr McCosker’s favoured construction partner received at least one significantly cheaper schedule of works for delivery than their tendering rivals.

Cllrs Williams and Stoddart reported what they found to senior officers, who shortly thereafter, in March 2014, referred the matter to the Police.

The Herald revealed that internal records had been doctored by an officer and we have confirmed that former Chief Executive Bryn Parry Jones interfered directly in efforts to discipline staff involved in handling the scheme. One employee, intimately concerned in the supervision of Cathal McCosker’s projects, was allowed to retire on ill-health grounds. A further member of staff fiddled the minutes of grants committee meetings to show that scrutiny took place when it had not.

Now – over five years later – and with Cathal McCosker having voluntarily repaid a large sum of money to the Council, the CPS has decided not to prosecute anyone.

One of the key reasons given for not prosecuting is that the evidence of council officers is inconsistent and contradictory, key documents have gone astray, and a piece of evidence contained on an officer’s hard drive no longer exists.

You can add to that the reality that it would be difficult for a court to rely on documents when there was clear evidence that some – at least – had been doctored by officers.

An effort to shift the blame on to an unnamed councillor operating a blog – which can refer only to Cllrs Williams and Stoddart – is fatally flawed.

The Police claim they asked the unnamed blogger to stop coverage of their Keystone Cops investigation: they approached neither Cllr Stoddart nor Cllr Williams with such a request.

The key questions are: which officers’ evidence is inconsistent and contradictory and why?