THE FRIENDS of St Alfege Park have been banned from undertaking “any work whatsoever in the park,” while a new photo has raised questions about when headstones were first smashed.
The decision to forbid the Friends from working in the park was taken by the Cabinet member responsible for parks, Cllr John Fahy, and relayed in an email from Chair, Tim Delap, which has been seen by this website.
The email from Mr Delap says:
“I think that we are being made a scapegoat for the destruction of gravestones by the Probation Service community payback team, who did the actual destroying. It was never our intention as a Friends group to damage gravestones, only to move them to make way for the community garden facility and then reuse them as paving in another project.
“I have as you know issued a public apology both personally and on your behalf, and had hoped that that would be sufficient. It appears not, and I am afraid that we are to be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.”
Doubt will hang over the future over the group with it confined in future only to promoting events in the park. The Chair goes on to say in his email:
“In banning the group, I personally think that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater and that John is doing more harm to the park than by allowing us to continue under closer supervision, which we would have welcomed.”
Following the outcry at the destruction, Councillor Fahy ordered the removal of the broken headstones and their storage at a secure location while consideration is given to creating a “memorial heritage path” or a rockery, in consultation with groups such as English Heritage, The Georgian Group and the Mausolea and Monuments Trust.
An Extraordinary General Meeting is being called by the Chair of the Friends to discuss the future of the group.
Question marks remain
Uncertainly lingers over the chronology of events in St Alfege Park which led to historic headstones in the deconsecrated churchyard being smashed to smithereens.
In his email to Friends, the Chair says it was the Payback Workers that “did the actual destroying” but the Probationary Service has suggested they were continuing work that was already under way.
They say that other than one day in July, they only worked on the headstones in SEPTEMBER but Greenwich.co.uk has obtained a photo of smashed headstones taken in AUGUST.
A spokesperson for the London Probation Trust told Greenwich.co.uk:
“Work began on the Community Payback project in St Alfege Park in June 2011 and consisted of clearing an area to create a new raised flower bed.
“Aside from one day removing headstones in July no other work took place regarding removal/breaking up of stonework until September.”
This photo showing a pile of smashed headstones in the park was taken on August 30th by local illustrator Sarah McIntyre for her blog.
Council officers are currently investigating the incident to ascertain exactly what happened.
The controversial destruction of headstones in St Alfege Park caused outrage and made headlines on websites around the world, and was featured in the Daily Mirror, Private Eye, the Evening Standard and this month’s edition of Family Tree magazine.
Read all of Greenwich.co.uk’s coverage of the St Alfege Park controversy
UPDATED 26th January 2012
An FOI request was submitted to the London Probation Trust asking them to provide a log of all their activities and visits to St Alfege Park during 2011. The results are published below:
Tim Delap: “It was never our intention as a Friends group to damage gravestones, only to move them to make way for the community garden facility and then reuse them as paving in another project.”
If he thinks that moving them and using them as paving is OK, then it’s good that the Council has banned them from the Park. If you’ve got Friends like that, who needs enemies?
Loathe as I am to defend the “friends” at the moment, it is worth noting that reusing grave stones as paving is a tradition that can be traced back several hundred years at the very least.
It is a perfectly acceptable tradition in most church graveyards, and I can’t really see a problem with it here.
Ian
The problem is that the Friends had no permission or authority to use the stones as paving. If they had gone through the proper channels instead of acting unilaterally, things may well have turned out much better. At some stage, either the Friends as a body, or Tim Delap as an individual, seem to have started acting as if they owned the Park, and that’s the root of the problem.
So, if the Community Payback Team spent one day ‘removing’ – ie destroying – gravestones in July, as shown in the photo, then the Friends knew there were problems, but elected to ignore them.
While some of the reaction to this has been extreme, Delap’s complacency – it was nothing to do with us, guv – demonstrates why the Friends can’t be trusted. Delap thinks an 80-word statement is enough to exonerate him. It isn’t. Talk of being a ‘scapegoat’ is pathetic – unless they’re claiming they didn’t bring the Payback Team in?
Tim, if you think you’re an innocent scapegoat, then tell us why. Lying low, as you have, tends to confirm you’re guilty.
Judging from the comments made by Tim Delap in his email, he really can’t see that he has done anything wrong. As far as this incident is concerned, the man is an absolute disgrace.
