EXCLUSIVE: 'For whistleblowers, anonymity is all we have to protect us' - Martin Morton

Mr Downey's revelations about a multi-million pound privatised highways maintenance contract sparked a major inquiry by local government watchdog the Audit Commission.

Here Martin Morton - another whistleblower who exposed scandal after scandal in the Department of Adult Social Services - explains why the exposure of Mr Downey's identity was such a massive breach of trust.

Mr Downey himself said the act has ended his career.

Mr Morton was bullied out of his job at Wirral Council and although has had offers to come back to work since the truth of his allegations were proven in the devastating Anna Klonowski report, he is now unemployed.

SPEAKING as a whistleblower, I am not sure the significance of the naming of Gary Downey is fully appreciated.

People might question "What's in a name"?

The answer is....everything - for whistleblowers, anonymity is all we have to protect us.

Since I was compelled to "blow my cover", so to speak, I have received outstanding public and personal support.

However, I have nevertheless been called a troublemaker, not a good witness, a snitch, a grass. I have been indirectly threatened.

Concerns have been raised about my safety because my disclosures included links to serious organised crime.

Currently unemployed, I have had to accept my career in social care is now over, my professional status will always be tainted by the spectre of whistleblowing and my reputation has been trashed.

I too, like Mr Downey, have been subject to a similar kind of "mistake" when Wirral Council saw fit to publish a letter from the Local Government Association stating that I had been "dismissed" from the council.

I have subsequently received an apology and been told that the LGA had been given this false information by the council.

Considering that the LGA are tasked with assisting Wirral Council get their act together, this does not augur well - especially if they are receiving false or distorted information.

However, the main point I wish to make is the one I have made since the first time I spoke to the Globe, and that is the difference in treatment between Wirral Council's "officer class" and those employees considered to be "cannon fodder".

Compare and contrast the breach of Mr Downey's confidentiality with the rigorous protection of the anonymity of staff who left the council just before the publication of the Anna Klonowski independent review.

Think of the care it took to undertake the migraine-inducing redactions in both the AKA report and the Abuse of Power/Bullying/Harassment investigation report into my treatment at the hands of the council.

Moreover, can you imagine the howls of protest and legal threats emanating from the deluge of senior council officers who have left in the wake of a continuing series of damning reports if they had been described as having been "dismissed" (and frankly, in my opinion, some of them should have been).

There has been continuing debate as to whether the current desperate situation that Wirral Council finds itself in is a result of cock-up or conspiracy.

Based on my personal experience, and what has subsequently happened to Mr Downey, I wholly reject the notion that there has been a monumental series of unfortunate mistakes.

There is a subtle but significant difference between mistakes and negligence, as this negligence always seems to lead to a significant detriment to the whistleblower - and to the whistleblower only.

Additionally, conspiracies by their very nature are hard to evidence - they are secretive and the discovery of a smoking gun will usually prove to be elusive.

However a conspiracy of silence is still a conspiracy.

After all, it should be remembered that I only went to the Globe with my wide-ranging concerns about abuse to ensure that an ongoing cover up of several years duration should not be allowed to continue.

The conclusion of the AKA report that there was no cover up does not reflect my experience nor the continuing revelations about how Wirral Council conducted its business.

Therefore, I am currently in the process of writing an unredacted,unexpurgated memoir titled "A Whistleblower's ABC" which will present from my experience "how things work".

I am optimistic that during the course of writing this memoir the final piece of the jigsaw will fall into place and the full extent of the conspiracy finally will be revealed.

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