A councillor has spoken out after abusive messages were sent to her daughter during a controversial consultation into cross-Solent patient travel.
Last November, cabinet member for adult social care, Cllr Clare Mosdell, announced a review into the £60,000 fund for cancer and kidney patients travelling for chemotherapy, radiotherapy and dialysis.
Mosdell: Absolutely appalling trauma
After the cabinet voted unanimously to continue the fund last night, she revealed:
“The trauma this consultation brought to my house, that I can only bring into the public domain now, has been absolutely appalling.”
Mosdell: “A victim online of bullying”
Cllr Mosdell, who lost her father to cancer ten years ago, said the consultation had been a ‘real journey’ for her family.
She said:
“The thing I wanted to question was, what is acceptable in the public domain and how people should be treated? The abuse I was subjected to with this consultation, I felt, was unacceptable.
“But when my daughter is being inboxed and messaged ‘You don’t know what it’s like to feel someone die of cancer’, when she actually lost her grandfather when she was only 13 years old — I think it’s a step too far.
“Where is the line drawn that you are no longer a councillor, but a victim online of bullying, and that bullying is taken into your personal life and to your children?”
Home addresses to be withheld
Cllr Mosdell said councillors should be able to defend themselves from bullying and abuse publicly.
New legislation is being brought in that will mean those standing for the council at the next election would not have to disclose their address.
Council leader, Cllr Dave Stewart, said this was due to similar concerns of bullying.
Image: © Tom Stroud
