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We hear friends and readers unofficially of course that another witness is prepared to come forward in the Muirhouse bullying scandal. This witness we are told by our source works for a project which used the services of the Community Service team from Muirhouse. This eye witness seen, we are told a member of staff being verbally abused in public and humiliated in front of others.

We ask this witness to step forward and make themselves known to Criminal Justice Personel at Waverley Court. We know and can confirm with evidence that chief Social Worker and humanitarian Michelle Miller believes it is perfectly okay to abuse staff,we also understand that is certainly not the view of most of her colleagues at Waverley Court.

Pilton Sucks through our associate George asked Waverley Court for their view on abuse of staff. The reply George got was at odds with what Ms. Miller’s view’s are. George was told that abuse of staff is unacceptable in any form. George then asked why with a mountain of evidence was abuse allowed to take place against a number of employees at the Muirhouse Social Work Centre.

As you can guess no answer was forthcoming and the conversation ended abruptly. This is yet another example of down right stupidity. Of course abuse of staff can never be tolerated,yet we understand from a number of individuals well placed to comment including a senior manager that continuous abuse of staff was overlooked at this infamous Centre. The people we have managed to speak to throughout the city and within Criminal justice all tell the same story,and their is absolutly no doubt in their mind that vicious bullying was taking place in the Muirhouse Centre.

We now understand from a well placed source that the thug’s assistant has flown the coop,but the evidence we have seen ties him directly to what took place and there can be no hiding place for that coward either.

Pilton sucks has dug deep and spoken to a number of people over a long period of time who knew what was going on and many of them admit they should have spoken up but didn’t. Some of these people have now formed their own Social Work group against bullying in the workplace and are now willing to write down what they seen and heard and come forward if required as witnesses against the bully and his side kick.

Bullying in the workplace by mindless jobsworths cannot be permitted and must be stamped on and the culprits chucked out on their necks. The only thing to fear is fear itself,of coming forward to say what you seen and heard and not to be frightened of spinless management targeting witnesses because they are to frightened to deal with the workplace thugs. The Muirhouse Centre is not alone the city has quite a few jobsworth bullys in their employ,and some departments have taken positive steps to deal with the problem.

But it seems from what we have heard that,although it was widely known that there was a serial bully in Muirhouse,nobody was willing to do anything about it. Shame on you those spineless individuals that allow staff to suffer at the hands of single brain celled thugs. Pilton Sucks won’t be bullied into walking away we won’t desert the victims we will carry on exposing this and other thugs who make the workplace so miserable for others. These very same morons who almost certainly wouldn’t make it in the real world hide behind the skirts of others and carry on as if nothing had happened.

The case for criminal prosecution against serial bullys like the one in Muirhouse is rising and so it should. They are dangerous people who are predators but will smile and suck up to those who won’t take their bullshit or someone who is their senior. Two faced sick individuals who endanger others to feed their own limitations and power trip. Pilton sucks calls for a City wide campaign to out these thugs and rid the workplace of their presence.

We repeat there is no place for these creeps in the workplace.

Well friends and readers it could be our old chum and another regular sucks reader Lesley Prada Hinds could well throw her designer hat into the ring for the soon to be vacated seat currently held by the peter pan of politics Gavin- get out while the goings good -Strang.

Lesley of course in her shy retireing way will of course not declare her well manicured hand to early that would be a tad unseemly,but you can bet our Lesley will bite your hand off to get the nomination. History could very well repeat itself as our Lesley with her colgate ring of confidence smile got her backside felt the last time she tried to get the nomination in that part of the city.

So Lesley and her gold American express card which is regularly seen being handed over at Harvey Nics may well want to pause and think as she runs her hands down the designer rails at Harvey’s ,that Oxford Street awaits and the hallowed halls of Harrods call to her in her sleep. As our Lesley dreams of Versace Gucchi Armani and the likes,she will have to wake up and convince the Niddrie Punters not of course forgetting the voters that she is indeed the answer to their prayers. A vision in white,unless of course fashion dictates otherwise. 

Friends and readers. Just to remind you that there are three days left to vote for Greater Piltons very own Oscar, Prat of the year. We are now up to 346 votes a big increase on last years turnout. The poll closes at 10pm on Friday 30th November and the result will be known on Saturday 1st December with the winning candidate being announced at 11.55am on the 1st.

There is still plenty of time to cast your three votes any way you want. The result will take the format of the top four candidates being announced in the time honered tradition in reverse order with the lucky punter who comes in forth place being announced first.

