A hearing held yesterday at County Hall found Cllr Mazillius guilty of breaching the Councillors Code of Conduct and was ordered to apologise to a member of the public that he’d insulted.
The sub-committee of the Ethical Standards Committee, comprising independent members, Captain Anthony Brimble (chair) and Ray Smith, as well as Lib Dem councillor for Totland, John Howe, considered the complaint made against the councillor.
The complaint arose from two emails written by Cllr Mazillius that the complainant, Stephen Turner of Cowes, felt were insulting and disrespectful.
Cllr Mazillius was represented by his lawyer, something we understand is quite unusual in these type of cases. The investigating officer was represented by another member of the IWC legal team.
In June 2010, unhappy with the announcement by Leader of the council, David Pugh, that he would be creating an additional position on the Cabinet (which Cllr Mazillius filled), Mr Turner wrote to his local councillor Lora Peacey-Wilcox. He asked for Cllr Peacey-Wilcox to make enquiries on his behalf.
Fearful of reprisal
Mr Turner told the members of the sub-committee that Cllr Peacey-Wilcox was reluctant to pose the questions on Mr Turner’s behalf, fearful, he said, of the reaction she’d get from the council leadership. Instead she suggested a few names of other councillors who may wish to pass on the enquiries on his behalf.
One of those names was Cllr Patrick Joyce, which Mr Turner said although he had never met him, he recognised from press reports, so he emailed Cllr Joyce, once again asking that his enquiries be passed on to the council leadership.
The enquiry
The email started by suggesting that during times of cutbacks, Cabinet members take a 25-30% pay cut.
It questioned the creation of a new cabinet position by Cllr Pugh for what Mr Turner referred to as, ‘his friend Mr Mazillius’, and suggested that the salaries of Chief Executive and the higher echelons of the council should be equal to the value of their input to ‘Island Life’.
The use of this phrase later raised a bizarre comparison by the defendant to the monthly magazine, Island Life, when he appeared confused by what Mr Turner had meant by the term.
Disillusioned with council
In the email, Mr Turner went on to say that he’d lived on the Island all his life, had been paying council tax longer than Cllr Pugh had been alive and was “most disillusioned with the manner in which this council is representing us.”
This reference to how long Cllr Pugh had been alive was later used by the defence, claiming it was an attack on Cllr Pugh’s youthfulness and therefore implying he wasn’t experienced enough for the job.
Mr Turner claimed that he was just stating a fact.
Response from Cllr Mazillius
Following the request by Mr Turner, Cllr Joyce forwarded the email to Cllr Pugh and copied in all members of the council.
Later that evening, Cllr Joyce received an email from Cllr Mazillius.
In it, Cllr Mazillius suggested that the “constituent” (his speech marks) compared the performance of the council with others including levels of salaries and council tax, going on to say that “if he has any intelligence to carry out that exercise, he might find he is not so badly off after all.”
In the email, he went on to say to Cllr Joyce, “If your ambition is to convey puerile fabricated complaints of the type sent, may I suggest you lay down in a quiet room and reflect on the meaning of life.”
This email was forwarded by Cllr Joyce to the complainant, Mr Turner.
Mr Turner then wrote to Cllr Mazillius, advising him that he was a real constituent and that he found the reply insulting and disrespectful.
Accused of subterfuge
Cllr Mazillius replied to Mr Turner’s email, not offering an apology, but instead accusing him of being involved in subterfuge.
During the hearing, Mr Turner explained that following the flow of emails, he sought advice from his HR department, not using names, but setting out the scene and enquiring as to whether that kind of behaviour would be acceptable in the multi-billion pound company that he worked for. The conclusion was No. He also sought advice from other constituents, including those who had voted for Cllr Mazillius and also researched him online.
Following this, he felt it was important to make a formal complaint against Cllr Mazillius for attempting to bully another councillor and for treating a member of the public with disrespect.
When asked by the sub-committee how he felt about receiving the second email from Cllr Mazillius, Mr Turner replied that he felt he’d been insulted and thought it was something you’d hear on a comedy programme. He said that despite asking straightforward questions of the council, he was bemused at the suggestion of subterfuge.
“Could have been avoided”
Mr Turner went on to say that the enquiry could have been avoided if Cllr Mazillius had apologised to him at that stage.
Two hours into the hearing, Mr Turner had to leave to go to work. The hearing continued, as all parties had finished questioning him, but it meant that he missed hearing the case put forward by the defence.
Step forward the defence
The defence argued that Mr Turner’s email was aggressive, offensive and insulting.
It was argued that there would be no justification for a long-standing member (ie. Cllr Peacey-Wilcox) to feel unable to forward an email from a constituent to the leadership, calling into question Mr Turner’s suggestion that Cllr Peacey-Wilcox was afraid of reprisal.
Cllr Mazillius claimed the email had been an unwarranted attack on the administration at County Hall and that the email had been “defamatory within the legal meaning of the word.”
He felt it warranted a robust reply and called the first email by Mr Turner inaccurate, undeserved and insulting.
“I do not feel I have breached the code of conduct”
As he now understood Mr Turner to be a real person, he said he would offer an apology if Mr Turner genuinely felt insulted by the comments (he had already apologised to Cllr Joyce), but went on to say that he never believed the email would be put in the public domain.
Cllr Mazillius went on to say that he felt Mr Turner’s email had been “full of bile and nasty comments”, and was “an inaccurate ill-informed criticism of people who worked hard”.
Of his emailed replies to Mr Turner, Cllr Mazillius said, “To a great extent, it was appropriate,” arguing that he was “surely entitled to the same degree of freedom of speech.”
He finished his defence by stating that, “I do not feel I have breached the code of conduct.”
Political jousting
Cllr Mazillius was then questioned by council’s legal officer, the first two questions of which, like a true politician, he managed to dodge answering.
He went on to claim that had he known the email was going to be sent to a member of the public that he would not have used the same language. He argued the response had been in the nature of political jousting, believing that Cllr Joyce had invented the “constituent” and so he responded appropriately.
The officer pointed out that it was not uncommon for members of the public to pose questions in a confrontational or provocative manner and that councillors must still respond with respect.
In his summing up, the officer found that Cllr Mazillius had treated Mr Turner with disrespect by insulting him, but had not brought the council into disrepute.
“Sails close to the wind”
The defence had a final chance to put forward their case. After going over much of what had already been stated, he explained that Cllr Mazillius’ “shoot from the hip” “sails close to the wind” attitude is what endears him to many of his constituents.
He ended by saying that Mr Turner had agreed in the interview with the Investigating Officer that, “If you truly believe that someone is made up, you can’t insult them.”
Final verdict
After nearly five hours of hearing prosecution, defence and taking the time to consider the case, the sub-committee presented their findings.
For the case against ‘bringing the council into disrepute’, the sub-committee agreed that this code held a higher benchmark and they were satisfied that the public confidence had not been reduced. There would be no action for this part of the complaint.
For ‘treating a member of the public with disrespect’, they agreed that Cllr Mazillius had indeed insulted Mr Turner and for this he must formally apologise. The wording of the apology would be agreed by the Ethical Standards Committee in the next two weeks.
The chair said that they accepted that Cllr Mazillius “did not intend to insult Mr Turner” as he thought that he was writing to another councillor. This was considered to be an acceptable tone between councillors.
It was agreed that the report of the Investigating Officer will be made public. For your convenience, we will embed it here once we receive a copy.