The attitude taken by Mr Delap in this email shows he and the Friends indeed started to feel that they ‘owned’ the park and could do what they like. Delap’s comments about babies, bathwater and scapegoats just show he is delusional and a danger to the park.
THERE WAS NO NEED WHATSOEVER TO REMOVE HISTORIC STONES TO MAKE A COMMUNITY GARDEN.
On 26th September Jo Taylor, a Friend of the park, made the following comment on this website:
‘The Friends are extremely concerned about recent events and it’s our number one priority to get the facts straight and communicate with you and other local residents. We will respond in full as soon as we can.’
Shortly afterwards the same Johanna Taylor issued a statement with Suzanne Miller which can be found here: http://www.greenwich.co.uk/news/06113-statement-from-the-friends-of-st-alfege-park/
Just what exactly have these two Friends done following these statements? Absolutely nothing. They never communicated with us fully about the facts as they said they would and instead we hear further details through a leaked email from the Chair.
As far as I am concerned, the email from Delap shows that the committee of Friends are now enemies of the park. I don’t care what they have done before, these actions have shown that they are no longer an acceptable or trustworthy organisation to protect and develop the park. We need to stop these dreadful people from having anything further to do with its future.
I shall now be contacting Cllr Fahey suggesting the official association of the Friends with St Alfege Park be dissolved by the council and for a public meeting to be called. A new body can then be formed to look after the park in the future, free of Mr Delap and his cronies.
The exact timing here is difficult to ascertain (although someone knows, of course), but it seems the stones were smashed up some time in July. Certainly, they were photographed, as broken shards, on August the 30th. About 3 weeks later, greenwich.co.uk must have got wind of what had happened and broke the story on 23rd September.
And now, Mr Delap has said, ““I think that we are being made a scapegoat for the destruction of gravestones by the Probation Service community payback team, who did the actual destroying.”
I therefore have a simple question for you, Mr Delap –
By any reckoning, the stones were laying smashed in the Park for 3 or 4 weeks, so if you and your group were innocent, and the Payback team the perpetrators of this criminal damage, as you are now claiming, why did you not report the incident to the Council?
If I were innocent, that is what I would have done, and in a hurry.
You must realise that your failure to notify anybody, your terse statement that explained nothing, your continuing failure/refusal to elucidate, and your (frankly rather shameful) attempt to shift blame to the Payback team makes you look very guilty indeed, and will not be improving your position in either the Council’s of the community’s eyes. Indeed your behaviour is the reason that the Friends are now banned frm doing any work in the Park.
I have now been officially informed that Greenwich Council has dissolved the Friends of St Alfege Park with immediate effect. They have been notified of this decision by the council in writing and will no longer have any association with the park at all.
In my opinion it is not a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater (as Mr Delap will believe), but more a case of throwing away once-ripe fruit that has become mouldy and repugnant.
The Council’s priority is now to establish the turn of events and put right what they can. Following this being achieved, a future meeting will be called to create a new, replacement (and less reckless) group to help maintain the park.
When this meeting is called I shall be attending. I hope that all those who have expressed an interest in this heritage area of Greenwich will, if able, lend their support.
Well done to the Council for some decisive action. If that sounds like gloating it isn’t, something desperately needed to be done, sooner rather than later. The Friends have, mainly, Mr Delap to blame, but also their committee for not forcing his hand and ensuring the truth came out, as at least 2 of them promised to do initially.
Mr Delap has now been thoroughly discredited, which he deserves – I am genuinely sorry that blameless Friends who were not committee members, and may not have been able to put pressure on this man, have been invoved, and doubtless upset, by all of this, after working hard to improve the Park. If I were one of these I should feel very angry at this moment.
A victory of sorts, for accountability, has been won here, but a sad and Pyrric victory – at least the attempted cover-up and intransigence has not succeeded.
Let’s attend the meeting when it is called, and let’s insist that no former member of the Friends’ committee, who are, at least partly, collectively responsible for what has happened are allowed on the new committee which runs then ew Friends group.
I’m not entirely sure that the council is able to dissolve the Friends, as it’s an independent group. As I understand it, what they have done is ban them from working in the park and been told the council won’t work with them again.
