Hadleigh mayor Frank Minns has been accused of 'sweeping things under the carpet' after he rejected a call for events at a staffing sub-meeting be looked at and a recording of those proceedings released to councillors.

The charges were levelled at him last night at a full Hadleigh Town Council meeting on Thursday night after he used his casting vote to reject a request to hold an investigation into allegations of prejudice at the meeting to discuss staff appointments.

Cllr Minns joined in with Rolf Beggerow and Carol Schleip, who both sit on the staffing sub committee, in voting against a motion put by Cllr Andrew Knock, seconded by Cllr Angela Gregg and supported by Cllr Gordon McLeod, with two other councillors abstaining.

The motion by Cll Knock read: "The council will carry out an investigation into the alleged disclosure of prejudice during the discussions at the staffing sub committee during a recent selection process. This motion does not seek to reverse or overturn the selection decision made by the council."

As chair Cllr Minns used his casting vote to ensure the motion failed prompting Cllr Knock to say the vote was 'an embarrassment' and suggested the matter was 'being swept under the carpet'.

Cllr Minns had not wanted the item to be heard in the public domain citing concerns names might be mentioned during the discussion and had moved it to the confidential section of the agenda. However, Cllr Knock took advice from a Babergh monitoring officer and pointed out the item could be heard in the public section. New town clerk Wendy Brame also advised the motion could be heard in public and Cllr Minns acquiesced once he was assured no personal details would be revealed.

The mayor also faced accusations of rudeness and hypocrisy after demanding councillors respected his position as chair and not try and make points, although he had constantly talked over councillors during the meeting and refused to make full replies to statements.

Cllr Minns had argued: "There are issues raised by this which need wider consideration. There are potential problems here and there are potential problems in other aspects in the way we do our business. I have not seen the reports, which you refer and I will be quick to do so.

"It seems to me if we are going to take a larger, longer view lat the way this council behaves and runs its business then this motion is almost beside the point in that all such matters would have to be considered within the scope of a broader policy of how we treat each other and treat the staff and what is, and is not, acceptable, which at the moment I think is presently insufficiently defined. So my preference would be we bring before the council a motion which draws all these issues into focus and seeks to find a consensual way forward."

Cllr Minns felt the council did not have the power to carry out any disciplinary process and the matter should be referred as code of conduct complaint to the monitoring officer.

As Cllr Knock was responding he asked Cllr Minns to follow the process set out by him in terms of not speaking more than once and Cllr Minns appeared to lose his temper and shouted: "You will pay respect to the chair, you will not speak to the chair in that manner."

Cllr Gregg interjected and said: "But it is okay for the chair to talk to us like a bit of dirt.."

Cllr Minns then asked the town manager to mute Cllrs Knock and Gregg again. (He had ordered the pair to be muted earlier in the meeting when they were making statements as per an agenda item - (full story here...)

Cllr Minns then threatened to suspend the meeting if people did not respect the chair and shout over one another.

Cllr Knock was then allowed to continue and argued code of conduct complaints were not possible until the evidence was allowed to be seen, and the decision should be related purely to the agenda item and not anything else.

During the debate Cllr Beggerow asked Cllr Knock what process he felt the investigation should follow and what he hoped would be achieved.

Cllr Knock admitted he did not know as he was not an expert in this field but asked Cllr Beggerow to release the video recording of the meeting, which he has not yet done.

Cllr Gordon McLeod agreed a full investigation should be carried out and said: "If we are going to investigate an allegation it should be done from all fronts because there were allegations going two ways, we can't just do one side, we have to do the whole lot."

Cllrs Minns, Beggerow and Schleip are all members of Hadleigh Together, which stood on a platform of openness and transparency among other things.

• You can see and hear for yourself what was said on Thursday evening as the full council meeting was recorded on Zoom and open to the public. For a copy of the recording contact: [email protected]