"Is He The Jimmy Savile of British Firefighting?": The Ongoing Wayne Brown Cover-Up At WMFS [PART 2]

The Rabbit Hole Goes Deeper with Resurfaced Sexual Harassment Complaints, Claims of Intimidation by former WMFS Fire Chief Oliver Lee.

Original Reddit Post made on 27 April 2025: https://www.reddit.com/r/brum/comments/1k7yh3q/the_jimmy_savile_of_british_firefighting_the/

Earlier on in Part 1 of this ongoing series, I wrote about how Wayne Brown's litany of CV fraud regarding not just his academic qualifications but also his professional firefighting career at the London Fire Brigade (LFB) was overlooked (whether it by incompetence or deliberate political choice) for him to be hired as Chief Fire Officer at West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS) back in January 2023. This has now progressed into an ongoing whitewashing and deliberate cover-up by senior WMFS and Fire Authority figures including but not limited to current WMFS Chief Monitoring Officer Satinder Sahota and former Fire Authority Chairman Greg Brackenridge, seeking to portray Wayne Brown's CV fraud (and resultant hiring as CFO) as being based only on a single instance of him lying about holding an MBA from LBSU.

However, recent developments over the past week have surfaced an even darker angle to this ongoing Wayne Brown cover-up at WMFS. For years now rumours have been circulating within the firefighting circles of England, particularly at WMFS and LFB with regards to workplace bullying and repeated sexual misconduct, sometimes of the highest degree committed by Wayne Brown against his female firefighting colleagues.

As is the nature of such industry dirty laundry, most of it up till the present day has been kept strictly off the record, existing as mere scuttlebutt gossip and furtive story-telling which would have otherwise sank into obscurity with the passage of time. Of course, in the case of the Wayne Brown cover-up, the fact that the subject of complaint was back then a senior leader of a regional fire service made it that much easier for reports to be suppressed, complaints to be silenced, and complaining individuals muzzled with implied or overt threats and measures like NDAs or outright career destruction.

However, it seems that the resurfacing allegations of serious sexual misconduct have not yet dissuaded Simon Tuhill, the latest individual to inherit the role of Chief Fire Officer at WMFS from making the decision to reinstate Wayne Brown's death-in-service and pension payout, which had previously been suspended since November 2024 pending review and potential internal investigation into its validity given Brown's hiring on the basis of a fraudulent CV and existing sexual misconduct complaints.

Tuhill might justify his decision as being one made in the spirit of "looking forward and moving on as One Team", yet it is hardly reciprocated amongst many rank and file WMFS firefighters. According to a retired WMFS officer, Tuhill faced a visceral reaction from pension scheme members and public who objected to the restoration of Brown's pension at full levels. "It is a kick in the teeth to all serving and retired staff, as well as the taxpayer, that Tuhill has even considered this. We are considering reporting him for section 4 fraud by abuse of authority and acting against his fiduciary duty to the public purse."

And certainly, who can fault such visceral reactions against Tuhill from within WMFS, when he has hardly shown himself to be an impartial judge of propriety or character of Wayne Brown even before he joined WMFS back in January 2025?

The resurfacing of sexual misconduct allegations against Wayne Brown was curiously observed over the past week arising from a series of LinkedIn post made by Oliver Lee, who initially succeeded Wayne Brown as Chief Fire Officer at WMFS in March 2024 before acrimoniously leaving said role (whether he quit on principle or was pushed out by WMFS/WMFRA would depend on which side you hear the story from) in October 2024.

Interestingly enough, the main sign that the resurfacing of such allegations not being entirely organic in a #metoo manner from a WMFS firefighting community suddenly finding its voice to go public about the sexual misconduct of its former disgraced and deceased "first Black fire chief in the UK" Wayne Brown can be found in a LinkedIn post made by Oliver Lee on 21 April 2025, where he decried what he perceived as "intimidation" the questioning by an unnamed Birmingham journalist about whether he had during his short tenure as CFO at WMFS failed to act or attempted to suppress investigations into sexual misconduct complaints levelled against Wayne Brown.

Through my own private investigations and discussions with various individuals with knowledge of ongoing developments and discussions within WMFS, I can confirm what Oliver Lee stated in his LinkedIn post, that following my 16 April 2025 Part 1 expose on this subreddit, WMFS Chief Monitoring Officer Satinder Sahota set out with the idea of using controlled "leakage" of Wayne Brown's legacy sexual misconduct complaints to local and potentially even national press not only as a "dead cat" distraction from the far more damaging revelations exposed about his documented covering up of Wayne Brown's fake ILM Level 7 Diploma from Warwick Business School, but also as potential mud to sling at Oliver Lee whom he suspected as behind the recent expose.

To be clear: sexual misconduct allegations, some of which are as severe as rape, DO EXIST against Wayne Brown both prior and after his untimely death on 24 January 2024.

Their resurfacing now is an exercise in cynicism by still-living senior leadership figures in WMFS like Satinder Sahota seeking to divert attention from scrutinising him, to scrutinising the legacy sexual misconduct of a dead man.

Many including Wayne Brown's former colleagues at LFB, the female firefighters accusing him of sexual assault and/or rape, and Oliver Lee during his time as WMFS CFO tried to open investigations and bring open public scrutiny against Brown even if would be posthumous in nature.

All have either been gagged with NDAs, threatened into silence with gross misconduct workplace tribunals, or forced to quit the firefighting industry under duress and political pressure from vested established individuals within the various fire services and governance authorities involved.

See for instance Oliver Lee's LinkedIn post from last week.

Oliver Lee demonstrated excellent instinct in receipt-keeping with his follow-up LinkedIn post, whereby he posted email correspondence he had sent to WMFRA members back when he was Chief Fire Officer.

He would follow up with a post on 24 April 2025, alleging in excruciating fashion how he was muzzled by then-WMFRA Chairman Greg Brackenridge after he dared to present a full, warts and all briefing to WMFRA members about the exact state of WMFS he inherited from Wayne Brown as well as legacy complaints about his sexual misconduct.

As for the exact nature of the sexual misconduct complaints levelled against Wayne Brown and suppressed by the existing powers at WMFS and WMFRA, I have personally sighted and read multiple official witness statements filed by several complainants, some of whom are still serving members within WMFS and LFB including one who is still a Station Officer.

In total, we have:

• 2 rape complaints

• A history of sexually inappropriate behaviour.

• Several women complainants in WMFS.

• Historical complaints in LFB

• Admission from a female member of staff sending nudes to Brown's work (taxpayer funded) phone.

In the spirit of discretion and respecting their expressed wishes I am not publishing any of their statements online even in redacted form, but I can unequivocally state that in all the statements recorded by the complainants they have unanimously stated that they are willing to attend court and provide evidence if necessary.

A former colleague of Wayne Brown at London Fire Brigade, Aaron Roche (who was one of the first responders to the London 7/7 Bombings in 2005) even went as far as describing Brown as the “Jimmy Savile of UK Fire & Rescue Service”.

The fact that mainstream media news on Fleet Street seem loathe to do any sort of investigative journalism into these longstanding rumours and allegations has certainly helped to stifle what little public scrutiny might have existed on the sexual misconduct and abuse of power committed by an individual who has been for the longest time memorialized and lionized as the UK's "first black fire chief".

After all in an era of society and establishment powers in the UK seeking to chart a path of greater racial diversity representation particularly in industries that have for the most part been perceived as or statistically demonstrated to be the realms of middle-aged white men, it wouldn't do to look too closely and find that the flagbearers for underrepresented demographics breaking glass ceilings aren't actually the paragons of infallible virtue they are presented as to the public.