We received a post at this blog from Colm O’Mahoney again today. (We read his comments to this post- under the name Napolean Complex with his email attached) but we don’t read his blog. Actually this teacher who claims to want to keep out of this issue and ‘move on’ with his life makes a habit of sticking his beak in several times every week and contacting us at every available opportunity.. In it he alerted us that one of the people on the blacklist was a known felon.

Three comments about this. First, we never said that an ESL school should have no banned teachers. We asked whether TBI should have a list with 50 people or more- most of them former TBI teachers and even one school manager. Our suspicion that it was a massive case of overkill is not discounted by the fact that Colm can justify one out of 19 inclusions. 

Secondly, while Colm claims to have ‘researched’ all these 19 banned individuals, there is a much more likely explanation- especially since we blacked out most of their names. There are 3 people who were involved in the creation of that list- Ashley Platts, David Bradbury and Luke Preece. We find it much easier to believe that Colm is still in contact with Luke or David and they told him who the wanted felon was. This is a much more likely explanation than the idea that he knew exactly which person to research. Cam was never given the reasons these people were banned. That information was reserved for Preece, Platts and Bradbury. Surely Colm is still in contact with his former bosses and masters. 

Thirdly, we want to point out the highly selective nature of this blacklist. You won’t be surprised to find that Luke Preece didn’t add Binsar or Helmy, despite the fact that both these Mafia-appointed teachers or managers were accused of gross sexual misconduct. They knew that Helmy had stolen Rp 75.000.000 from Semarang but he isn’t on the list. Why? Because he was a family member of Retty, the former Head of Franchise. 

I am sure they will try and pretend that this blacklist was meant to safeguard TBI students. This is the whitewash version. Yet if Preece and Platts really wanted to protect TBI staff and students, Helmy would have been listed. So would Binsar. Instead, the blacklist clearly morphed into a way to punish TBI teachers who challenged the Mafia. Many known thieves and abusers were excluded, while others were included for minor matters. In short, the blacklist has no integrity or consistency. In this, it is very much a typical TBI affair.