A councillor said he felt ‘exonerated’ after being cleared of bullying accusations.
Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s standards committee found South Ham councillor Sean Keating had not been in breach of its code of conduct.
Now Cllr Keating has hit out at the council for taking up to 19 months to clear his name.
He said: “I feel relieved that the stress is gone, but angry that I have had to go through many months of effective hell.
“This is something that I would not want anyone to go through.”
On January 17, the standards committee, consisting of five borough councillors, one parish councillor and three members of the public, met to consider allegations against Cllr Keating.
He was accused by the council’s head of environmental care, Claire Harper, of failing to treat people with respect and of bullying – breaches of paragraphs 3.1 and 3.2 of the council’s code of conduct.
A report issued to the standards committee outlining the complaint said that on August 29 in 2009, Ms Harper lodged a formal complaint over comments made at a personnel committee meeting on June 22 that year.
At the meeting, Cllr Keating was debating a proposal that could have seen 100 frontline jobs transferred to a private company. The move could result in job losses and changed pension schemes for workers.
In a speech, Cllr Keating made two statements which Ms Harper claimed amounted to bullying and showed a lack of respect.
In the first instance, he said: “So for clarity then, the management are looking after themselves and the rest of the employees will be left to cater for themselves I understand.”
In the second instance, he said: “So we are saying that we have looked after the white collar, but the blue collar can go to hell, yeah?”
After considering the report, the standards committee concluded that Cllr Keating was not in breach of the council code and decided against further action.
But Cllr Keating said the whole process, which had taken over a year, had brought the borough council into disrepute.
He said: “I have earned a reputation serving on the council, but it was all put at risk by these unfounded allegations. I cannot think of any process in the world as elongated and stressful to people concerned. And for local government to opt for a system so badly designed does not serve justice in any form.”
