11 January 2008
Councillor disqualified after fraudulently claiming benefits
A former member of Tewkesbury Borough Council and Gloucestershire County Council was banned from being or standing for election as a councillor for four years by the Adjudication Panel for England this week, following a Standards Board for England investigation.
The Standards Board investigated allegations that Councillor Sean Connors had brought his office or authority into disrepute after he pleaded guilty to charges of fraudulently claiming payments over a number of years.
As a councillor, Councillor Connors was entitled to reclaim expenses for childcare if council commitments meant that he had to pay a carer to look after his children. However, his authority became concerned about the validity of his claims and a police investigation revealed that Councillor Connors had never incurred some of the childcare expenses for which he had claimed.
After his conviction Councillor Connors was eventually ordered to pay back the £1,100 he had claimed and given a 200-hour community punishment order. Although he resigned from Tewkesbury Borough Council, the authority from which he claimed the childcare expenses, in November 2006 - a few days before he was originally due to be sentenced - he remained a parish councillor until the elections in May 2007 and was a county councillor until resigning the day before his Adjudication Panel hearing.
The Adjudication Panel for England agreed that Councillor Connors had brought his office and authority into disrepute by making a number of false claims over a prolonged period in his official capacity as a councillor, at the expense of the taxpayer and for his own benefit. The Adjudication Panel disqualified him for four years.
Sir Anthony Holland, Chair of the Standards Board for England, said: “By fraudulently claiming money from his authority for himself, Councillor Connors failed to act with the honesty and integrity that the general public have every right to expect from their local representatives. This was a serious breach of the trust the electorate had placed in him and the four-year ban reflects the seriousness of his conduct.”
Ends.
For media enquiries, contact the press office on 0161 817 5400 or email press.enquiries@standardsboard.gov.uk.
Notes for editors
The Standards Board for England and the Adjudication Panel for England are independent from one another. The Standards Board does not determine sanctions to be imposed on members who have breached the Code of Conduct.
Ethical standards officers employed by the Standards Board investigate potential breaches of the Code of Conduct on the Standards Board’s behalf. At the end of an investigation, the ethical standards officer either makes a finding or refers the case to a local standards committee or the Adjudication Panel if the potential breach is sufficiently serious to warrant some form of sanction.
The Adjudication Panel for England is an independent judicial tribunal. The Lord Chancellor appoints its members following consultation with the Secretary of State for Local Government.
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