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Police Commissioner David Jamieson’s office has banned a Birmingham Mail investigative reporter from asking it direct questions after we published two investigations into its activities.

Jeanette Oldham has been told that the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) will now only answer queries from her submitted via Freedom of Information requests.

The unprecedented move follows two articles by our award-winning Investigations Editor looking into the running of the West Midlands OPCC.

On May 14 this year we revealed the office had awarded a £60,000 contract to Broad Street BID, an organisation that no longer technically exists. The BID employs Alicia Mosquito as its deputy manager. Her mother is Yvonne Mosquito, the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner.

The OPCC had said the police chief notified it of her daughter’s role, and took no part in the contract tendering process.

We also told how Alicia’s friend Olivia Everett had landed an unadvertised job at the OPCC office where she now works closely with Ms Mosquito.

At the time OPCC spokesman Richard Costello denied they were good friends, stating that they simply went to school together.

Yet on June 5 the Birmingham Mail published a photograph of budding actress Olivia and Alicia enjoying birthday celebrations together.

We had also seen other pictures of them together at social events and the pair are ‘friends’ on Facebook.

When asked if Ms Mosquito had notified her office that Olivia was a friend of her daughter, Mr Costello had said: “She isn’t a good friend now and certainly wasn’t a good friend then. There wasn’t a conflict of interest to declare. She (the DPCC) hadn’t met her.”

On Monday Mr Costello said the OPCC had now banned our Investigations Editor from asking any direct questions after claiming she ‘broke protocol’ by naming him in our articles.

He said the second reason for the ban was that she had ended their last telephone conversation by ‘slamming the phone down’, a claim he later reiterated in a phonecall with Birmingham Mail Editor Marc Reeves.

The Birmingham Mail has a recording of that five-minute telephone conversation and it is clear our reporter does NOT slam the phone down. She makes clear that the conversation is coming to a close THREE TIMES before politely ending the call.

From 15 seconds to go she begins concluding the conversation and at five seconds makes clear it is over, saying: “Thanks Richard...”

When he replies with an often repeated line: “We have said all we are going to say on this...” our reporter again tries to end the conversation, saying: “Thanks Richard...”

When he begins repeating: “...said all we are going to say,” our reporter politely brings the call to a close with a “Bye, bye,” as Mr Costello continues with his repeated line in the background.

We also have recordings of an earlier phone call where the spokesman had said our questioning of the OPCC was ‘farcical’ and, at points, he is seemingly heard to laugh and scoff.

Whilst the OPCC spokesman has provided statements and telephone answers to many of the Birmingham Mail questions, the OPCC has also consistently failed to answer certain queries posed by our reporter.

During various other conversations as part of our enquiries into the OPCC, Mr Costello had repeatedly refused to answer certain questions and complained about our ‘line’ of questioning with Jeanette Oldham and, in a later conversation, with Editor Marc Reeves similarly complained about the ‘type of questions’ she was asking.

The Mail recognises no naming protocols and, in line with other media, has named spokespeople when appropriate.

The protocol claim was later dropped by the OPCC office.

But the OPCC and Mr Costello insisted the ban would stay in place because of the ‘tone’ of our reporter and the phone call.

The ban was announced immediately after our Investigations Editor had asked for a full breakdown of the OPCC restructure savings, which it states reduced its overall budget by £300,000.

We had also asked for details of the pay-off awarded to former chief executive Jacky Courtney, who left her post during the restructure.

And we had also queried how she was given voluntary redundancy when her role was not being made redundant.

In an email reply last week, Richard Costello initially directed our reporter to an OPCC website page containing only brief details of the restructure and no detail following its completion. He made no mention of any ban, protocol or disputed phone call.

The disputed phone call took place before the Birmingham Mail published its June 5 story about Alicia Mosquito and her friendship with Olivia Everett.

The OPCC informed our reporter of the ban on asking direct questions on June 15 after she had asked the further questions about restructure savings and Jacky Courtney via email.

During the ten days between publication of the June 5 story and the notification of the ban, the Mail had received no complaints about naming protocol or the phone call.

On Monday, Mr Costello initially said he had been ‘instructed’ to inform us of the ban.

He later insisted the decision was nothing to do with the questions being asked by our Investigations Editor but was because of her ‘general tone’.

“We regret having to take this course of action, but have found it difficult to justify the huge amount of time and public resources spent on often speculative inquiries,” he said.

Editor Marc Reeves has written to police and crime commissioner David Jamieson and Home Secretary Theresa May, demanding that the ban be overturned.

He said: “Jeanette is one of the foremost investigative reporters in the UK who has simply been carrying out her job, holding the powerful to account and reporting on the spending of public money.

“This ban is an insult to our readers and to the taxpayers of the West Midlands.

“Of course her questioning is more robust than the OPCC may be used to, but it’s this approach that has secured our two articles into the OPCC.

“This approach has also won Jeanette many awards for her work investigating the Trojan Horse scandal and child sexual exploitation, to name just two recent issues.

“We believe the OPCC may have banned her because her line of questioning has riled them, which would be funny if the consequences to a free press weren’t so serious.”

* Jeanette Oldham was named Specialist Writer of the Year at the UK’s prestigious Regional Press Awards in May. Judges said she was “clearly an investigative reporter with great talent. Her portfolio of work showed her ability to uncover important stories that had a real impact on her community.”

Stories submitted included an investigation into how top officers at West Midlands Police were walking away with bumper pension pots – after being promoted shortly before their retirements. Judges were also impressed by her ground-breaking series of articles on the Trojan Horse schools scandal.

And a previous investigation into a top cancer surgeon investigated over patient deaths was shortlisted for Investigation of the Year alongside the Guardian’s Snowden Files and the Dispatches ‘Plebgate’ controversy, at the national British Journalism Awards.

She has also previously won a number of other awards.