COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

A Nuneaton councillor has been suspended for breaching a code of conduct while serving as mayor.



Tom Wilson was found guilty of attending three business ventures in his official capacity, arriving in the civic car for one of them, being photographed using fitness equipment while wearing the mayoral chains and not declaring the offer of free use of a health club.

The unprecedented disciplinary action followed complaints from other councillors, which resulted in a two-and-a-half hour meeting at the Town Hall yesterday.

The three-man Standards Committee panel was made up of Coun John Waine (Tory), Coun Martyn Findley (Ind) and local resident Tom Knight and the decision was to ban Coun Wilson from attending all council meetings for two months.

“I will definitely be lodging an appeal,” said the St Nicolas Ward representative. “I can honestly say that I never deliberately did anything to undermine the office of mayor.

"All I ever tried to be during my term of office was a community-minded person and I feel I have been very harshly treated.”

Coun Wilson was mayor for 12 months from May 2009, during which time he resigned from the Tory group to be an Independent member. Last year he was diagnosed with leukaemia and had a bone marrow operation.

The complaints were outlined to the committee by borough council legal officer Philip Richardson.

Tom told he has the right to appeal

FORMER Mayor Tom Wilson has been granted permission to appeal against his suspension for breaching Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council’s code of conduct.

Councillor Wilson was banned from sitting at council meetings for two months after being found guilty of not acting according to the rules during his term of office.

But he appealed to Local Government Standards in England and has been told he can question the judgement.

He has been granted what is known in legal terms as a `stay’ and his suspension is automatically lifted while the appeal process is in force.

A former Conservative member, who now sits as an Independent, Cllr Wilson said: “I am not taking this as an indication that my appeal will be successful.

“But I am delighted that Local Government Standards have looked at my case and decided to give me permission to appeal.”

A standards sub-committee sitting at the Town Hall decided that he was guilty of three breaches of the code of conduct for members while he was mayor in 2009/10.

The sub-committee ruled that he should not have used the mayoral car to attend the opening of a pharmacy at St Nicolas Park, which is the ward he represents, and being photographed in his chain office while using equipment at Nuffield Health Club.

Cllr Wilson was also told he was in breach of the rules for not registering the fact that the health club had given him free use of its facilities for three months, amounting a `gift’ worth more than £25 which has to be declared.

At the time Cllr Wilson said: “The punishment just doesn’t fit the crime. I didn’t expect privileged treatment, but I did expect fair play.”

He insisted that failing to register the `gift’ from the health club was an `oversight’ and that he had apologised to the standards sub-committee.

Cllr Wilson also intends to appeal after being censured and requested to make an apology in the press for refusing to judge a Hallowe’en pumpkin competition as mayor because he feels Hallowe’en is a Pagan festival and is against his religious beliefs.

His suspension from formal council meetings was due to end on February 15, but it was lifted in time for him to chair a meeting of the council’s economic scrutiny committee at the Town Hall last night.