Panto season begins at Wigan Council with corruption and unlawful actions.

 

So we are getting ready for panto season shortly and they’re in full swing in Wigan. This year's production is named, ”His he or his he not a Cllr?” O yes he is - o no he's not. 

For those that do not know, in 2019 Cllr Steve Jones said he was going to resign in the future. He even put a future date to make it clear. The then Chief Executive Donna Hall said she could decide if he had resigned and she decided he had. Fast forward a few months a not one but 2 high court judges agreed with Cllr Steve Jones he hadn’t resigned. So after that she had to go.

So after that, you would think that the council would make sure this doesn’t happen again, and fast forward to June 2021 and Steve thought he had just been elected with a huge majority and he was running a couple of local charities. After a decision to step back from the charities he thought was he should step back from a Cllr and run a by-election and let the people decide as he didn’t want them to think he was pulling the wool over their eyes. A politician with morals.

The rules are very clear and discussed at the previous high court hearing and all parties agree once a Cllr resigns that is it. No one can change their mind, no one can refuse to accept it. It is done! A by-election was called and the people vote for the next Cllr and job done. Not hard.

So when Steve Jones resigned in June that was it. From that very moment he sent the email he was a member of the public. But the Chief Executive with the legal officer in the council and the deputy leader and leader all agreed to let him change his mind and the chief executive spoke and emailed him and said think about it over the weekend and let me know next week. Wrong – illegal action. But at that point, it wasn’t too late to say sorry Steve we have to call a by-election. Then Steve said well if you are ok with it then fine with it then ok. And so the chief executive and all the exec at the council said yes you can be a Cllr again. There you go, the very moment that the unlawful and illegal action was carried out. What they had just done was put a member of the public in as a Cllr, an elected member. A position only the people can put in not them. It’s called democracy. They then carried on as normal and paid him! Yes, they paid a member of the public illegally.

So they thought they got away with it until Michael Moulding sent a letter saying that he had found out about the illegal action and he was going to take them to the high court. The council went to a barrister to and their legal opinion they had broken the rules and they had to sack Steve Jones again otherwise they would lose in the high court.

So now we know the facts and these are not even disputed as the council even said this all of this in a press release and they were just being nice to Steve letting him back as a Cllr. Being nice does not overrule democracy.

His blog helps to explain in simple language the corruption that has gone on and shows how the chief executive and Wigan Council have been paying a member of the public illegally but more importantly letting a member of the public go and sit with elected members and vote on decisions that effects residents of Wigan. The question is how many other members of the public are sitting in Cllrs seats?