Councillor accused of "bullying" and asking for political favours cleared

Cllr Roy Emmett of Hainault ward had been accused of allegedly “bullying” a fellow councillor and of trying to politically influence a planning application decision via email.

The former councillor who issued the complaint against Cllr Emmett also asked for the Labour chief whip’s involvement in the Labour Group’s candidate selection process prior to the 2018 local elections to be looked into.

But Cllr Emmett was cleared of all allegations and the council’s monitoring officer resolved to take no further action.

In 2016, Cllr Emmett was alleged to have sent an email to the then head of the planning committee asking him to “do his best” regarding an application in Hainault.

According to the monitoring officer’s report, Cllr Emmett was not the Labour chief whip at the time of sending the 2016 email, but was a ward councillor so “there was no indication that he was ‘instructing’ the chair to vote in a way.”

The report also found that Cllr Emmett had sent the email rather than appearing at the committee meeting in person because he was receiving medical treatment which made talking difficult.

The report said: “It is part of a ward councillor’s role to represent their constituents and pass on their views to the relevant decision-making bodies.

“It would have been preferable for the email to have been sent to all relevant members of the regulatory committee to ensure openness and transparency. It is incumbent on members of the committee to avoid pre-determining any planning application.”

The allegations of bullying and intimidating and the request to look into Cllr Emmett’s role in the candidate selection process were also dropped.

It was found that Cllr Emmett “was not acting in councillor capacity” in either instance and that the allegations fall outside the scope of the Members’ Code of Conduct and outside the jurisdiction of the council’s monitoring officer.