A call from a resident for Hadleigh Town Council clerk Wendy Brame and /or the mayor Gordon McLeod to resign over alleged lies told in emails, has been met with derision by the employee.

The incident came at last night's town council meeting at the Guildhall during the public speakers session.

Mr Neil Bevis, who had earlier revealed the council had committed a GDPR breach as part of its Archiving data and reported it, has been left frustrated by the complaints system.

Neil Bevis (Picture: contributed)

As part of his prepared statement Mr Bevis pointed out that there had been conflicting replies in emails sent by McLeod and Brame, and he alleged either one or the other, or both, were lying to him, and possibilly to councillors as well.

Towards the end of his statement Mr Bevis, a respected businessman and food bank organiser, told the council:

I now call for the Town clerk and the Mayor to stand down until it is decided which one of them have lied, and then they need to resign. The people of Hadleigh deserve better than this.

At this point the clerk is clearly seen by members of the public in the hall, and those watching on Zoom, to throw back her head and laugh.

Brame showing contempt at Hadleigh meeting (Picture: Submitted/Zoom)

One observer told Nub News: "It was contemptuous and shows how little regard she has for the people of Hadleigh, abiding by the law and the council's own policies. Yet the deputy mayor, and other councillors said and did nothing.

"It is shocking and shameful."

Mayor Gordon McLeod was once again missing from the monthly meeting, which was chaired by Cllr Bill Wilson.

Mr Bevis warned that not reporting the data breach to the Information Commissioner's Office in a timely and correct way could lead to fines, an extra financial burden that Hadleigh taxpayers would have to meet so it was in the public interest that the breach was highlighted and dealt with correctly by councillors.

Hadleigh council, which lost its General Power of Competency last May when not enough people stood to be duly elected, and they had to co-opt members, while the clerk had not passed the required CiLCA qualification, has been dubbed as England's Most Useless, (EMUs) by residents following a satirical opinion piece by Rowland Taylor's Ghost.

Council dubbed EMUs (Picture: Zoom)

The statement read to the council in full:

Good evening,

I am extremely disappointed at having to return here again, but unfortunately the decision made by the town council was incorrect. If you had investigated the complaint fully, you would have been clearly aware of this.

I now read you the reply from the HTC, sent to me, approximately 14 working hours after my public speech on January 22nd. Please note, they chose not to ask me for the evidence they would have required and still decided an outcome without it.

Monday Jan 22nd 2024. We are aware that there was an issue which started on an independent system that we had no oversight of. The Council considers the Town Clerk's action appropriate to the circumstances.'

What we have, is an admission of the 'breach' but worded in a way to shift the accountability. My complaint was about the data Breach and the word 'Issue' was used in this reply, it can only refer to the 'breach'. I have asked what the words 'Issue, Independent & Oversight mean within this reply and, as of yet, they have chosen not to respond. 

As they dig their hole deeper, we have to go back in time, to an email that was sent on November 24th 2023 from the town clerk.

Part of which reads as follows:

'I confirmed that he had fixed it remotely and we had given him access.'

So, we have one email claiming to be an 'independent system' and that we had no oversight of it. Then another from the Clerk confirming that 'it was fixed remotely and we gave him access – so which one is it? – an independent system or one owned by the council. So out of the two emails one person, or both are not telling the truth, which would indicate the Cllrs have been lied too as well.

Let me clear this up for you – Hadleigh Town Council own the system – they paid £79.99 last February 2023 for a Windows 365 system which includes onedrive, which was in operation during the data breach and is still running now. So, they are responsible for this data breach and responsible for formally reporting it to the ICO. Had HTC bothered to ask me for this information, they would not have needed to embarrass themselves further and tie themselves in knots answering questions and giving replies without adequate information, just in an attempt to close down the clear Data breach that has occurred and distance themselves from it. 

Another point to raise of concern is this - Whose system was it that The Town Clerk gave access to if it wasn't under control of the HTC? If the system was independent as claimed by the Mayor in his email then they had no right to do so and would suggest entering an account that they had no authority to do so, which is another serious 'issue' that now needs to be treated as a new complaint and gives the public a serious concern around the integrity of the people in charge of the HTC as they are definitely making things up as they go along, in an attempt to distance themselves. 

The reply dated Monday 22nd from HTC is a simply a lie. You knew and chose to ignore the complaint for weeks until I called on behalf of my customer.

Once again, no one in the HTC appears to know who is accountable for what, it is an embarrassment.  

I haven't even touched upon the backup system that was in place within the HTC that has potentially backed up the 'breached data' at least 8 times. Do any of you know where the backup is? do you know where its kept? Have you checked it? Maybe it still has all the people's personal data still on it, which includes pension information and financial details? 

With a discrimination complaint now in place against the Hadleigh Town Council from myself, things appear to be falling apart due to breaking their own policies, making policies up and having zero understanding of the Equality act of 2010, of which many errors have been made. 

It is in the public interest to know how the HTC make rules up as they go along to suit their own agenda. You have also left yourself vulnerable to substantial fines due to not reporting the data breach to the ICO within the required period and your subsequent lack of process in rectifying it promptly. If you are fined, this would be another cost to the taxpayer that would never have been necessary if you had done your job properly. 

I finish this discussion looking forward to my confidential meeting with the above evidence and more to highlight the HTC's failing to follow procedures and worst still, to try and shift the blame and not take any accountability.

I now call for the Town clerk and the Mayor to stand down until it is decided which one of them have lied, and then they need to resign. The people of Hadleigh deserve better than this.

Thank you.

Neil J Bevis