Mayor hits back at her critics

Labour Councillor Beryl Robinson, who is chairwoman of Thornaby Town Council and a Stockton borough councillor, said no members of the public had asked her to stand down, and no resolution had been placed on the full council agenda asking for her resignation.

She said the past two years had been "pure hell", since clerk Leanne Plant was sacked for allowing members of the Thornaby Independent Association (Tia) to use the council photocopier to print pre-election leaflets.

The mayor admitted making mistakes, and conceded that an employment tribunal had ruled in favour of Miss Plant.

But she said Tia had broken the code of conduct in the first place, by using the copier for political purposes.

She said: "Yes, mistakes were made. They were made by a group of unpaid volunteers who had not the expertise of a legal department behind them.

"We did our best in a very bad situation. We do not deserve to be pilloried for a problem that was not of our making."

The Northern Echo reported yesterday how Independent Stockton borough councillor Steve Walmsley, and former councillor Eileen Craggs, had called for her resignation over the affair, which cost taxpayers more than £20,000 in compensation and legal costs.

They said she had received nothing more than a slap on the wrist from the Adjudication Panel of England for failing to declare an interest at a meeting to discuss compensation for Miss Plant.

But Coun Robinson said she only stayed in the meeting because Tia members had declared an interest and left, and the meeting could not have gone ahead if Labour, too, had walked out as there would have been no councillors left in the room.

And she said Tia members had received a mere "slap on the wrist" for using the copier in the first place, which started the row.

"The cost to the council and the two years of pure hell that ensued is not down to the Labour councillors, but down to Councillor Walmsley and his fellow Tia members," she said.