Rod: I am one of the 2 committee members you refer to. The other one, and another committee member, have resigned. I stayed because I thought it right to see this through. Tim Delap drafted an explanation of events weeks ago, but we were advised by several people, including the Council’s Deputy Chief Executive Chris Perry, not to issue it.
Suzanne –
Thank you – this is very interesting. The decisions to resign were almost certainly correct in view of what was happening – a shame that Mr Delap didn’t feel the need also.
With (genuine) respect, I am (genuinely) unclear what you mean by saying, “I thought it right to see this through” -could you clarify that please? (NOT a trick question). I am in no doubt that you were doing what you thought was best, but could you expand upon that, rather bald, statement please?
“Tim Delap drafted an explanation of events weeks ago, but we were advised by several people, including the Council’s Deputy Chief Executive Chris Perry, not to issue it”
That is probably the most important statement that has been made by anybody since this whole incident was made public, back on 23rd September. Thank you for making this public.
Please could you expand upon this – if an explanation has been given, we, the ratepayers, park users and residents need to see it. Who, apart from Chris Perry advised you against publication please? What reasons for not publishing this explanation did they offer?
This has had the feel of a cover-up for some time now – we need some fast answers from, at the very least Chris Perry, as to what the hell has gone on here.
I shall be pushing very hard to attempt to get these answers, and where I get obstructed and fobbed off, I shall be saying so publically.
This is starting to stink and needs to be sorted out right now.
Suzanne’s statement –
“Tim Delap drafted an explanation of events weeks ago, but we were advised by several people, including the Council’s Deputy Chief Executive Chris Perry, not to issue it.”
has, at least potentially, changed everything.
Mr Delap wanted to explain, but he was “advised” (euphemism for threatened?) not to….?
Does this explain the consistant thread of people, mainly on thegreenwichphantom.co.uk saying, “please don’t be so hard on the Friends” which I had previously found incomprehensible – where they Friends, or connected to friends, who knew that the council was “advising” Delap not to publish his account?
Is this why Delap feels that the Friends have been scapegoated? – ie “advised” by Chris Perry not to go public with their account, and then dissolved.
What are the Council hiding here?
Rob –
About seeing it through:
At first, hoping that the Friends might have a future, I stayed to help reform their practices to prevent any more disasters, and to witness at least some of Tim Delap’s meetings with the Council about the matter. Now I will help organize a special general meeting where the Friends can decide whether to continue in some form, after which I will resign. Having come to greatly respect and admire Tim, I do not want to help throw him to the wolves just because ordinary human fallibility led to disastrous poor judgement. The vindictiveness of some comments have made me feel stubborn about this.
About the delay in issuing a statement:
Tim was summoned to a meeting on 13 October with Chris Perry, Sam Eastop, and Rowan Chubb (Rowan taking minutes, which were promised but never provided), to which he was allowed to bring one Friend. The agenda listed a review of governance arrangements and discussion of specific issues concerning the headstones. Chris said that the Council was holding a management review of the supervision of the community payback team and advised awaiting further developments before we issued a statement, and Sam agreed. (Various friendly acquaintances who had been through similar experiences had already made similar suggestions.) Though hard to do, this seemed reasonable: a single, definitive statement giving all the facts would be better than an intermittent dribble of half-digested information, and I was confident that the management review would find that Tim was at least not responsible for the stone-smashing. I have not seen a report of the review. This meeting contained no hint that the Friends would be closed down. The Council had all the power, obviously, but I detected no threat as such — though being American by upbringing, I sometimes miss unspoken messages in this country. Tim brought up a few more matters about the park under AOB, but Chris and Rowan left, so these were discussed with Sam.
Tim was called to a meeting on 26 October with planners and a conservationist. The seriousness of events was taken for granted, and the focus was on various permissions that would have to be sought — again, as if the Friends had a future in which to do these things.
That evening, the remaining committee (reduced to three) approved a draft of new management principles to prevent the Friends from making any changes at all to the infrastructure of the park without full consultation and permission, and a list of 14 projects for which permission or consultation would be necessary. These were minuted, to be circulated for members’ comments.
