When a Hearing is not a Hearing

 Anyone attempting to follow the Hearing of 30 April 2024 might have found it difficult to follow since the microphones were not working properly neither were the subtitles up to scratch.  'Councillor' was transcribed as 'Chancellor', for example - and that was the least of it.  Trying to follow what was being said using the subtitles was therefore not only difficult but almost impossible.  The text presented to the hearing is below:   

I am attending this hearing because it is important to know what it is that I am being accused of. The Monitoring Officer in June 2023 asked the complainants to provide him with the 'specifics'  - ie the evidence to support their allegations.   Without it, he stated  he could not proceed.  It has taken two years and a new MO to arrive at this point.  2024 is a different country, it seems.     If evidence was submitted, then I have not seen it.  I have looked at the allegations against me and I do not recognise myself or my behaviour in any of them.

From the first meeting I attended when I opened the door someone shouted at me to ‘Get Out’.  That set the tone for the next two years where the effort and hard work of this council seemed, to me, to be persuading me to resign.  Placed in a similar position many people would have bailed long before this. I have remained to see, how authority deals with truth and justice and because residents have asked me to.

I have been accused of bullying, harassment, intimidation, and all the other words which meet the criteria for a breach of the Code of Conduct. I am not a bully, I am not a liar, I do not intimidate – or anything else that I am being accused of.  I am direct, and I try to be clear in what I am trying to say, especially to authority.  Speaking truth to power is never easy, and, seemingly, dangerous, if there is anything to hide.  However, this is not the same, and should not be confused with bullying, harassment and intimidation.

I  have not brought the Parish Council into disrepute, in fact I have tried to prevent that from happening, which is why I have not brought complaints against it, or my fellow councillors, although I would have been justified in doing so.  Any disputes or clash of views, I thought, could be dealt with internally and within the parish council.  Except in this parish council there is no rule or procedure to deal with any internal disputes – only referral straight to the Monitoring Officer for consideration.   It wold appear that the allegations were not considered, sufficient to justify a complaint, since they remained with the  Monitoring Office for the past two years.  It was my understanding that such complaints had to be dealt with as soon as possible or at least within a year.  The Monitoring Officer suggested that making a compliant would be expensive and counter productive.  Also if evidence was not forthcoming then a case could not be brought.  If evidence was provided, then I have not seen it and this might raise issues of fairness, even impartiality regarding this hearing.  

I have refuted all the allegations made against me by the three councillors and those made against me by the Betley resident. 

The evidence for my rebuttals of these complaints are contained in the evidence I have submitted.  

It is the  complainants and the Chair of the Parish Council who have insisted on taking the matter further.  This is why we are here tonight, and it is costing residents of Betley Parish almost £24,000 - and counting. 

The solicitor in her report stated that she had not focussed on the individual complaints, but instead, she had chosen the ‘clearest examples' rather than taking a decision in relation to each complaint.

In using this methodology, it seems to me she has focussed and relied heavily upon 15 phrases which had been selected by the Clerk  from around 1200 pages of information I submitted to her as evidence – ie around 2%.  The phrases used have been removed from their context, and in the interests of this hearing, context is everything. 

Had the Minutes, and emails been scrutinized it would have been noted that what I had written had been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and in my view, and as the author, even misused. There were certainly a lot of emails and I did not generate them all, which has been suggested.  It takes two to prolong or widen a discussion, or to have an exchange of view, and to come to a compromise.  In Betley, there seems to be only one view - that of the Chair, supported by the Clerk and agreed by the other Councillors.

At any one time there were up to six councillors firing emails at me - also the Clerk and Chair to whom I was obliged to respond.  I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t, it seems.

The context, if it had been included, would show that these phrases were part of an explanation and came with all kinds of caveats, and were tempered by words such as  'might', 'could', 'if', 'perhaps' etc.  Unfortunately, the phrases selected have been divorced from these words, which then presents them as bald statements which they were not.  To remove them from their context would be a disservice and a misinterpretation of their meaning.  For example, if Minutes of meeting were not entirely accurate and if they had been voted by members as being accurate when they were not, then they would indeed, and in my view, not be worth the paper they were written on. In pointing this out to the Clerk I was trying to prevent the council from being brought into disrepute.          

In asking questions and raising issues I am doing my duty as a councillor.  I write reports, I read the information papers and policy documents and especially the Minutes.   The Solicitor claims that it was not her brief from the borough council to determine whether the Minutes were or weren’t accurately recorded.  And yet this hearing rests mainly on that issue. 

Given that new Minutes are produced each month, each month they raise issues and therefore comments from me, especially where I have been mentioned in a derogatory way.  Minutes should be objective and impartial.  In pointing this out I have been ostracised when the objective has been to try to introduce amendments and corrections which would have made them accurate. This endeavour and intent, is also evidenced by documents and emails contained in the evidence and rebuttals I have submitted.