Keep voting. 

Friends and readers. The race for Piton’s own Oscar,Prat of theyear is entering it’s final week,and so far we have received 8 nominations and 331 votes.

The nominees in no particular order are as follows

1]Dave Hewitt

2]Black Community Development Project

3]Mary Burnside

4]co-op/Scotmid-Crewe Road North

5]Liz Maginnis

6]Irene Garden

7]George Lee

8]Christine Docherty.

There is still time to nominate and vote for your favourite,you can vote three times for your personal favourite or spread your three votes any other way you want. Good luck to all the candidates and may the biggest prat win.  

Friends and readers. Our Social Work group who have been keeping us informed the best they can on various issues including workplace bullying have told us that there is a mood of blame within the hallowed corridors of Waverley Court. Since the ridiculas outburst by Chief Social Worker and humanitarian Michelle Miller in which she described abuse of staff as acceptable,there has been a definate cooling of relations amongst this group of senior backstabbers.

We have also received confirmation that a report written by another victim of bullying has been mis-laid. We had a sighting of this report in which details of systematic undermining and bullying took place once again at the Social Work Centre in Muirhouse. Fortunatly our associate George took a photo copy of this report so it will be made available when  required.

This added to the already mountain of evidence against the bully must surely bring forth action against him. Our own Solicitor who has gone through this evidence which has been amassed tells us that the City Council is sitting on a potential bomb which may go off if action is not taken. In the last week we where contacted by another national newspaper wanting to know more of what had taken place. We kindly declined for the time being.

5 victims possibly more humiliated undermined and systematically bullied out of their posts by a serial bully on a power trip. Still it seems senior managers do nothing but cover their own asses. One victim has already been dismissed but that only up’s the anti as the law creeps ever closer. We have been told and it has been confirmed that this thug is well known throughout Criminal Justice and is deeply disliked. Yet still nothing is done.

The potential for massive adverse publicity surrounding these cases is there for all to see. Once it breaks into the public domain, it is very conceivable that there could be a night of the long knives down Waverley Court way. Impotent management leads to an impotent service,and certainly since Ms. Miller’s comments on the acceptability of abuse of staff,murmers of discontent have started to surface.

It is therefore in Ms. Millers eyes quite acceptable to humiliate, threaten with physical violence,verbally abuse and systematically bully staff because it’s a cultural thing. It is clear that the duty of care at work cuts no ice with Ms. Miller. The City proudly proclaims that they cut no corners in their duty of care to their staff and to provide a safe working enviournment. Staff have a legal right to work in a safe enviournment and not to be abused by so called colleagues or anybody else for that matter.

We now know that senior managers knew for a long time that all was not well in the Muirhouse office but chose to do nothing about it. It is now clear that Unison had already had dealings with this bully before,still senior management done nothing. We heard from one senior manager through the Grapevine that he knew of a managerial problem within the Muirhouse Office,but nobody was prepared to take the action required to remove this thug from post.

This manager told us that his colleagues have known for over ten years that there has been a bullying problem within Muirhouse. A letter was written by a former employee as early as 1993 to the then Shrubhill Office regarding mis-behaviour amongst other things. So they have known for at least 14 possibly more years that bullying was taking place in this Office.

We only found out about this letter on Thursday and are now trying to trace the author. We have been given his name and are now in the process of trying to make contact. If we can confirm his existance and the authentisity of the letter,and who it was sent to,with no action taken,we will indeed know what we have more or less known for some time,that a cover up has been in existance to make sure the systematic abuse of staff at the office in Muirhouse never got out, and if it did hammer the victims into submission and call every witness available liars or in some way mixed up or have not quite got their facts right.

This travesty which we now know goes back many years shows up to what extent abuse of staff will be covered up,and for how long. We where contacted some time ago by  e-mail from someone called John. We would ask John to get back in touch with us and tell us his story of his time in Criminal Justice.  We undestand John was a joiner who worked within this department when and for how long we do not know,but he told us in his e-mail that he to was a victim and had suffered bullying but he took action into his own hands.

What happened we do not know but John does,so we ask you to get in contact and tell us what actually happened and what if any relationship it has with what went down in Muirhouse.  

Friends and readers. Prat of the year update. We have now received 328 votes and we are hoping to double last years total. 7 full voting days left,so plenty of time to go. We have received a confirmed nomination  for Christine Docherty so she now joins the other candidates in the race. One bright spark wrote to us suggesting we ask the candidates to take part in a Greater Pilton Bush Tucker Trail, if they didn’t want to do it they could refuse by saying-I’m a prat get me out of here-. We will think about it.