The committee were summoned to a meeting on 8 November with Councillor Fahy, Rob Goring (Parks and Open Spances), and Sam Eastop. (Only Tim and I were available.) The only agenda item was “The Future Management of the Friends Group following on from the destruction of the headstones”. This was not discussed. I was stunned when Councillor Fahy sternly informed us, rather unhappily I thought, that the Friends were dissolved, and then (after Tim pointed out that this is the Friends’ decision), that we were not to work in the park at all. Several days beforehand, Rob had requested a copy of the minutes of the Friends committee meeting of 26 October — containing the draft of management principles etc — but those proposed changes were not mentioned.
About Sarah McIntyre’s photo of 30 August:
I had thought that the smashing happened sometime after 16 July and before I first knew of it on 15 September. (During that period I was first on vacation and then not doing any work in the park.) Sarah’s photo shifts the latest possible date to 30 August. I am greatly puzzled that the probation service says they didn’t work in the park in the month and a half between 16 July and 30 August.
I am recounting my first-hand knowledge here. By the way, Rod, I don’t know who was commenting on the Greenwich Phantom’s site.
Suzanne –
Thank you for your comments. I am sure everyone is grateful for this information. Exactly what happened is still rather unclear, of course, but if others came out with what they know, as you have done, we would be nearer the truth now than we actually are.
“Chris said that the Council was holding a management review of the supervision of the community payback team and advised awaiting further developments before we issued a statement, and Sam agreed……… Though hard to do, this seemed reasonable: a single, definitive statement giving all the facts would be better than an intermittent dribble of half-digested information.”
This seems less sinister than what I first imagined – more like inefficency that a conspiracy, in fact.
In the light of what has happened subsequently, perhaps it would have been better if the Friends had put out a statement at that point, rather than waiting for a review that hasn’t arrived. It’s easy for me to say that with hindsight, of course.
“I was confident that the management review would find that Tim was at least not responsible for the stone-smashing”
This is backing up Mr Delap’s assertion, in the recent leaked e-mail, that he did not instruct the Payback team to smash up the stones. This is the crux of the matter, of course, and we really need to get to the bottom of exactly was said, by whom, to whom. I’m assuming that all instructions were given verbally – is that right, do you know?
“I had thought that the smashing happened sometime after 16 July and before I first knew of it on 15 September. (During that period I was first on vacation and then not doing any work in the park.) Sarah’s photo shifts the latest possible date to 30 August. I am greatly puzzled that the probation service says they didn’t work in the park in the month and a half between 16 July and 30 August.”
You are relating your knowledge of events, but someone who was in the Park regularly during this period must have answers here.
You are speaking in good faith, obviously, but it still puzzles me that, once things really got sticky, Mr Delap didn’t go ahead and make his version of events public (disregarding the suggestion that it wait for the management review), and that he has still not given his side of the story in public even yet. With respect, even you don’t seem to know the full story, and you were very close to these events.
Thank you once again for doing what no-one else seems to want to do, and make waht you know public.
There has not been any attempt to prevent the Friends commenting on their position with regard to the destruction of the headstones. That decision was theirs alone. No permissions were sought,if they were they would be rejected. The Heritage of the Park is paramount and they should have known better. If young kids carried out this vandalism they would be rightly condemned. There are no excuses ,no hiding place for those who abused their position in such a cavalier way. We will now be devoting our time to restore the Park and I will not be making any further comment on this matter
Thanks, Suzanne. Kafka alive and well in the Glorious Republic of Greenwich.
“but it still puzzles me that, once things really got sticky, Mr Delap didn’t go ahead and make his version of events public”
I have known Tim for more than 13 years, he tries to think the best of everyone, and my guess is that it never occurred to him that the Council would try to use this for character-assassination.
Well, this is only your version of events. Tim is worth 100 of you.
Indigo –
“this is only your version of events”
The problem here is that we still don’t have Mr Delap’s version.
Why not?
With respect that isn’t an answer to the question.
There is an exact parallel with Kafka – in The Trial, we never know if K is innocent or guilty……
I don’t know. Mr Delap is in his seventies and grew up in a more gentlemanly world, I guess, where “least said, soonest mended” used to apply. Whereas, nowadays, you have to get your version out into the public domain with all speed to head off councillors intent on making political capital out of the situation and trashing your reputation at the same time. Step forward, Fahy.
Councilor Fahy, there’s a clear distinction between your version of events and that coming from the friends, I guess we’ll never know the truth. We know what the frinds achieved for the park. You have now regained control so I guess we’ll be able to judge you on your actions.
