Below is a long article detailing an experience that has left us shocked.
This is not about a disagreement between two media outlets on the Isle of Wight (as some senior council officers tried to paint it as).
This is far more important.
At the core of it, this is about being able to believe the word of an elected official. An official with tremendous responsibility and an oversight of large budgets.
It’s the background to the article published a few weeks ago about Cabinet member Cllr Jon Gilbey’s u-turn on information provided to the press.
It wasn’t appropriate to put all of that detail into that piece, so instead we’ve laid it bare below. Initially as a bulleted summary. Below that, the full detail.
The summary
- In Nov 2013 the County Press (CP) ran an article stating that a decision had been made in private by a Cabinet member
- OnTheWight spoke to the accused Cabinet member
- He (Cllr Gilbey) denied it and said he’d been mis-quoted by the CP
- OnTheWight ran an article pointing this out, including several verbatim quotes from Cllr Gilbey
- CP editor disputed OnTheWight‘s article
- During two further phone conversations Cllr Gilbey continued to argue the CP article was incorrect
- Council director, Stuart Love, issues statement in which Cllr Gilbey u-turns on what he’d told OnTheWight
- At December 2013 Cabinet meeting CP reporter asks Cllr Gilbey why he told OnTheWight their report was incorrect
- Cllr Gilbey told CP reporter he didn’t speak to OnTheWight
- When challenged by OnTheWight during a subsequent phone call, Cllr Gilbey admitted he’d lied to the CP reporter about speaking to OnTheWight
- OnTheWight published a written apology to CP reporter for believing the word of Cabinet member over them
In summary, OnTheWight‘s experience is that Cllr Gilbey is willing to mislead the press, as well as lie to the press, about the press, with no compunction … and no obvious consequences.
The full detail
Following a Cabinet meeting in October 2013, we were surprised to see an article in the County Press stating the sale of Blackgang Viewpoint car park had been ‘scrapped’ and the decision had been ‘made in private’ (by Cllr Gilbey).
Making decisions in private – as Delegated Decisions were – was something the Island Independents said they would abolish once in power. Naturally, we wrote to the council’s press office and Cllr Gilbey seeking clarification.
Cllr Gilbey: “I was mis-quoted”
Cllr Gilbey was the first to get in touch by calling us. What followed was a long conversation where he outlined the issue. He said,
“I think there was a little bit of a misunderstanding from [the reporter’s] point of view. I was put on the spot last week, when we had the cabinet meeting.”
We told Cllr Gilbey we planned to write a piece letting Islanders know the decision had not been made yet and that it had not been made in private.
When asked what he was planning to do to address the perceived CP error; he said,
“We’re going to have to put something out there, which kind of says that there was no Delegated Decision made – the decision will be made by full cabinet.”
CP editor disputes OnTheWight report
A week or so later we published an article on the strength of what Cllr Gilbey had told us was wrong with the CP article.
We reported what Cllr Gilbey had directly told us, quoting many parts of the phone conversation with him, including where he picked out specific words that he believed the reporter had mis-quoted.
It was made very clear that the article was based on information supplied by Cllr Gilbey. We were simply reporting what he’d told us.
Around an hour after publishing the article, we received an email from CP editor, Alan Marriott, disputing our report.
Gilbey still argued CP report was incorrect
Naturally we take any perceived errors seriously, so we took the very rare action of suspending the article and got in touch with Cllr Gilbey. Once again he very clearly argued that the CP report was incorrect.
We read him a section of the email received from Alan Marriott which said: “Cllr Gilbey was clear — ‘The decision was made by me, but the cabinet was informed of the decision.'”.
We pointed out to Cllr Gilbey that this completely contradicted the conversation that he’d had with OnTheWight previously.
“Yeah it does. It goes back to the old scenario of how things are interpreted.”
Cllr Gilbey said. He continued,
“Umm, and I think the County Press has interpreted it slightly differently. The problem is, I can have an argument with the County Press for the next three months about it, but they’re not going to change their minds.
“It’s just a play on words. That’s what the [CP] have done.”
We spoke to Cllr Gilbey on three separate occasions and each time he still argued that the CP report was incorrect.
Hiding behind a press release
OnTheWight then tried to get clarification from the council. One of the council’s press officers had sat in on the interview Cllr Gilbey had with the CP reporter and would’ve been able to answer whether he’d been mis-quoted or not.
Despite asking several times, our questions remained unanswered. Eventually a statement was issued by the council blaming Cllr Gilbey’s inexperience with the process for the confusion. This didn’t address our queries, but in our view, instead gave something for Cllr Gilbey to hide behind.
We pushed further for answers to our queries and eventually received a statement from the then-Strategic Director, Stuart Love, which read,
“On reflection and having reread the County Press article, Cllr Gilbey is satisfied that he was not misquoted and as such will not be seeking a correction from the County Press.
“Cllr Gilbey would like to apologise for any confusion that has been caused by what was an error on his part due to a lack of understanding of the process at the time as a new member.
Denial
A couple of weeks later, at the December cabinet meeting the CP reporter challenged Cllr Gilbey, asking why he’d told OnTheWight he’d been misquoted in the CP report.
The CP reporter told OnTheWight that Cllr Gilbey’s response to them was, “I didn’t.”
We wrote to Cllr Gilbey on 14th December, asking why he would have lied to a member of the press about what he’d told us.
Lying to the press
No reply came until three weeks later, when Cllr Gilbey finally got in touch to explain his actions. What followed was an extremely frustrating phone call.
When we asked why he’d lied, he first said,
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that.”
He then changed it to,
“It wasn’t deliberately meant like that.”
He tried to divert the conversation, suggesting the council press release issued near the end of November had cleared all the issues up.
Finally
Many, many times we put to Cllr Gilbey that he’d lied. He tried very hard not to directly answer the accusation, but at no point did he deny it.
Finally, Cllr Gilbey came clean, admitting that he had said to the CP reporter that he denied speaking to OnTheWight. When we again asked why he lied, he replied,
“What was done was done and I thought that was the end of it. I didn’t want to start rocking the boat.”
Adding,
“From my point of view, I expect I probably just wanted it to be gone and over and done with.”
The conclusion
This article contains serious allegations. Allegations that OnTheWight can fully backup.
This whole episode was highly regrettable.
There are a number of times it could have been stopped.
Several that were under Cllr Gilbey’s control. Others were under the control of Isle of Wight council officers.
Unfortunately none of them were taken up.
Image: hussainshafei under CC BY 2.0
