The JEP’s Orlando Crowcroft's thoughts one month on

THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXTRACT FROM ORLANDO CROWCROFT’S SATURDAY’S PUBLICATION:-

……IT’S now been nearly a month since the JEP published its investigation into the Jersey Financial Services Commission and the regulator has still not offered up any senior figure for interview. Indeed, the only communication we have had from the JFSC was a boilerplate statement when we published on 1 October, and the by-now infamous statement from JFSC chair Jane Platt on 16 October.

My last request to the JFSC for an interview was ignored, as were previous requests. So here, in this public forum, I am making my offer official: would Ms Platt be willing to be interviewed by this newspaper? If so, get in touch.

What I have had since since we ran our series is dozens and dozens of emails from readers echoing the comments of those we interviewed.

We’ve also had a robust response to our survey about the JFSC, and I can tell you that all but a tiny handful have been critical. We’ve even had the Minister for External Relations, Deputy Ian Gorst, tell this newspaper and the States Chamber that he supported our calls for an independent appeals process.

Speaking to the JEP, Deputy Gorst, unlike Ms Platt, acknowledged the testimony of those who said that the regulator had ruined their lives and careers. The JFSC by contrast simply said that the claims were unsubstantiated.

What we are left with, therefore, is an odd juxtaposition: on the one hand an admission that things are not right at the regulator (from Deputy Gorst) and on the other an absolute refusal to accept that anything is wrong (from Ms Platt). So which is it?

On anonymity

Actually, I wanted to close this column with a few words on anonymity, because I feel like not everyone knows what it means when it comes to talking to journalists.

It means this: if you contact me with a story or to give me information that you think would be useful to me and say it is “off the record” or you do not want to be named, I will never, ever, name you or say where I got the information from. No one will ever know you’ve spoken to me – or at least they will never hear it from me.

In cases where I think that information may identify a source – for example, if he or she was to tell me something that only a couple of people know – I work with that source to make sure that they are not identifiable. If there is even a chance they would be, I wouldn’t use it. I take this responsibility very seriously, and I always have.

I say this because after six months in this job I can see how scared people in the Island are about speaking up: I want to help change that. Just look at the impact that JFSC series we ran a few weeks back has had already – and I hope will continue to have. Fear and secrecy have held us back long enough.

So I end this column as I began it, by saying – simply – call me.

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