The alcoholics are already returning to the park, what I wonder are your plans to deal with this?
You now have the opportunity to show you haven’t thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Lets see what you achieve in the coming 12 months, I hope we don’t all end up regretting the demise of the friends group.
“Councilor Fahy, there’s a clear distinction between your version of events and that coming from the friends ”
Darren – what is the distinction please? What is the Friends’ version exactly?
“I guess we’ll never know the truth”
The sole reason why we don’t know the truth is because the Friends will not tell us their version of what happened. Suzanne Miller has, I believe, genuinely tried to elucidate this matter, but even she, who was very close to these events, does not herself even know when the headstones were smashed up.
“The alcoholics are already returning to the park…”
Interesting that the alcoholics are following this debate closely and have decided that this is time to return.
“Mr Delap is in his seventies and grew up in a more gentlemanly world, I guess, where “least said, soonest mended” used to apply. Whereas, nowadays, you have to get your version out into the public……”
This is still an evasion, isn’t it?
“Least said, soonest mended?” You’re a longstanding friend of Mr Delap, and your loyalty to your friend does you credit, of course, but even you are not party to what happened here. He simply has to explain what went wrong.
I am frankly bewildered that his friends and supporters just don’t see that his refusal to give his version of the facts is what has brought about the ruin of all that you sought to accomplish.
If I was a rank and file member of the Friends, who had worked hard to improve the Park, only to see everything I had worked for destroyed by Mr Delap’s intransigence, I would be very angry indeed.
I agree with everything you say, and especially with “He simply has to explain what went wrong.”
I am a friend of Delap but I am not the sort of friend that he seeks or takes advice from. I am not a Friend of St Alfege Park, not rank or file or anything.
I am not evading anything – I don’t know anything and I watched in growing dismay as the the “window” for explaining things and limiting damage came and went.
Fair enough – thank you for saying what you have. Clearly you are not, yourself, evading anything – you have said what you feel you can say.
Thanks
Thank you, Suzanne Miller, for your comments on the situation in the park.
I am, however, surprised that even you as a committee member of the Friends are not aware of when exactly the stones were destroyed. The vague detail on the order of events has been most frustrating for everyone concerned, but I appreciate your information.
I wonder if you can, however, perhaps please clarify some facts regarding the events leading up to the destruction.
In his leaked email, Mr Delap states, “It was never our intention as a Friends group to damage gravestones, only to move them to make way for the community garden facility and then reuse them as paving in another project.”
In the statement issued by yourself and Johanna Taylor in September, you state “…the Community Payback team were asked to remove nettles and other plants that had invaded the ground and adjoining gravestones along a short stretch of perimeter wall at the east end of the park…. We believe that the intention was to move any stones that had to be disturbed to a storage area in front of the Old Mortuary building, and that when some were damaged by attempts to remove the plants it proved impossible to carry them and they were broken up. In the event, and for reasons we do not know, they were all broken up.”
Can I please ask if the Friends committee did in fact approve the removal of the grave stones from the boundary wall for this community garden project? If they did, can I firstly ask why they thought the removal would enhance the area and, secondly, why did the Friends not seek the permission of the council, as is dictated by section 215 of the Local Government Act 1972?
Finally, the statement from the Community Payback group states, “It should be made clear the removal of stones had been underway for some months before we attended.”
This statement can be found in its fullest form here: http://www.docklands24.co.uk/news/st_alfege_park_group_regrets_and_is_distressed_by_damage_to_headstones_in_greenwich_1_1073451
In your own post on this website, you say you are “greatly puzzled that the probation service says they didn’t work in the park in the month and a half between 16 July and 30 August.”
Is it therefore possible that there were other individuals, aside from the Community Payback team, who had been removing stones?
Darren –
“The alcoholics are already returning to the park …”
I wonder if you are referring to two homeless men who have been sitting peacefully at a picnic table off and on over the past couple of weeks. They were not drinking, drunk, stoned, making a mess, or bothering anybody. They are homeless, one of them so depressed by the loss of his wife and home that he cannot even bring himself to apply for benefits. He is penniless. Literally. He had been told that he was eligible for temporary accommodation, but this had not been provided, so he was still sleeping rough. I thought it was wonderful that St Alfege Park offered him a little haven for a time.
