The Coroner last week said the council had played an unusual role in passing information to the press.
Firstly, they’d announced to the press within a day and a half of it becoming disclosed that the Ecoisland CIC was moving to liquidation that they’d referred the matter of unaccounted Government money (given to Ecoisland) to the police.
At the Inquest, Detective Constable Lee Stewart of Hampshire Police, said that the council’s “false allegations were that Mr Green had falsely stated that stages of the project had been completed in order to gain the next funding payment.”
Leaked information about arrest
This premature statement from the council led the police to arrest David Green before investigating the evidence further.
The Guardian reported, ‘after it became known that the Isle of Wight County Press newspaper had received information about the allegation and it was deemed necessary to question him in case an attempt was made to destroy any evidence once the matter was made public’.
Secondly, information about the arrest was also passed from the council to the press.
As the BBC reported, ‘Coroner Caroline Sumeray said the council released information about [David Green’s] arrest to the press prematurely’.
Council refuse to answer questions
Given these very serious issues, OnTheWight wrote to the Isle of Wight council last week with a number of reasonable questions (below).
The council flatly refused to answer any of them.
In response, they sent just two sentences – that they wanted “to extend [their] sympathy and condolences to the family of Mr Green”, then to say “as the matter has now been concluded”, they felt “it would be inappropriate to comment further”.
Why the silence?
Given the depth of the council’s involvement questions should be answered – otherwise how do we know that these two major blunders, that ended up with the premature death of an Islander, won’t be repeated?
OnTheWight will be writing to the two people in the Island Independents that govern County Hall – Ian Stephens (Leader of the council) and Steve Stubbings (Deputy leader) – to see if they believe it’s right that the council should remain silent.
In line with the Bell Principles?
The Island Independents were, after all, elected promising to abide by The Bell Principles, the first line of which is
We will abide wholeheartedly by the spirit and letter of the Seven Principles of Public Life set out by Lord Nolan in 1995: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.
Questions sent to Isle of Wight council
Below are the questions that, so far, the Isle of Wight council has refused to answer.
- The council very quickly alleged a fraud by Eco Island, announcing this by issuing a press statement a mere day and a half after liquidation of the company had been disclosed. How long had the council been investigating this?
- What grounds did the council have to allege fraud?
- Does the council acknowledge that the information that it gave to the police when alleging the fraud was inaccurate?
- Will the council be carrying out an investigation into this?
- Will Stuart Love, who appeared from the IWC press statement as the spokesperson for the council’s accusations against David Green, be called back to answer questions from Southampton City Council, after he moved from IWC to there at the end of November 2013?
- How long until you expected the report to be completed?
- Will it be made public?
- At the inquest it emerged that David Green had told police that the money IWC paid to Ecoisland was not ring-fenced. Is that IWC understanding?
- Is it the council’s understanding that the money handed to Eco Island was actually used to pay off the company’s other debts, as the investigating officer, Detective Constable Lee Stewart, had told the Inquest?
Update: 11 Mar 14 8:10: Changed the headline and a little of the text.
Image: dionhinchcliffe under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license