Friends and readers. Yesterday we received a surge in voting for Greater Pilton’s very own Oscar, Prat of the year. We have now had 321 votes cast with the lead only held by four votes. All votes now cast will be logged and counted on Friday 10pm close of poll. The 321 votes we have already counted will now also be logged and counted in with the rest on Friday.

We already have 3 front runners but this could of course change in the course of the next 8 days. We received 210 votes in total last year so we have gone through that total and are on course to double that. Pilton’s Oscar as you know is a coveted award and the candidates will be waiting nervously to find out which one of them is this years Prat of the year. We have had good quality nominations and any one of them are deserving of this prestigous award.

Nominations close today Thursday 22-11-07. We have received a further nomination unconfirmed at the moment. The nominee is the hapless Christine Docherty former manager of NEAR and in a number of peoples opinion a complete waste of space. Would the person who contacted us with this nominee please confirm they wish to go forward with this nominee. 

Remember friends and readers there is only nine days left to vote or nominate your own personel favourite for the prat of the year award. Pilton Sucks very own Oscar is being keenly contested with voting pretty close,in fact with out giving the game away there is at this moment only 5 votes between the top three. So intense competition is at hand and our nominees must be nervous,might even be sweating waiting on the result.

We did have a thought of asking a guest counter this year instead of Anna and Clair counting the votes. Our old friend and regular sucks reader Bill nowght to do with me Fitzpatrick was put forward as our celebrity guest counter and we hope he might agree to take part in this eagerly fought contest. Remember you can vote more than once,in fact you have three votes. You can either vote for your own personal favourite three times or once for three different candidates.

So keep voting it’s tight at the top.  

After the farcical but serious loss of personel information by the department of Stealth and Total Obscurity,we have a sorry but true tale to tell you which mirror images this situation in a smaller but just as serious way.

Enter Ms. Maureen Adair senior officer HR [That’s personel to the rest of us] in the Children and Families side of the caring sharing Health and Social Care Department. Ms. Adair sent out personel medical records of an employee to the wrong address which was subsequently read and then passed to the owner of these records. What happens to Ms. Adair for this serious blunder? Why she get’s promoted of course,could only happen with the council and the thickos they employ.

Meanwhile the employee who is rightly furious and upset is left high and dry with complete strangers having access to his medical records. Our friend who lives in the East side of the city finds out that nobody is to blame,in fact they try to blame the postman saying they had put the right address on the envelope so the postman must have put it through the wrong door.

Our friend contacts this shabby Department to tell Ms. Adair that in fact the  envelope was incorrectly addressed and the postman had put it through the door of the address on the envelope. We had sight of this envelope and indeed it did have the wrong address on it,somebody is telling porkies aren’t they Ms. Adair.

We suggest that if Ms. Adair had put the records on a public notice board she may have got promoted to director of this incompetent Department. This is a serious blunder by the senior officer HR and should have not gone unpunished. Thinking on it being promoted within this department of back stabbing bastards might just be the punishment she deserves.

We have received a report regarding Ms. Sheila Wilson who we are reliably informed was forced to resign from PEP’s Management Committee by power mad Lizzie our honest Councillor. Ms. Wilson was reported to be highly critical of PEP management since her departure,part of this criticism being “cover up’s” by the PEP management. Ms Wilson was in receipt of information and was advised to contact News reporter Adam Morris and let him know what she and another colleague forced off PEP’s management committee knew for the sake of the members.

It has now become clear she ran back to our Lizzie and handed over the information,sad but true.  It has also become clear over a period of time that PEP has serious questions to answer not only of the style of authoritarian management but the content and quality of management. Why for instance is some of the staff so concerned about what is going on if after all honest Lizzie denies any wrong doing? But then again she would wouldn’t she.

Her chairmanship of the WEL board is tainted with deceit and many unanswered questions,blame shifting is not good enough and shows at the very least what a poor chair she was. Our friends at PEP have opened their hearts and told what is really going on there. The party’s over and now the wilderness calls. We advise our Lizzie to quit while she still can,enough is enough,and even her tight little band of camp followers who run back to report everything that is said will find soon there time is up as well.

The secret club that tried to run this community for so long have had their day,although they might sit on various groups,in fact a few of them are community councillors,things are changing and these also rans will be relics of the past unable to grasp that their leader is no longer in a position to help them only to desert them.