I wish the church would take some notice.
“one of them so depressed by the loss of his wife and home that he cannot even bring himself to apply for benefits. He is penniless. Literally. ”
The immediate past vicar, Giles Harcourt, would have scooped him up by now. But since he left, the church has sort of turned inwards on itself.
Back in September somone posted this –
“Did you find the Welsh slate headstone with a Welsh language inscription? It has been carefully preserved, I suspect by the Friends of the Park, along with the other headstones which retain any more than the odd word of their original inscriptions. Because the slate is impervious to the acid rain which has removed the Inscriptions from the limestone headstones it is as good as new….”
This interested me at the time, because I have Welsh blood, and , and as I was walking through the Park the other day, I decided to try to find it. I had a good look behind all the bushes on the south side of the Park (where it was said to be) , but couldn’t find it. You’d think that, being slate, it would stand out from the other stones, but I couldn’t see it.
Not fearing the worst just yet, but does anybody know where it is?
I don’t think we’ve heard the full details on this. It does seem that Mr Delap and the Friends were acting in good faith, and may have made a very bad mistake. If so, it doesn’t seem there will be a shortage of swords for them to fall upon! But I’m still not convinced they’re the sole culprits.
Also, it’s not often that Mr Fahy can assert moral superiority, and it’s clear that he’s enjoying it. I welcome the fact that he’s finished making comments on the matter… it’s a shame that it’s not a more extensive commitment.
But let’s hope he and his Council cronies remember his own words, “There are no excuses ,no hiding place for those who abused their position in such a cavalier way.”
“I don’t think we’ve heard the full details on this” – we certainly haven’t.
“I’m still not convinced they’re the sole culprits…….let’s hope he and his Council cronies remember his own words, “There are no excuses ,no hiding place for those who abused their position in such a cavalier way.” –
if you have any evidence that the Council are (partly?) responsible for this fiasco then I urge you to make it public, because they deny it – if, and I think it is an “if” at this point, they are lying we all desperately need to know.
The situation, so far as I can see, is that until Mr Delap (for only he seems to know – committee members such as Suzanne Miller, for example, don’t even know the date on which the stones were destroyed) provides the community with an accurate, detailed explanation of the chain of events (what happened, who said what to whom, why he didn’t report the incident to the council straight away, why he thought he had the authority to move the stones in the first place, and all the other questions hanging over this matter), he continues to look very culpable indeed.
I feel that there is a possibility that, if Mr Delap continues to refuse to explain how this act of criminal damage occured, there is a solid case for the involvement of Greenwich Police, and if that happens, let us be very clear that Mr Delap will have no-one to blame but himself.
I have been a distant reader of all the comments and statements about this sad affair right from the beginning.
The gravestones against the walls would have provided an appropriate backdrop to any proposed ornamental gardens, and clearly there was no reason whatever to move them. But the fact is, for whatever reason, they have not only been moved, they have been destroyed beyond restoration. To use the broken pieces for footpaths in the vicinity would surely be far better than consigning them to a landfill site somewhere ? After all, in cathedrals and churches up and down the land visitors and worshippers all walk on gravestones in the aisles, transepts and chapels, many having had their inscriptions worn smoorh by the passage of feet down the centuries. Noone ever seems too worried about that ! Hopefully, somewhere there is a record of the original inscriptions which relatives or researchers could consult. I believe that in the current case nearly all the limestone memorials (the vast majority) were already illegible.
It is arrant nonsense to suggest that the removals needed to be done as part of a weed extermination exercise. Weedkillers were surely a simple option, even if the design of the flowerbeds extended right up to the gravestones.
Anyone in full possession of the facts should be counselled to reveal everything, notwithstanding the fact that they might prefer, for their own personal reasons, to let the matter rest in its patently unsatisfactory state.
Clearly, before this debacle, the Friends had done much praiseworthy work down the years, and if they are dissolved and not replaced, it would seem that the local community will be worse off. So a new Committee, composed of fresh members, seems highly desirable so that all the past good works may continue.
No individual, either for the new Friends or the Greenwich Council, or anybody else, should be given authority, (or feel that he/she already has it) to act or authorise any work in the park of an irreversible nature without public notice being given allowing time for opinions to be expressed, and such work should then only be carried out following a democratic decision.