What's new
By:
Filters
Navy Net - Royal Navy Community

Register a free account today to join our community
Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site, connect with other members through your own private inbox and will receive smaller adverts!

What happens to sundodgers when they get to Captain?

M

Miles_Offside

Newbie
Just seen that Dids Lombard got 90 days and a dishonourable for fiddling his expenses (£2,900 doesn't look like much when you've lost your pension, does it?). In recent history Bob Tarrant (just) got away with beating up his control room team, Knocker White drowned himself and a.n. other "did a Tarrant" over child porn allegations.

I knew all these guys when they were Lieutenants in boats and they were all round good eggs. How is it that climbing the promotion ladder turns them into complete tw*ts?
Discuss.
 
The loss of pension is a bit of a red herring - at age 65 they all write the Secretary of State to ask for reinstatement, and 95% of them get it. They dip out on the lump sum and the 25 years of payment in between though! His Dis Dis is probably the worst part for this guy - it's almost a brand on his forehead in the circles that he moves in - or used to now. 90 days in civvy nick will be nominal, but I don't think he will enjoy it.

His offence was a schoolboy error - everyone knows that a C30 is checked for mileage by the UPO staff using autoroute postcodes. By putting in somewhere that didn't exist, he was bound to get caught eventually - pity it was so far down the line. However, there are deeper undercurrents on this one that didn't make the public view, so probably best to leave it at that.

With regard to high rankers having career vs life problems, these are just the high profile ones. There are a lot more, further down the rank/rate scale, who are making life-changing decisions. Operation ORE has opened a few people's eyes, I think. Consider how many Courts Martial are carried out weekly, and how many make the papers - only the ones that the papers can make a good headline out of.

Some of these guys also start to believe their own hype. They are almost gods in their own little worlds, and sometimes the ego can get a little carried away.
 
One of my skippers used to tap his foot on the deck like mad , so we called he Thumper .A top bloke he is the curator of the submarine
museum at Dolphin now . Good old JJ
 
He was my ex CO on Turbs as well, I also remember him as a part 111 subby on Sealion. I assume he was a 4 ringer and is now feeling sorry for himself.
 
I heard that BT's CM crashed and burned as many of the prosecution witnesses were somewhat reluctant and in fact were probably better character witnesses!
 
Miles Offside wrote

a.n. other "did a Tarrant" over child porn allegations
Click to expand...

Then there is the more junior Dr Ruthven and his porn collection. Bang to rights, civvy court, guilty, not jailed, sex offenders' register and the GMC restricted his licence to practice.

Tarrant was not guilty. White, there was no posthumous evidence that he was a fan of dodgy porn but the mere allegation may have been enough to cause him to take his own life. I'd go easy on rating them all tw@ts.

Lombard should have done a Blunkett. It got him off when he was caught abusing travelling expenses by giving an HMG funded rail ticket to his pash. 'Oh I didn't know I wasn't allowed to do that'.
That's okay then.
 
Lombard had 40+ other offences to consider - it was too late for doing a Blunkett. White was unfortunate in that he never got to court (never got the chance to clear his name or not) - and also you have to consider Herman (ex-QHM). He was taken to court over child porn, when in fact it turned out that he had purchased access to a naked wrestling site, not really child porn. Because of the allegations, his house was attacked, he was attacked and ostracised, his career was checked (sideways move), and the stigma will follow him for ever.
 
Sailbad wrote

Check-check-check

Bob Tarrant was not accused of anything to do with child porn
Click to expand...

I didn't say he was but if what you mean is he shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as those accused and guilty fair enough. I don't know Tarrant but an oppo who does rates him highly and was doing cartwheels when he was found not guilty. I imagine Tarrant was too.

Didn't follow Lombard's Court Martial PS so I didn't know about the other crimes. As for Herman, unusual tastes by his own admission but not guilty. However the attacks on his house on the basis of allegations only shows what extreme reactions result. Perhaps Commodore White was thinking ahead when he took his life.
 

Latest Threads

New Posts

Top