Dear Sir,

A recent article by your contributor, Rowland Taylor's Ghost, rum, sodomy and the lash, here... may have given some of your readers a less than complete picture of the details surrounding the recent Nub News piece about recruitment processes at Hadleigh Town Council, and of my own conduct in leading the Council.

I am, of course, grateful for the comments about my efforts as Mayor to put my position to use in the fight against the pandemic and in support of the vaccination programme.

I am sorry, however, that your columnist took away more than he gave in what followed. I must point out that the changes recently made to the Council's standing orders do not remove the right to ask questions, but say only that questions should not normally be asked. This is because the great majority of questions posed in the past would not have needed to be asked if the councillors concerned had read the supporting paperwork properly, paperwork fully available to the public as well on the Council's website.

The Council has always had as its policy that each councillor may speak once on each agenda item. When I have a councillor muted, it is because they have had their turn and may not speak again. These were the rules before I was elected Mayor, and it is my duty to enforce them. However frustrating some councillors may find this, that does not entitle them to call me a hypocrite and a liar, as I have been called in full council.

The recent discussion arising from your article concerning our recruitment process has also been made less easy to understand. You and your contributor have the public interest defence available to you in making these revelations, but any platform that publishes them further does not – Facebook is adamant that it is not a journalistic platform, and therefore the noticeboards that repeat your piece do not have the defence available to your own website. Hence my messaging them in advance, although I do regret that my attempt to do this subtly left it open to misinterpretation.

Obviously your contributor cannot have been aware of my reasons, and I hope that you will allow me this clarification.

Your columnist also gives an incomplete picture of the justification for the council's seeking the return of the material used in your article. (full story here) This was done on the specific advice of the Information Commissioner's Office, and it is only fair that our authority for this request be made public.

I will pass over the implicit slight to my 19 years of service to this country as a naval officer, but I do feel that if your contributor is going to intervene so directly in the electoral process in this town, it should not be done under the cloak of a nom de plume.

Yours faithfully,

Frank Minns

Hadleigh Town Mayor

*Editor's Note

It should pointed out, as previous articles have done, that although councillors can only ask questions at the chair's discretion and that could be seen as stifling debate and freedom of speech at council meetings.

All social media platforms, including local Facebook groups, are allowed to share news articles and information that is in the public domain, such as Cllr Carol Schleip's admission of prejudice against implying ex-service personnel (full story here) unless they are defamatory, abusive, discriminatory or incite violence. Fortunately the local admins did not buckle under the pressure by the mayor to stifle free speech and sweep wrongdoing under the carpet.

It is interesting the mayor is more interested in not allowing details of the meeting to be shared and insisting the details of the meeting to be returned to the council, even though a recording is in their possession, the memory stick, which is not the council's property, be sent to them or be destroyed (so no evidence of the prejudice exists outside the council) than condemn the comments.

Nub News contacted the Information Commissioner's Office and are advised as journalists have a lawful exemption in terms of GDPR and data protection, we indeed do not have to acquiesce to the request by council.

As the council's Armed Forces Covenant representative, Cllr Minns appear on platforms such as Armed Forces Day and Royal British Legion events, while failing to protect ex-services from prejudice by a fellow Hadleigh Together councillor, perhaps he should not be surprised at being described as a hypocrite in various quarters.

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