Agenda item

Documents attached:

Complaint by Mr J Thrift;

Report by the Investigating Officer;

Email chain relating to complaints 08/20; 013/20; 023/20.

Ms J Andrews, Investigating Officer presented a summary of her investigation report into complaint 023/20 and outlined her findings, hat the conduct of Cllr P Yeo, mouthing abusive language with the associated hand gesture, which Cllr P Yeo had not denied and which could be seen on the recording of the meeting, was in breach of the Code of Conduct, by failing to treat his fellow councillors with respect, and his behaviour could reasonably be regarded as bringing the council into disrepute.

 

The Chairman then invited Cllr P Yeo to ask questions of the Investigating Officer.  Cllr P Yeo had no questions.

 

The Chairman invited questions from Cllr R Adkins and Cllr W Trite, who both confirmed that they had no questions for the Investigating Officer.

The Independent Person, Mr M Powell confirmed that he had no questions for the Investigating Officer.

 

The Chairman invited Cllr P Yeo to present his response to the Sub-committee.

 

Cllr P Yeo made the following points:

Cllr P Yeo had complained to the Chief Executive of Dorset Council and  would be referring the procedure for all of the complaints to the Local Government Ombudsman;

The Localism Act stated that only serious matters should be investigated under code of conduct;

Cllr P Yeo referred to the conduct of others and points of procedure at the meeting in question, including that his microphone had been turned off;

Cllr P Yeo had been standing up for Cllr K Tippins;

Cllr P Yeo admitted that he used a well known hand signal to show his distain towards the conduct of others in the meeting;

The Independent Person had not recommended that the complaint should be investigated;

He had not brought  the Town Council into disrepute;

Others had commended Cllr P Yeo for standing up to malicious malignant bullies. 

 

The Investigating Officer had no questions.

Mr J Thrift had no questions.

Cllr R Adkins had no questions.

In response to a question from Cllr W Trite, Cllr P Yeo did not withdraw his use of the term ‘malignant’ and commented that he thought it was a good expression.

Mr M Powell confirmed that he had no questions.

 

At that point (15.16pm) members of the Sub-committee, Deputy Monitoring Officer and clerk to the committee moved into exempt business to consider the decision of the Sub-committee.

 

At 15.38pm the members of the Sub-committee returned to the meeting to announce the decision. 

 

Decision

 

Members of the Sub-committee having viewed the agenda documents and the videos and having listened very carefully to all of the representations made find that the standards displayed by Cllr P Yeo in a public meeting to be vulgar, rude and offensive and therefore find most strongly that Cllr P Yeo breached the Shaftesbury Town Council Code of Conduct, specifically Section 2.1(b) ‘respect to others’ and Section 2.2 (g) ‘bringing the council into disrepute’. 

 

The Sub-committee send the clearest message that this type of conduct will not be tolerated and therefore censure Cllr P Yeo in the strongest possible terms.    

 

The Chairman pointed out that the decision of the Sub-committee was final and that there was no right of reply and no right of appeal to Dorset Council.