Readers of Ferret have, quite rightly, questioned an entry in the September 2022 accounts of Independent Hemsworth Town Council for legal fees.
Legal fees totalling £16,454.88 were paid to Park Square Barristers on 30th September 2022.
This raises two questions to Ferret:
What do they relate to?
And
Who authorised it?
Ferret can answer both those questions.
The fees relate to a member of staff who put a grievance in against Hemsworth Town Council and the majority of the Councillors.
and
Alan Draper decided to employ a barrister to answer the member of staffs grievance. He did this without any authorisation from the Town Council.
Ferret has to ask why he chose to do this and not follow the staff grievance procedure as outlined in the HTC Staff Handbook at Page 48?
Maybe Alan Draper will be reimbursing this Community the £16,454.88….
This is truly shocking we don’t need a Barristers Degree to know why Draper as signed the huge completely out or order cheque to pay a certain security guards or person of many faces legal expenses.We don’t need a Barrister Degree to know who as made him sign the huge cheque to pay, he as admitted he is made to do things and pay things he does not agree with but is ordered to do it and although I believe this is confidential it will and needs to be brought out to the public at some point.This is our community money not a personal money pot to spend spend spend.The Town Clerk must and should be removed for not abiding by the councils decisions and just still following commands to do what he knows is totally unacceptable and he must now justify his actions.We as community residents must now question the Barrister payment by bombarding him with FOIs emails see what answers he comes up with but we know they won’t be the truth.This Community must now seriously get behind and support the good councillors and bring an end to the Independant spending pot ,roll on May and the community owe it to each other to VOTE the free spending lot out .
We the parisoners can pay £16454 for a barrister but can’t afford a forensic audit to check the accounts to look for anything untoward
Totally agree Anonymous ,our community money used to hire Barristers for an employee to get out of paying rent ,our community money used as a personal bank account to help friends continue to fleece the community it goes on and on.The main door to be banged on is Town Clerk Hemsworth Community Centre he as the financial pen and authorisers these ludicrous,outrageous payments he should be made to explain in a public meeting to the community WHY but he will say he was ordered to do it and we all know who by ,the employees close friends.Time now for the community to stand together and stop all this financial spending and Time now to support the true community councillors who care about the community and what it needs and VOTE the rubbish and self indulgent councillors OUT.