EXCLUSIVE: The Greg Brackenridge Investigation Report.

"He Ain't Walter Mitty, He's Part of the Labour Party."

On 24 June 2025, Labour Councillor for Wednesfield South Greg Brackenridge finally admitted on the public record in a statement given to Birmingham Live that contrary to past public claims by himself, he had never been a Royal Marine.

This admission was triggered by a news article published earlier in the afternoon that same day which detailed an independent investigation ordered by the Labour-controlled City of Wolverhampton Council (Wolves Council for short) after official complaints of “stolen valour” were submitted against him in October 2024, after which Brackenridge had to resign in disgrace from the chairmanship of the local West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority (WMFRA) as well as the Wolverhampton City Military Covenant Board before being suspended from his Labour Party membership by Labour HQ that same month.

Despite the moral and ethically abhorrent nature of it, stolen valour is not deemed a crime in the UK. In contrast, had Councillor Greg Brackenridge been a US citizen or dared to claim past service in the US Marine Corps, under the US Stolen Valor Act of 2013 he would have faced not just a monetary fine but also potentially jail time of up to one year.

This non-criminalising of stolen valour in the UK does not mean that domestic political criticism of such behaviour is noneistent. On the contrary, stolen valour is one of the rare issues that sees unity transcending party lines, with the most high-profile example of such criticism coming from its current Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer in June 2024.

UK Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer

In response to the sacking of former Northamptonshire Police Chief Constable Nick Adderley over his wearing of a South Atlantic Medal from The Falklands War to which he was not entitled, Starmer stated:

“Stolen valour is really serious and it really impacts all of us, but it particularly impacts those who have served, and it needs to be taken seriously. There does need to be sanctions. It’s for the force in the first instance to decide what the sanctions are but do I think their should be further sanctions? Yes I do. But first it needs to go to the Police and Crime Commissioner and then the Home Secretary so we’ll see what that process yields. But, yes, I do believe there should be more sanctions.”

Right from the beginning of the entire saga, there were already concerns that the UK Labour Party which still hadn’t fully recovered from its reputational drubbing in the eyes of the uniformed services and military in particular from its Corbyn-era ideological strain of peacenik pacifism would not deal firmly with Councillor Greg Brackenridge’s crime of integrity that is stolen valour.

As far back as around Christmas 2024, concerns were already being raised on social media including LinkedIn as to why Brackenridge was still attending Labour Party Christmas dinners and playing a key role in the office casework operations of his wife, current Labour MP for Wolverhampton North East Sureena Brackenridge.

Sureena and Greg Brackenridge.

Such rumblings of discontent at what was perceived then to be the central Labour HQ protecting Brackenridge deepened when he was reinstated to the party in February 2025, a decision which was met with surprise and dismay by several quarters including Oliver Lee, who had remarked that up to that point nobody from the local Labour Party nor Labour HQ in London had bothered to contact him to get a statement about Brackenridge passing himself off as an ex-Royal Marine to him in the past.

Lee is a former Royal Marines colonel who had been forced out as Chief Fire Officer at West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS) by Brackenridge, who held Lee responsible for having scuppered his chances at landing a “national in the fire governance world” (which the Narrative Shaper understands from industry insiders to be the chair of the national Local Government Association (LGA)) no thanks to Lee being “too transparent and truthful” about the actual state of affairs at WMFS. Lee would be interviewed in this independent report though, along with Richard Woodward who was also previously a Royal Marines Commando and hence was in a position to contribute to the investigation.

The fact that Brackenridge who is now in hot water for having lied about having been a former Royal Marine is described by Lee in his LinkedIn post from April 2025 as having misappropriated an otherwise-common meeting room back when he was WMFRA chairman to serve as his personal “Chair’s Office” (which he then almost never used) serves to shine an illuminating light on Brackenridge’s character, and indeed relationship with his ego and public image.

Most scuttlebutt speculation held that Labour HQ did not want the taint of guilt by association with Brackenridge to impact the political survival of his wife (who had actively brought up the fake Royal Marines service status of her husband on multiple occasions and in campaign flyers during her successful election run). Sureena Brackenridge rode the anti-Conservative wave in the 2024 general election and flipped Wolverhampton North East to Labour with 42.9% of the turnout vote.

However, The Narrative Shaper can exclusively report that contrary to speculations of Labour HQ protecting Brackenridge, insider sources within Wolves Council have revealed that it is instead the local Labour Party group which currently holds a council majority that is deliberately conducting a rearguard action to prolong Greg Brackenridge’s political career for as long as possible.

Such actions include the last-minute postponing or cancellations of Governance Board meetings, and more significantly suppressing the release of the independent investigation report on Greg Brackenridge’s “stolen valour” claims of having once been a Royal Marine.

According to the anonymous insider tip-off, this report has so far been actively suppressed for general release to the Council and by extension the general public, with repeated last-minute cancellations of scheduled and rescheduled Governance Board meetings over the past two weeks where the report was supposed to have been presented for the first time. This flies contrary to what has been publicly reported by Birmingham Live’s Jane Hoynes on 24 June 2025, that the findings have been shared with the Council.

Further confirmation of such suppression efforts have been confirmed by Celia Hibbert, a former Labour and now-independent councillor representing Penn Ward. In response to a press enquiry by The Narrative Shaper, Hibbert stated that the entire investigations process had taken too long and was not transparent in nature, owing to how the local Labour Party group had refused to suspend Brackenridge from his councillor position despite the national Labour HQ having suspended him back in October 2024.

Hibbert also told The Narrative Shaper that twice now the Governance and Ethics Committee meeting had been cancelled and rescheduled for a later date at extremely short notice with no reason given.

