A Hadleigh councillor has outlined his reasons why he has been told to make an apology to the town mayor, even though he believes he had already done so.

Councillor Andrew Knock made his apology to mayor Frank Minns in a statement to the full council on Thursday, September 16, and explained how frustration had led to him being censured n the first place.

Cllr Minns, chairing the meeting, interrupted Cllr Knock on more than one occasion telling him that he needed to focus on the apology and not mentioning the staffing sub committee, where an investigation has been called to look at the prejudicial comments made, but had not yet taken place.

Cllr Knock ploughed on until he had finished reading his statement.

Full statement of apology by Cllr Knock:

I have been asked by the Standards Committee of Babergh District Council to apologise to the Chair for speaking over him at a previous council meeting held in September 2020.

I was shocked at this decision because I believed that I had already apologised at the meeting of 17th December 2020.

Because I said I apologise to all councillors instead of saying I apologise to the Chair and all other councillors that was not seen by the Chair as sufficient, and he said so to the Monitoring Office. I was not aware of this until a few weeks ago – until then I had thought the matter had been dealt with.

Let me deal first with why I have to make the apology. At the Sept 2020 meeting the full council were discussing an agenda item to set up a confidential staffing sub committee.

The council insisted that the previous committee had been set up incorrectly and we needed to do it this way to make sure it is correct. They said they had taken advice from SALC and way forward was to set it up as it was presented to the council. This was not true. The committee hadn't been set up incorrectly and the initial advice from SALC wasn't what was in the supporting papers.

Councillor Talbot said all councils basically do it this way, and again that is not true.

I had real concerns about setting up a committee that could meet when it liked and discuss what it liked without any feed back to full council.

You only have to look at the recent press articles surrounding the interview process to see my concerns were justified.

After the shambles that surrounded those interviews the committee was dissolved, and reformed, this time along the line SALC had originally recommended.

My concerns remain that alleged prejudice against ex-military candidates in the staff recruitment process was never investigated. There was a clear case for an investigation but it was blocked.

I am disappointed that the Chair, as the Armed Forces Champion for the Council and himself a veteran, did not do more to uphold the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant, which the Council signed up to.

Although I believe I have already apologised for speaking over the Chair, for the avoidance of doubt I would like to offer my apologies again to the Chair now for my conduct. I hope he is able to accept it.