Warwickshire County Council hires lawyer over councillors' special needs remarks

Councillors Brian Hammersley (L), Jeff Morgan (R) and Clare Golby have apologised for the comments

Warwickshire County Council has asked a lawyer to look into complaints against three councillors accused of making offensive comments about children with special educational needs.

The councillors have faced calls to resign after a parent backlash over the remarks in a council meeting.

The comments included the claim some children were "just really badly behaved".

The three Conservative councillors have since apologised.

The county council launched an investigation in January after receiving hundreds of complaints about the comments by councillors Jeff Morgan, Brian Hammersley and Clare Golby.

The investigation was initially being handled by the council's monitoring officer, who deals with complaints about councillors' conduct.

But in an update on the process, the council said it had appointed an independent external investigator because of the volume of complaints.

The council said Anthony Collins, a law firm based in Birmingham, would carry out the investigation on its behalf.

It will be led by Claire Ward, a solicitor and an expert in council governance who previously served as acting deputy chief executive at Herefordshire Council.

Process update

Ms Ward will examine "a representative sample" of complaints and invite the three councillors to respond.

The solicitor will then produce three investigation reports, which will set out whether the councillors have breached the authority's code of conduct, and if so, propose any punishments if appropriate.

One possible punishment could be a formal statement of disapproval read out at a council meeting.

Councillors may be recommended to undertake training and development, but they would need to agree to this.

If the councillors do not agree with the report or the recommendations, the matter will be referred to a committee of councillors for consideration.

The council estimates it will take about 12 weeks to carry out the investigation and finalise the reports.

The three councillors have already been removed from the committee where they made the remarks, but the leader of Warwickshire County Council, Izzi Seccombe, has resisted calls to suspend them the Conservative group.

Mrs Seccombe has apologised on behalf of the council and said what happened was not characteristic of her administration.