Thanks for the E-mails.

Thanks for your E-mails a couple have asked what all this is really about? I have posted most of the details in January and February but I’ll go over the main problem I have with the council here. In fact, my problem is far from being with the whole council it’s with a few councillors who have made me out to be dishonest when in fact it was them who were dishonest. I have always tried to make it clear that my issue is with those few councillors and no one else. Though I do find it difficult to understand why good councillors are prepared to protect them.

I was verbally attacked very loudly by a councillor, in front of the whole council and public gallery during the inaugural council meeting for the new council term following the 2011 elections. That attack was entirely unprovoked and was certainly not the kind of behaviour you would expect of an elected council official.

Initially I insisted the councillor in question should apologise for his actions but soon realised that was an unachievable expectation and informed the council I would accept a simple assurance from the council (as a corporate body) that such an outburst would not happen again. The council refused to give any such assurance, I then submitted a complaint regarding the incident to the Standards Committee.

Those deliberations are a matter of public record and can be found on the East Riding of Yorkshire Web site under the heading “Standards Committee”. Following an investigation a decision was made that no further action would be taken against the councillor because there was a balance in witness statements that said the councillor was the aggressor and an equal number said I was the aggressor. That equality was achieved by four councillors putting in false and very clearly dishonest statements that reversed the roles and put me in the position of being the aggressor while the actual aggressor was put forward as the victim, which effectively got the councillor off the hook.

I protested to the Monitoring Officer and gave a lengthy account of why I considered those councillors had lied to the Standards Committee, there was a pretty much point blank refusal to establish the truth. Following that decision a number of councillors wrote to the Monitoring Officer to protest at the unjust outcome and the method used by a few (4) councillors to achieve it.

There has been what I can only describe as a “Council lockdown” on this subject ever since and therefore the whole council is now protecting the 4 dishonest councillors amongst them.

I’m afraid my conscience would give me no choice as a councillor under those circumstances, I would have to either speak out to avoid further damage to the council’s reputation or resign and insist the matter be resolved. I was prepared to accept a simple assurance from the council that there would be no repeat, I was prepared to accept such an assurance and leave the matter there to avoid further unpleasantness. What I am not prepared to do is quietly allow 4 Preston Parish Councillors to make me out to be a liar by lying themselves, they have by their actions also implied that the Council Chairman, Vice Chairman (at the time) and other councillors were also dishonest in their statements!!

Some people have suggested that I’m bringing the council into disrepute, I disagree, 4 councillors brought Preston Parish Council into disrepute the moment they submitted false statement to the Standards Committee while I am merely trying to clear my name as a result of those false statements.

If these people are prepared to be so dishonest to the Standards Committee on such a piffling item how can we possibly expect them to be honest when conducting other council business in our name?

This is not about me and a couple of councillors, it’s about honesty in public office and the type of people we want to have representing us, I would much prefer to have honest upstanding fellow residents who are connected to our community, have our best interests at heart and who actually care about residents, people we are able to place our trust in. The councillors in question do not meet any of those criteria.

It has been suggested that a petition be submitted to East Riding demanding the issue be resolved in the interests of the Parish and our Council, I’m unsure how that would work, you cannot compel people to have memories least of all accurate memories. Having said that I cannot see how new councillors in their first ever meeting, as councillors with senses heightened would not be unable to recall the incident or at least the main elements even to this day. Are residents interested enough in the people who look after their affairs to take part in such an exercise and seek the truth, I really don’t know but it’s now under consideration.