03/28/2024

Wales News Online

Local & National News for Wales

Denbighshire councillor who breached code of conduct steps down from cabinet role

A councillor who was found to have breached three parts of the code of a council’s conduct has stood down from his cabinet role to concentrate on appealing the decision.

Cllr Richard Mainon, who was Denbighshire’s lead member for corporate services and strategic direction, breached the code of conduct for members after he was accused of “bullying or harassment” of a woman who had been in an altercation with a constituent in a Bodelwyddan supermarket.

In total he was found to have breached the code on three counts and was handed a two-month suspension last month by the authority’s standards committee.

His portfolio covers, among other things, standards of behaviour for councillors but he indicated he was going to appeal the decision.

Doing so allowed him to retain his council and cabinet positions, and allowances totalling more than £27,000.

However Cllr Mainon was absent from this week’s cabinet committee meeting when a report on the authority’s domestic abuse policy, authored by him and lead member for planning, public protection and safer communities Cllr Mark Mark Young, was being debated.

It was later discovered Cllr Mainon had voluntarily relinquished his cabinet role to concentrate on clearing his name.

A spokesman for Denbighshire council confirmed: “Cllr Richard Mainon has requested a short break from cabinet duties during the ongoing appeals process following the standards committee’s decision on June 11.”

In addition to the “bullying or harassment” allegation Cllr Mainon was found by the standards committee to have brought his “office or authority into disrepute” by discussing unsubstantiated allegations about her with the complainant’s work colleagues.

The panel also found he used his position as a county councillor “to confer on or secure for himself, or any other person, an advantage or create or avoid for himself, or any other person, a disadvantage” by intervening in what was a private matter.

Cllr Mainon, who represents Bodelwyddan, was the village’s mayor when the incident happened in December 2018 and appeared before Denbighshire’s standards committee on the recommendation of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.

At his hearing Cllr Mainon said he was “not here to dispute or argue, I will suffer the consequences.”

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