Evidence 1 Submission to GPRC Disciplinary Tribunal: Max Wallis August 2014
Background Wales
GP Council members have been serving on the Council for well over the maximum
permitted by rule of 5 successive terms. My partner and I raised this in late
2012 with the ERO; he was newly appointed and the previous ERO supplied his
records of officers just for the previous 4 years. The ERO decided that the 5-term rule does
apply, but allowed members to stand for election at the WGP 2012 AGM on the
basis that he had no further information (and on the practical grounds that
time to prepare a transition to new officers was needed). All knew this was a big fudge; John Matthews (JM)
switched from one sinecure to another, knowing full-well he’d passed the
limit. The old-guard of course blamed
me – as a new member, who joined to give support to my partner against bullying
and discrimination by JM - for catching them out.
It’s questionable
whether the Wales GP Council was constitutional, under a secretary who had
served over 5 successive terms and 3 other over-stayers. They also need three local party reps to make
their meetings quorate, but have only 2 or 3 functioning branches, who have not
nominated reps under the Constitution. I
am able to challenge the validity of meetings as unquorate.
The then Wales GP
Secretary Ann Were was also caught by the 5-term rule (4 or 5 as Chair and 3 as
secretary). While she tried to be formal
and normally responded to my e-mails, she did write on her own bat and ask me
to resign after the first Newsletter.
Later, when I complained about the offensive sexist blog of her son and
deputy Leader Chris Were, she refused a WGP Council discussion of the issue and
the half-hearted apology in the media without reference to the Council. She organised the second complaint against me
(below) and stalled on my complaint against the Cardiff Branch, refusing to
follow the GPComplaints Procedure.
An earlier complaint
from June 2012 from my partner (Anne Greagsby) against JM is outstanding. It was left on the table by Nigel Rolland,
because of (he told us at the Autumn Conf.
but never wrote to Anne) counter-complaints from JM, Matthew Townsend
and Pippa Bartolotti. The former
complaint was never disclosed to us, the second complaint of using a swear word
on twitter was shown to be false. An
exploratory dispute-resolution meeting with JM was held with David Murray’s
agreement under Shan Oakes, which I attended.
Pippa Bartolotti was scheduled to attend on JM’s side, but was
substituted (by Cdf Branch Sec. Sian Best) at the last minute. The outcome was exposure of JM’s vendetta
against us and of his refusal to try to resolve the primary dispute; Nigel
Rolland did not resume as ‘investigator’ of the complaint against JM, but
pursued expulsion via Bartolotti’s complaint.
Three complaints against me
There are complaints
from three sources against me: David Murray gave the reason for suspension as
JM/Cardiff Branch’s complaint, over which the DRC process for complaint
resolution was due to start under Owen Clarke.
A second complaint was from the Welsh Council whose leading members were
out to get me. The third complaint was
from Bartolotti who was out to expel me, with no attempt at dispute resolution
because questions on her past were too close to the bone.
The Tribunal will be
confused, as only third complaint is described, the second complaint is
smuggled in as the majority of the documents with Chris Simpson’s commentary,
while the first complaint and reason given by David Murray has disappeared.
David Murray (18 July
2013):
“complaint about you which was considered at
your local party recently and now referred to GPRC. This suspension concerns
making defamatory statements about another member online and in a party
newsletter”.
“We consider suspension necessary since
the wellbeing of members is an ongoing risk”. The Constitution uses the wording “in the Party's interest” and “further harm to the
Party”, which is of course rather different from individual member(s).
The complaint
considered at the Cardiff GP branch “recently” was at their March 2013 meeting,
well before the 9th May complaint by Bartolotti. The branch Minutes do not record any
consideration of the complaint from Bartolotti.
Mike Shone’s information “Following receipt of this complaint you were
suspended from membership of the GPEW” is consistent with David Murray’s
statement only in the time sequence.
Either complaint appears
to come under the Constitution clause 5 viii) "Disciplinary cases may be brought by
a Local or Regional Party, a body of the Party at national level, or any
member(s) with the agreement of the Chairs of the Regional Council and
Executive."
However,
Richard Mallender as acting GPEx chair would not confirm that his predecessor
had agreed [MW to GPExChair 21Oct'13].
I
would therefore ask you to disclose to me documentary evidence
a) on
who submitted the complaint(s), the Local Party or individual member(s)
b) the
full evidence in those complaints with record of any relevant discussions or e-mails, and
c) evidence
that the GPRC decision was properly taken under the constitution.
I
have not yet received information on the process the Tribunal will follow. I presume it accords with
Our complaints procedure is fair, transparent and
democratic and proportionate. It recognises legal framework and draws on a wide
variety of respected non- governmental agency guidance.
COMPLAINT from
JM/Cardiff Branch
On this primary complaint, no evidence
is provided. I attach Minutes of all the
Cardiff branch meetings from March-July 2013 (the April and June meetings were
inquorate with no Minutes recorded). The
issue is reported only in the 18th March meeting [CdfGP dftMinutes
18Mar'13], which reads under AOB
The Chair
reported that the Wales Secretary has contacted Max and told him his behaviour
(as Editor of the WGP Newsletter) was inappropriate and he should resign his
position. Gerald proposed a motion that
CGP was appalled by the editor of the WGP’s newsletter’s comments in the last
issue and that officers should seek his removal as an WGP officer and expulsion
from the GPEW, especially in view of his failure to declare an interest in his
comments on AG’s expulsion. Members unanimously supported the motion and chair
agreed to pass to Anne Were, the WGP Secretary.
This reaction to the March Newsletter
wrongly assumed that statements in a quoted article on the GPRC disciplinary
process were my editorial comments. It
was taken as an unscheduled agenda item and approved at a Cardiff branch
meeting at which I was not present. The
Branch jumped to this misinformed decision, giving me no opportunity to
explain.
