Gavin Leaky Barwell

In 2009 the Conservative Party sent out a questionnaire to a number of unsuspecting Croydon residents including British National Party Stalwart Cliff Le May. In response to one of the questions Cliff asked Mayor of London Boris Johnson, to “stop ruining out community by stuffing New Addington with violent immigrants who have no right to live among decent civilised white people”.

When Gavin Barwell got his grubby little hands on the questionnaire, his response was to hand it over to Aline Nassif, a reporter with the Croydon Advertiser, who without questioning the source of the information wrote the attached article http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/Croydon-BNP-election-candidate-investigated-immigrants-rant/story-11367360-detail/story.html .

When I took over as Croydon and Sutton Organiser of the British National Party, I started to look into the legality of the Leak and found it looked Illegal under the Data Protection Act 1998. I spoke with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) and was advised that most data protection issues can be resolved by contacting the organisation responsible without going through the ICO. I wrote to Croydon Conservatives who refused to take the situation seriously and again went to the Croydon Advertiser this time to Gareth Davies who wrote http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/MP-rejects-BNP-claim-rant-published/story-11361571-detail/story.html.

I wrote to the ICO who looked into the case and contacted the Croydon Conservative Federation (CCF), the CCF has recognised their error and to prevent reoccurrences of the circumstances are considering compiling and retaining a guidance note for staff. They also intend running a data protection/information security awareness programme.

Rather than embracing the opportunity to be trained in information security, Gavin Barwell took the extraordinary decision to condemn the Information Commissioner on twitter “GavinBarwellMP Great story here @Gareth Davies09 Information Commissioner trying to protect privacy of racist standing for public office @tonyleemartin”. Ironically he tweeted this the day after attending a Black Minority Ethnic Forum.

When contacted by Croydon and Sutton British National Party about an apology, Gavin Leaky Barwell said “Have no intention of apologising. Fact you have gone to such lengths to stop people hearing Cliff’s views speaks volumes”.

Croydon and Sutton British National Party have no intention of stopping people hearing Cliff’s views, which are at the top of the article; our intention is to have the people of Croydon Central represented by an MP with integrity. If anyone has the intention of stopping people hearing Cliff’s or other BNP views its Gavin Barwell’s friends at the Croydon Advertiser who invited all Croydon Central candidates except Cliff to hustings. When challenged over this, the lack of reporting on Croydon Conservatives links to the IRA and Lie’s printed about another BNP member Gareth Davies said ” Invitations were to the top four parties at 2006 local elections. BNP came 6th, with 1.4% of vote.” Gareth wouldn’t give an answer to where the Monster Raving Loony Party (who was invited to hustings) came in 2006.