Colin Cover Up has broken the law for the second time - by monitoring Labour leader Joe Anderson's private phone calls and publishing their details.Mr Hilton, CBE, the city council's £250,000-a-year chief executive (plus Performance Related Pay at 15 per cent, eds) has fallen foul of Labour Leader Joe Anderson just days after it emerged that he was routinely breaking the council's own rules.
Now it transpires that he has routinely broken the law of the land too.
Astonishingly, Cover Up has broken the Data Protection Act by authorising the monitoring of Anderson's phone calls as part of an internal inquiry into the leaking of details about the Paul McCartney 'Liverpool Sound' concert at Anfield.
Anderson was amazed to find that investigators had covertly monitored the calls he had made on his council mobile phone (which he pays for) without seeking either his permission or authority, as part of their report.
The city council has now admitted it has broken the law - and Acting City Solicitor Ken Unworthy has been forced to issue a grovelling apology to Anderson for breaching Human Rights legislation, as well as the Data Protection Act.
Anderson meanwhile has already complained to the Information Commissioner who, readers may recall, found the council guilty of breaking the law over publishing details of mobile phone records exactly a year ago.
Legendary Liverpool Solicitor Rex Makin is also now chipping into the fray on behalf of Anderson, scenting blood.
Well, the slow-to-learn-its-lesson city council under Cover Up and 'new broom' Bradley has now done exactly the same thing again!
Regular readers will recall that back in April, Sir Paul Macca gave the incompetents at the Culture Company an ultimatum to hand over the organisation of his gig to his events company.
The Daily Post and Radio Murkeyside followed up the Liverpool SubCulture report. The Furious Fireman then angrily denounced the leak on Roger Phillips, fearing that making public his cock-up's would cost him more votes in the May local elections.
Anyroadup, the Furious Fireman then forced Cowardly Colin Cover Up to authorise an internal investigation into who had leaked all the confidential details.
(Hey, the blog could potentially earn a distinction in this year's Academy Alliteration Awards! eds)
Councillor Anderson, who has of course, a fine, noble and upstanding record of ensuring the Liverpool public know exactly what the Lib Dims have been up to, was interviewed by the council's po-faced internal audit team during their leak inquiry.
And their official leak report has now been officially leaked, unofficially.
(You really couldn't make this stuff up, could you? How funny is that? eds)
The leak report is unable to come to any definite conclusions at all about who leaked the details of the Macca ultimatum (of course not, eds)
But, with an amazing burst of political insight, it points a trembling finger at Councillor Anderson on the basis that Labour might just have had something to gain from embarrassing and exposing the Lib Dims in the run-up to the May local elections.
(Blimey. Shades of Inspector Clueless here. Impressive investigatory skills and fantastic powers of deduction being demonstrated. Might have had something to gain eh? - do you really think so? eds)
However, the council report reveals that it secretly monitored Anderson's mobile phone calls and publishes how he phoned certain numbers.
And that's not the slightest bit funny.
Indeed it infringes the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act.
We think the Information Commissioner may well take a very dim view of the city council's repeated law-breaking.
