No case to answer in complaints over tweets
CODE of conduct complaints lodged against Deputies Heidi Soulsby and Barry Brehaut have been swiftly dismissed.
The complaints were submitted by members of the public last Friday and related to tweets they had written.
The first of those alleged that Health & Social Care president Heidi Soulsby had breached the States Members’ Code of Conduct through Twitter posts they said were aimed at Deputy John Gollop.
The former Education, Sport & Culture member was at a public march against the States’ decision on secondary and post-16 education at the time. ‘Well at least the exercise will do them good,’ Health & Social Care president tweeted about the campaigners on 4 February.
In a follow-up tweet, she wrote ‘Yup I saw @GollopGuern was there. Will do him the world of good.
‘Although he really should wrap up a bit. It’s cold out there today.’
Deputy Soulsby said the comments were ‘light-hearted’ and their meaning had been twisted. She saw the complaint as ‘nothing more than a vexatious attack on my integrity’.
The chairman of the States Members Conduct Panel considered the complaint and found there to be no prima facie evidence to support it.
The same verdict was reached on the complaint issued against Environment & Infrastructure president Barry Brehaut.
His related to a series of tweets about the election of a new Education, Sport & Culture president, which was contested by Matt Fallaize and former vice-president Carl Meerveld.
Deputy Meerveld had resigned from the committee a couple months earlier over a bungled social media campaign, which went live without any States branding under as per his instruction to the PR firm that had created it.
‘CM [Carl Meerveld] led an unethical campaign and resigned as a consequence,’ Deputy Brehaut tweeted on 9 February, in an exchange with the complainant.
‘He consistently spoke strongly against the two-school model, leaders need to lead by example.’
In a tweet yesterday evening, after the complaint’s dismissal was announced, Deputy Brehaut wrote: ‘I believe there should be a robust Code of Conduct to hold us all to account, frivolous complaints demean that process unfortunately.’
