Wednesday 22 April 2015

Brawling councillors


(See later update 29th July 2016; Ombudsman tells brawling councillors to behave

Not quite sure what it is about Llanelli Rural Council but, not for the first time, the police have been called to an 'altercation' between two councillors.

As the Llanelli Star reports, the two councillors involved, Theressa Bowen (Ind) and Tegwen Devichand (Lab) also happen to be County Councillors and Ms Devichand is on the Executive Board and is deputy leader of Carmarthenshire County Council.

Ms Bowen was part of Carmarthenshire Council Labour group until a mysterious split a couple of years ago when she crossed the floor to sit with Pam's Independents. She used to sit close to Cllr Giles Morgan (Ind) until the last time the police were called to the rural council.

Her last 'altercation' was with another member of the rural council and apparently, Cllr Morgan (yes, he's another rural councillor) refused to take sides in his police statement and Cllr Bowen became a bit miffed.

There have been plenty of rumours over the past couple of years as to why these former friends, Ms Devichand and Ms Bowen have fallen out, but, as the Star reports, other rural councillors are keeping quiet.

Despite Ms Devichand's senior role at county level, for which she is handsomely rewarded, "A spokeswoman [anon again] for Carmarthenshire Council said it was not a matter for them to comment on". So there we are.

Interestingly, and according to someone present, things could have been far worse if Tegwen Devichand's daughter, Cllr Sharen Davies hadn't been present to pull her mother away from Cllr Bowen...all the same, and no matter who actually started it, the councillors' Code of Conduct is fairly clear about behaving in a manner which could bring the authority into disrepute..

Tegwen Devichand and Theressa Bowen (pic; Llanelli Star)
Update 29th April;
It is understood that both councillors have now reported each other to the Ombudsman. The process could take some time. 

3 comments:

Tessa said...

Wow! Were they actually scrapping then? Who won?

Redhead said...

Only three things people fight about: sex, money or power or any combination of the three!

Blodwen said...

My money's on the blonde (?) heavyweight.