Below follows a statement from the GSD regarding the Openshaw Report and the Chief Minister’s recent interview on GBC:

The GSLP are in serious denial about the Openshaw Report. The insistence in repeating the falsehood of “exoneration” and continuing attempt at repackaging the Report findings is alarming.

It is stunning that Mr Picardo should now suggest in a GBC interview that the British Government’s statement that there are serious findings in the Inquiry is not also a concern about the findings against him.

Leader of the Opposition, Keith Azopardi said: “The most serious findings of the Inquiry are about him. Sir Peter Openshaw found that on repeated occasions Mr Picardo acted in a ‘grossly improper way’ and ‘attempted to interfere in a criminal investigation.’ There are no findings more serious than that.”

It is equally incredible that Mr Picardo should continue to try to keep shifting the focus from findings actually made by Sir Peter Openshaw to other matters which were not even findings made by the Inquiry as if it should be those non-existent findings that should be the catalyst for the learning of lessons.

This is a GSLP Government that in its insistence to cling on to power and shut its eyes to the consequences of the serious findings are totally unwilling to take the first step on the road to recognition – which is that they should accept the wrongdoing.

Mr Picardo’s GBC interview was conducted in the wake of his filing of Judicial Review proceedings against Sir Peter Openshaw which forms part of his continual denial of facts and refusal to learn lessons. Given his insistence that there are “very serious” findings against others it is striking that no other core participant seems to have filed a judicial review against Sir Peter Openshaw and his findings. That judicial review which is his private law challenge in his own name will cost the tax-payer significant sums given the agreement of all Ministers to support it. As his private legal jamboree he should pay for it.

In 2022 and 2023 Mr Picardo repeatedly promised that the Inquiry would establish “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” But it is now clear that Mr Picardo was only willing to accept the “truth” if the Inquiry agreed with him or he writes it himself. It was remarkable to hear him say in the GBC interview that the “whole truth” has not yet been established. He is doing what Sir Peter Openshaw himself observed – making matters much worse by his repeated denials even now that he did nothing wrong and his insistence in repackaging the truth. The fact that he is aided and abetted by all other Ministers shows that they are not the people to spearhead meaningful reform.