The sticking points also appears to be attached to giving information to residents.  I have started a newsletter and I keep an independent personal blog in order to keep Wrinehill residents informed.  The Parish council is an administration and a bureaucracy.  It generates information that is not the council’s property but public property which needs to be distributed and made known to its public.  On this point there is a clear clash between my view and that of this Parish Council, which should have been reconciled in house.

I drew up a list of ten contentious issues.  Of these eight were contentious because they were about me producing and distributing  information and/or placing information into the public domain.

I am here today charged with disrupting my fellow councillors, possibly owing to the occasional regretful use of phrase from time to time, born out of frustration.   However, as per the  Council’s code of conduct disrespectful behaviour  can take many forms.  For example, any behaviour that a reasonable person would think would influence the willingness of a councillor to speak up because they expect the encounter would be unpleasant is one definition of disrespectful.    Every time I raised a question or an issue, eyes were rolled, glances were shared and reference to time taken were continuously made etc..  Standing alone in a room with a hostile atmosphere month after month, is hardly the action of a bully. 

Bullying maybe characterised as offensive, insulting or humiliating behaviour, that can make a person feel vulnerable upset or undermined,  all things that I am accused of today. I have been subjected to collective offensives whether by inference or directly given; such as the label given and shared amongst my colleagues: Councillor Draucla Smith, for instance, or made to feel that I did not fit in because it was interpreted by one Councillor, that I was ‘upsetting the apple cart’.  I wonder which box in the integrity and respect criteria of the Code of Conduct this coercive behaviour would tick?  Unfortunately much of this could have been avoided and certainly reconciled with discussion (not argument), patience (not impatience).

My questions and any attempts to assure accuracy, or comments on issues that were raised in meetings, were interpreted as 'nit-picking', 'digging', 'an audit', as 'derogatory' and 'criticism' of the council.  And this might have been because my questions revealed many omissions, errors and lack of written procedures which councillors need in order to operate openly, transparently and objectively.  I was therefore attempting to do my duty.  I did not harass the Clerk or bully him or do anything else that has been alleged.

Although it was resolved that the style of the minutes be changed so that they would be more objective, impartial and less pointed at one individual, this did not happen.  This behaviour therefore could also be brought into question. 

Each month a new set of Minutes were produced in the style adopted since May 2022 when I joined the council.  Since I objected to this style, failure to change it could be construed as a form of bullying, which was guaranteed to bring a response from me, that the Clerk knew would be direct.   That behaviour could also be interpreted as harassment and an attempt to  ‘build up a case’ of repetition.   The evidence suggests this.

The Clerk has a long history and experience of council and political work.  He revealed in documents, that I have only recently seen, that he was a parliamentary candidate, a life-long member of a political party, a councillor and a clerk, elsewhere.  With all this experience it would be expected that he would have known how to maintain a balance within the council, how to ensure that individuals were not isolated and targeted, bullied and intimidated. And to ensure that there were procedures in place to deal with such behaviour. This would be the remit of any clerk.

It has however taken two years, and a week before retirement, to make a complaint against me, and another three months after retirement to provide any evidence, such as it is.   I am therefore sorry that the first three months of retirement had to be spent in this way.  Unfortunately, the complaints have dictated how I spend my time, too.

In summary I would like to say - and although I say it last, it is not least, I did not envisage that in trying to be a good councillor that I would be upsetting my fellow councillors, and that I would be spending most of my time firefighting.  So, for any unintentional upset, because it was never intentional, I would apologise.

It is unfortunate there has been what the former MO called a ‘clash of personalities’.  I am not known as an attacker, but I will certainly defend.  To avert a clash, however, there has to be compromise. Mediation was offered to the Chair of the Parish Council in December 2022 as a positive, even cheaper way forward, but the Chair did not pursue that.  I also offered to sit down with the clerk and talk things through.  I did not receive a response.

Perhaps I also held the view, wrongly, that a Parish Council was a tier of government and governance.  In this I might have had expectations that were not aligned to the practices, or views of this council.  Perhaps my expectations for accuracy in Minutes and other council business were also too high.  So, for that, I also apologise.

I have a high regard for truth and honesty, fairness, justice and objectivity.  I can say in all honesty and in good faith, backed by the evidence that has been submitted by me, that I have stuck to those principles.  So I am not going to apologise for that.

As the odd one out I was expected to compromise and fit in, regardless.  When I came to this council I did not expect any concessions,  but I did come with the expectation of being treated as an equal.  I apologise for making that assumption.  

As per the local authorities Code of Conduct, I have been given a democratic mandate to represent the public interest and inform them of the action of the Council.  As I am sure this hearing is aware, the Code of Conduct clearly states that Councillors are expected to express challenge, criticise and disagree with views ideas, opinions and policy. Therefore, as a Councillor I have performed my duties within the remit of this Code.  The Code does not apply to me alone, but also to my fellow councillors.                  

Thank you for your time.            

 

A Drakakis-Smith

30 April 2024