It
cited the Wales GP secretary’s view – she had written on 12 March [AnnWere+PB_MarchNewsletter
12Mar'13]:
The honourable thing for you to do now would be to resign from both of
your posts on WGPC. With the agreement of WGPC I will send out a statement from
us in due course.
However, this statement never
emerged. After a clarifying exchange by
e-mail [MW+AnnWere onNewsletter Mar'13], Ann stonewalled on 22 March with:
Your actions regarding the
member's newsletter will be discussed at the next WGPC meeting. This will
either be a telephone conference in April or following the Special Conference
in May.
Neither happened, probably because
some WGPC members are opposed to censorship and pointed out the job-description
for Newsletter editor is very wide [WalesGreenParty
JobDescriptions=NewsletterEditor] so she could not defend her claim that
reporting of GPRC expulsions was “inappropriate”.
The Cardiff Branch complaint was sent
to Ann Were, but there may have been delay and she didn’t inform me of it
before I told her – in a complaint I submitted a complaint against the Branch
and its chair for not following policy for resolving complaints [MyComplaint
overJM+CdfBranch toAnnWere]. She
prevaricated, declining to tell the Branch to follow GP policy adopted
Complaints Procedure but eventually decided to submit both their complaint and
mine to the WGP Council.
Owen Clarke undertook to proceed under
the DRC over both complaints [OwenClarke_DRC onDispute Resolution], but was
slow in arranging to meet and apparently did not get agreement of JM. Cardiff Branch minutes [CdfGP
dftMinutes13May'13] show no report to the Branch of the DRC proposal or the
WGPC proposal to deal with their complaint. Nor did JM report my complaint
against the Branch to them, despite asking to be informed about it [MyComplaint
overJM+CdfBranch toAnnWere].
A new point was that the WGPC May
meeting adopted the Complaints Procedure, so the excuse that the Welsh GP had
not ratified the national procedure, with its emphasis on resolving complaints
was no longer available. This specifies:
The
complaint should be sent to the General Secretary of WGP who will call a
meeting of WGPC as soon as is practicable. This may be a tele-conference. The
sole purpose of the meeting will be to allocate the complaint to at least three
members of the local Wales complaints Committee. These should not be members of
the same local party(ies) as the complainant(s).
It appears that the Cardiff branch
complaint was submitted (by JM) directly to the GPRC chair/co-chairs, without
further consideration by the branch, to bypass the DRC and WGPC processes and
complaint resolution in general. This
submission was not reported to the July or Sept. meetings [CdfGP
dftMinutes15Jul'13]. JM may have
bypassed the branch secretary, as she would normally report formal branch
actions, and supplied the GPRC with other material that has not been disclosed
in evidence. It is unlikely that he disclosed my complaint to the WGPC against
him and the DRC involvement.
John Matthews has had a longstanding
vendetta against me:
(i)
This dates from the Branch meeting in July 2011
- he as Chair lost his temper yelling at me and my partner, when caught out
over an e-mail I’d written with some criticisms of the election campaign to
Jake Griffiths (lead candidate). He
never apologised, but had the Branch secretary write false Minutes including
ruling that what I said should not be reported in them.
(ii)
He excluded me rudely, sharply (shouting “get
out”) and contrary to rule from the WGP Council meeting at the 2011 Sheffield
conf. (which I attended to give moral support to AG). Eamonn Ward/SOC investigated
my complaint which was based on the rule (that it’s for the Council to invite
(or not) non-members along for all or part of the meeting) and on GP Conference
policy to be open. Eamonn put the points
to Ann Were but she rejected this mediation and never reported the issue to the
WGPC.
(iii)
JM opposed my GP membership with a complaint to
GPRC and then suspended my membership in July 2012 (to be
told this was against GP rules).
(iv)
JM threatened legal action rather than apologise
when Anne caught him out wrongly claiming no AGM in 2011 (to cover up absence
of Minutes) and submitting a falsified Constitution for the Branch 2012 AGM [JM_demand-fullsome
apology 28Oct'12]
(v)
JM reported falsely to the Branch on my explaining
the Newsletter at the WGPC meeting of May 2013, and refused to put my
corrections to the Minutes to the Branch meeting, despite the secretary’s
assurances [ComplaintSianBest over CdfBranch_20May Minutes 6Jun'13].
In this period, resolution of the
vendetta was attempted, agreed with David Murray, with one exploratory meeting
held under Shan Oakes. Another attempt
was made under the DRC (Owen Clarke) with the former branch secretary Matt
Townsend, but he left Cardiff and did not report back to the Branch.
2. Bartolotti complaint
Details to follow
3.
Welsh GP Council complaint
Details to follow
4. Max
Wallis CV
List of documents appended as e-files
[1] David Murray
Suspension letter_to_MaxWallis: (19 July2013)
[2] MW to
GPExChair 21Oct'13
[3] ChrisRose+
PrejudicialEERO+WGPstatement 12June'13
[4] CdfGP
dftMinutes 18Mar'13
[5] CdfGP
dftMinutes13May'13
[6] CdfGP
dftMinutes15Jul'13
[7] AnnWere+PB_MarchNewsletter
12Mar'13
[8] MW+AnnWere
onNewsletter Mar'13
[9] MyComplaint
overJM+CdfBranch toAnnWere
[10] OwenClarke_DRC
onDispute Resolution
[11] WalesGreenParty
JobDescriptions=NewsletterEditor
[12] ComplaintSianBest
over CdfBranch_20May Minutes 6Jun'13
[13] JM_demand-fullsome
apology 28Oct'12
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