Female councillors resign over harassment complaint

Claire Hobson announced the group resignations at a full council meeting on Wednesday

Eight female councillors have left an authority's Liberal Democrat group after accusing the council's leader of failing to deal with allegations of bullying and sexual harassment.

Councillor Claire Hobson announced their resignations at a full meeting of Dacorum Borough Council in Hertfordshire.

It comes two weeks after the council’s standards committee dismissed complaints against former council leader Ron Tindall, who denied the allegations.

After the meeting, current leader Adrian England told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “Quite a lot has happened so I think we need to just have a think about what may have caused people to expend quite a bit of procedural venom."

The Liberal Democrats have now lost their majority on the council, which covers Berkhamsted, Tring and Hemel Hempstead and now has 18 Liberal Democrats, 17 Conservatives, 10 independents and four Labour members.

The councillors, who included two cabinet members, will now sit as independents, though they remain members of the Liberal Democrat party.

The other councillors who resigned were Sammy Barry-Mears, Michela Capozzi, Toni Cox, Lara Pringle, Victoria Santamaria, Carole Weston and Sheron Wilkie.

In a statement, the eight councillors said they hoped the council’s Liberal Democrat group “will be investigated by the wider party as having brought the party into disrepute, through the culture of enablement of sexual harassment and the failure of leadership”.

Tindall led the Lib Dem-controlled council from May 2023 until May 2024, stepping down about three weeks after formal complaints were made by two councillors.

It was alleged Tindall's behaviour towards the councillors included several breaches of the council’s code of conduct, constituted harassment and had the potential to bring the authority into disrepute.

After England became leader in May, Tindall briefly became portfolio holder for people and transformation before he was suspended from the Lib Dem group in July.

'Hostile environment for all women'

It is understood that an independent report commissioned by the council found there was “sufficient evidence” Tindall had breached four paragraphs of the code of conduct. The report was provided to members of the standards committee.

The standards committee’s decision to dismiss the complaints was made by four sitting councillors, including three Liberal Democrats.

In their statement, the eight women accused England of creating "a hostile environment for all women".

They said: “The mechanisms in local government do not provide a fair process for elected members to speak up against sexual harassment."

After the meeting, England told the LDRS: “I think I set out in the meeting that there is a different perspective and there are documents to back it up."

A spokesperson for the Liberal Democrat party said it had been made aware of the resignations.