Agenda and minutes

Resolved:  The Sub Committee agreed by resolution to open the meeting to the public.  However, due to the nature of the safeguarding duties of the witness, the paperwork would not be released and the identity of the witness and the service user would not be disclosed.

The service user would be referred to as Person X and the witness would be referred to as ‘D’.

Report of Assistant Director – Legal (Monitoring Officer) attached.

The Sub Committee considered a report of the Investigating Officer, Linda Comstive, which requested Members to consider allegations against a Councillor that he had breached the Council’s Members’ Code of Conduct.

At the beginning of the hearing, the Subject Member, Councillor Brierley advised the Sub Committee that he would be represented by Councillor Paul Maiden.

The Councillor stated that he had not received the papers for the hearing with adequate time to consider them properly, and that he was being discriminated against on the grounds of disability (specifically based on his dyslexia). The Sub-Committee were informed that the Councillor:

(a)          had been in receipt of the draft report (which had not been amended) since March 2018;

(b)         had refused to engage with the standards process despite multiple opportunities to do so, other than to state that he had no intention of making a response because the MO had not followed procedure (which was addressed and not accepted at the outset of the standards process);

(c)          had been offered the assistance of a Democratic Support Officer to go through the papers in detail with him but had not taken this offer up.

Councillor Maiden sought to submit as evidence photographs of the exterior and interior of the building in which the alleged behaviour took place, which had since been vacated and had undergone cosmetic changes. Councillor Maiden stated that these photographs were relevant because they showed that the evidence provided by the witnesses could not be correct, specifically that they could not have seen what had happened from where they were positioned, and that the corridor in which the alleged incident took place was very narrow, casting doubt upon the witnesses version of events.

The Councillor was informed that in accordance with the Council's procedure because he had not submitted this evidence in advance of the hearing, nor had he stated that he would be presenting this evidence, the Committee would determine whether it should allow this to be admitted. Having assessed the photographs the Investigating Officer stated that she had no objection to the photographs being admitted, and accordingly the Sub-Committee agreed to their inclusion.

The Sub Committee considered the written and oral representations before them, and having consulted the Independent Person, on the balance of probability agreed the following facts:-

(1)       An incident occurred at Withnall House on 20 October 2017, however, it was unclear how long the incident had lasted;

(2)       The Councillor did gain access to Withnall House, but there was insufficient evidence to determine if he had tailgated or was invited into the building. The Councillor had falsely claimed that he had a meeting with a member of staff within the building;

(3)       The Councillor had repeatedly asked members of staff about a constituent and had talked about them in the corridor.  The Manager told the Councillor that she could not speak about the constituent as there were issues of confidentiality and she did not have her consent, but that he ignored her request  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.