On 16/11/2020 an alleged crime report of possible Misconduct in Public office, was made against Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, to the London Metropolitan Police. Below is a publicly available copy of the text which was filed in that report.
Current Education Secretary Gavin Wiliamson failed to act to address reported failings in the safeguarding reporting systems of his Department. That failure has led to the potential harm of numerous children and potentially to a number of deaths through suicide of children across the UK and continued to leave others at risk of harm and death.
Since 2017, in correspondence to previous Education Secretaries Justine Greening and Damian Hinds, I had warned that certain Department of Education (DfE) policies and procedures had led to failures to address complaints related to bullying and violence in schools and had left and continue to leave children in schools across the UK, at risk of serious harm and even death as a result.
At least one of the allegations of failure had been admitted by the Department for Education in writing.
Between January and May 2019 I raised concerns with various Ministers and MP’s and requested meetings with Damian Hinds on at least 3 occasions to address the issues, my requests were rejected and the DfE attempted to close the case without any investigation of the allegations in May 2019.
In July 2019 I wrote to Gavin Williamson as an MP, warning that the continued failure by Government to act, was continuing to put children at risk. He failed to respond to the communication.
In October 2019, I again wrote informing him as the now Education Minister, that I had connected with over 100 families as Lead of a Safer Schools Campaign group, the families all alleging that their children had suffered serious harm or tragically become victims of suicide and even one case of a possible murder as a potential consequence of failings within his department. I invited him to meet with us on October 25th 2019. The invitation was not accepted and no action was taken by Gavin Williamson to investigate the evidenced failings and take appropriate action to address them.
On the 27th January 2020, he was again invited along with others to meet with the Safer Schools Campaign group in Parliament on February 25th 2020, to hear our case for a change to laws and policy. I informed him that the case we wanted to present was straightforward and that his commitment to attend would ensure that he was able to act appropriately to prevent any further harm to children or loss of life.
The meetings did indeed take place on 25th February 2020 and Gavin sent a reply to the invitation on the day to say he could not attend. He gave no indication that he would take any action to address the concerns or to do anything to investigate the alleged failings or indicate he would do anything or take any steps to prevent any further harm to children.
After the meeting Gavin was asked on a number of occasions to respond to direct allegations of a cover up of the issues and deaths and a failure to act to prevent harm. I made it clear that these were potential criminal allegations and extremely serious and required answers based on legitimate evidence that he had been provided with on numerous occasions.
Gavin Williamson responded to the email but did not respond to those allegations and again has given no indication that he will take any responsibility or action to address the concerns or to do anything to investigate the alleged failings or do anything or take any steps to prevent any further harm to children and prevent potential loss of life.
Children are regularly being harmed and lives lost potentially because of the alleged failure to act and potential misconduct of Gavin Williamson. This is why I would like to make a complaint of Misconduct in Public office and request a full investigation by the Metropolitan Police into the alleged failure to act.
Jason Barnett
