Warwick councillor suspended for “threatening” emails and false allegations

Last week Cllr Prabhjiet ‘Bob’ Dhillon (Con, Warwick West) appeared before the hearing sub-committee of the district council’s standards committee.

He had been called to answer complaints made by district council chief executive Chris Elliot of a number of incidents between September 2008 and August 2010 relating to comments Cllr Dhillon had made about officers in emails and at committee meetings open to the public, which Mr Elliot felt was bullying and showed a lack of respect.

In finding Cllr Dhillon guilty of breaching the code of conduct the committee gave him a two month suspended ban from serving on any committee from March 2012, which will not be served if he completes interpersonal skills training.

He must also give a written apology to Mr Elliot and the other officers who had their integrity questioned.

Cllr Dhillon was first elected at the 2007 elections and again in May this year, while he also serves as a councillor on Warwick town council.

He serves on several district council committee’s including planning, overview and scrutiny and the development plan working party. There were seven incidents brought against him at the hearing, three of which were upheld.

The first of which related to false allegations made by Cllr Dhillon in an email on September 18 2009 that officers had deliberately misled the planning committee, which he then further aggravated with emails threatening to go to the press and making further allegations.

The second was with regards to an occasion where he, in a public forum, made allegations of misconduct and incompetence against officers, suggesting they had destroyed relevant documents.

In the decision notice chairman of the sub-committee Clifford Bennett said: “On his own admission, he (Cllr Dhillon) had no basis for his believing his allegations.”

The third incident found him guilty of being “confrontational and unreasonable....threatening and offensive” in an email sent in August 2010.

Mr Bennett added: “The sub-committee recognised these incidents as poor behaviour, which fell just short of breaching the code of conduct for bullying and did breach it with regard to treating others with respect.

“We recognised the commitment and enthusiasm of Cllr Dhillon to his work as a councillor and the impact a full suspension would have on this but at the same time felt that some form of suspension could be merited.”

Cllr Dhillon was unavailable for comment.