It is understood that Brackenridge’s suspension by Labour HQ was only of a “administrative” nature. The semantic significance being that to be “administratively suspended” by Labour HQ does not equate being practically suspended from the seat of Councillor on a local government council by the local Labour Party; like how an individual getting their driving license suspended for a time-limited period does not equate them being barred from continuing to own a car.

Celia Hibbert is not the only individual voicing discontent regarding the manner in which the Labour Party group of Wolves Council had handled the Greg Brackenridge “Stolen Valour” scandal. Back in February 2025 when Brackenridge had been reinstated after his short months-long suspension, the Wolverhampton Conservative Party group had posted their disappointment at Brackenridge’s reinstatement by national Labour HQ in London as well as his non-suspension from his councillor seat by the Wolves Labour Party group.

Conservative Councillor Simon Bennett had also questioned why the independent investigation report on Greg Brackenridge had been delayed at the previous Governance and Ethics Committee meeting on 12 June 2025, to which the Chief Operating and Monitoring Officer David Pattison replied simply that the report was not ready yet and awaiting updates, but will be ready “by the next meeting.”

Which would be a long wait, for the latest rescheduled timing for the meeting (originally meant for 3 July 2025 as reported by Birmingham Live) is shown as 2pm on 11 July 2025 on the Council website. Assuming this meeting does indeed happen, it will be the first time the investigation report on Greg Brackenridge will be officially presented for review and action by the Governance and Ethics committee.

Original Report publication and Governance and Ethics Committee Meeting Dates.

Latest Governance and Ethics Committee Meeting Dates.

Not the first time any form of the report sees the public light of day though.

For a draft but largely-finished copy of said report has been provided to The Narrative Shaper, and relevant sections (without the long background knowledge bits and other redacted/personally identifiable portions) will be published below for the first time.

Right off the bat, the date of the report as 3 June 2025 signposts an issue. The report had originally been meant for presentation to the Wolves Council’s Governance and Ethics Committee on 12 June 2025, just over a week from its submission to David Pattison who is dual-hatting as Chief Operating and Monitoring Officer (the original Monitoring Officer Surjit Tour having left for Salford Council back in Jaunary 2025).

With the report having been delayed by Pattison at the last Governance and Ethics Committee meeting on 12 June, it would now be over an entire month before the report gets its next chance to be finally presented for scrutiny by the Committee, the Council, and the public at large on 11 July 2025 barring no further delays or meeting rescheduling.

It is also of interest to note that the Labour Party group on Wolves Council are still attempting to prolong Greg Brackenridge’s political career through inordinate delaying actions, despite Brackenridge’s refusal on THREE occasions to cooperate with the independent investigation being conducted by Kenyon Brabrook Limited, a Derby-based company with a long history of handling investigations into Standards complaints levelled against local councils and councillors in various parts of England. How true or cooked-up the explanation of “ill health” given by Brackenridge to others as justification for non-cooperation with the investigation is anybody’s guess at this point.

The report acknowledges two main components of the formal complaint against Brackenridge: the first component deals with multiple allegations of professional gross misconduct and dereliction of duty committed by Brackenridge in his past capacity as Chairman of the WMFRA, and the second component deals with the allegation of stolen valour against Brackenridge for his past public portraying of himself as an ex-Royal Marine.

It also made clear that prior to the commissioning of Kenyon Brabrook to be the independent investigators into the allegations made, then-Monitoring Officer Surjit Tour determined that the component of the formal complaint pertaining to Brackenridge in the capacity of his chairmanship at WMFRA could not be considered under Wolves Council’s Code of Conduct for Councillors, and therefore will not be looked at.

In keeping with this decision made as well as maintaining focus on the actual issue of stolen valour which was investigated, The Narrative Shaper will not be publishing the aforementioned portions of the formal complaint.

In its investigation of the allegations of stolen valour against Greg Brackenridge, Kenyon Brabrook complied a list of occasions that Brackenridge had publicly claimed to have been an ex-Royal Marine. The list expands significantly on other public postings online regarding Brackenridge being a modern-day “Walter Mitty”, originally a fictional character played in a 2013 movie by Ben Stiller who is more absorbed in his elaborate and heroic fantasies than his real life.

Below is the full list as described in the report:

As previously mentioned above, Oliver Lee and Richard Woodward were interviewed by the Kenyon Brabrook independent investigation commissioned by Wolves Council. Their responses were recorded within the report, and were pretty clear in their nature of describing what allows one to credibly claim to be a “Royal Marine” as well as their assessment of the publicly-available evidence of Greg Brackenridge acting and claiming that he was one.

Here is Oliver Lee’s response.

And here is Richard Woodward’s response.

In any case, the conclusion of the Kenyon Brabrook report was that Councillor Greg Brackenridge had indeed acted in a councillor capacity in respect of the allegations of stolen valour made against him at the Saraghari Memorial Unveiling and Armed Forces Covenant Board event.

And more damningly, the Kenyon Brabrook investigation report was conclusive in its declaration and justification of Greg Brackenridge having indeed committed acts which constituted “stolen valour.”

With the Kenyon Brabrook report as explosive as it is, it is no wonder that the Labour Party group on Wolves Council are doing their best to delay the inevitable by repeatedly kicking the publication of this report into the long grass.

This would merely be the final nail in a long-prepared coffin for Greg Brackenridge’s career who had already barely survived a previous potentially career-ending scandal when he was exposed by Michael Gillard for having attempted to silence other politicians concerned about the murky circumstances surrounding the suicide of Wayne Brown, Britain’s first black fire chief at WMFS. The recording of which is provided below.

It remains to be seen come July 3, if Wolves Council will do the right thing, or if Brackenridge continues to stay on because “he ain’t Walter Mitty, he’s part of the Labour Party.”